“The Colt 45 was lying no more than ten feet away from the base of the tree. It could have easily been retrieved but was not. As for the earring, did you look at it?”
“I did. It was fancy silverwork with a turquoise stone; the type made by American Indians in the far West. Not worn by English women, but perhaps by an American.”
“And how was it affixed to a lady’s ear? A spring metal clamp? A screw?”
“No. If my memory serves, it had a fine hook, the type used to pass through an earlobe. Not very popular here in London but perhaps preferred by American women who are willing to pierce their bodies.”
“And how easy, is it, Watson, for such a piece of jewelry, firmly hooked through the earlobe, to fall off?”
“I could not say for sure, but most likely impossible.”
Holmes said no more and just looked at me in silence.
“So, you have concluded,” I said, “that the entire set up was a fraud, deliberately staged to frame Lady St. Simon.”
“There is no other possible explanation.”
“Have you conveyed your conclusions to Lestrade?”
“He dropped by this afternoon to discuss the case. He thought his circumstantial evidence was very convincing; a clear situation of res ipsa loquitur, like Thoreau’s trout in the milk.”
“And you enlightened him, and now he agrees with you?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“He conceded that all the evidence in the room cannot in any way be directly linked to Lady St. Simon. However, he presented me with some additional data. He said that a witness has come forward, a gardener who was tending to the plants in the courtyard this morning, who is willing to testify in a court of law that he saw a woman matching the description of Lady St. Simon step over a fourth floor balcony, climb down the drainpipe to the second floor, leap over to a tree branch, and work her way to the ground. Then she ran off.”
‘But you just proved to me that such a feat would be impossible.”
“Indeed, I did.”
“So, what happens now?”
“Now, my dear doctor, we have our supper, and you shall post me up and tell me what you discovered at the Doctor’s Commons. Perhaps a glassy of sherry before you begin?”
It was already deep into those autumn months when the sun sets early and twilight lingers on forever. I turned up the lamps, lit the fire, and poured two glasses of sherry. We sat for a few minutes just sipping on Bristol Cream and then I pulled out my notebook and began to report my discoveries.
“The father, the Duke Harold St. Simon, at one time the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, died a decade ago. His will, that he wrote when he was just forty years of age, was quite standard. You know, the property and the stately home go to the eldest son but the second son receives a portion of the rents. There were only two children, Robert, the oldest, and Eustace, younger by seven years. All well and good and the usual. But then just before the old chap dies he changed the will and the younger brother is cut out altogether, with everything going to Robert.”
“Ah, now that is interesting,” said Holmes. “Most certainly there is a story behind that one. Please continue.”
“There are no further items of significance for Grandfather St. Simon. It looked as if all went according to his wishes. Then we come to your recently departed client, Robert St. Simon. He writes his first will when he is thirty, and at that time he has no offspring and apparently is not particularly close to his younger brother, and he names a woman named Lady Flora Miller of Aylesbury his sole heir, and that designation remains in place until two years ago, when he gives her the boots and says that half of it goes to his wife, Lady Harriet St. Simon with a trust set up for the children, equally dividing the other half.”
“That would be after he married Hattie Doran,” noted Holmes. “Again, all quite to be expected.”
“Then, starting just a month ago there was quite the batch of codicils added. He puts Lady Flora back in for a quarter of the property. Lady Harriet is cut back to one-quarter. Half is to go to a trust for the two boys that is to be administered by his younger brother, Eustace. And finally, just last week, there’s a note that identifies Eustace as the executor, and in the event of His Lordship’s death prior to his son’s reaching the age of majority, the sole person to be responsible for all matters related to the property, the raising and schooling of the boys, and what not and so forth. So, there it is Holmes.”
“And thereby hangs a tale,” said Holmes.
“It looks to me,” I said. “That there was some sort of falling out between Robert and Eustace, with Robert coming out on top a few years back. Then His Lordship must have taken up with Lady Flora in a rather serious manner. But she is given the old heave-ho in exchange for his young wife. And finally, he makes amends with his brother, falls out with the wife, and picks up again with his mistress. Did I miss anything, Holmes?”
