by Lyndsay Faye
Mrs. Hudson has finally retired, after accusing me of “pining.” I should have offered a rebuttal to this nonsensical assertion, but it did not merit a reply. Reclining in my armchair smoking shag tobacco for two hours straight is pondering, not pining, and it is my profession, for the love of God.
I hope this is not a sign of an early descent into dotage upon Mrs. Hudson’s part. She is an admirable landlady, and hardly ever assesses damages when my chemical experiments go unexpectedly awry. This is probably because I already pay her triple what the rooms are worth, entirely apart from Watson’s portion, but I am not inclined to quibble over domestic matters.
Watson posted a wire thanking me for the scarf, stating that a far more detailed letter would follow soon after, wishing me luck with the blackmail case, and advising I refrain from meandering into any accidental marital arrangements with under-cooks and kitchen slaveys, as I have done in the past. I will see that he pays for this when we are reunited—Watson’s natural turn for verbal banter is beyond reproach, but when his gibes are calculated, he is, and I say this with great fondness, rather juvenile.
First things first, however: to assist Lady Violet Gaskell in teaching a lesson to the odious Sir Wellesley Lyttleton.
Monday, October 1st, 1888.
I sit opposite Cartwright in a private carriage hitched to the slowest train in all of Christendom. The railway will hear from me, and the tone of my letter will not be congenial to them.
My plan went off without a hitch. I visited my bank this morning, filled a small satchel with the ten thousand pounds Lady Cranley had transferred to me, and placed it in the designated locker at Charing Cross. Then it was child’s play to blend into the milling crowds for long enough to watch Lady Violet retrieve it. I have never seen a woman look so delighted—as if she had been freed from a cruel cage. She will set herself up in Florence in a garret, just as she described, and no doubt do well there. Of course a woman as observant as Lady Violet ought to have been able to tell me something about her mysterious blackmailer, but since there never was any blackmailer or letters or Robert Winter in the first place, she declined to invent superfluous data lest I catch her in a lie. Elegant. My cap is off to her—I don’t mind being bested on occasion, supposing my antagonist as patently brave and morally justified as is Lady Violet.
I considered suggesting that if she ever feels the need to extort her own money from Lady Cranley again, she must not use her own stationery, as it was this slipup that exposed her to me. A comparison of her plea for help with the “blackmailer’s instructions” revealed the truth in an instant. She is such a deft and sensitive painter, however, that I don’t imagine she will have need of any more funds from her family. When she does set up shop, I must remind myself to write to her, and purchase something to remember her by.
Good riddance to Sir Wellesley Lyttleton. The man is a boor. Watson will approve of this course of action, I feel certain.
Will this train never reach Devonshire?
The Lowther Park
Mystery
“Watson, I fear I must apologize: you are experiencing a dry spell stylistically speaking, but fully intend to return to your literary efforts in half an hour or less, and I must prevent you,” said Sherlock Holmes, idly tapping the end of his violin bow against the carpet while shooting me a despairing look. He lay draped over the entire length of our settee, the portrait of lassitude. “There’s nothing for it, my dear fellow.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Not a single alternative remains to us. We must attend this afternoon’s formal tea at Lowther Park.”
I folded my newspaper in considerable shock. My fellow lodger, whether owing to some quirk of his completely inscrutable upbringing or else a natural disinclination all his own, was a man exceedingly loath to pay calls of a social nature. This aversion to idle companionship appeared to encompass the whole of humankind, save for his gentility where Mrs. Hudson was concerned and his affable manner with the best Scotland Yard had to offer. I once inquired whether the three letters he’d received by the late afternoon post were all from potential clients, and he asked who else I imagined they might be from, since his sole friend was seated twelve feet away and thus need not correspond with him via the Royal Mail. His reluctance to appear at garden parties, political dinners, fashionable soirees, and especially congratulatory fetes honoring some nigh-impossible task he himself had performed could not be overestimated. The same man who could lie in wait like an arachnid in the midst of meticulously strung filaments, tracing his prey with perfect calm despite darkness, cold, and the tension wrought by nerves honed to their finest sharpness, would flinch at the merest mention of a croquet match. And yet here he was, wrapped in his faded blue dressing gown and soberly assuring me that we were due at one of the grandest estates in Hampstead that very day.
