Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

by George Mann

  “But that’s not her fault, is it, Dr Watson? She can’t help our father’s prejudices any more than I can. Our mother is dead, and my sister’s health is not good, so we meet up now and again, without telling anyone. Should my father discover our continuing friendship, he would cut Emily from his will as quickly as he did me, for all that he is in poor health himself nowadays and should be considering the world to come, rather than manipulating his children here on Earth.”

  Fellows had tried to interrupt several times during this speech, puffed up with righteous indignation, but his wife was a stronger soul than I would have credited previously, and she silenced him with a glance.

  “Usually we would go window shopping around the big shops; no chance of bumping into either George or Margaret’s fiancé outside Harrods on a weekday afternoon.”

  “And yesterday?” I prompted.

  She nodded as though the day itself required confirmation. “Emily had taken everything from her savings account in order to purchase the sort of bits and pieces required by a woman on the verge of marriage. In fact, she had the money in her purse when we met up—one hundred pounds, would you believe? She gave it to me to hold, you know; I never had such a large sum in my hand before and perhaps never will again.”

  It was clear to me that Mrs Fellows was only maintaining her equilibrium by a minor miracle of feminine strength. Consequently, I tried gently to prise any remaining information from her as swiftly as I could.

  “What did you buy, Mrs Fellows?” I asked.

  “That’s the thing, Dr Watson,” she replied, shaking her head. “We didn’t buy much of anything, really, though I tried to encourage her. Poor Emily complained that she was feeling quite unwell. She bought a necklace and a little silver bracelet, but nothing else. I was quite glad to bump into Mr Fraser, to be honest, so pale was Em-”

  She broke down then, heavy sobs racking her body Though I was keen to hear more, both of the victim’s ill health and of this Mr Fraser, I could hardly interrogate a grief-stricken sister, even if I were so ill mannered as to make the attempt. Instead, I suggested that Fellows made his wife tea and, on that pretext, followed him to the small kitchen, where I alerted him to our suspicions regarding the death of his sister-in-law. His reaction was as unexpected as his earlier callous disregard. He blanched and stumbled a little, holding on to the back of a chair to steady himself. I admit that I was gratified at his depth of feeling, for part of me had been concerned at leaving a distraught woman in the care of such an unfeeling character. He asked if we had a suspect in mind. I was forced to admit that we did not, as yet, but reassured him that the investigation was in its early stages. As I made my farewells, I asked how well acquainted he was with Fraser.

  “He’s not a friend, if that’s what you mean,” he said, with a return of his previous ill humour. “Bill Fraser is an employee of mine — for the moment at least! He handles the paperwork, mainly. Between you and me, Doctor, he’s a queer fish. Secretive, if you know what I mean, and inclined to fits of temper. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d engineered that meeting with my wife and her sister. I’ve always thought he had a thing for her. Turns my stomach to think of it, after what you just told me.”

  He showed me to the door, and the last I heard him say before it swung shut behind me was, “You should be speaking to Fraser! Imposing himself on two ladies like that!”

  * * *

  My meeting with the Fellows had taken so short a time that I doubted Holmes had returned to our rooms yet. I did not know what to make of the couple I hadjust met, but the station from which Miss Williams had begun her final journey was a short walk away; the opportunity to investigate was too great to miss, so I hastened in that direction.

  Unlike the great stations of the capital, this suburban line boasted only two platforms and a single, small ticket-office, to which I repaired immediately on arrival. A heavyset, bespectacled guard in the uniform of the railway company smiled at me from behind the counter and asked how he might be of assistance.

  As I had noticed in the past, mention of Sherlock Holmes opens all sorts of doors, and the guard proved more than happy to answer any question I cared to ask him. He shouted across to a colleague to cover for him and led me through a door marked “Employees Only”, down a short corridor and into a surprisingly well-appointed staff lounge. As we took a seat, the guard introduced himself as Cedric Tyler and repeated his earlier query.

