“I will explain as we go. Have you finished your breakfast? Very well. Doctor, your coat.” Holmes hustled us out of the house and into a passing four-wheeler. He gave directions to the driver and then joined us inside. As the coach started down Baker Street toward Marylebone Road my friend turned to Mr. Fellows.
“This was an interesting yet simple problem,” he began. “The first thing I did, Mr. Fellows, was establish your bona fides.”
Our client frowned. “Why?”
“Please do not take offense. You admitted that the young lady was a stranger to you. I had to assure myself that you meant no harm to the object of your search. If there had been a previous history of unpleasant encounters between you and the lady, I would have informed you that I was unable to help you. I refuse to be used as a location service for harassment.”
Ashton Fellows looked upset. “I assure you, Mr. Holmes, my interests are clean and pure! I want to… to…”
Holmes raised a hand. “Dr. Watson has already diagnosed your condition, sir. Once I determined that you were fairly harmless, I proceeded. An examination of the slippers you left with us disclosed the fact that the shoes were hand-made and gave the name of the maker. I questioned the cobbler. I had done him a good turn once and he was favorably disposed to me. He remembered the order and told me the name and address of the customer.
“I had already deduced that the young woman came from a prosperous family. Fashion that follows the whims of Royalty costs money to do so. I visited the household in question, returned the shoes and spoke to the young lady and her mother.”
I noticed with interest that Ashton Fellows was trembling. “What did Cynthia say?”
“She easily recalled the party, you and the conversation you shared. When I explained to what great lengths you had gone to in order to find her, she agreed to see you this morning. We are nearly there now.”
Our cab drew up in front of a stately mansion. I looked around as we exited the vehicle and recognized the area as a street in Mayfair. Richly appointed buildings lined both sides of a boulevard featuring a row of leafless trees running down the center.
Sherlock Holmes stopped on the pavement and looked squarely at our client, “Are you sure, Mr. Fellows, that you want to go through with this interview?”
The young man looked bewildered. “Mr. Holmes, I have thought of nothing but Cynthia for over a week. I must talk to her.”
“Very well.” Holmes shrugged. He led us up a broad set of steps and rang the bell. A solemn butler admitted us into a wide hallway. A moment later the three of us were ushered into a rather overly-decorated drawing room. Tall windows on two sides, draped in the finest of brocades with frilly sheer curtains peeping out from behind them, allowed in the bright winter light. Highly polished tables and bookcases loaded with volumes in rich morocco bindings filled the well-proportioned space. The floors were covered in Persian carpets. Comfortable armchairs stood next to little stands laden with tapestry cloths and china knick-knacks. Golden gaslight augmented the winter sun. Two fashionably dressed women sat side-by-side on a cut-velvet sofa facing an large fireplace wherein crackled a generous blaze.
Our client advanced before us, his eyes fixed on a young woman who sat with the light gleaming off her chestnut hair. She stood up and extended her hand. He grasped it wordlessly. The other woman, older but with a familial resemblance to her companion, rose and gave her hand first to Holmes, then to me, as Holmes murmured introductions. She frowned at the sound of Ashton Fellows’ name.
“Mrs. Bock, Dr. Watson. Miss Cynthia Bock, you have already met Mr. Fellows.”
Our client shook hands with Mrs. Bock. She waved us to side chairs that had been drawn up to the sofa and we all sat down. As I settled in, I detected something unusual in this meeting. Somehow it wasn’t what I had expected. Flames danced in the big fireplace and sunlight shone through the tall windows but the atmosphere around the women was chilly. Cynthia Bock regarded us graciously, but there was a detachment in her attitude that I had not foreseen from the description given by Ashton Fellows. I looked at Holmes. His expression was remote and hard to read. The tense atmosphere was explained when Mrs. Bock began to speak.
She turned to Mr. Fellows and addressed him in a stern voice. “I understand from Mr. Holmes, sir, that you met my daughter at a party a week ago.”
“That is correct,” the young man said.
