It was a large, ugly house of dark-red brick, with a heavy slate roof that put me in mind of a leaden-coloured dish-cover clamped down over the building beneath, as if to keep its occupants in close confinement. The ivy which hung in swags from the wall and errant tendrils of which were creeping across the windows added to the general air of melancholy entombment.
A tall iron gate gave access to a black and white tiled path leading to the front door, but to my surprise, Inspector Lestrade made no attempt to approach this entrance but struck off to the right in the direction of an alleyway that ran along the side of the house towards its rear, before turning sharply to the left a few yards from where a uniformed constable was standing guard outside a wooden door set in a high hedge.
On seeing us approach, the constable saluted and, pushing open the door, ushered us inside the garden that lay beyond. It was large and full of overgrown trees and bushes, most of which had shed their leaves, their interlaced bare branches forming a natural lattice which partly obscured the view. Even so, it was possible to catch a glimpse through this barrier of the grave. It lay to the right, a pile of disturbed fallen leaves and freshly dug earth marking its position. A sergeant stood guard over the scene while a constable waited nearby resting on his shovel, his face flushed with exertion, his jacket hanging nearby on a convenient branch. On our approach, they straightened up, the sergeant stepping forward to salute, ready and eager to give his official account, if requested.
‘Where’s Doctor Chitty?’ Lestrade demanded.
‘’E left about twenty minutes ago, sir; said ’e’d got a patient to see at St Clement’s,’ the sergeant replied. ‘But ’e said to tell you that ’e’d send you a more detailed report later by messenger. In the meantime, I was to tell you that the body’s that of a young woman in ’er twenties, by the look of ’er; approximately five feet four inches in height; slight build; dark-haired; no obvious signs of ’ow she might ’ave met ’er end – no fractured skull, for example, or broken neck.’
As he spoke, the sergeant shuffled sideways in the dead leaves to give us a clear view of a shallow grave, no more than four feet deep, and the skeleton it contained. It was neatly laid out on its back, legs straight, arms by its sides as if it were drawn up to attention, the skull turned a little to the left and fixed in that ghastly rictus of death which no matter how often I had seen it during my medical career, in particular in Afghanistan,4 always aroused in me the chilling thought that death was nothing more than a macabre joke played on mankind by some malign power to demonstrate our ultimate insignificance.
Holmes, who had moved forward to the very edge of the grave, was staring down at its contents with keen attention and I, too, tried to shift my gaze from the grinning skull to a more general view of the body and its surroundings. It had evidently been wrapped in a makeshift shroud, probably a blanket, for scraps of brown woollen cloth still clung to some of the bones together with remnants of a fabric of a finer texture that may originally have been a dress. It was blue in colour with the faint suggestion of a pattern in a paler blue. But it was Holmes’ sharper observation that pointed out an anomaly that I had not noticed.
‘Were there no shoes with the body?’ he inquired sharply.
Lestrade, who from his expression was also clearly unaware of their absence, started forward.
‘Not that I know of, Mr ’Olmes. What about you, Benson? Did you find any?’
The sergeant shook his head.
‘No, sir.’
‘And what is that?’ Holmes continued, raising his stick to point at a clod of earth that lay a little to the left of the body and that, as far as I could see, was no different to the other lumps of clay that lay strewn about in the bottom of the grave.
Lestrade stared and then, with a jerk of his thumb, summoned the constable with the shovel to join us.
‘’Ere, you; Palmer, isn’t it? See that lump of dirt down there? Bring it up to me,’ adding, as the man stepped carefully down into the shallow pit, ‘and mind where you put your feet!’
The clod in question, having been retrieved, was handed first to Lestrade who, after a cursory examination of it, passed it on to Holmes with a shrug.
Knowing my old friend would not have chosen that particular lump of earth without good reason, I watched closely as he took it between his fingers and with great care broke it open, revealing what it contained.
It was, we discovered, when Holmes crumbled away the soil that enclosed it and displayed it on his open palm, a silver, heart-shaped locket attached to a fine-linked chain, also of silver, but both so caked with clay and so tarnished that it was a wonder anyone had observed it lying there at the bottom of the grave.
