by John Hall
Ingham nodded. “We got the news from the landlady, as Mr Gerard says, and went round at once.”
“H’mm. And the landlady and maids and so on had not seen any strangers, any visitors or anyone acting suspiciously? Anyone who should not have been there?”
Ingham shook his head. “But then the place … well, forgive me, Mr Gerard, but it isn’t exactly the Raffles Hotel, you know! Anyone could have lurked by the front door until the hallway was empty, and sneaked in. And similarly they could wait on the upstairs landing until the coast was clear to get back out again. And then even if they had been seen, the servants and so on would just have thought they were visiting, or perhaps even that they were lodging there. As I say, it’s that sort of place. A bit informal, as you might say.”
“And so, in all that informality, nobody was in fact seen?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, I think that is all for the moment.” Holmes nodded to the superintendent, and we left the cell. My blood ran cold as the door was flung shut, and the key scraped in the lock. If Gerard really were a murderer, then he was as callous a one as ever I encountered, and a brilliant actor to boot. If he were innocent, then what must be going through his mind as he sat there in the half-darkness, bereft of his new wife and suspected of her murder? I pulled myself together with a considerable effort, and followed Superintendent Ingham up the stairs towards the charge room and the street door.
“So,” said Ingham, as we went along the corridor, “Mrs Gerard pleaded a headache, did she? And sent Mr Gerard out to enjoy himself while she stayed in alone.”
“Expecting the note from ‘HE’, and waiting in for it, you mean?” said Holmes.
“Just so.”
“It certainly sounds that way. Of course, if ‘HE’ had gone in person, he … or she … would hardly need to send the note.”
“That’s true,” said Ingham. “But if the bearer of the note got in unobserved, anyone else could. That makes things look a little better for Mr Gerard.”
“But not much?”
“Well, sir, Mrs Gerard might have had that letter in her bag for a couple of days,” said Ingham. “It said ‘meet me on Friday’, as I recall, and not ‘tomorrow’, didn’t it? The letter might even have been delivered in London, before ever she left.”
Holmes nodded. “True enough.” He added with a smile, “Although the paper is most definitely not of English manufacture.”
“Oh?”
“I will stake my reputation on it. But, as you say, the note might have been delivered at any time from Monday.”
As we passed the desk behind which stood a couple of uniformed officers, one of the sergeants called out to Ingham, “Beg pardon, Superintendent, but this lady is asking to see you.” And in a lower tone, he added, “Very insistent she is, too.”
“Oh?” Ingham looked where the sergeant had nodded, and I followed his example, to see a young woman sitting on one of the hard and none too clean wooden benches. She was around twenty years of age, not what I could call beautiful in any conventional sense, but handsome enough to make any man look twice, with a face that betokened resolution and determination. Her hair was, in the hackneyed phrase of the poets, ‘her crowning glory’, for her long auburn tresses fell almost to her waist in great luxuriant swathes, so that, given a somewhat weaker, a more ethereal, face, she might have served as a model for one of the pre-Raphaelites.
The Superintendent had taken one look at this young woman, and said, “Oh!” in an undertone, as if he recognized her. Holmes and I followed Ingham as he strode across the room.
At his approach, the woman stood up. “Ah, Superintendent Ingham.” And she held out her hand, for all the world as one man holds his hand out to another.
“Miss Earnshaw, how nice to see you again.” The Superintendent took her hand, but instead of shaking it, he – much to my delight – kissed it, like some great clumsy courtier, causing Miss Earnshaw to flush slightly.
“Miss Earnshaw, may I present Mr Sherlock Holmes, and Doctor John Watson? Gentlemen, Miss Margaret Earnshaw.”
“I am delighted to meet you, gentlemen,” said Miss Earnshaw in an abstracted fashion. “You will, I am sure, excuse my apparent rudeness, but I should be most grateful for a moment’s conversation with Superintendent Ingham here.”
Holmes and I muttered something appropriate, but the Superintendent took Miss Earnshaw by the arm, moved a few paces into the corner where it was marginally quieter, and said in a low tone, “These gentlemen are friends of Mr Tigran Sarkies, and looking into … you know.”