“Cynthia and I have spoken about this,” Mrs. Bock said stiffly. “I must tell you, Mr. Fellows, that I did not know that my daughter had attended that party. It was not the sort of party of which my husband or I would have approved. Artistic people as a class are frequently undisciplined and often display a shocking lack of morals. Cynthia knows this. She left the house without informing us. She was not properly chaperoned. A young painter who had met her recently in regards to a possible commission had told her about the party. He escorted her, in secret, at her request. She knew that we would never have allowed her to do such a reckless thing. I am very disappointed in her and she has apologized for her actions. My major goal now is to see that her fiancé does not learn of her ill-chosen escapade.”
Ashton Fellows looked stricken. “Her fiancé?”
Cynthia Bock smiled. “I am engaged to marry Viscount Sidney Jarlson, the oldest son of the Earl of Danegeld. The wedding is to take place in a few weeks.”
He stared at her. “Do you love him?” he asked finally.
She looked into the fire, her profile cool and undisturbed. “He is not bad-looking, you know. He has handsome mustaches.” She smiled. “Someday I shall be a countess.”
“That question is unworthy of a gentleman, Mr. Fellows!” Mrs. Bock snapped. She frowned and rose to her feet. We all stood up, Ashton Fellows rather unsteadily.
At that moment a young woman stepped into the drawing room from the hall. Her long brown hair was worn in a simple fashion that framed her oval face. She was wearing a plain grey dress trimmed in small black bows in a double row down the bodice. Her eyes were brown and kind. The very air seemed warmer when she smiled.
Mrs. Bock noticed her and asked, “Miss King, has the seamstress arrived yet?”
“Yes, Mrs. Bock. I showed her up to the sewing room. I left those patterns and the new bolts of fabric you ordered for her to look over. She has some questions.”
“Miss Cynthia and I will join her. These gentlemen are leaving. Please see them out and then come up yourself.” With a haughty toss of her head, Mrs. Bock led her daughter out of the room. In the hall, we could hear Cynthia Bock attempting to explain the reason for her actions to her mother. “I just wanted to do something exciting and fun before I settled down with Sidney. He really is a dear but just a bit… stuffy.”
“This way, if you please, gentlemen,” said the newcomer. She smiled pleasantly and motioned toward the hall. Ashton Fellows followed Holmes to the door and then stopped. He looked closely at the young woman.
“Don’t I know you, miss? Why, it’s little Frannie! Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, this is Miss Frances King, the daughter of my old schoolmaster back in Setton Cross. I haven’t seen you since I came down to London, Frannie. What are you doing here?”
The young lady seemed pleased to acknowledge us. Her face lit up in pleasure when she turned to our client. “Ashton, what a surprise! I work here as Mrs. Bock’s paid companion. You see, Father died just over a year ago,” and at that point her smile faltered and she touched one of the little black bows, “and I had to make my own way in the world. We never had much money on Father’s schoolmaster salary. I was rather bewildered until I thought to write to Mrs. Bock. She was a sort of a cousin of Mother’s. She brought me down from Setton Cross and I have been here nearly a year.”
Fellows smiled. “It is so good to see someone from home.”
Miss King opened the front door. “I would love to stay and talk, Ashton, but they are e
xpecting me upstairs.”
Our client grabbed her hand. “When can I see you again?”
She smiled. “Every Thursday afternoon I walk in Kew Gardens.”
He smiled back at her. “It is very beautiful in Kew Gardens.”
The door closed gently behind us.
Holmes and I found out the end of the story six months later. One morning the regular bundle of newspapers Holmes was in the habit of reading each day was carried up by Mrs. Hudson. The pile yielded up the Daily News, which carried an announcement of the marriage of the rising artist Mr. Ashton Fellows to Miss Frances King, only daughter of the late Mr. Wilber King, M.A., at St. Osmond’s Church in Setton Cross, Kent. The happy couple was honeymooning in Paris, where Mr. Fellows’ first gallery showing was being held to universal acclaim.
Also delivered was a large package. Using the jack-knife from the mantelpiece, Holmes cut the cord that secured the brown paper wrapping and opened it. A card fell to the floor. I bent to pick it up and raised my eyes to see in Holmes’ hands a square of stretched canvas. He held it out for me to examine.
