by Lyndsay Faye
Mr. Marwick’s features gradually softened. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“It is a charitable season of the year,” my friend pointed out with studied nonchalance. “And I would require in return that when you assemble your next feast’s guest list, you allow me to make a few of my own small nominations. They may be a trifle younger than your usual attendees, but I can vouch without qualm for their characters, if not their cleanliness.”
“How many are ‘a few small nominations,’ precisely?” Mr. Marwick asked shrewdly.
“Oh, heavens, certainly not more than a dozen Irregulars at the most,” Holmes returned with aplomb. “Some of them very small indeed, though I readily admit you’d not know it by their appetites. Look to young Peaches particularly—he’s not yet eight and could single-handedly dispatch Buckingham Palace’s larder, I shouldn’t wonder.”
It required Mr. Marwick a few moments’ thought before he reached a conclusion, and when he did, he simply rose and shook my friend by the hand.
“Capital!” the detective exclaimed. “The bargain is struck, Mr. Marwick. By week’s end, you may expect to hear of Tom Scripps’s relocation to the dock.”
Holmes and I were turning to go when a question stopped us.
“But tell me, Mr. Holmes—how could you have known when you first knocked at my door that I, of all people, was the founder of the Amateur Mendicant Society? I have lived like this for so long, I thought myself beyond suspicion for a millionaire.”
“You’ve St. Alexius’s name inscribed upon your walking stick—which is a remarkably fine one, I might add,” my friend replied readily. “Forgive me, Mr. Marwick, but might I ask why you would dispose of your fortune in such a strange fashion?”
“I’m the last Marwick, Mr. Holmes,” the grotesquely compelling man responded. “I have no one left in this dark world to gift with an inheritance. In any event, the entire Marwick estate was built upon the very profitable alliance between rum and African slaves, and for that matter has never done me a single particle of good in all my life. I’ve given away a quarter of a million to various causes so far, Mr. Holmes, most of them quite conventional. But—before tonight’s tragedy, of course—I’ve never seen anything I’ve done bring the impoverished as much joy as the Amateur Mendicant Society. The highest honor I can grant myself is that I managed to think of it in the first place.”
“My dear Holmes,” I said once we had regained the street, and the gas lamps had spread into pools of warmth brightening the winter’s frosted air, “I have never been more gratified to have missed a Haydn concert. And that was very good of you.”
He waved one hand companionably at me while searching out his cigarette case with the other.
“But please do tell me, who is St. Alexius, and how on earth do you know of him?”
“The Irregulars informed me that the dinner’s final toast, or so they had heard, was lifted in honor of St. Alexius.” My friend smiled. “I’d never heard of him either, but I did a little research and soon had my answer. St. Alexius was the only son of an extravagantly wealthy Roman senator, and he fled his privileged existence to live in the most austere poverty. I freely confess to you that I had supposed his kind had passed out of the world long ago. But on occasion, there is nothing more congenial than being proved entirely wrong. Let’s you and I make a stop at Marcini’s for a hot meal after we’ve spoken with Mr. Piccone, my dear fellow, for I believe the coming week will see me a very preoccupied individual.”
Memoranda upon
the Gaskell
Blackmailing Dilemma
Excerpted passages from the personal diary of
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective,
221B Baker Street, London W1:
Saturday, September 29th, 1888.
I have just seen Watson, Sir Henry Baskerville, and Dr. Mortimer off at Charing Cross train station.
A knifelike autumn wind sliced along the platform as their carriage pulled away. It no doubt accounted for the chill I felt, as I am hardly given to fanciful imaginings—although I confess myself not entirely easy in my mind regarding this case. When Watson and I followed the mysterious bearded gentleman so shamelessly pursuing Sir Henry Baskerville, I could have continued to look at myself in the shaving mirror of a morning had I learnt anything useful. Instead, I had my own name thrown back in my face, as it were, and could do nothing more useful than to consider it a lesson in humility along the lines of “Norbury.” (Watson, despite being under standing orders to whisper this word when I am suffering an attack of hubris, is too polite to carry out the assignment and shirks dreadfully when I am making an ass of myself. I intend to take him to task on this subject when I see him again.)
