Sherlock Holmes continued:
“In Small’s account of his time in the penal colony in the Andaman Islands he mentions Major Sholto and Captain Morstan as the commanders of the garrison. We know the part both men played in the ensuing dramas. But there was a third man – lieutenant, do what you need to do to block that fellow, would you?”
The timid clerk had risen and, with a wild look in the direction of the shuffling footsteps from backstage, was trying to exit his box. An uppercut landed him back in his seat.
“Thank you, lieutenant,” Sherlock Holmes called. “Keep an eye on Mr Brown, would you?”
“Brown,” Watson exclaimed. “That’s his name. I knew it was a colour.” He looked from the dazed clerk to Sherlock Holmes. “But that means –-“
At that moment, an elderly gentlemen with a sickly, sallow face, his claw-like hand clutching the arm of a young stagehand, stepped onto the stage.
“Is this the place?” he said querulously. He looked around. “I don’t understand.”
Sherlock Holmes gestured towards him.
“May I introduce the father of Mr Brown here. This elderly gentleman is the third in line of the Andaman Islands military command – the former Lieutenant Bromley Brown of the 34th Bombay Infantry.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
Exit Stage Right
“This is the man who commissioned my crime!” the Romanian shouted.
“Lieutenant Bromley Brown,” Jules Poiret said, shaking his head. “The third jailer mentioned by name in Jonathan Small’s account of his time on the Andaman Islands.”
“Indeed,” Sherlock Holmes said. “And you and I, Poiret, are both buffoons since Bromley Brown and Brusilov were sitting beside us in the Grand and we did not understand the implications of their presence there.”
Poiret nodded slowly.
“I recall.”
If a human can snarl, the clerk got as near to such a sound as any human has.
“Muzzle him,” Sherlock Holmes said shortly. The sandy-haired lieutenant merely pressed his hands into the clerk’s shoulders.
Sherlock Holmes turned to Bromley Brown.
“I surmise that you were kept informed by Sholto of his plan and then by Morstan of his intentions. When both men had gone you were made captain and put in charge. I further surmise that much later it was you who wrote to Sholto to warn him of Small’s escape. And I know for a fact that as punishment for allowing Small’s escape you were reduced once more to lieutenant and forbidden home leave for two years.”
Bromley Brown looked from Sherlock Holmes to Jules Poiret.
“Sholto had promised me a share of the treasure but when I eventually reached England, the treasure was lost. I took this very badly. My discovery that Watson was a man of great wealth got me thinking. I discussed this with my son.”
Sherlock Holmes pointed at the clerk.
“It was this son who attacked Dr Watson and then, when he heard of a rival for the treasure, encouraged you to arrange for the attack on George Adlam too. And then, Poiret, he sent men after us.”
Old man Brown snarled.
“If you knew how I suffered in those wretched Andaman Islands. Even my wife, a native of that hellish place, suffered. And my son – how was it, do you think, for him to be raised in a penal colony, infested with fever, surrounded by the blackest-hearted villains ever penned in one place? I was a young man when I arrived, full of spit and spunk, but those damned islands took their toll.”
He gestured to his face.
“The disease. The misery. But I had been promised my reward. I deserved that reward.”
Brown pointed at Sherlock Holmes with a shaky finger.
“You, Mr High and Mighty, you have it wrong. Yes, I was demoted when Small escaped but I expected that when I arranged for that escape.”
Sherlock Holmes walked downstage left to the fireplace and leaned an arm on the mantle.
“Yes, that would make sense. You backed two horses. If Small succeeded in getting the treasure he would give you a share; if Sholto hung onto it he would do the same.”
“But in the event neither man was in a position to give him anything,” Bromley Brown’s son said bitterly, his blue eyes flashing. “So here we were in England with nothing but my father’s small army pension. And then there was Dr Watson, strutting around like a country gentleman because of the wealth he had stolen.”
“I must say,” Sherlock Holmes said, “I’m not sure where the law would stand with regard to who has the right to this treasure. It seems to be a case of honour – and dishonour – among thieves. The Sign of the Four murdered an innocent man to steal the treasure. Major Sholto made an agreement with a convict and a fellow-officer to share a stolen treasure none of them had a right to. He betrayed his word but did that mean he owed them anything? Certainly, he did not owe Miss Morstan anything.
“Be that as it may, we all – and I am as culpable as anyone in this regard – considered Miss Morstan the rightful heir to this treasure. For that reason, whether or not Dr Watson deceived the public and the police in his account of the fate of the treasure that treasure would have gone to Miss Morstan anyway. On her death, he quite understandably inherited it.”
“I did not deceive the public or the police,” Dr Watson said, quietly but firmly.
“My dear sir, the weight of evidence is against you,” Poiret said. “Why Mr Adlam has said that Jonathan Small himself –“
“Jonathan Small was a madman,” Watson stated calmly. “He went to Bedlam not because I had arranged special treatment for him or betrayed him but because he had been diagnosed with a mental illness that is untreatable. He was what we now recognise as a paranoid schizophrenic. He suffered delusions. One of those delusions was that he had not thrown the treasure into the river. He was firm in that resolve largely because when he calmed down after the excitement of the river chase he could not believe he had done such a damned stupid thing. Rather than face his own idiocy, it was easier for him to believe that he had been cheated out of it.”