“Oh!” Miss Earnshaw regarded us with more interest, if not actual respect, on hearing this.
Ingham said, “We’d be better off in my room. More discreet there.”
“Of course.” Miss Earnshaw allowed the Superintendent to lead her back the way we had just come, and Holmes and I followed along meekly.
Once in the Superintendent’s room, Ingham waved us to chairs. He looked at Holmes and me. “I should perhaps tell you that Miss Earnshaw here is governess to the Masterton children.” And to Miss Earnshaw, he said, “I take it that this dreadful business of Mrs Gerard brings you here?”
Miss Earnshaw nodded. “It is. I heard the story, or at any rate a garbled version of it, from poor Mr Masterton, who is very upset, as you may imagine. As soon as I could decently spare the time to get away from my duties I went round to the Gerards’ lodgings, but the people there could tell me only that Charles … Mr Gerard … had been taken away by the police. So … so then I came round here.” And she sat upright in her chair, staring at Ingham if inviting him to respond.
It was Holmes who spoke first. “You are governess to the two Masterton children?” he asked.
“As Mr Ingham here has just said.”
“Are they not rather young for a governess? As I understood it, the Mastertons have been married but two years.”
“Rather less, in point of fact,” replied Miss Earnshaw coolly. “The elder boy is just over a year old, the younger quite a baby, three months only.” She smiled and Holmes looked puzzled. “You see, Mr … Holmes, was it?”
“Sherlock Holmes, madam.” Holmes looked rather nettled that his name should not immediately be familiar to Miss Earnshaw.
Somewhat to my dismay – for it does Holmes no real harm to be taken down a peg occasionally – Miss Earnshaw frowned, and then her face cleared. “Oh! The famous detective … I had thought you were … ah, quite retired, sir.”
“The reports of my retirement, like those of Mark Twain’s death, are much exaggerated,” said Holmes, still not entirely happy with this absence of the acclamation he felt due to him.
“Be that as it may,” Miss Earnshaw continued blithely, “Anya … Mrs Masterton … had a succession of nurses, nannies and governesses as a child, and so she determined that any children of hers would have the same guiding hand throughout their childhood, if it were possible. Give the little darlings some steadiness and stability, as it were. Very sensible, too. As a matter of fact, there is a nurse as well, a local girl, which makes my job easier. When they get older, of course, both being boys …” and she smiled sweetly at Holmes, who was, as always, completely unmoved.
“H’mm,” said he. “I see. Forgive me, Superintendent, you were, I think, about to outline matters to Miss Earnshaw?”
“Thank you, Mr Holmes. Well, Miss Earnshaw … and I know you’re a sensible sort of lady, won’t faint or any nonsense of that sort … but the fact is that poor Mrs Gerard was poisoned.”
“Oh!” Miss Earnshaw did not faint, but she did put her hands to her mouth as if to stifle a gasp of horror.
“Yes,” said Ingham, “I know. A dreadful business, and no mistake.”
“But … but are you quite sure? Could it not have been some sudden illness, natural causes? Mrs Gerard was, after all, unused to the heat of the tropics?” Miss Earnshaw gazed earnestly at Ingham, as though she were willing it to be as she had suggested.
Ingham looked at me.
“Doctor?”
“No doubt about it, I’m afraid,” I said, as kindly as I could. “The evidence is quite conclusive as to the cause of death.”
“And Charles … Mr Gerard?”
“Well, Miss Earnshaw, just at the moment he’s … ah, helping us with our enquiries.”
“You cannot mean that you have arrested him?”
Ingham looked almost embarrassed. “The fact is, Miss Earnshaw, things do look rather bad against him.”
Miss Earnshaw’s face coloured, giving her whole being a sort of glow of righteous indignation. “But it’s arrant nonsense,” she cried. “He could never have hurt a fly, much less poisoned his wife!”
“So I’m told,” said Ingham imperturbably. “Never the less, it’s my duty to look into it, Miss Earnshaw, and I’d be neglecting that duty if I didn’t look pretty closely at Mr Gerard.”