I now fear very much for Sir Henry and the enormous fortune he stands to inherit—vast wealth has a tendency to make bodily threats all the more material. Dr. Mortimer is right to fret over his friend Sir Charles Baskerville’s heir. These men, whoever they are, mean business.
Thus shall I speed to Baskerville Hall as soon as is possible, though my instincts tell me not to reveal myself as a key player in this drama prematurely. My appearance would only serve to put the guilty party on guard. (This is largely Watson’s fault—I’ll admit that having an international reputation is good for business, but it is terrible for stealth.) Perhaps a hidden lair would be preferable? Meanwhile, the good Watson has been instructed to take every care, and doubtless he will apply himself posthaste to providing me with grist for the mill via letter. I wish I had one in hand already, but I suppose it is unreasonable to expect him to write to me when he is still on a train.
Strictly speaking, I was guilty of a small prevarication with my friend; I am indeed investigating a case of blackmail for one of the highest families in the land whilst remaining behind, but I did not tell him that the victim is a woman. It really wouldn’t have done to give Watson the impression I was charging to the rescue of another damsel in distress, not three months after that exceedingly volatile Milverton business. He was adamant over seeing that case through with me, and ever since he fusses terribly when I take on cases of blackmail—as if I wander the intricate suburbs and byways of our great metropolis on the lookout for opportunities to become falsely engaged to housemaids and to burgle safes. Ridiculous. One engagement was quite enough for a lifetime, or so I dearly hope.
The doctor knows one thing: I loathe blackmailers.
What comparison can be made between an impetuous act of violence and the deliberate ruination of a human life for no reason save personal profit—the slow siphoning of money, joy, and security all in a single foul act? There is no honor in the deed—as honor can be found even in murder—no more mercy in its perpetrators than milk in a male tiger, as the Bard puts it. Despicable. I compared the late unlamented Milverton to a serpent, and I meant it with a passion. Snakes (as I have been careful to mention to no one) turn my stomach over, but not more so than do blackmailers.
Young Lady Violet Gaskell (daughter of the late Marquess of Cleveland) is a tendril of a most distinguished family tree. Ordinarily this would make no difference to me, but obviously the exalted have much more to fear from blackmailers than the plebeians. Her card revealed little. I will paste it here and continue the account after I’ve spoken with her anon.
Dear Mr. Holmes,
I am being threatened by the most vile scoundrel—I can say no more without incriminating myself, save to confess that it is a case of blackmail. You are my sole chance at redemption. Please agree to meet me at Chessington House, Surrey, at four in the afternoon on Saturday next, and I will make all clear. I beg of you, do not fail me.
In hope,
Violet Gaskell
Saturday, September 29th, 1888 (continued).
What a terrifically unpleasant afternoon.
There is something amiss about this Gaskell matter I cannot quite put my finger on. It is tapping at the back of my
mind, but for the life of me I can’t identify what it is. Having learned long ago to trust such instincts and wait to see what they reveal, I shall simply bide my time despite my native impatience. Meanwhile, my thoughts have been pulled on more than one occasion back to the Baskerville business. Watson must surely be at the hall by now, and whatever my sentiments on the subject of spectral canines from Hell (manifestly absurd), the physical footprints of an enormous hound are quite another thing (potentially perilous).
My brief journey to Surrey was an uneventful one. The weather was fine, and the foliage a veritable palette of fiery hues. Chessington House proved the sort of sprawling architectural study in opulence that tends to send Watson’s accounts of my cases careening away from the pristine study of dispassionate logic to flounder in descriptions of trailing ivy and mullioned windows. He’d have loved the ramshackle pile of stones nestled within its blanket of red-orange leaves.
Chessington House was every bit as drenched in wealth on the inside as it was outside, as I discovered when the butler (name: Giles, originally from Newcastle, unmarried, asthmatic, parents obviously manufactory workers) showed me through to the parlor. I could have taken a world tour for the price of one of their fire irons, so I will say this for our blackmailer: he is after a considerable sum.