“But the words he told my father …” George Adlam protested.
“Oh he was very persuasive, as is the way with the paranoid - for the simple reason that they believe it themselves. I visited him in Bedlam and had I not known his sickness I would have said he was as sane as you or I.”
“So there we have it, gentlemen,” Sherlock Holmes said.
“Not quite.” It was the sandy-haired lieutenant. “What has not been explained is what then is the source of Dr Watson’s great wealth.”
Dr Watson looked at his feet.
“I have no wish to make that public. That is a private matter between my bank and me.”
“Needs must, I am afraid, Watson.” Sherlock Holmes moved to pat him on the shoulder but Dr Watson pulled away. It was the first public display of the antipathy the doctor had exhibited to the detective in the privacy of his hotel suite. Sherlock Holmes looked startled. Poiret looked thoughtful.
“It is indeed the only way we can bring things to a conclusion,” Poiret said.
Dr Watson glared from one to the other of them.
“It is simplicity itself and I am surprised none of you have realised it. Especially you, Holmes, though I know in many ways you are the most unworldly of men.”
He sighed.
“Very well. Do any of you know what royalties are? Advances?”
He looked from one blank face to the next.
“They are publishing terms. I am a wealthy man but I am a self-made man. I had the good fortune to share numerous adventures with Mr Holmes here. People throughout the world want to read these adventures. I have made arrangements with publishers to print my accounts of them. Every time someone buys a book I get paid a royalty. A penny per book doesn’t sound much – but when one million people buy the book …”
“Good grief,” Sherlock Holmes said.
“How absurdly simple,” the sandy-haired lieutenant said.
“And you share this income wit
h Mr Holmes?” Poiret said.
Dr Watson took an undue interest in his shoes before he muttered:
“Not as such.”
“But without him you would have nothing –”
“Il ne faut rien, Poiret,” Sherlock Holmes said, putting out a calming hand. “It doesn’t matter. My needs are simple. Dr Watson through his diligence and flair has created this opportunity for himself.” He smiled at Dr Watson. “He deserves the reward.”
All present in the theatre observed the sadness – wistfulness, even – of the smile. All but Poiret and Bromley Brown found their shoes and boots as fascinating as Watson had found his. In the gathering silence, Poiret coughed.
“Very well. I think all has been answered. Dr Watson and Mr Adlam, do you wish to press charges against Bromley Brown and his son?” Both men shook their heads. “Holmes, should we forgive them for setting those men on us?”
“I found the incident quite exhilarating,” Sherlock Holmes said.
“Go then, gentlemen, and put your lives to good use if you can.”
The clerk Brown was out of the box and through the stalls doors in an instant. His father, Bromley Brown, seemed to take an age shuffling off the stage. Poiret looked increasingly impatient then turned and addressed the Indian soldiers. They were already standing in their box.
“Sepoys, do you feel honour has been served?”
They exchanged looks then nodded as one.
“Go then and good fortune in Mesopotamia.”
“Inshallah,” Khan said.
They saluted and Brusilov made way for them as they exited their box. Poiret lowered the hand with which he had smartly returned their salute. He turned.
“Mr Adlam? Are you satisfied?”
Adlam gave Dr Watson a cold look.
“I am. I have learned a lesson in greed, although it was not the one I expected. Good day, gentlemen.”
He left his box and exited the auditorium.
Poiret waved his hand at Brusilov.
“Be off with you.”
The French detective turned to Dr Watson who was looking uncertainly at Sherlock Holmes.
“Doctor?”
Dr Watson took a step towards the Great Detective. Sherlock Holmes turned away and stepped back to the fireplace. Dr Watson sucked on his teeth for a moment.
“I have a report to write,” he finally said.
He looked from Poiret to the lieutenant.
“Goodbye, gentlemen.”
He strode to the door in the scenery upstage then turned.
“Goodbye, Holmes.”
Sherlock Holmes offered only his back. Dr Watson flushed and struggled with the door. It was a false one. He stepped around it and exited.
Chapter 29
New Beginnings
Sherlock Holmes sat in his old armchair and looked out over the darkened stalls of the grand Brighton theatre. He had put on the familiar dressing gown. He considered the meerschaum pipe in the rack on the mantelpiece but instead picked up the prop violin and bow beside the chair. He was pleased to see they were genuine.
“Paganini played here, you know, Poiret.” He glanced round. Poiret was bending over the table laid out with test-tubes, flasks, beakers and pipettes. He was peering at bottles of coloured liquids, looking cautiously at a Bunsen burner and a burette.
“And at the Old Ship on the seafront,” Sherlock Holmes added, almost to himself.
He looked up at the tiers of darkened boxes on either side of the stage. Did he imagine them filled with many of the implacable foes he had outwitted? There, the blackmailer George Augustus Milverton, here the assassin Colonel Sebastian Moran. Stapleton sitting beside Grimesby Roylott, both of them glowering down at him from the top tier stage left.