“By George. Must we?” I questioned blankly.
“Regrettably, yes.”
“How did you know that my writing felt uninspired this morning, or for that matter that I intended to have a fresh go at it?”
“When you dropped your pen in annoyance an hour ago in favor of perusing the papers, you neglected to clean the ink stain off your right forefinger. You’re a man of medical neatness but also considerable practicality. Had you washed it, I would know that you’ve abandoned the effort for the day, but since you anticipate getting ink on your hands again all too shortly, I deduce that you mean to crack on.”
“Wonderful! Correct in every particular.”
“Hence my apology—I have need of you.”
“At a garden party. You are expected, I take it?”
“I should hardly think of stirring were I not.”
“And—presuming that I have also been invited to this affair, which I take the liberty of doubting—why, might I ask?”
“Blood is thicker than water, Watson, although you’ll admit that asking me to shake the hands of dozens of aspiring Whitehall staffers is very thick indeed.” Holmes rolled smoothly to his feet and propped the bow against his violin case. “My brother has requested that I observe one of his government subordinates. Mycroft suspects that his loyalties may be compromised.”
“Good heavens! Your brother fears a traitor in his employ?” Dropping the folded paper to the carpet, I leaned forward in considerable interest.
He cast his eyes at the ceiling, but there was no malice in the expression. “I ought to have anticipated that you would put it much more dramatically.”
“You’d never have agreed to attend a social function were the situation not of the utmost gravity. This fellow will be in attendance at Lowther Park?”
“Tongues would wag were he absent, as he is hosting the event.”
“Damien Kenworthy?” I exclaimed. “Do you mean the young cousin of the Right Honorable James Kenworthy?”
“And the family’s star political son, or so I have heard.”
“As have I. The Kenworthy family are connected at every level, are they not? Politics, textiles, Chinese imports, weapons foundries—the list is endless. Why should your brother think anything amiss with Damien Kenworthy’s loyalties, and what is their relationship?”
“There exists hardly a diplomat of any name to whom Mycroft is not in some way related, as his fingers are present in so very many governmental pies,” my friend reported glumly, “and he will insist upon my help occasionally. Never mind that I’ve as much interest in bureaucratic intrigue as I have in the seasonal weather patterns of the planet Saturn. The facts as I know them are—you’ll come with me to Lowther Park, of course?”
“Of course. I’d sooner desert you at the height of a dangerous pursuit than leave you to fend for yourself at a high-ranking tea.”
Holmes made a rueful face which conveyed better than words his awareness I was only half in jest, tugging his watch from his waistcoat. Had his air of tragedy not been so sincere, it would have been comical, b
ut I managed to arrest the smile which threatened.
“This spring I spent five days in gin-soaked rags down Surrey Docks way, scouring Rotherhithe for word of that coiners’ ring, do you recall it? I leave it to you to guess which reconnaissance I suppose the more palatable, though I confess the Thames at that particular turning something less than artistic. Go and change and I’ll post you up in the cab.”
Despite the nature of our mission, Holmes seemed reluctantly to brighten once we were clattering through London’s sluggishly teeming arteries, both of us silk-hatted with white gloves neatly brushed, for the sky was dotted with fat clouds against the blue, and the summer air unusually clear and temperate. He lost no time in telling me of his sibling’s dilemma.
“Mycroft was recently ordered to select a discreet gentleman to oversee a committee which will evaluate the efficacy of our national telegraphic system.” Crossing his legs, Holmes linked slender fingers around his knee. “I need hardly tell you that such a study would encompass an array of practical uses, private ones no less than military, for the speed with which we can communicate is integral to modern interests of all kinds. Following his success as a high-level Cabinet secretary, Damien Kenworthy seemed an ideal fit. His colleagues praised him, reporting that in all matters he was shrewd, articulate, and diplomatic. My brother suggested his appointment, knowing Kenworthy’s organizational mind deeply incisive. As Mycroft does not dispense advice without careful cogitation . . .”