  In all honesty, I wasn’t entirely certain what I wanted to know. I hesitated as I tried out first one, then another question in my head, before finally asking Tyler if he had noticed anything unusual on the day Miss Williams was killed. I was aware that Holmes referred to this very question, when coming from Lestrade or Gregson, as “time-wasting chatter” but it had always seemed a reasonable opening gambit to me.

  Another guard chose that moment to enter the room. Tyler called him over and described my interest in the case to him. It transpired that the guard—one Peter Nicholas—had been on duty on the day in question. Furthermore, he had seen the lady enter the carriage, and one strange event which occurred immediately thereafter. Obviously pleased to be the centre of attention, the guard described a disagreement shortly before the train commenced its ill-fated journey. It seemed that a gentleman had attempted to enter Miss Williams’ carriage minutes before the train’s departure but had been rebuffed in some way and had been forced to make a hurried exit. Odder still, the exact same thing had occurred moments later when the gentleman had attempted to join the next carriage along!

  “And what happened next?” I enquired, but all the guard could say with certainty was that the gentleman had finally gained entry to a third carriage. No, he did not know the name of the gentleman, but yes, he would recognise him again. Indeed he would be happy to point him out if I cared to return at six o’clock that evening, for the gentleman returned from town at the same time on most days.

  There being nothing else either man could add, I thanked them both for their time and followed Tyler back to the ticket office and from there into the station proper. As I boarded a hansom back to Baker Street I reflected that, even allowing for the old saw that the murderer often returns to the scene of his crime, this one would be incredibly foolhardy to return there every day at six.

  * * *

  On my return to Baker Street, Mrs Hudson informed me that I would have to go straight back out. Holmes had sent word that I should meet him at the station where Miss Williams had met her sad fate. I freely admit that I was not keen on doing so. It had been a busy day and the weather outside had taken a decided turn for the worse. The combination of the customary London fog and a steady downpour made a pipe in front of the fire a most appetising prospect.

  But I could hardly let my friend down, and there was the poor dead girl to take into account. So without even stopping to change my jacket, I headed out into the rain.

  * * *

  Given recent events, I half expected the station to be closed, but then as now, money carried more weight than propriety, and the platforms and waiting room were busy with travellers. Typically, Holmes had failed to give a precise account of where he would be, and so I found myself leaning casually against a wall, scanning the passers-by for a familiar, if disguised, face. A group of giggling schoolgirls skipped past, then a very short woman, followed by a rush as a recently arrived train disgorged its contents onto the platform in front of me. As the mass of humanity flowed round me as though I were a rock jutting from the sea, I realised the futility of the exercise. Holmes could be any one of a hundred men in the crowd and I would be none the wiser, so great were his powers of disguise and deception. Not for the first time, I cursed his high-handed arrogance. In fact, I was muttering imprecations against him when a hand descended on my shoulder and a peculiar voice whispered in my ear, “Follow me, if you would be so kind, sir. There is someone of your acquaintance who wishes to speak to you.”

  The speaker began to push his way against the tide of the crowd, evide
ntly and correctly assuming I would do as requested. From behind, the best I could say of him was that he was an elderly railway porter of slightly below average height with thinning grey hair. Holmes would not have been impressed.

  The porter headed for a door set in the side wall of the station tearoom. I followed him in and took a seat at a table opposite Holmes and my strange guide.

  Holmes’ habitual elegant dress had been discarded in favour of a rough jacket and working man’s trousers, topped with a cap which had seen considerably better days. His face, however, was unchanged and I was surprised at the simplicity of his disguise, if I could even call it that.

  His voice at least was rougher than usual. “’Umble apologies for the cloak-and-dagger stuff, sir, but I’ve got me reasons, I can assure you. I ’ad the thought of examinin’ the scene of the crime unobserved, but this gentleman—” he gestured towards the porter “—is an old Indian ’and, not, it transpires, one to miss an inquisitive stranger in ’is station. Not even one disguised such as ’ow I am just now. Corporal Archibald Aberdeen, meet my client, Mr Williams. Mr Williams, Archibald Aberdeen.”