The vicious Count Sylvius and the cold-hearted bank robber, John Clay shared another box. Stage right circle box: the American gangster Abe Slaney and Latimer, who so cruelly kidnapped, tortured and killed Kratides. And in the centre of them all, in the front row of the circle, with all but his glittering, malevolent eye swathed in blackness, the Evil One, the Napoleon of Crime: Professor James Moriarty.
Sherlock Holmes perhaps fancied they were mocking him for his failures, for never living up to the reputation Watson’s accounts had established for him. Certainly he sighed and tucked the violin under his chin. He played a sentimental air. It was dreamy, melodious and probably of his own devising as he had a gift for improvisation.
Poiret listened, a smile on his face, glancing from the rise and fall of the bow up into the blackness of the circle and the upper circle. Seeing who knows what? When Sherlock Holmes put the violin down he said to Poiret:
“Do you still believe Mary Morstan died in suspicious circumstances?”
Poiret considered.
“I think she lived her married life in suspicious circumstances but I do not know about her death. I visited Somerset House and saw her death certificate. It was a death most tragic but the doctor who signed the certificate was satisfied it was not suspicious.”
“The doctor – his name was …?”
Poiret put his finger to his lips.
“This case is concluded. I must return to the work I am doing with your government. The lieutenant waits for me in the foyer. And you must return to your cryptography – oh, yes, I know of that.”
Poiret tilted his head thoughtfully.
“Although I might wish…”
Sherlock Holmes looked keenly at the plump, fastidious detective with his egg-shaped head and his ridiculously magnificent moustache.
“Tell me true, monsieur – are you in fact that Belgian fellow?”
Poiret smiled and replied with his own question:
“Holmes, if I may. Did you in fact return the blue carbuncle?”
Sherlock Holmes smiled too.
Just then a boy not unlike the page Billy once had been cannoned through the doors at the front of the stalls and rushed onto the stage.
“Begging your pardon – telegram for Old Pawray,” he declared. “Delivered to the Metropole and forwarded here as a matter of urgency.”
“I am that man,” Poiret said. He took the telegram and tipped the boy. He scanned the missive’s contents then handed it to Sherlock Holmes.
“It is from my friend who manages the French Hospital and Dispensary in Shaftesbury Avenue.”
Sherlock Holmes read out:
“‘Horrible murder here. Police at a loss. Help needed. Come immediately.’”
He handed the telegram back. Poiret touched his moustaches.
“Would you care to accompany me?”
Sherlock Holmes narrowed his eyes.
“You would like my assistance?”
“Bien sur. And I know something about you. Like me your mind rebels at stagnation. You crave mental exaltation and abhor the dull routine of existence.”
Poiret took his fob watch from a waistcoat pocket.
“If we hurry we can make the noon train to Victoria.”
He started down the stairs at the side of the stage as Sherlock Holmes took off his dressing gown.
“There’s not a moment to be lost,” Poiret called back to him. “Come, my dear fellow, come. The game is afoot.”
“What did you say?” Sherlock Holmes shouted, throwing the dressing gown onto the chair and hurrying across the stage after him. “What did you say?”
He took the stairs two at a time muttering to himself:
“That’s my line, dammitt.”
The End
Author’s Note
The partial description of the funeral ceremony in Chapter One: The Public Burning is based on accounts of 19th century funeral rites in Punjab villages.
Sherlock Holmes aficionados are far more aware than I of the muddle over dates and names and events in the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels. I have found the following particularly useful in putting together this bit of fun, which is intended to be the first of three Great War novellas featuring Holmes and Poiret.
Joseph E.
Dierkes: Contradictions in the Holmes stories [Sherlockian.Net: Canonical cruxes.]
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Richard Lancelyn Green: The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes [Penguin]
Frank Howel Evans: Old Pawray: The London Adventures of Jules Poiret, late of the French Secret Service [The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box]
Mrs Belloc Lowndes: Popeau Intervenes [The World’s Best One Hundred Detective Stories, vol one, 1929]
Ariadne Oliver’s stories of Sven Hjerson
Bonus Material
3. Holmes and Watson: A Conversation
4. The Bruce and Rathbone Radio Mysteries
1. The Great Detective
2. His Last Bow
3. Seven Days in Hollywoodland (An Excerpt)
An Appendix (of sorts) to The Belgian & the Beekeeper
Holmes and Watson: A Conversation
Watson: I’m innocent, Holmes.
Holmes: Not of making yourself suspicious by your changes of story. You can understand Poiret’s suspicions. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t do the basics and remain consistent in the course of your storytelling.
Watson: Those confusions were nothing to do with me.
Holmes: Who is to blame then? You wrote those accounts.
Watson: Yes and no.
Holmes: Yes and no? Ever since Sigmund Freud came along people are quick to shift the blame. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
Watson: You don’t understand. They were someone else’s errors.
Holmes: Someone else’s? Watson, are you feeling alright?
Watson: Look, Holmes, neither of us is in control of ourselves.
Holmes: I feel very much in control.
Watson: Through our lives, I mean. So many inconsistencies…
The Belgian and The Beekeeper Page 13
