by Lyndsay Faye
“Forrester actively hated women, Mr. Holmes, with a venom that went far beyond some men’s typically callous treatment. Instead of being ashamed that I had learned about his double life, he boasted to me—of his conquests, his sneak-thievery, his cleverness in building the hidden chamber in the Thames Tunnel, the impossibility of my divorcing him, and the power he had over me as a critic. He seemed to gorge himself on my sorrow. It may sound asinine to you gentlemen, but after my marriage exploded before my eyes, my own idiocy in having been duped by a persuasive blackguard was such a source of embarrassment that I came to think of dancing as the only love I had left in my bleak life—and my spirits could not bear the idea of losing my art as well over a vengeful review. Thus, initially I chose to do nothing. Claiming I could love only him, I continued to play the part of a wronged wife—and my husband was so cruel and self-obsessed, it saved my career.”
“You ought never to have been forced to make such a choice,” I could not help declaring.
“Granted—but I was, nevertheless. That being said, I knew of his crimes against others like me, and could not rest until this execrable man’s capacity for harm was nullified. The sapphires you found in the hidden compartment in Forrester’s bag did indeed belong to me, Mr Holmes. But you never suspected that I had planted them there.”
“You framed a robber and a cad with evidence of thievery?” Holmes confirmed with what could only be called admiration. “His behavior toward you at the trial was extraordinarily vicious, but now his rage is much more explicable.”
“The betrayal of a dishonest brute involves more courage than cowardice, Miss Gayle,” I added with a will.
“Yes, I cannot presume to censure you for that action, which temporarily rid London of a blight, but frankly the matter I came to see you about is a far more urgent one, and one you have not yet touched upon,” Holmes continued. “How came you to be corresponding with your estranged spouse, and how came he to be shot by an assassin aboard a stopped Wapping-bound train? You cannot deny, in light of what seems a hasty departure from these lodgings, that you have been somehow involved.”
Miss Gayle paled, but pressed on. “No, I cannot, and you shall have the whole truth out of me, Mr. Holmes. I resumed my relationship with Forrester for my own purposes owing to the fact that his last spiteful action before the bars shut upon him was to pen a scathing review of my performance in a new production of The Talisman.”
“Knowing that ballet was your passion as well as your livelihood, a cruel vengeance indeed,” Holmes replied gravely.
“It was.” She tilted her head a little, wincing as she recalled it. “I needed money; as you can see, I still do. Having convinced him before that I was obsessed with him, I thought that I might convince him I was desperately sorry, and that way retain some semblance of respectable living. It worked, to a point. Forrester readily believed me pathetic enough to adore him utterly, and so the practice of writing letters proved no obstacle—but as to the subject discussed? Not one penny did he send me, gentlemen. He thought of nothing from prison save retrieving his hoard. He was obsessed as much with the secret chamber as the treasure within, I think, a weeping dragon forcibly separated from its mountain of gold. When he was released, he even wrote to the engineers who had helped him build it, terrified he should discover one of them had abandoned London for the South of France, suddenly wealthy. None had, of course. They were callow, biddable creatures, and they lacked the key to its elaborate lock. As did I.”
A creeping sensation brushed icy fingers along my shoulders just as Holmes’s expression shifted, the fines lines around his eyes deepening suddenly in concentration.
Miss Elizabeth Gayle—for so I will always think of her—smiled her melancholy smile once more, but this time it possessed teeth that could rend.
“Forrester was likewise a callow, biddable creature. Oh, yes, I did it, Mr. Holmes,” she said in a muted but matter-of-fact voice. “It was not enough anymore—the light jail sentence, the imminent release—not when he vented all his impotent rage in that stone-walled hell by continuing to torment me. Forrester was wise enough to tell me nothing of where the key was concealed, but he told me everything else I needed to know—about his paranoia; about Black, Burntree, and McKay.”
“What on earth have you done, Miss Gayle?” I breathed when Holmes sat, silent as a statue.