“And as your brother’s capacity for cogitation is unrivaled in the Western hemisphere, the appointment came to pass.”
“Precisely.” Holmes pulled a pair of cigarettes from his case and flicked a lucifer against the cab door, squinting out at the slate-colored traffic and the remnants of glinting straw ground into the cobblestones. Leaning forward to light mine, he pursed his lips in thought. “By all accounts, Mr. Kenworthy already excels at his new office, speeding every effort to assess England’s internal system of communication.”
“What went amiss?”
“Yesterday morning he placed a document on Mycroft’s desk. It was an efficiency report similar in structure to the one Kenworthy has been tasked with producing nationwide—one ordered by the president of a large private electrical telegraph firm based in Barcelona, a rich businessman by the name of Francisco Murillo. Mr. Kenworthy suggested using the study of the Compañía Telegráfica de Murillo as a guideline. There was only one problem.”
“Which was?”
“The Compañía Telegráfica de Murillo,” Holmes trilled, “does not exist.”
Seeing my bemused expression, my friend chuckled silently.
“Mycroft’s particular value to the throne of England is to know everything, and thus he was slightly perplexed when a study of an imaginary telegraph company was given him by a trusted official. I confess that neither of us can think what to make of it yet, nor would it behoove us to spin theories in such a vacuum of facts. But Damien Kenworthy is privy to a great many sensitive documents because of this study, including reports detailing countless military communication protocols, and thus my brother supposed caution the watchword of the hour. Not,” he added dourly, “that he went so far as to investigate it himself.”
The fact that Mycroft Holmes was not personally reconnoitering, as the intellectual superior of the two unconventional siblings, did not at this point in our friendship surprise me. The elder (and far larger) Holmes brother was as likely to leave his orbit of the Diogenes Club, his government office, and his Pall Mall lodgings as he was to suddenly take flight.
“Thereby necessitating your emergence in polite society. My sincerest condolences.”
“I detect traces of amusement in your tone, but I shall ignore them, as they are beneath you,” Holmes said with the merest uptick of a smile. “I fear that even if Brother Mycroft wished to join us, which of course he does not, he cannot abandon his desk considering the present situation in St. Petersburg. You and I, Watson, constitute a stalwart vanguard of two.”
Half an hour later as we pulled into the circular drive at Lowther Park, its grounds exquisitely manicured and its trees dark-leafed and velvety in the brilliant July sunlight, I noted the abundance of shining brass-fitted carriages depositing their artfully dressed passengers before the estate’s pale stone entrance. Our cab looked quite humble by comparison.
“Dear me, I see that Lord Rallison has not tempered his affection for the gaming tables,” Holmes murmured with a wink. “His thoroughbreds have always been matched before, and to see a liver chestnut mare with a white forelock harnessed beside a sorrel? Shocking, my dear fellow, and at such a public event, no less! Avert your eyes from this disgraceful sight, and let us discover what perils lurk indoors.”
Inside, the manor was as quietly sumptuous as a museum, hung with pale gold draperies, each successive alcove housing a more idyllic Flemish oil landscape or a more delicately wrought portrait of a blushing heiress with pearls in her hair. While the opulence was dazzling to my eye, my friend coolly ignored it, just as he always disdained to note the obvious trappings of wealth. Meanwhile Holmes, assuming as if he were donning a coat that effortless courtesy which belied his wholesale aversion to the beau monde, passed his card to a manservant. A few moments later, we were in the presence of our host.
“The younger Mr. Holmes!” Damien Kenworthy exclaimed, extending his hand. “And Dr. Watson, I can only imagine, from the accounts I have seen in The Strand.”
“The same. Thank you for having us.”
“You are both very welcome, I’m sure. Mr. Mycroft Holmes is a brilliant man, and one to whom I am much indebted for my present appointment.”