‘How on earth did you notice it?’ I asked.
‘Surely it should be “in earth” my dear fellow?’ he remarked with a chuckle. ‘And to stretch the epithet to even more extravagant lengths, the solution is equally down to earth! I merely noticed a glint of metal in the soil. Now, what is its significance, do you suppose, to the body?’
‘It belonged to ’er, of course,’ Lestrade replied, without any hesitation, jerking his thumb towards the skeleton.
‘That is indeed possible,’ Holmes concurred. ‘But why should whoever buried her take care to place her locket in her grave but not her shoes?’
There was a silence in which Lestrade puffed out his cheeks and exchanged a glance with me, as much as to say, ‘It’s your turn to speak up.’ Well aware of Holmes’ tendency to lure the overconfident into making a fool of themselves by jumping to a too hasty conclusion, I refused to rise to the bait and remained silent. Holmes seemed disappointed by this lack of response and, making the most of the advantage of having the upper hand, turned to the inspector and inquired sweetly, ‘I trust you will allow me, my dear Lestrade, to take the locket and chain home with me? There are one or two tests I should like to make on them. But rest assured, they will be returned to you undamaged.’
‘I think I may permit that in the cause of justice, Mr ’Olmes,’ Lestrade replied with a magnanimous air, adding a hasty proviso, ‘provided I have your permission to call on you later this evening to find out what conclusions you’ve come to re the objects in question.’
‘Of course,’ Holmes agreed with equal graciousness and, with a small, secret smile, he placed the locket and chain in one of the little envelopes he carried about with him for such a purpose before putting it away in his pocketbook. ‘And now,’ he continued more briskly, ‘I think it is time we interviewed Mme Hortense Montpensier about her stepdaughter Mlle Carère.’ As we set off towards the gate, he added, ‘Odd that, Inspector, do you not agree?’
‘Odd? What’s odd?’ Lestrade demanded, hurrying to catch up with him.
‘The names, Lestrade,’ Holmes replied.
‘Names? What about them?’ Lestrade demanded. ‘They’re bound to be odd. They’re French, aren’t they?’
It was the second time Holmes had specifically referred to them but I was no closer to understanding the relevance of his remark; nor was Lestrade, judging by his expression, who seemed satisfied by his own facile explanation. But, as we set off down the path towards the front of the house, I continued to puzzle over Holmes’ insistence on drawing our attention to them.
I was no nearer finding a solution as we approached the front door to number 17 Elmshurst Avenue. I therefore dismissed the matter to the back of my mind for later consideration as Lestrade lifted the heavy iron knocker and let it fall with a thud loud enough to wake the dead.
The door was opened by a man dressed in black, who might quite easily have taken the role of a mute at a funeral. M Daudet, which I assumed was his identity, was a tall, heavy-shouldered man, bent forward at the hips as if he found his height a handicap – a posture that thrust his face towards us and made us too conscious of his features: the long nose, the pendulous cheeks and the thick black eyebrows that jutted out like thatching and below which his eyes peered out warily like those of an animal trapped in a thorn bush.
He seemed to know the inspector, presumably from that earlier occasion when Lestrade had first called at the house following the arrival of the letter, for he acknowledged him with a nod and, opening the door wider, ushered us into the hall.
Curious though I was to see the interior of the house, there was little time to look about me and, apart from registering a general impression of dark wallpaper hung with even darker oil paintings, and a staircase that ascended on the right to an upper landing totally lost in shadows, there was no opportunity to examine it any further before we fell in behind M Daudet and followed him down the passage to a door on which he knocked.
Having received the order ‘Entrez!’, he opened the door and, announcing our names in a strong French accent – ‘Inspecteur Lestrade, Monsieur ’Olmes, Docteur Watson, madame!’ – he stood aside to let us enter.
