Having finished our breakfast at Tiffany’s we walked toward to door. As we did, Holmes whispered to me.
“There is a man standing on the pavement who has been observing us while we have been in here. As soon as we exit, turn right and try to catch him. And, by the way, you forgot to buy your anniversary gift.”
The fellow he was referring to must have sensed that Holmes had noticed him, for as we opened the door, he sprang across the street and into the driver’s seat of a parked carriage. He laid a whip upon the haunches of the horse and it bounded way, straight through the section of road repairs on Bond Street. The small carriage bounced and rattled as it raced across the potholes and piles of gravel. The driver had, although obviously shaken, not stirred from his perch and continued his escape. In the distance, I could see him turn right on Piccadilly and disappear in the direction of Green Park.
“Someone is on to us,” said Holmes. “We have to move quickly.”
We hailed a cab and Holmes offered the driver a sovereign if he would race through the road construction and get us to Knightsbridge in less than ten minutes. The cabbie cooperated and soon we were galloping along Piccadilly and passing Hyde Park Corner.
“What’s the address?” shouted the cabbie.
I was about to shout back the number on Montpelier Square when Holmes put his hand on my arm and shouted out the address of the Cushing House on Ennismore Gardens.
“If the children are being held there, they will most likely be too terrified to reveal themselves to us, given what they have already endured. We will stop and pick up their father. They will know his voice.”
We galloped further along Knightsbridge Road and around the corner onto Ennismore. Upon reaching the Cushing home, I leapt from the cab, happy to see that it was too early in the morning for the press to have gathered, and pounded on the door. The butler opened it and I barged past him into the parlor. There I stopped in my tracks. Seated in the room were Mr. and Mrs. Cushing, and Inspector Lestrade. Two constables were standing in the hallway. On the coffee table was a box, identical in size to the one delivered to Holmes the previous night. The ribbon was undone and lying loosely on the table. The top of the box was in place. I knew immediately what I was looking at.
I gathered my wits and spoke as forcefully as I could. “Please, Mr. Cushing and Inspector, come with me. Holmes is outside in a cab. We may have located the children. Please come now.”
Lestrade and Mr. Cushing both jumped to their feet and raced out the door. I followed, stepped up into the cab as it pulled away from the curb. I dropped into the seat beside Lestrade who leaned his head to my ear. “Cards seven and eight. The Chariot and Strength. The right hand and forearm.”
We pulled to a sharp halt upon reaching the house on Montpelier. It was similar in many respects to the Cushing home a few blocks away; another fine four-story row house in Knightsbridge, facing onto a leafy square. Lestrade bolted from the cab and knocked firmly on the door. It was opened by a tall, grave-looking maid, with a very shiny cap, who expressed shock on hearing the inspector announce that he was from Scotland Yard.
“Where is your master?’ demanded Lestrade.
“Sir,” the distraught woman sputtered, “he is where he is every morning by this time. He is at his office, or maybe in court over in Temple Bar.”
“And your lady?”
“She...she…sir, she is at the hairdresser. She has a luncheon today in Mayfair. I can send for here sir. Do you wish me to do that?”
Lestrade stopped shouting. “No. No. That will not be necessary. Who is it we are looking for, Holmes?”
“Very sorry to intrude upon you, miss,” said Holmes. “We are searching for a gentleman, about my height, most likely well-dressed and we have reason to believe that he lives here.”
“Oh,” the poor woman sighed as her face and body relaxed. “You must mean Mr. Gulliver, the tenant. He rents the fourth floor from my master. But he is seldom here. He says he has plans in the future to set up a studio up there, but right now there are only a few sticks of furniture and a small kitchen. I can show you up there, but he has not been around for several days.”
The four of us pushed the poor soul aside and bounded up the stairs. The fourth floor was not much more than an attic, accessed by a steep, narrow stairway at the back of the house. The door was locked. Holmes reached into his pocket for the small set of locksmith tools he always carried with him. Lestrade shoved him aside, raised his leg and gave a powerful kick to the door, smashing the lock.