He sat pondering for several minutes, then replied. “No, my dear Watson. What you have done is to have made this entire case, which I at first thought was about no more than a morally questionable set of bluebloods, rather complicated indeed. Depending on who was aware of the contents of the various versions of the will, we now have three people who have at least a pecuniary reason for wishing to see His Lordship depart from this veil of tears. And all three also have good reason to be more than a little angry with him. I say, Watson, the tangled skein of these lives has given me a worthy puzzle to solve. Excellent. Have you finished your sherry? Another one? No. Very well then, let us ask dear Mrs. Hudson if she might deliver some supper for us.”
Chapter Four
Enter the Maid
HOLMES WENT TO THE DOOR to call for Mrs. Hudson but was met there by Billy, our young page.
“Mr. Holmes, sir,” he said. “There’s a lady at the door down on the street. She has a livery wagon with her and says she has some cases to deliver to you, sir?”
Holmes looked over me with a puzzled expression on his face. “Did you place an order for some goods, Watson?”
“No. And by the look on your face, neither did you.”
“Billy,” said Holmes, “did the lady give you her card?”
“She said she had none Mr. Holmes, sir. And sir, not wanting to be disrespectful or anything like that, sir, but she really is not a lady. More like someone’s maid, sir. Says her name is Wilhelmina Kelly, sir, and she has your name and address and says that these cases are to go to you.”
“Do send the lady up, please, and we shall see what Providence has bestowed upon us.”
Billy departed and soon afterward a woman in a maid’s uniform entered the room. She was well into middle age and had the thickened body, rounded face, and generous chin that accompany that stage in the life of a woman in service. Holmes and I stood and greeted her. “Mrs. Kelly,” said Holmes. “I must apologize, but we were not expecting your call.”
“No reason you should have. Have to say I wasn’t expecting to be here either. But now here I am. So, I’ll just do what I have to do and be gone.”
“And what is it you have to do my good lady?”
“I have to give you these three cases that I’ve brought all the way from Aylesbury. His Lordship sent a note telling us to pull all sorts of things together that belonged to m’lady and bring them to London for a Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
“Ah! Of course. Right you are. We had expected to receive them this morning at his hotel.”
“And that was where I had expected to deliver them. But when I arrived there the whole place is like a circus, and then I find that His Lordship has been done in, and the hotel is not wanting anything to do with any deliveries to him. But your name was on the cases, and since this looks like the last job I will ever do for His Lordship, I told myself I may as well find you, as I don’t fancy taking them all back to the manor in Buckinghamshire.”
“And how did you manage to locate me?”
“Wasn’t all that difficult, sir
. I just walked around to the servants’ entrance to the hotel and asked one of the maids, I did. We maids can always be counted on to help each other out. So, I asked her if she had ever heard of some chap named Sherlock Holmes. Well, sir, it seems half of London has heard about you. So, she just goes and gets one of the groom boys, and out of his satchel he pulls a copy of some magazine, and he thumbs through it, and in it, there’s your address. 221B Baker Street they tell me. Most famous address in London after Number Ten. Well, maybe Eleven too. So here I am sir, and if you don’t mind, I’ll have the livery man bring up the cases, and let him get on his way. Already had him running all over London, sir.”
Holmes nodded, and over the next several minutes the livery man brought three large packing cases up the stairs and put them on the floor behind the settee. As he did, I could see Holmes looking intently at Mrs. Kelly.
“Mrs. Kelly, you must have had a very trying day,” he said in a kindly voice. “Please, before you leave, sit and have a glass of sherry. It is the least we can do after your long hours of such diligent work.”
“Yes,” I added, “please do. We had just started into a glass ourselves.” I reached over as I spoke and placed the distinctive blue bottle of Bristol Cream on the table. I could see a tiny glint appear in her eye.
“Well now, that is very thoughtful of you gents. I don’t mind if I do. Just one small one, mind you. It’s my good fortune that this place is just a short walk to Marylebone Station, where I have to catch the train back to Aylesbury if I want to be back at the manor by midnight. So, I could perhaps enjoy just a wee bit. Very kind of you to offer.”