The room beyond was large but, like the hall, was full of shadows and oddly muffled, as if the air had been sucked out of it by the thick velvet drapes at the windows and the crowded furniture that stood cheek by jowl in every available space. There was not a surface that was not packed with objects, from pictures on the walls to vases on the tables and knick-knacks on the shelves, all in sombre shades. The only colourful feature was the fire that burnt red and gold in a large black marble fireplace, beside which sat the small figure of an elderly lady in an invalid chair, Mme Montpensier, I assumed, dressed in widow’s weeds and muffled up like the room in rugs and shawls, despite the heat from the flames. Ramrod stiff, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, she wore an expression of extreme distaste at the invasion of her drawing-room by three total strangers.
Behind her stood another younger figure, also in black, whom I took to be her lady-companion, Mlle Benoit, and who, with her severe air and bunch of keys hanging at her belt, gave the impression of a female gaoler.
Lestrade stepped forward and embarrassed us all with a faltering attempt to explain in French the reason for the presence of the three us in her drawing-room that might, under other circumstances, have been amusing but which Mme Montpensier listened to with tightlipped disapproval.
As soon as Lestrade had stumbled to a halt, Holmes advanced, cool and urbane, and addressed her in what I assumed was fluent French, judging by the expressions of relief and admiration that lit up the faces of Mme Montpensier and Mlle Benoit.
When Holmes had finished his soliloquy, Mme Montpensier gave some instruction to her companion, who hurriedly drew up chairs for the three of us into a semicircle by the fire and, with a gracious ‘Asseyez-vous, s’il vous plaît, messieurs’, invited us to sit down.
There followed a rapid dialogue between Holmes and Mme Montpensier in French that I, with only my schoolboy knowledge of the language, was not able to follow apart from the gist of it. In this manner, I gathered that Mme Montpensier gave Holmes permission to investigate the case. Once that formality had been decided, there followed a question-and-answer session from which I deduced that Holmes had managed to establish a great deal of information, judging by the number of times the name of Mlle Carère occurred. At one point, I heard the word ‘photographe’ and guessed that my old friend had asked to see a likeness of Mlle Carère for, at Mme Montpensier’s instruction, her lady-companion rose to her feet and left the room, returning shortly afterwards with a black leather-bound volume with gilt-edged pages that Mme Montpensier opened at a particular section.
Lestrade and I crowded behind Holmes’ chair and were able to see the page in question over his shoulder. It contained a sepia photograph in an oval frame of a handsome, dark-haired young woman with a resolute chin and very straight, determined brows, who gazed back at us with calm self-confidence. Seeing this image of her was a strange experience, for I could not associate her direct gaze and firmly modelled lips with the soil-encrusted skull I had seen in the grave with its empty eye sockets and gaping jaws.
After he had closed the album and returned it to Mlle Benoit, there followed a discussion between Mme Montpensier and my old friend that I deduced concerned the locket found with the body for, addressing her directly, he sketched a heart-shaped object in the air with his index finger that was apparently an adequate enough description for her to identify the piece of jewellery for she inclined her head in agreement. As she did so, I noticed that, for the first time, she showed signs of distress. Her lips trembled and her eyes became moist with what looked suspiciously like tears.
As this was taking place, it crossed my mind to wonder why Holmes should go to such lengths when he could quite easily have produced the locket in question from the little envelope he was carrying in his pocketbook, but ascribed this evasion to his innate secrecy.
Meanwhile, Mme Montpensier had recovered from her brief moment of distress and had resumed her usual dignified manner that she maintained during the rest of the interview. It concluded, it seemed, with a request from Holmes for permission to examine Mlle Carère’s room. This she granted with no obvious reluctance and Mlle Benoit was despatched once more to fetch the housekeeper, Mme Daudet, returning with her shortly afterwards and resuming her place behind Mme Montpensier’s chair. Meanwhile, Mme Daudet remained standing just inside the door.