  It was all very peculiar, but I had been in enough scraps and scrapes with Holmes to know when to play along. “How do you do, Mr Aberdeen?” I said, with a frown aimed in Holmes’ direction, confident it could be construed in any number of ways by the porter. “But perhaps you could tell me what you have discovered to date, my man?” This last was aimed at Holmes, who merely smiled roguishly at my discomfort and took up his story.

  “After serving under General Wheeler for many years,” he explained, “Mr Aberdeen ’ere returned ’ome to find ’isself—you’ll forgive me—fallen on ’arder times and forced to take employment where ’e could find it. So ’e’s now a porter at this very station. A stroke of luck for us,” he concluded, “for ’im it was as found the body. Beggin’ your pardon, sir, for any unpleasantness this might cause you.”

  Aberdeen looked up and, at some signal from Holmes, began to speak.

  “My part is straightforward enough, Mr Williams, sir, and quickly told,” he began. “Your man here is correct that I am the one who discovered the lady, as it were. Your daughter would it be, sir?” he asked with a degree of tenderness and consideration I would never have expected. “My most sincere condolences. It is a terrible thing to survive such a loss.”

  I am not ashamed to admit that at that moment I would gladly have told the porter I was a fraud, for I could not help but feel the most appalling charlatan, accepting heartfelt commiserations for a loss not my own. The slightest of warning signs from Holmes caused me to hold my tongue, however, and as Aberdeen returned to his narrative, I leaned forward with interest.

  “I’m sorry to say, sir, that there isn’t much I can tell you. Nothing important, in any case. The door and window were shut tight, sir, so that from the outside everything seemed as it should be. The lady was sitting straight as a preacher on Sunday, she was, with her bag neat as you like on her lap. Even her little bonnet was sat pretty as you could wish for on top of her head. If her eyes had been closed you’d have thought her sleeping, you really would, sir. Not that I did, not for a moment. I could tell she was done for.”

  He leaned in close to Holmes, as though to prevent my hearing what he had to say next, but I could just about make it out. “This is not my first body, not by a long shot. But my first lady, if you take my meaning, native women not counting.”

  He leaned back again and continued at a more normal volume. “Nobody came out of that carriage before I went in, Mr Williams. I’d swear that on oath, if need be. I watched the engine from the moment it came out of the tunnel over yonder, you see, until I opened the door to the lady’s carriage, and nobody went near it.”

  His voice tailed off weakly. “Such a pretty young thing,” he said, then frowned. We sat — the three of us — in awkward silence for a minute or two, before Aberdeen announced that he must get back to work.

  I thought for a moment that Holmes intended to hold him back, for he certainly stretched a hand out as Aberdeen stood to take his leave. But he evidently thought better of it and allowed the movement to turn into a gesture of farewell instead. Aberdeen all but saluted in return, and nodded politely to me with a murmured, “A pleasure, Doctor.”

  I was about to correct him but he left the tearoom without another word. Through the window I saw him take a luggage cart and, pushing it in front of him as an effective plough through the crowds of travellers, make his way towards a small building at the back of the station. He allowed the cart to come to rest to the side of the entrance to the building then pulled his collar up against the rain and moved out of sight.

  Holmes sat back in his chair as the figure disappeared into the rainy station. “Mr Aberdeen is distressed and requires some time alone. And here —” he concluded, indicating an approaching boy “— comes someone bearing the reason for his distress, if I’m not mistaken.”

  The boy handed Holmes a folded piece of paper then disappeared into the crowd. Without long experience, I doubt that anyone else could have identified any emotion on Holmes’ face as he read, but I was sure that whatever it contained, it had confirmed a suspicion already held. Wordlessly, he handed the note to me.