Signed by the artist, it was an exquisite painting of a pair of discarded green dancing slippers, their tangled tie-straps trailing into the foreground over a drift of frozen snow.
I handed him the card. On it were written only two words - ‘Thank you’.
The Case of the Beguiling Burglar
The effect of my experiences in service to my country in Afghanistan had sent me back to London in 1880 with my health ruined. Over time my physical state improved and I regained my strength, although bad weather and overexertion could remind me of my trials. In 1885 a particularly busy four months assisting Sherlock Holmes wore thin my resistance and I found myself in the rare position of needing a doctor for myself. A severe case of pneumonia was diagnosed and I was confined to my bed, too ill to be moved to hospital.
Sherlock Holmes and Mrs. Hudson showed me every attention. Holmes hired trained nurses and Mrs. Hudson insisted on helping to pull me through the crisis. When the worst was over Mrs. Hudson fussed over me and Holmes sent for out-of-season delicacies to tempt my appetite, played my favorite airs on the violin and found topics of interest to occupy the long and weary hours of convalescence.
One day, after I had recovered enough to lie upon the sofa in the sitting room for a few hours a day, he surprised me by bringing out his old tin trunk from his bedroom. He threw open the lid and cast a speculative eye in my direction.
“I wonder if you are strong enough for me to burden you with a story from my past, Watson. I have here the documents of a case from the first year I began my consulting detective practice.”
I felt a sudden rush of excitement, the likes of which I had not experienced in over a month. “I would like nothing better, Holmes.”
“Are you certain you are up to it? You have been very ill and I have strict instructions from Mrs. Hudson not to cause you fatigue.”
“I shall rest afterward,” I promised. Holmes arranged the pillows so I could sit up a little and I peered into the trunk at the bundles that held information about his mysterious and unknown early cases.
Apparently satisfied, my friend pulled up a chair and began to rifle through the rolls of papers bound up with tape. At last he held up a sheaf of papers and smiled.
“As I have said before, most of my early cases came from the recommendations of men I knew from college. This was among the first of those I accepted after I moved to London.
“I was sitting in my rooms on Montague Street, reading a history of Jonathan Wild, when Magnus Custennin knocked on my door. He stood at least six feet, seven inches tall, with broad shoulders, white hair, deep-set blue eyes and a permanently sad expression on his face. I deduced that he was about fifty years old, in uncertain health, and grew up on a farm near Anoeth, Wales, where he still farmed. I didn’t get a chance to test my observations, however, because he immediately began to set his case before me.”
I interrupted. “How did you know those things about him?”
“His age was evident. A slight tremor and the color of his skin told of the state of his health. His speech pinpointed the location where he grew up. A fragment of green vine resting in his pant cuff and the calluses on his hands told me he was a farmer.
“Amazing!”
“Elementary. I did make one mistake. He no longer lived in Wales. His farm was forty miles northwest of London, just beyond Upper Oddton. I should have seen that from the mud on his boots. I was young then.”
I smothered a smile and waited for Holmes to continue his story.
“He seated himself on my sofa and told me his tale of woe. He had heard of me from a man who had been in the same botany class as I. After leaving his father’s farm in Wales, he had traveled around and worked at odd jobs until he settled near Upper Oddton. There he bought and improved an old farm into a most profitable operation. He raised beans and developed a new strain of goose. The eggs were prized by dealers for their golden hue. After many years, when he had saved some money, he married a local girl and took her to his isolated farmhouse on top of a hill. She had had several suitors and he was surprised that she had chosen him.
“About a month after that, he started hearing strange noises in the night. A mysterious figure was seen in the darkness around his buildings. At first his wife was sympathetic, but when he began to sit out on his front steps each night with a loaded shotgun and refused to abandon his post until morning, she remonstrated with him. Yet every evening she would bring him a hot drink on the porch.
“Just a few mornings before he came to London to consult me, on the fifteen of October, he went to check a cache of gold coins he had secreted in the barn. It was missing. He searched all the buildings but found nothing. That evening it rained. In the morning one of his geese was gone. This time he found the mark of boots in the mud around the poultry house.