It was difficult to form any opinion of the housekeeper. Like the other two women of the household she was dressed in black, but was so insignificant that the moment after I took my eyes off her features I would not have been able to describe them except with only the minimum of detail. She was middle-aged, of medium height and build; in fact, everything about her was so middle and medium and ordinary that she seemed to possess nothing outstanding or individual about her appearance, the only exception being her eyes, which were very dark and had a wary, watchful quality about them, but even this characteristic had been subdued by the years of training in controlling all emotions or reactions. With her flat, round cheeks and little beak of a nose, she put me in mind of a caged owl I had once seen. It had sat silent and motionless on its perch and its eyes had that same guarded intensity, revealing nothing, neither fear, nor submission, nor even hatred of its captors.
She listened impassively to Mme Montpensier’s instructions before leading us in silence from the room and up the stairs to the shadowy landing, where she opened a door, standing aside to let us enter.
Like the rest of the house it was overfurnished but, even so, it had a freshness and air of virginity about it which was appealing. The bed with its elaborately carved mahogany headboard was lightened by a simple, white crocheted cover and the pictures on the walls in narrow gilt frames were watercolours of flowers or scenery. Although the curtains at the windows were of the same dark velvet and heavy lace of those downstairs, these were looped back to reveal a view of the trees in the garden, but not of the grave, and I was absurdly pleased by this, thinking that the handsome young woman with the firm chin and direct gaze whose photograph I had seen only a short time before had been spared the prospect during her life of looking out over her final resting place, even though she would not have been aware of this.
With a quick glance at Mme Daudet for her nod of permission, Holmes crossed to the large mahogany wardrobe which occupied almost the whole wall and, opening it, disclosed its empty interior. The drawers of the chest and dressing table revealed the same absence of any contents. Not even a handkerchief nor a hair ribbon remained to show that Mlle Carère had once occupied the chamber and I felt a sudden sense of overwhelming grief for the young woman whose life had ended so meanly in that shallow grave under the trees.
Holmes meanwhile, untouched by any such emotion, had paused to glance at one of the watercolour paintings hanging on the wall beside the bed and, turning to Mme Daudet, asked a question in French which I took to be ‘Who painted this?’
Her answer was comprehensible even to me.
Lifting her shoulders, she said dismissively, ‘Je ne sais pas.’
Holmes made no response. He appeared to have become, like her, quite indifferent to the matter and, with that, we returned downstairs to take our leave of
Mme Montpensier.
Once outside the house, Lestrade set off again for the garden, announcing that he wanted to make a last examination of the grave and its surroundings before arranging for the skeleton to be taken to the mortuary at St Clement’s, adding that he would call on us later in the evening. Holmes nodded in agreement and together he and I made our way to Finchley Road, where we took a cab back to our lodgings.
The conversation during this journey was desultory. I could understand Holmes’ reluctance to give me a report on the interview with Mme Montpensier in advance of his meeting later that evening with Lestrade, when he would have to repeat the same information. But I sensed that, in addition to this restraint, my old friend was deeply troubled by some aspects of the case and that he preferred to be silent while he turned these over in his mind.
I, too, mulled over the inquiry. What relevance, if any, I asked myself, was the absence of any shoes in the grave? And why was he interested in the identity of the person who had painted the watercolour hanging by Mlle Carère’s bed? For despite his apparent indifference to the matter, I knew him well enough to realise he would not have asked the question unless it had some bearing on the investigation.
As we rattled our way down Finchley Road, I tried to remember what had been the subject of the painting but could recall nothing more than a bridge crossing a river and, in the background, a cityscape of tall, many-windowed buildings.
However, uppermost in my mind was Holmes’ twic-erepeated reference to the importance of the names. That, I felt, had great relevance but, despite racking my brains, the answer to that particular riddle continued to evade me.
As soon as we returned to Baker Street and installed ourselves in the sitting-room, Holmes set about examining the locket and chain with great assiduity, sending the boy in buttons to fetch a whole collection of articles for this purpose, including a clean towel which he spread over his workbench, a bowl of warm water and some cotton swabs. To these, he added from his own stock of equipment a small, soft-bristled brush, a scalpel, two Petri dishes and his jeweller’s eyeglass.
Secret Archives of Sherlock Holmes, The, The Page 14