“There are some things the police are allowed to do that amateur detectives cannot,” he said as he entered the rooms. We followed him and within less than fifteen seconds we had opened every door, every closet, and every cupboard. There was no one there.
We met in the front room, every one of us empty-handed. “Clearly the children are not here,” said Holmes. “However, the notepaper on the desk and the Royal typewriter tell us that we are in the right place. So I suggest that all of us look for whatever evidence we can find that might be helpful in leading us to them.”
Chapter Six
The Sins of the Father
WE NODDED AND BEGAN TO LOOK slowly through the cabinets, desk drawers, and wardrobes. I watched as Mr. Cushing opened the door of a wardrobe in the bedroom. Inside were several shirts and a couple of men’s suits. On the floor were a pair of boots and two pairs of shoes. Mr. Cushing suddenly stepped back and I saw a look of shock on his face. He turned and stepped quickly into the front room and walked to the desk that sat along the front wall beside the window. On top of the desk was a powerful set of field glasses. He picked them up and looked out. Then he slowly opened the central drawer of the desk and removed a large bulky envelope. From it, he extracted a handful of photographs. I could see the color draining from his face as he did so. He put them down and walked backwards slowly until he reached a chair. He sat down, placed his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, and began to weep uncontrollably. His entire body was shaking and his crying was pathetically loud for a grown man.
The wretched noises he was making immediately brought Holmes and Lestrade back into the room. I held up my hand and silently gestured to them to sit in the chairs that were on the other side of the room. They did so and I picked up the stack of photographs that Mr. Cushing has so recently placed back on the desk. I looked at them one after the other before handing them on the Holmes and Lestrade.
They made no sense at all. All of them were of Mr. Cushing and his wife. The first ones in the pile were taken at the front door of his home on several occasions spanning the past winter and spring. In each he was giving his wife and affectionate kiss. I assumed at first that he was leaving for work until I noticed that in the winter scenes the streetlights had already been lit.
The others, farther down in the pile were very unseemly. They had been taken through the window of the house and were clearly photos of Mr. and Mrs. Cushing engaging in private acts such as are the pleasure of a loving married couple. The photos on the bottom of the pile left nothing to the imagination. It was all exceedingly perplexing.
I had noticed that in one of the kitchen cupboards there was a bottle of a select brandy. I poured a generous glass and brought it to the poor man, who was still convulsing in grief.
“Sam,” I said. “I do not care if this is forbidden by your church. Swallow it, take a few deep breaths, and then compose yourself.”
He looked up. His face was contorted and tears were streaming from his eyes. Without saying anything, he took the glass and swallowed the contents. I saw him take several deliberate deep, slow breaths. He raised his head and spoke, but very slowly.
“The man your are looking for is Alec Fairbairn.”
“Go on please, Sam,” I said.
“He is my brother-in-law.”
Holmes looked puzzled and spoke. “Your brother-in-law, I had understood, was also your brother. And he died last year. What are you saying?”
“No, my wife had
two sisters. One, Mary, is her twin and was married to my twin brother, Seth. The four of us have been very close to each other for the past twenty years. There is a third sister, Susan. She is younger and is married to a chap named Alec Fairbairn.”
“I am afraid,” said Lestrade sharply, “that I do not see where this is going. Please enlighten me, sir. And do so quickly. Your children are still at risk and in mortal danger.”
“Perhaps,” interjected Holmes, “I can help you get started. The front door in the photographs is not your home, nor is the bedroom window. The woman with whom you are being intimate is not your wife, Sarah. It is your sister-in-law, Mary, the widow of your brother, Seth.”
Cushing said nothing. He dropped his head back into his hands and nodded it slowly.
“And might it also be true,” continued Holmes, “that there has been an estrangement between the four twins and the other sister and brother-in-law? Animosity, even?”
