by George Mann
“Martha Hudson! It’s been months! What brings you here?”
In the kitchen they shared a pot of tea and brought each other up to date on their various doings. Mrs Hudson laid her carpet bag at her feet and said, “Paris! How exotic!”
Mrs Ramsbottom agreed, then cast a glance around the empty kitchen. “And somewhat dramatic, too. I don’t suppose you’ll have heard, but the mistress suffered a burglary while we were in France.”
Mrs Hudson put her hand to her chest. “How awful.”
“And that’s not the worst of it. Yesterday they arrested Jacobs, the footman. Said he’d done the deed, stolen the jewels.”
“What a scoundrel!”
Mrs Ramsbottom frowned. “Always seemed a decent type to me. Can’t quite believe it. It’s so out of character.”
Mrs Hudson lowered her voice. “Gambling debts, do you think?”
Mrs Ramsbottom shook her head. “His wife’s had a sudden illness, struck down with typhus while we were away. Soon as he came home Lady Morris gave him paid leave to look after her. She’s good like that.”
Mrs Ramsbottom bit her lip. There was more to this, Mrs Hudson was sure of it. She pressed gently, “Very generous. There aren’t many employers who’d do that.”
Another furtive glance around the kitchen, then Mrs Ramsbottom said, “That might be part of the problem. She’s too generous, sometimes. Between you, me and these four walls, Martha, the finances here are in a bit of a pickle. The bills keep coming in and there doesn’t seem to be enough to pay them.”
“I thought I heard Lady Morris’s son... what’s he called?”
“George.”
“That’s it, George. Isn’t he in business?”
Mrs Ramsbottom nodded. “Again, part of the problem. The mistress puts a lot of her own money into the young master’s firm. He likes the idea of being a businessman, I think, but he doesn’t really have a head for it. I think he lays out more than he brings in, on stock and suchlike. That’s really why we were in Paris—he was on a buying trip, and overseeing the despatch of some produce.”
“What line is he in?” said Mrs Hudson, taking a sip of her tea.
“Luxury comestibles,” said Mrs Ramsbottom. “Very posh food —too rich for the palates of the likes of you and me. He imports it from all over the world, sells it at very upmarket outlets.”
“Like Highfield’s in Covent Garden?” said Mrs Hudson, peering over the rim of her cup.
“Yes, though I’m surprised you go there, Martha Hudson. Are you going up in the world?”
Mrs Hudson smiled. “I pick up the odd titbit from there, on occasion.”
The bell rang and Mrs Ramsbottom sighed. “Strictly speaking I’m off duty but that’s her ladyship. I’d better have a look. It’s been lovely catching up, Martha.”
“I’ll see myself out, don’t you worry,” said Mrs Hudson. She waited a moment until she was sure Mrs Ramsbottom had ascended the stairs, then took up her carpet bag and followed.
From below stairs she emerged into a wide hallway, with a sweeping staircase leading up to the bedrooms. She had a fairly solid idea of what had been going on, now all she needed was some hard evidence. The bedrooms? Perhaps the study first, the door of which lay open to her right. She softly pushed the door and then became aware of a shadow falling over her.
“I’ve been listening to you, you meddling old bat.”
She turned sharply. There was a young man with an ugly disposition, scowling at her. George Morris, she guessed. “It’s not polite to eavesdrop,” she said stoutly.
He advanced on her, scowling. “It’s not polite to shove your nose into what doesn’t concern you. And now I’m going to have to make sure you don’t shove it any further into my business.”
But Mrs Hudson was not about to let him take another step. Before he could close the gap she hefted her carpet bag, swung it wide and fetched him a solid blow to the side of the head with it, knocking him clean out.
* * *
The contents of Mrs Hudson’s carpet bag would always remain a mystery, but she was prepared to reveal one or two secrets—one, a length of rope, which she had used to tie the unconscious form of George Morris to an upright chair in the study, and two, a long handkerchief with which she had securely gagged him. She had just finished the knots when he came groggily awake and glared at her.