“She wrote to the engineers herself,” my friend replied mechanically, breaking from his reverie. “She told them to trail her husband upon his release—very carefully, so as to gain entrance to the room in the Thames Tunnel after Hyde led them there, carrying the only key. But she knew another entrance existed. And so she took precautions, and bought a ticket for a commuter train to Wapping.”
“Very good, Mr. Holmes,” she said approvingly. “Any outcome would have satisfied me—had the engineers stolen the bounty, I should simply have stolen it back from them. As it was, Forrester managed to lock the upper door on his confederates and was forced to flee via the tracks. The damage done to the tunnel exit nearly undid me, but he escaped at the last possible moment, hands bloodied, bag in hand. This I snatched from him as he attempted to board, and I rid England of an ugly presence. So much was happening—the shouts of the conductors, the bangs and clanks of the steam engine as the train idled—that no one noticed a tiny gunshot from a weapon wrapped in thick wool. The jewelry is no longer in my possession, Mr. Holmes—a series of packages has been delivered, and the valuables have been returned to their rightful owners, so far as I could determine them at this late date. I have kept nothing for myself except this.”
Standing, she removed a small revolver from a pocket hidden within the folds of her skirts.
I started, and Holmes raised a palm in undisguised alarm.
“I know better than to imagine you will not make use of that weapon if you feel the need, madam,” he attempted, “but I promise you there are many preferable alternatives.”
“But there aren’t, are there? Only force remains, at the end. You cannot condone a premeditated murder, and I cannot ask you to betray your consciences,” she whispered with a harrowed half-smile. “I can incapacitate the pair of you as easily as I can kill you, but you have been of invaluable service to me in the past—my heart is light when I think of Forrester’s death, on behalf of many others as well as myself, but hurting either of you would grieve me. Now, I am lifting this valise and going to the train station. If you try to stop me, it will go painfully for you both, though I should not dream of faulting you for setting the police on my trail afterward. Au revoir, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson. To say ‘Thank you’ seems inadequate—and still, I humbly thank you both for the part you have paid in freeing us all.”
She departed with her usual floating step, a black cloak over her arm, gently shutting the door. We had sat there dumbstruck for some few seconds before Holmes mentioned, “I suppose we ought to pursue her.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Neither of us stood, Holmes matching his hands together in prayerful-looking contemplation.
“Watson, since Mrs. Hyde was my original client when I was introduced to this sordid affair years ago—albeit under false pretenses, granted—and now Hopkins has engaged me, do you think I am facing a conflict of interest?”
Judiciously, I considered. “That is possible, but when your original client embarks upon vigilante justice which ends in bloodshed, as a sworn defender of the law you must reconsider your position.”
“Oh, of course.” He shrugged, eyes half-lidded and bloodshot, the reaction already overtaking him now the mystery had been solved. “But on the other hand, do you admit that as an independent contractor, I’ve the right accorded any private citizen not to be shot at in the course of my workday?”
“Why, naturally. You are employed neither by the Yard nor in any military or guardsman capacity. You are merely a consultant.”
“And while you are former mil
itary, one could make the argument you are here in the service of literature, not crime-solving. I should not like to see you wounded over an art form.”
“That is very kind of you.”
Perhaps a minute later, after checking his watch, Holmes rose rather lurchingly to his feet. “Don’t dawdle so dreadfully, my dear Watson, not when there’s a murderess to run to ground. We must seek out friend Hopkins and enlighten him as to this case’s most signal features of interest.”
While Sherlock Holmes did not shirk in his clear duty to inform Inspector Hopkins of all that had taken place, neither did he appear to make any great haste over doing so, for following this desultory exchange, we took our time in finding a cab. Whether this laxity was due to his natural inclination to sympathize with the killer rather than the deceased or to his being on the verge of physical collapse, I could not say. But by the time we found the hidden entrance to the Thames Tunnel, masked behind a staircase on one of the platforms, my friend was swaying to the point that he had need of my elbow for support, and Mrs. Hyde, née Gayle, had vanished entirely. No doubt Hopkins fulfilled all his obligations to the letter, and her ingenuity rather than any fault of the good inspector accounted for her escape.