I waited four and a half minutes for Lady Violet, and when she did arrive, she slipped through an interior door from an adjacent darkened room rather than use the hall entrance. At once, I knew her to be truly distraught, for I detected a faint aroma of headache powder, and her delicate face was quite pale. Watson, had he been present and inclined to record the matter, would have altered this fact to allow her to enter from a backlit doorway, “tender lamplight spilling softly around the crescentic parabola of her womanly figure, as she stood with one hand resting against the sinuous folds of her violet day-dress, the sweet ellipse of her mouth parted in dismay,” or some such drivel. I will never comprehend the man’s obsession with silhouetted females. It is a source of peculiar bemusement to me. Time after time (eight times) he has written of women shaped like women (surely unsurprising) and lit them from behind (unnecessarily) with angelic nimbi, despite the fact that each time the lady in question was already seated when we arrived.
Some mysteries even I cannot solve.
But I digress. Lady Violet was twenty years of age, small of stature, a very dark brunette with blue eyes and the pale ivory skin of our pedigreed aristocracy, with the requisite stark cheekbones, and every bit as difficult to read as women generally are. Showing little in the way of strain, she pressed my hand most determinedly. She gave the impression of a strong, confident being who has been subjected to an unexpected extremity. I liked her from the first. The sole callus I was able to feel revealed nothing to me, as it was perched upon the extremity of her middle finger, and I already knew her favored womanly accomplishment to be the oil study. One does not simply walk into the richest family manse in Surrey without conducting due research—Lady Violet is a much-lauded talent in her rarefied artistic circles.
“How good of you to come, Mr. Holmes,” she said lowly. “This business—you must pardon me for having been so terse in my letter, and so rudely insistent as well, but it comes as a cruel blow. Pray sit down.”
“Your letter was to the point, Lady Violet, which I appreciated not in spite of its brevity but because of it.”
We took seats on either side of a rich brocade settee. “I hardly knew what to write to you, I was so frightened,” she admitted.
This confirmed my belief Lady Violet Gaskell owned considerable strength of character, for the penmanship upon the missive had been perfectly legible despite her apprehension. Nevertheless, I assumed what I have found to be a calming tone as I answered, “Scarcely any species of reptile incites greater disgust in me than the professional blackmailer, I assure you. Please tell me everything—and though doubtless it must pain you to speak of it, knowing the nature of the incident over which you are being threatened may prove helpful.”
“It is the old story, Mr. Holmes. I fear that we must discuss a regrettable affaire de coeur, one which has led to a ghastly attempt to extort a small fortune.” She pulled a sachet of lavender from a pocket within her magenta day-dress, smelling it gingerly. “Do excuse me. . . . I suffer from migraines on occasion and seem to be fending off an attack. The strain has been overwhelming.”
“Well, we shall see what we can do to lessen it. When were you first approached?”
“Three days ago, Mr. Holmes. For the first two days, I hid my problem from everyone, but finally I was forced to confide in my aunt, the Dowager Lady Edith Cranley, my late father’s sister. The shame of it was almost unbearable, but I had no choice in the matter.”
“I take it you were in some fiscal difficulties?”
“Just so. You see, I’ve only very limited access to my own money, and she administers my trust. My allowance would not nearly have covered the sum he mentioned.”
Sighing, she settled back against the cushions. “This could not have come at a more damaging time. I am engaged to be married, Mr. Holmes—to Sir Wellesley Lyttleton, in a fortnight. All the preparations are already in place. Of course, the blackguard must be counting upon this fact to ensure my silence.”
“That is very plausible.”
“As I’m admittedly a trifle unwell, I shall attempt to be concise, Mr. Holmes. Three days ago, then, I had a typewritten note requesting that I travel into the city and take a turn on foot through Hyde Park at one in the afternoon. You can scarcely comprehend the fear that such a vague yet threatening correspondence triggers.”