“Now,” she said. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You took your mother and her retinue to Paris for a short holiday while you conducted business. Did you always intend to steal her jewels, or was it an opportunist act? No matter, that’s what you did, and made your way to the docks where companies you did business with were preparing shipments of produce—including a despatch of white-spotted char—for transportation to England. You forced the gems into the mouth of one fish and marked it with a cross so you could find it easily when it had been transferred to its destination in Covent Garden. You intended to sell the jewels to prop up your ailing business, or provide money for gambling, carousing... yes?”
George Morris simply continued to cast her devilish looks. Mrs Hudson tapped her chin. “The only thing I can’t work out is, how did Melvin Jacobs come to get the fish? Was he in league with you? If so, why hand them in to the police?”
“Perhaps I can answer that,” said another voice, regal and proud. Mrs Hudson turned to see Lady Morris sweep into the room like the figurehead of a grand ship.
Mrs Hudson faltered. “You know? But I thought...”
Lady Morris sighed. “You are a very intelligent and persistent woman, Mrs Hudson. You are the landlady of Mr Holmes, who returned my jewels yesterday, correct?”
Mrs Hudson nodded. “He said you were not particularly pleased to... ah. I think I understand.”
Lady Morris smiled sadly. “It was all my idea, I am afraid. I planned to report the jewels stolen and claim on my insurance policies. Then we would sell them on the black market for further gain. Money is... well. Not in abundance, at the moment. I fear I might have to let some of my staff go, but they are all such lovely, hardworking people.”
“Mr Jacobs?”
Lady Morris nodded. “He overheard, I think, George dealing with his connections in Paris, organising to visit his supplier at the docks. Jacobs is very loyal and I believe he must have followed George and seen everything, but came to the same conclusion as you, Mrs Hudson—that my son was stealing from me. As soon as we returned to England he went directly to Highfield’s, bought the blasted fish himself, and handed the jewels in to the police.”
“Insurance fraud, then,” said Mrs Hudson.
“I suppose you are going to hand us in to the constabulary,” said Lady Morris. “Melvin is too loyal to tell the truth, even with himself in jail. Oh, it is all such a terrible mess. We must be brought to justice. It is all that we deserve.”
“But your staff... Eliza... Melvin Jacobs and his sick wife...” said Mrs Hudson. She rubbed her chin. “Mr Morris, do you have people in your companies in France who will swear blind that they saw two local ne’er-do-wells tampering with the fish? That they thought they were trying to steal them?”
George grunted, and Mrs Hudson remembered to remove his gag. He gasped for air and said, “Why yes, of course. I pay them enough. Why?”
Mrs Hudson smiled. “You’ll have to pay back the insurance money, of course, but I think we can navigate a way through this mess without too much difficulty.”
* * *
Mrs Hudson saw Inspector Lestrade out of 221b Baker Street and returned to the parlour to clear away the tea-tray. She said casually, “Good news?”
“Indeed Mrs Hudson, the mystery is solved!” said Watson.
“Turns out Melvin Jacobs was entirely innocent. He just had a hankering for a piece of white-spotted char,” said Holmes. “According to Lestrade, two French criminals broke into Lady Morris’s hotel and stole her jewels. They were later seen trying to steal fish from a warehouse. They were chased by the staff and must have dropped the gems in one o
f the crates, which got packed up and sent to England. It was sheer coincidence that Jacobs bought that particular fish.”
“I must say, Holmes, you’re a dashed genius,” said Watson.
Holmes purred like a cat. “It was nothing, Watson. Mere logic and deduction.”
“I think this calls for a drink,” said Watson. “Doubles?”
Holmes inclined his head. “Entirely appropriate, Watson.” He paused. “It was a shame, though, that not all of the gems made it back to England. Either the thieves kept hold of some, or they were lost during transit. A diamond and a ruby, apparently. Still, Lady Morris had them insured, I understand.”
Mrs Hudson smiled. If George was particularly careful how he disposed of those jewels, the staff of the Morris household should be kept in wages for some time to come. Not strictly right and proper but... well. It wasn’t as though anyone had been hurt, was it?