Miss Earnshaw shook her head. “I see what you are getting at, Superintendent, but I am certain that you are making a grave mistake. Tell me, how exactly do you think Mrs Gerard was poisoned?”
“It seems clear that she was given arsenic, contained in a box of sugarplums.”
For a moment Miss Earnshaw simply sat there, staring at the Superintendent as if she were trying to make sense out of his words. And then, to the complete astonishment of us all, she slumped down in a dead faint.
“Quick, Watson!”
“Really, Holmes,” I said, as I attended to Miss Earnshaw, “I had grasped the need for urgency as soon as I saw the lady keel over.”
“Force of habit, my boy,” he said with a taut smile, patting me on the back.
I soon had Miss Earnshaw back on her feet. She seemed more embarrassed at the show of weakness than actually ill, but in any event it was clear that she was in no fit state to talk to us further. Superintendent Ingham accordingly had one of his men call a cab, and we all stood in the street, rather dolefully, as that cab negotiated the crowds of vehicles and pedestrians, and took her back to the Masterton house.
Holmes turned to Ingham. “What do you know of Miss Earnshaw?” he asked him.
Ingham shrugged. “A likeable girl,” he said in a paternal fashion. “She arrived here some three months ago, perhaps four, and took up the post as governess to the Mastertons’ boys.”
“Three months or so only?” said Holmes.
“About that.” Ingham permitted himself a smile. “She would hardly have been here much longer, Mr Holmes, when the elder lad is but a year old.”
“Of course. Silly of me.” Holmes thought for a moment, then asked, “May I just have another very quick word with Mr Charles Gerard, do you think, Superintendent?”
“As many as you like, Mr Holmes, if you think it will do any good.” And the Superintendent led us back inside the police station, and down to the cells.
I was not best pleased to have to leave the relative cool of the doorway for those baking hot cells again, and wondered vaguely what Holmes might have thought of now.
Charles Gerard was slumped on his bunk bed when we entered his cell. He looked up and frowned. “Back again, Mr Holmes?”
“Just a couple of questions, if you will. Tell me,” asked Holmes, “are you acquainted with a Miss Margaret Earnshaw?”
“Maggie? Of course. She’s the Mastertons’ governess, or their childrens’, rather.”
“Ah, but I had the distinct impression that you had known her for a longer time than the four days that you have been in Singapore?”
“Oh, yes,” said Gerard readily. “I’ve known Maggie … what? Ten years? About that.”
“You knew her back in England, then?”
Gerard nodded. “As a matter of fact, it was Maggie who first introduced me to Emily. The two of them had been friends for years, although I myself had never met Emily before last summer.”
“H’mm. And were you and Miss Earnshaw … ah, good friends?”
Holmes said the words easily enough and innocently enough, but Charles Gerard did not answer immediately. Instead, he flushed slightly, and gazed down at his shoes, from which the laces had been officially removed.
“Mr Gerard?”
“As a matter of fact, I was quite keen on her at one time, and I think she was keen on me.”
“But you did not press the matter?”
Gerard tried to laugh. “The old difficulty, I’m afraid. Neither of us had any money to speak of, and I didn’t want a wife of mine to live in poverty. So we sort of drifted away from one another. That would be, oh, a couple of years ago? And then, last year, I ran into Maggie again, quite unexpectedly, and she said that she had a friend, someone she wanted me to meet, and would I buy them luncheon one day. I did, and the friend turned out to be Emily. We hit it off at once, and that was that.”
“I see. And how came Miss Earnshaw to leave England three months ago to work for your sister-in-law?”
“Oh that was Emily’s doing. She happened to mention to Maggie that Anya Masterton was looking out for a respectable governess for her boys, and Maggie said she wouldn’t mind applying for the post. Next thing I knew, Maggie was taking the boat to Singapore.” He gazed at Holmes. “But why are you asking these questions, Mr Holmes? I have the uneasy feeling that there is some ulterior motive, and that someone has come under suspicion. I trust that you don’t think that Maggie and I …”
“No, no.” Holmes waved a hand. “It is my job … and perhaps, too, a part of my nature … to wonder, to theorize, to speculate, to ask questions. Sometimes my job is far from agreeable, and no more are the questions.” He turned to go. “Well, sir, I shall not bother you further. Pray do not lose hope, for my investigations are still in their early stages, and much may yet come to light.”