The pictures I had seen in various newspapers had done a poor job of capturing the buoyant, boyish air of enthusiasm which seemed to infuse Damien Kenworthy’s every cell. There are men possessing excessive energy who mask it under pretended indifference—indeed, I resided with one—but Mr. Kenworthy’s eagerness appeared almost puppyish. He was a short, active man, with pale features and a flaxen moustache, but the pallor of his coloring was instantly offset by a pair of dark, glittering eyes. His gaze was perceptive, almost calculating. Holmes, his own remarkable keenness of vision veiled by the languor in his attitude, doubtless took in our host’s rich swallowtails and active, blue-veined hands still more thoroughly than I did as he greeted the gentleman.
“My brother is rather a rare specimen, I admit,” said he.
“Exceptionality appears to be a family trait,” Kenworthy noted genially as he led us through the spacious house to the back veranda, where sober young gentlemen and chiffon-flounced young ladies with ivory-handled parasols in their slack fingers milled about. “Ah, just the thing! Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, may I present Mr. Francisco Murillo, the former president of the Compañía Telegráfica de Murillo of Catalonia, and a great help to me with our current project.”
I exchanged introductions in considerable surprise. Before us stood a giant of a man, bearlike and swarthy with a broad, intellectual brow and a carefully trimmed black beard framing his full, almost obstinate mouth. He was dressed in a more ostentatious manner than an Englishman would have been, with gold piping lining his jacket and delicate shell buttons dotting his embroidered waistcoat. The sun gleamed from his slicked-back hair and shining boots. Murillo angled his heel and made a dignified bow to the pair of us, his attention fastening at once to my friend. Apparently, whether the Compañía Telegráfica de Murillo existed or no, it was possessed of a very live and formidable ex-president.
“Gentlemen, is it an honor to make your acquaintance.”
“Surely the honor is ours,” Holmes demurred. “The study will benefit considerably from your experience, or so I hear.”
“Tut, I merely provided a template,” he said in deep, rasping Spanish-accented tones. “I am in London on other business and when I met Mr. Kenworthy last week, at a function for foreign dignitaries, naturally I wired m
y former company in hopes that our work might be of some use.”
“Very good of you, too. May I ask the nature of your new venture, Mr. Murillo, the one which brings you to our shores?” Holmes inquired with a barely visible spark in his cool grey eye.
“No firm venture as of yet, Mr. Holmes, though I hope to found a shipping line within the year. I own extensive holdings in England—property, securities—but I require capital. I completed the liquidation of my assets this morning and will return to Barcelona tonight. In fact, I must now begin to make my goodbyes.”
“Can this be Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” crooned a lilting soprano from just behind my left elbow. “Miss Jacquelynn Bost, and very charmed to encounter you at last.”
The voice belonged to a lovely maiden with a striking array of chestnut hair floating above her milky shoulders, who dangled her white hand out before my friend’s cravat. He took it with, though only I could have noted the fact, something rather less than complete enthusiasm. As for myself, I was instantly captivated—Miss Bost’s nose may have been snub, and her porcelain chin pointed, but when all was taken together with the merry curve of her lips and the eyes flitting from sight to sight like bluebirds, one could not help but think her a delightful addition to any gathering. She wore a vivid sapphire silk gown with a copper sash to set off her auburn tresses, and a bonnet emitting a spray of cobalt plumes, completing the image of a blithe and bonny spirit.
“Mr. Holmes, the moment you entered, I knew you could be no one else,” she continued, lashes batting like butterfly wings. “That jaw, that stature—Mr. Paget’s illustrations in ‘The Red-Headed League’ were as good as any photograph. I hope everything at Baker Street is quite topsy-turvy of late, and you’ve not had any recent tranquillity to plague your spirits. Oh, dear—forgive my presumptuousness, but I am an avid reader of The Strand, sir, and thus feel I know you quite intimately already.”
“You have the doctor here to thank for that, Miss Bost,” Holmes drawled. “As, in fact, do I.”