Readers of the society columns may recall a startling announcement from that selfsame date when Mr. Sherlock Holmes, upon descending from a hansom delivering us back to Baker Street, fainted dead away in the road. As I have mentioned in the account titled “The Norwood Builder,” this had happened upon no fewer than four occasions previously, although never before in public. I got him indoors, where smelling salts and brandy and hot broth were administered; but when all is said and done, I am grateful regarding the open-air setting in which this embarrassing predicament occurred. The fact it was well publicized gives me every cause to hope that similar disasters can be entirely prevented in future.
The Adventure of
the Mad Baritone
Mr. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, and I myself when in his estimable company, has been accosted by so many strange individuals that to list them would prove a task too Herculean for even the most dedicated biographer. The subject of operatic introductions indeed cannot even be called to my mind without a veritable eccentrics’ menagerie flooding it. We had sat and listened to numberless wild appeals, impossible assertions, and nightmarish accounts, so many that during our busiest periods I wondered at the city of London itself—whether any other metropolis upon this colossal globe harbored such an array of skulking villains, and whether any other citizenry was so bedeviled by the goblins (all too human in nature) who lurked in its treetops and paving stones. Few other examples exhibit such an alarming commencement, however, as that of Mr. Horatio Falconer, whose introduction to our lives I still recall with a creeping chill.
The year was 1900, the November night a torrential one, lashing down sleet as if determined to drive out all inhabitants, saint and sinner alike, and begin afresh. I have mentioned before that, like any man of creative temperament, Holmes reacts to the weather almost as he would to a piece of musical accompaniment designed to alter the mood of the theatregoer. Thankfully, however, instead of succumbing to the storm’s effects, my friend was engaged upon an eighteenth-century legal letter purporting to have been written by the estate’s “ballivus,” a man who served as a manorial lord’s liaison with the reeve. This document, if genuine, could ruin a great family while making a disreputable one wealthy beyond imagining, and he sat at his desk poring over the parchment until well after midnight.
Despite being perfectly contented myself with a cigar, a glass of port, and a late edition, I had peered over his shoulder when emphatic grunts or exclamations issued. My curiosity had gained me nothing more than an indecipherable jumble of abbreviations, “VIIber” for September being the only one I could decipher, so for some twenty minutes I had left him to it. I was just beginning to nod when a sharp cry agitated the drink in my hand. I was on my feet instantly.
“Good Lord, Holmes, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing whatever, my good man!” Whipping his head in my direction, he brandished the letter with far less care than he had previously used upon the delicate artifact, his torso fairly wriggling with restrained glee. “The Gascoyne family is quite safe from harm and I shall wire them on the morrow. The matter is settled.”
“My dear fellow!” I gasped. “You are to be congratulated. But how did—”
“This paper represents one of the most unusual attempts at chicanery I’ve ever been privileged to witness. But it is without doubt a forgery. See here—no, you needn’t worry over touching it; the clever rogues must have found an antique stock of parchment abandoned somewhere or other and experienced a malicious flash of inspiration. As I told you, the ink holds up under scrutiny and the penmanship is likewise masterly. But the historic word for a last will declared orally rather than written out is ‘nuncupative,’ and as you will astutely note, here they have used ‘testamentary’ owing to ignorance of antique legal terminology. There were five other indications which nagged at me terribly, but were too minor to send the interlopers packing. Thanks to this error in vocabulary, however, the Gascoynes can go on living as they always have lived—which I need not tell you will doubtless save the youngest daughter’s engagement. Rather neatly managed, don’t you think?”
So saying, Holmes released the forged document, allowing it to flutter to the floor. He crossed his arms and regarded me with the look of pure joy only evident when he has just exercised his formidable powers for justice, and before a trusted audience.