Ingham and I followed Holmes as he led the way out into the street. Holmes paused in the doorway, and at first I thought he had been taken aback by the heat or the crowds. But he merely glanced rather indolently at his watch. “H’mm, we have been somewhat distracted from our original plan,” said he. “We shall not have time for a leisurely drink at the Long Bar after all, and indeed if we are not to miss our appointment entirely, we must hasten there at once.”
Chapter Six: We Keep an Appointment
As we made our way through the crowded and noisy streets, Superintendent Ingham remarked, “Well, gentlemen, and what d’you think of all that? I did say, if you remember, that if there were another woman in the case, things would look even worse for Mr Gerard. And now here she is, in the shape of Miss Maggie Earnshaw.” He sighed. “Not the first time it’s happened, either. Two young people, too poor to marry, lay their plans. One of ‘em marries for money, then they conspire to bump off the poor wife … or poor husband, as the case may be … and take up where they left off. If ever they did leave off.”
“My dear Superintendent,” I said loftily, as I circled round a cart piled high with exotic fruits and vegetables, “Miss Earnshaw was as surprised to learn that those sugarplums contained arsenic as I was. Why, she fainted clear away when you told her.”
Ingham shrugged. “Maybe she’s just a very good actress?” he suggested.
I shook my head. “Her faint was real enough, or I never attended a lecture at medical school.”
“Well, then, perhaps she was just shocked to learn that the poison, or its means of administration, had been found so readily? Remember, Miss Earnshaw is governess at the Mastertons’, lives in the house, so she could have doctored the sugarplums easily enough.”
Even I could see the logical flaw in that one. “But by no stretch of the imagination could she have induced Mrs Masterton to give the box of sugarplums to Charles Gerard to pass on to his wife,” I cried, waving aside a fellow who was trying to sell me a brace of live hens.
“More to the point,” Holmes interjected, “there is the matter of Mrs Gerard’s will, wherein she left her fortune to her sister, and not to her husband. If these two young people were in it only for the money, as it were, they have handled the matter very strangely, have they not?”
Holmes frowned, and made as if to speak, but anything he might have tried to say was lost in the din, as a hundred different speakers roared at one another in a dozen different languages.
“What’s that?” I yelled at Holmes, at a temporary lull in the uproar.
“We must do two things as soon as may be,” said Holmes. “One, find out if Miss Earnshaw was in the Masterton house yesterday when Mr Gerard called, for it may indeed be that she might somehow have induced Mrs Masterton to give him the poisoned sweetmeats … a casual suggestion, that is not so very hard to believe, surely? If Mrs Masterton trusted her, relied upon her advice … h’mm. Two, we must find out if Miss Earnshaw knew the contents of Mrs Gerard’s will.”
“But,” said Ingham, “if the two of them were in it together, Charles Gerard might have told Miss Earnshaw, in which case they would deny the fact. Oh,” he added gloomily, “that won’t do, for if they were in it, as you say, sir, then why should Mr Gerard ask his wife to leave her money to her sister?”
“We have only his word that he did so,” said Holmes. “It may, for all we know be to the contrary and have been Mrs Gerard’s own idea … if, for example, she had suspicions of her husband’s fidelity, or his intentions.”
“Heavens, that’s true, Mr Holmes!”
“Then was the will actually signed? Is it valid? For if not, then Mr Gerard would inherit. Unless, that is, he hangs for murder,” added Holmes with a grim smile. “And then it may have been that Charles Gerard is indeed innocent of any wrong doing, but that Miss Earnshaw is not, that she was acting independently. She is a strong personality, when all is said and done. But here we are at the Raffles Hotel. Let us see who is waiting for us, before we start to speculate.”