  It was not, in fact, a note all, but rather a newspaper cutting. As Holmes explained that it had been fetched from his own archive, I recognised an artist’s likeness, prominently displayed in centre page, of Archibald Aberdeen. Younger, granted, but unmistakably the same man. The text, however, was in a language I did not recognise, though it did bear similarities to some of the writings I had come across in Afghanistan.

  I glanced up at Holmes quizzically.

  “The clipping is from an Indian newspaper and not as well written as one would prefer, so I will summarise for you. Put simply, Aberdeen was suspected, some thirty years ago, of the brutal murders of a young native man and the man’s intended wife. No charges were brought but this newspaper at least thought it a grave miscarriage of justice and campaigned sufficiently loudly for Aberdeen to be transferred out of the country.”

  “And we just let the man stroll out of here!” I protested, already rising from my seat.

  Holmes was more sanguine. “Wait, Watson!” he cautioned. “There is little to link Aberdeen to the dead woman, nor should we assume the guilt of a man never charged of any crime, no matter what some colonial newspaper might once have had us believe.

  “Aberdeen will not run in any case. He has no reason to do so, having no suspicion that this decades-old accusation is known to anyone but himself. Indeed, in spite of recognising the unusual name as soon as you read it out to me, I did not place it in its correct setting until I actually saw Aberdeen himself. And this newspaper clipping from my archive confirms my suspicions. I doubt there are more than three people in the whole of London who know of Aberdeen’s story, and two of those people are sitting at this table. No, he will not run. But he will bear watching, I grant you.”

  With that, Holmes gestured to someone I could not see and the same boy who delivered the newspaper clipping re-appeared at my shoulder. A brief, hushed conference ensued and the boy departed in the direction of the rear of the station.

  Holmes, now apparently satisfied, settled himself back into his chair. “Not that he is a man who would be difficult to find again, if need be. Archibald Aberdeen is not an overly observant man, I assure you, Watson, for all my recent flattery of him. It took me nearly twenty minutes of wandering round the station in as suspicious a manner as any amateur pickpocket before Mr Aberdeen finally spotted me. If that is the standard of scouts in Her Majesty’s Army I am astonished we are not commonly trounced by our enemies! In any case, spot me Mr Aberdeen eventually did, and once I had established my bona fides as a private policeman working for the family of the dead girl, he was more than willing to chat freely.” Holmes chuckled wryly. “I have observed that one rascal discovering what he believes to be another will be a friend and confidant from that moment on. Perh
aps Mr Aberdeen would have been happy to speak to me regardless, but I think not. Railway people are an insular, clannish group and not always open with strangers.

  “So it proved, in any case. Once Aberdeen believed he had caught me snooping about, not only was he willing to describe the scene of the crime in detail, he even provided me with its present location. It will have been cleaned, of course, but even so it may yield an item or two of interest. There is one theory in particular that I am anxious to test.”

  He brushed some crumbs from his jacket. “But first, what of the sister? Did she offer up anything of note?”

  In the recent flurry of revelations, I had quite forgotten my earlier interviews. Quickly, I recounted my impressions of the Fellows and the interesting snippet of information from the railway staff. The grin that greeted this was unexpected in its ferocity, for all that I had thought that Tyler’s story would interest him. Typically, Holmes refused to elaborate.

  “I’m afraid to say that the carriage in question is being held in a siding at the station you so recently left, Watson. Shall we take the train back, and so sample the same journey as the unfortunate Miss Williams?”

  * * *

  A train journey can be many things and can serve many purposes. In this new century, it can transport a man in luxury from Venice to Vladivostok, or it can be used to ferry a platoon of troops across the crater-filled ruins of France to their deaths. When Sherlock Holmes and I frequently criss-crossed London and the Home Counties on the trail of villainy, however, trains were slower, more basic and far less luxurious. The special express Miss Williams had taken was an oddity; the slow, noisy locomotive we took in the opposite direction was far more common.