“Bravo!” I exclaimed readily, wringing his hand.
In the midst of a radiant grin, he yawned, and his glittering eyes drifted to the page now lying in disgrace upon our hearth rug. “That was a triumph of dedication over inclination near the end, Watson. I’ve a ghastly headache.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“You weren’t present, but the Gascoyne patriarch was beside himself when he came to me, and small wonder, with his daughter’s future prospects teetering upon the brink of imminent ruin. Frankly, I’ve better use for men who live by their wits or their sweat than for men who live by their pedigree, but it is pleasant to think that the innocent need not suffer from an opportunistic ruse.”
“Hear, hear.”
“Still.” He shifted, one finger tapping against his long chin. “As a fellow professional in the field, I doff my cap to them, considering how much inventiveness, expertise, and daring this involved. The perpetrators were described to me as an impoverished family from a university town whose breadwinner had lost his position. This scheme is so outlandish that it would have worked in all likelihood, if not for me—a beautiful blend of craft and art, truly.”
“You’re a professional in the field of skullduggery, are you?”
His mouth twitched with merriment. “You’ll admit that I’d be unmatched.”
Shaking my head, I had turned away with the intention of fetching Holmes a headache powder from my bag when we heard a violent assault upon the downstairs bell, followed by equally brutish treatment of the door in the form of desperate pounding.
Holmes rubbed at his temples in pain. “Dear me. That is either someone come to take the house by force of arms at the midnight hour, in which case we should have to do battle with him, or someone who desperately desires us to wet our boots. Regarding either scenario, I am reluctant to—”
“I’ll bring you something for your head in a moment,” I assured him, hastening toward the staircase whilst blessing Providence that Mrs. Hudson was from home tending to an ailing relation.
As a medical man, and one who has long lived within the sphere of a finely honed scientific mind to boot, I cannot say that I endorse the existence of spirits who meddle in the affairs of men: so I do not believe in supernatural portents, no matter how clear they may seem to some. And yet, there is such a thing as common intuition, and mine that night pulsed wit
h alarm at the cacophony upon our front step.
“Do have a care, Watson,” I heard, and I glanced back to see that Holmes had appeared behind the banister rail with dressing gown hem fluttering, doubtless for the same reason my muscles were taut with alarm.
I released the lock and turned the handle, but before I could move back to allow our visitor entrance, a savage shape half-hurtled and half-pushed its way through the door. Thrown off balance, I glimpsed what seemed a bundle of rags with a revolver in its hands flying up the stairs two at a time.
“Holmes, he’s armed!” I shouted, lunging in pursuit.
Mere seconds passed as I raced after the invader, but my heart was firing like a cannonade and my imagination was blackly poisoned with a single thought: Sherlock Holmes, of all London’s residents, received perhaps the highest number and certainly the widest variety of death threats. Dozens of miscreants had at one time or another pledged themselves to the single-minded goal of his demise. Lacking other options, I was prepared to tackle this interloper, fling him to the hardwood, and be done; but the idea that a stray bullet might find its way to my friend turned the blood in my veins as cold as the sleet now spattering our entryway.
Time’s flow slowed to a trickle when I crested the final step to discover Holmes with one foot neatly behind him in a fighter’s stance, ready to dive or dodge as needs must. Before him stood a short, thick-shouldered figure with matted black hair, a streaming coat which looked as if it had been dredged straight from the Thames, and a gun clutched in one shaking hand.
“I’ll do it,” he boomed in a resonant baritone. “I swear to God I will, and then I’ll have finished the business for good and all.”
“You appear a trifle out of sorts, sir.” Holmes’s much higher voice was as smooth as a river stone, but I saw the way his agile fingers twitched and his eyes sent darting glances hither and thither as he tried to ascertain the wisest course. “Of course, I cannot blame you in the slightest, as no sane gentlemen cares to have wet snow poured down his collar, and I perceive you lack an umb—”