* * *
A week later, with the latest number of The Strand Magazine laid out on the butcher’s block work-surface, Mrs Hudson carefully cut the pages bearing Dr Watson’s lively fictionalised account. The fish had become a goose, the gems a blue carbuncle and the action bore little relation to real life. Still, it was a reminder for her scrapbook.
“Busy, Mrs Hudson?” said Holmes, popping his hawkish head around the kitchen door. “Ah... keeping our adventures for posterity, I see.”
She smiled and slid the scrapbook into her carpet bag. “Well, better get on with the dinner, Mr Holmes. The bathroom needs cleaning, the silver must be polished and—”
The bell rang noisily, three times. Inspector Lestrade, for sure.
“I’d better get that, Mr Holmes.”
The great detective smiled indulgently. “A woman’s work is never done, eh, Mrs Hudson? A woman’s work is never done...”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Barnett is the author of the Gideon Smith series of alternate-history/steampunk adventures, coming from Tor Books and beginning with Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl in August 2013. He is the author of several other novels, including popCULT! (Pendragon Press, 2011), and has been a journalist all his working life. Born in Wigan, he is married to Claire and they have two children, Charlie and Alice.
THE FALLEN FINANCIER
BY JAMES LOVEGROVE
Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes as we strolled along the promenade at Eastbourne one sunny afternoon. He was breaking a sociable silence of some ten minutes. “Has it ever struck you how wide a gulf lies between what people seem to be and what they are?”
“I suppose we all project a persona,” said I. “We wish others to see us as we would wish to be seen.”
“True,” said Holmes, “but I meant that however someone appears to the world, the reality of his situation is invariably much different and in most cases a considerable disappointment. Take that young couple for instance. They bill and coo like turtle doves. They are the very picture of love’s young dream. Yet I predict that within a fortnight they will no longer be together, indeed will have ceased to be on speaking terms after a highly acrimonious parting.”
“Really, Holmes!” I ejaculated. “You are dashed cynical at times. How can you say such a thing?”
“Easily, my dear doctor. Look closer. They are quite clearly from different social strata. The young lady is of good breeding. Her dress, her coiffure, her mannerisms all attest to it. Whereas the lad, though he affects to a high station in life, is of common stock. Note the worn rim of his shirt collar and the button missing on the sleeve of his jacket—sartorial deficiencies which a true gentleman, with a valet at his disposal, would never suffer. Note, too, how his trousers have had to be lengthened at the cuffs and still do not quite fit. He has little money but is making every effort to appear that he does. She, his paramour, has discerned as much but it does not trouble her—for now. She is, as they say, ‘slumming it’. She is enjoying his attentions and is happy for him to make love to her. However, when he proposes marriage, as he will do soon, that is when matters will take a turn for the worse.”
“How do you know he is going to propose?” I demanded. “Surely that is pure supposition.”
“Watson, how often have I told you that you see but you do not observe?” said my friend.
“A maddeningly great number of times,” I replied.
“But still you do not take the lesson to heart. Behold the young man’s left pocket. See that small bulge? What can that be but a box containing an engagement ring? He is plucking up the nerve to pop the question. Perhaps not today, but certainly by the end of the week, he will have found the courage. That is the point at which his intended will have to reject him, for she is a girl who has been brought up to expect to marry a man with good prospects.”
“It could be that she genuinely loves him, Holmes. Have you considered that? Men and women of different classes do fall in love, you know. Or perhaps you don’t.”
He ignored my little barb. “Then there is that elderly gentlemen perched on a bench over there. What do you make of him?”
I studied the man. He was in his seventies, I estimated, and wore a plethora of campaign medals on his chest. He sat ramrod-straight with his hands clasping the handle of his walking cane, gazing contemplatively seaward, beyond the shallows where bathers cavorted, all the way to the hazy horizon.