Cushing nodded again.
“Your brother-in-law somehow became aware of your affair and has blackmailed you, threatening to expose everything and ruin your well-respected life. And if I were to pick up the field glasses and look across the square, would I be looking directly at the front door of your deceased brother’s home where his widow continues to live, and then into the window of her bedroom?”
Samuel Cushing raised himself up and looked directly at Holmes. “Yes sir, that is precisely what happened and what you would see.”
None of us spoke and then Lestrade nearly shouted at us.
“Good lord, that is no more than an everyday case of blackmail against some bloke who cannot keep his trousers on. We see that every day. How in the world do dismembered children fit into this? Where are they? Who is this monster of a brother-in-law that is not happy with a few thousand pounds? This makes no sense!”
“Sir,” said Cushing quietly, turning to Lestrade. “For that, I have no answer. Alec and Susan grew up in the same Christian Assembly as Mary, Seth, Sarah and I did. They were in our wedding party and were married three years later. Yet immediately after they were removed from the authority of their parents’ homes, they began to partake of the pleasures of the world. They were reported to have gone dancing together, to have attended raucous and obscene performances in the music halls. They passed their time with a whole group of ungodly friends in the local pub and a little drink would send them into stark, raving, depraved utterances. They dabbled in devilish, occult practices. They even strayed so far from the straight and narrow as to place bets on horses at the racetrack. This became known to the elders of the Assembly, and they were visited and spoken to. There was no improvement and the admonishment was repeated. They refused to change and even exulted in what they called their freedom. Sadly, it was necessary to read them out of fellowship.”
“You mean you and all the good saints in your church shunned them?” said Holmes.
“Such an extreme action is only ever taken for the purpose of redemption and restoration,” said Cushing. “However, they would have none of it. Perhaps they might have seen the error of their ways but my father-in-law, Sarah and Mary’s father, died and when his will was read, we learned that he had cut them out entirely. Nothing was to be given to them. Not even the childhood dolls with which Susan had played. The four of us thought it terribly harsh and unfair but there was nothing that could be done about it. The terms of the will were explicit and binding. That ended any contact we had with them. Susan’s temper was unleashed. To this day, we have not spoken.”
“You still,” snapped Lestrade, “have not explained how this Alec fellow could be such a monster.”
Cushing looked stunned. “Sir, I have no answer for that. Alec was my friend growing up. He was outgoing, playful, perhaps attracted a bit much to the things of this world, but never, never one to injure another person. And that he would torture and maim my children, his niece and nephew, is beyond belief. Somehow…somehow, the evil one has taken his soul. I have no other explanation.”
“This Alec chap,” said Lestrade, “where do we find him?
Cushing gave us an address in Chelsea and then added, “He works for Barings in the City. But he does not usually depart from his home until near to ten each morning. You might meet him as he stepped out of his front door in a half hour from now.”
“My dear, Doctor,” said Holmes, looking at me. “Might I prevail upon you to stay with Mr. Cushing and see him home? I believe he could use your support. The inspector and I will go looking for this monster.”
I agreed. Holmes and Lestrade descended the stairs and I sat with a man who just a fortnight earlier had been on top of his world. Now I was looking at a man who, I was quite sure, wanted nothing more than to die.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke, then I inquired, as gently as I could. “Sam,” I said, “how could you, of all people, do anything so foolish as to have an affair with your sister-in-law? You had Rev. Beecher looking down at you every day reminding you not to give into the sins of the flesh. What happened?”