“Perhaps not, but I have a peculiarly lucid imagination. May I see it?”
“It horrified me so, I burned it straightaway. I apologize—could a mere typewritten note have assisted you?”
“Smaller trifles than a note have done so in the past. If you receive anything further, please retain it.”
“Of course. I am entirely in your hands, Mr. Holmes.”
“What did the message say? Word for word, if you can recall.”
“Do forgive me, but I cannot quote it exactly. I was to be alone when I entered the park, to tell no one I was coming, and should I comply, I would avoid a great scandal. My heart turned to granite in my chest when I saw the closing line—it said simply, ‘A friend of Robert Winter.’ ”
“The gentleman who courted you in the past, I take it, and to whom you perhaps addressed correspondences of an amiable nature?”
“You’re as clever as they say, Mr. Holmes.” She smiled, dimpling, which was the merest datum for me but an unfortunate loss to the absent Watson. “Yes, four years ago during the season I met him at an officers’ ball. Lieutenant Robert Winter was a recruit in the Corps of Royal Engineers, the Fifth Regiment, and I but a girl of sixteen. His career was rising, and he cut a truly dashing figure of a man—blond and broad-shouldered, with an easy grace about him. I was guilty of nothing more than fanciful letters, Mr. Holmes, just as you inferred, but even the hint of shame would be enough to put Wellesley off the match. He is most . . . fastidious in all his affairs.”
“You mentioned—and forgive my candor—you’ve your own fortune but limited access to the same?”
Noticing unconscious gestures is of the utmost value to the investigator, and when Lady Violet brushed her fingers across her skirts irritably, I could see she was patently vexed by this topic. (As indeed should I have been if I were not allowed access to my own money.)
“I am not genteelly poor, Mr. Holmes, merely the victim of an unfortunately worded bequest,” she elaborated. “Until such day as I am married, or twenty-five years old—”
“Supposing you were to manage to reach twenty-five years of age without attracting a suitor, we would face disgrace—but then, you never were a great follower of social norms,” a voice like turned green apples groused. “This is the . . . the hired detective, I take it?”
When people refer to me as a detective rather than an independent consulting detective, they are being unspecific but technically accurate. When they refer to me as a “hired detective,” on the other hand, they are being deliberately insulting.
“Yes, Aunt Edith,” Lady Violet answered, coloring. “You mustn’t be so—”
“Oh, what must I do or what mustn’t I do this time?” the old woman snapped. She shuffled slowly to a pillowed armchair and settled into it as if a steel rod had been inserted through the crown of her head at birth.
The Dowager Viscountess Edith Cranley was not ugly; she was a distinguished elderly woman with her niece’s porcelain complexion but with someone else’s pugnacious jaw, and hair white as cigar ash. There was malice in her boot polish and rudeness to her personal maid in the pressed black lace of her sleeve cuffs. She was the sort of relic of the Empire who doubtless supposed that keeping hounds was a necessary tenet of respectable living, that the Irish starved en masse forty years ago owing to lack of foresight, and that illness indicates a want of moral willpower. The instant I encountered her, my aversion was established.
I am no revolutionary, but unchecked snobbery offends my sense of balance.
“The girl must marry, that’s all there is to it,” the crone announced. “Mr. Holmes, if that is who you are, there is no other outcome possible. You must ensure that this blackmailer is stopped, or else—”
“Or else what, Aunt?” Lady Violet asked, eyes wide.
“Or else I shall simply pay the wretch, and have done!” Lady Cranley cried, fluttering her fingers as if paying a blackmailer on a single occasion would forever solve her niece’s problem. Knowing this belief untrue, I cleared my throat, annoyed. “The bequest Lady Violet mentioned . . .”
“She gets two hundred a month when she marries or turns twenty-five.” Lady Cranley’s tone clearly implied, when she marries or is sentenced to hang at Tyburn. “But she’ll never hold up the family name if this foul scheme carries through, and she is already twenty-two—past time to be happily tied to a suitable spouse and having children of her own.”