“An ex-soldier like myself,” I said. “A veteran of the Crimea, though he would have had to have enlisted when he was fairly young. The Boer conflicts too. A military fellow through and through. Never a day’s slouching in his life.”
“Indeed?” said Holmes wryly. “Yet neither his boots nor those decorations he so proudly sports are polished to a gleam. I would submit that he has never held a rifle or fired a shot in anger. Rather, he haunts the tearooms and hotel bars of this town, cadging drinks and regaling strangers with tales of bogus heroism and derring-do, after which he importunes them for a little cash ‘to help an old serviceman through a rough patch’.”
“Shame on him if that is so,” I said, “and shame on you, Holmes, if it isn’t.”
My friend smiled thinly. “And this well-to-do family here, coming towards us. How blissful they look. Father, mother, and nanny pushing pram with gurgling newborn within. A very idyll of prosperity and fecundity. What could be sweeter?”
“Now you’re going to tell me one of them is an axe murderer or some such.”
“Far from it, Watson. In most regards they are as respectable as you or I. Then again, the nanny is wearing a silver charm bracelet that is far more expensive than one with an income such as hers could normally afford. And the father’s eye keeps straying to her rather shapely form whenever his wife’s attention is elsewhere.”
“Are you implying...?”
“I imply nothing. I infer that his relationship with the nanny is anything but that of employer and household servant. See how his wife has her arm linked through his? How tightly she clings to him? She senses something is afoot. It is likely she even knows the truth. Wives are not easy to hoodwink, especially when it comes to infidelity. For the sake of her baby, however, and her future, she has elected to turn a blind eye.”
Holmes tipped his hat to the family as they passed us. They in return nodded, smiled and offered snatches of formal greeting.
As we walked on I said, “Honestly, Holmes, it is a delightful summer’s day and you are like a raincloud, casting an oppressive shadow over everything. Can you only ever see the worst in people? Is there not a part of you that looks for the good in us?”
“Always, Watson, always. Alas, so often in vain. But hullo, what’s this?”
A lady was rushing towards us along the promenade, from the direction of the pier. She was in a state of some agitation, her colour up, her stride purposeful. She was only in her thirties but her face was so haggard and drawn as to give the impression of her being considerably older.
“Mr Holmes!” she cried. “It is you, isn’t it? I heard you had moved to this part of the country. Pray tell me I’m
right. You are the Sherlock Holmes, the famous consulting detective?”
“Retired consulting detective, madam,” said Holmes. “Those years are behind me. But yes, I am he.”
“Oh thank the Lord,” said the lady. She threw herself at my friend, clutching his lapels. “Surely you can help me. You must! I am going mad. They tell me he is dead. They insist upon it. They urge me to grieve for him, to be a widow. And yet I know he is still alive. I know it in my heart.”
“My dear woman,” said Holmes, “pray compose yourself. Your husband is dead, you say?”
“No!” she insisted. “They want me to think that. Everyone is telling me that he took his own life, but not him, not Jacob. He would never do such a thing. A body has not been found, you see. And without a body, where is the proof?”
She was near hysterical. At my insistence, for her shrill imprecations were drawing attention, we repaired to one of the wooden shelters that line Eastbourne’s elegant seafront. In truth, the sun was oppressively hot and it was a relief to avail ourselves of shade.
“Now, if you would,” said Holmes to the lady, “let us take things in due order. Your name, please.”
“But of course,” said she. “I am Mrs Thisbe Markinswell. My husband is Jacob Markinswell. Perhaps you know of him?”
“I have heard of a London financier by that name.”
“That is he. He works for the bank of Carstairs and Buckingham, on Moorgate.”
“A highly successful institution,” said Holmes, “with a reputation for prudence and efficiency. Would that all banks followed its example.”
“My husband has been a loyal employee for nearly fifteen years,” said Mrs Markinswell. “He has risen to senior partner, with responsibility for overseeing investments in the Far East and the Americas. We are, as a consequence, more than comfortably off, as you can imagine.” Her pinched face displayed a pride which I’m afraid to say I found rather disagreeable.