He looked vacantly out the window and then spoke to the sky beyond. “It is impossible to explain to anyone who has not been raised with an identical twin, how that can so alter every aspect of your life. As boys growing up Seth and I wore the same clothes, played with the same toys, attended school and Sunday school together, played all the same games at the same time. People spoke to us as if we were the same person. We were treated as if we had only one identity, not two. By the time we were in our teens we were thinking the same thoughts, finishing each other's sentences, and experiencing the same emotions whether anger, or joy, or sorrow, or whatever. It was not as if we had only one identity. We knew we were distinct from each other. But we were certainly not complete without each other. Marrying twin sisters, who had grown up in almost the same context as we had was absolutely logical. All of us understood each other in that way, a way that no one who has not had a twin ever can.
“Seth died suddenly last year. The only way in which we were not identical was that he had a weak heart and I did not. His heart failed last September and he collapsed at his desk and was dead. It was a terrible shock to all of us. I was simply no longer a complete man. I prayed about it over and over again, but the void did not go away. My dear wife, Sarah, felt the pain and anguish of her sister in a way that again cannot be explained to someone who has not seen a twin endure pain and felt it along with her.
“I spent many hours in Seth’s home sorting out his estate and making sure that all his affairs were in order so that Mary could live comfortably. Seeing her in such pain was as if I was seeing my wife in that pain. I did what I would have done with Sarah and embraced her and let her cry against me. Soon we became intimate. Her face and body are exactly the same as my wife’s. Mine are the same as her husband’s.
“Somehow it did not seem wrong, merely an extension of our marriages. I know that cannot make sense, but that is what happened. It continued through the winter and into the spring. It has faded over the past few weeks as she has had to overcome her situation and face a new life without Seth. I know it was wrong. It was a sin before heaven and before my wife. Yet somehow, I feel no guilt. It was as if were my duty.”
“And how,” I asked, “are you going to explain it to your wife?”
He said nothing. I watched his face contort and again he buried his face in his hands. When he rose, he looked at me with an imploring look.
“Doctor Watson, I have only just met you and I know that you are not my brother in the Lord nor even a close friend. But you now know more of me than any other man on earth. I know it is the coward’s way out, but could I implore you, please, on my behalf, to go to my home and inform Sarah of all that has transpired. Please tell her everything. I will take a long walk through the Gardens and try to screw my courage to the sticking place and come home to her within two hours. Will you that for me, sir?”
There are some responsibilities that go with being a doctor and this, though unexpected, was
clearly one of them. I agreed, gave him a warm pat on the shoulder, and turned to depart. Before doing so, I reached over and handed him the bottle of brandy. “You would not be the first man to need a little liquid support,” I said. “Nor will you be the last. You’re a good man, Sam Cushing. You have a wife and children who now need you more than ever.”
He took my hand and gave it a hard squeeze.
I walked slowly back to Ennismore Gardens, rehearsing what I was going to say with each slow step. I had learned in my many years in medical practice that the best way, indeed the only way, to impart devastating news to a patient was to speak the truth, the whole unvarnished truth, calmly, completely, and slowly, and then try to help in whatever manner was required by the reaction of my patient. I would do the same now.
I entered the home and was greeted again by the man-servant, Mr. Browner, and shown to the parlor. He inquired if I would like a cup of tea and perhaps some nourishment and I gladly accepted. My breakfast at Tiffany’s having now been several hours ago, I was hungry. Some ten minutes passed before Mrs. Sarah Cushing appeared and sat down across from me.
In a matter-of-fact way, I explained the events of the morning. I told her first the disappointing news concerning our failure to find the children, the shock of learning that the terrible culprit was her brother-in-law, Alec Fairbairn, and the truth of the content of the blackmail and of her husband’s infidelity. As I concluded, I detected a look from her that I had not expected. There was a touch of anger in her eyes and it was directed at me.
“Let us,” she began in a firm voice, ‘deal with the less significant matters first. You may think less of me for what I am about to tell you, Doctor Watson, and quite frankly, I do not care. However, I know and have known all along that my husband was giving intimate comfort to my sister. I wanted him to. I encouraged it. I made it as convenient as possible for him to do so.”
I was stunned, and my face must have betrayed my reaction.
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies- Collection Four Page 19