“When he declared that he was going to call in the police, his wife became hysterical. She was so upset he had to promise not to involve the authorities before she would calm down. That night he saw someone lurking around his goose yard. He chased whoever it was into the bean fields but lost him. Early the next morning he made up a reason to come to London and he sought me out.”
“I had him describe his farm and his large house to me. I asked that he give me some time to think about his problem and return later that day. After he left I smoked two pipes as I considered his story. I then went out and spent some time in Tottenham Court Road. When Magnus Custennin returned I informed him that he should expect the delivery of a crate to his farm the next day. Instructions would be included and he should follow them to the letter. Most importantly, he was not to say anything about the delivery to his wife until he read the note that would come with the crate.
“He agreed to everything and left for Upper Oddton. I made my preparations. Later that night a large wooden box addressed to Magnus Custennin was loaded onto a train and delivered to Upper Oddton the next morning. From the station three men in a trap drove it up the hill to his farm. It was carried into the farmhouse and left there. He opened it and found an elaborate music box. It was so large that it stood by itself on the floor of the sitting room. He read the instructions and, doing as he was told, threw them in the fire. He told his wife it was a gift for her.
“As instructed, he waited until that evening after dinner to show his wife, Opal, how to operate the box. The results delighted her. The box played a series of arias from popular operas. After a few tunes, he went out to sit on the steps with his shotgun while she sat through the rest of the music. After that she took a walk in the light of the waning moon and retired early to bed.
“No mysterious thief stole geese that night, or the next. Every day his wife played the music box. On the third night, Magnus Custennin accepted a hot drink from his wife as he sat on the steps with his shotgun. Within ha
lf an hour he was asleep, leaning up against one of the pillars of the porch.
“The drink had been drugged. Custennin could not be awakened. A wagon came up the gravel road from the bottom of the hill and pulled up in front of the barn. A figure dressed in black went into the poultry house. After a while the person emerged and began loading crates of geese into the wagon. When the back was nearly full, the driver came out and drove it to the house. A muffled figure came out with a valise and grabbed the driver by his arm.
“I insist, Jack!” Black eyes flashed from a pale face under a mass of ebony hair.
“We have everything we planned, Opal. We have the money and the geese that lay the golden eggs. I have climbed up here through those bean fields for the last time. I love you, Opal, but if you don’t come with me now, I will leave you here with him.”
“Magnus Custennin’s wife stamped her foot in frustration. “If you love me, Jack, you will fetch it with us. It is the only thing I want from this miserable place and you would deny it to me!” She began to cry.
“The driver hurried into the house and soon emerged, staggering under the weight of the music box. He loaded it onto the wagon, helped the woman into the front seat and with a command to the horses, drove down the road and away from the farm. As they left there was a flash of shiny metal and something dropped from the woman’s hand to land with a clink on the gravel beneath the wheels.
“After a moment another figure stepped out of the front door and tapped Magnus Custennin on the shoulder. It was I. I had come down from my lookout spot in an upstairs bedroom window. I had spent the past three days investigating the case in situ. I gained entry by means of the music box on the first day, by posing as one of the men who delivered it. As you know, Watson, I require little food and what I brought with me was sufficient.
“My first action was to examine the entire place, evading both Custennin and his wife. In my investigation I included every room in the house and even the remains of the muddy footprints around the poultry house. There were several indications in the bedroom that demonstrated the wife did not love her husband. I observed Opal Custennin. Surprisingly, she never showed by word or action her true feelings to her husband. Women are such natural deceivers! I went down to the village and gathered information at the local pub, the “Beans and Bovine”. Custennin and his wife had been married less than two months. He had a good name as a hard-working farmer who minded his own business, but the story was different with her. She was said to be wild and flighty, with several suitors before she married Custennin. She had been raised in the thick of the social life of the village. By the way Magnus Custennin spoke of her I could tell his love for her was genuine. I concluded that she had different feelings for him. It was unusual that a man should lose the regard of his bride in such a short time, if he ever really had it. I deduced the identity of her lover. I found them together. I overheard their plans, which dated from before the marriage.
Sherlock Holmes and The Folk Tale Mysteries Page 10