She sat down and I presented her with a generous glass. It had dawned on me that Holmes was invoking the ancient ritual of in vino veritas, and intent of learning everything he could about Lord and Lady St. Simon from their maid.
Holmes continued to express his condolences over the tragic death of Mrs. Kelly’s employer while I refilled her glass, twice.
“Let us provide you with a little sustenance for your journey home. I will ask our wonderful landlady to lay out a small supper for you.” The woman smiled appreciatively and Holmes called for Mrs. Hudson.
“Ah, Mrs. Hudson,” he said. “The dear lady is Mrs. Wilhelmina Kelly and she is the head maid for Lord and Lady St. Simon.”
Mrs. Hudson gasped. “Oh, you poor dear. I read about what happened. It’s so terrible. What is going to happen to your position?”
“I really do not know,” said Mrs. Kelly. “It is a wee bit worrying. I’ve been in service at the St. Simon manor for these past twenty years and what with his Lordship dead and the lady off to the gallows, I do not know what will become of me or the rest of the help. But I’ve been saying to myself all day, I have, that I mustn’t complain. There are many folks all over England that are much worse off than I am, and I just have to say a little prayer that something will turn up.”
“What about,” inquired Mrs. Hudson, “that new monstrous place up the road from Aylesbury?”
“Wallesdon? Aye, that’s a possibility. Goodness knows those folks have more money than God. But I’ve never worked for any of God’s Chosen People, and I do not know if they would have me since my Wally and me are simple Methodists. And Lord St. Simon was not very nice to them at all. Said all sorts of nasty things about them.”
“Well now, dearie,” said Mrs. Hudson as she reached over and poured yet another glass of sherry. “You just keep your chin up and something will turn up. It always does. And now, you settle yourself and I’ll put together some supper. And it’s already nearly six o’clock. Why don’t you just stay in my spare room for the night and get back to Buckinghamshire in the morning? A trip from a station all the way to a manor house in the middle of the night is more than you need after the day you have had.”
“Really, Mrs. Hudson,” I countered. “As the senior member of the household staff should not Mrs. Kelly get back to the house and give consolation to the rest of them? They will be in great distress on learning of their loss.”
This time, it was Mrs. Hudson who gave me the look that usually comes from Holmes. “Goodness gracious, Dr. Watson. Masters of the house come and go and no one really misses them as long as the next one is ready to take over. From what I have been reading in the papers there is no clear new master of the St. Simon estate, what with the Lady being chased by the police, and so all the positions are now at risk of being lost. That, sir, is what matters to the working class of England.”
“Ah, you are quite correct on that point,” said Holmes. “So, I do hope that Mrs. Kelly will accept our invitation to stay for supper. And, Mrs. Hudson, since we have a guest, could you possibly find a bottle of claret to accompany the supper? Thank you awfully, Mrs. Hudson.”
The food, sherry and claret did the job and the dear Mrs. Kelly became, in the words of Mrs. Hudson, quite the chatterbox. Holmes expressed his concern for the children, to which she replied, “Very well, sir, some folks might say that it will be hard on the boys not seeing their parents. Of course, there are others of us who know that the wee one, the two-year-old, isn’t quite sure who his mother is, and if anyone believes he has three of them since that’s the number of governesses he has now, and it’s always one of those who tuck him in at night.”
“But the six-year-old lad,” said Holmes. “Surely he will be distraught. His father said that he was terribly upset with his mother’s absence.”
“Pardon me for correcting you, sir. But Georgie is eight. If his father told you he was six, that’s because his father can never remember, and is lucky to get the lad’s name right. Well, of course, the boy was upset. He came back from school for the weekend since it was his birthday, and his mother had promised him a new cricket bat, and she was not there, and neither was his present. So of course, he was in a state. More angry that distraught, if you ask me.”
I continued to scribble notes and Holmes continued to probe for information. He turned eventually to more sensitive subjects.
“His Lordship,” said Holmes, “told me that he was quite certain that Lady St. Simon had been abducted against her will and was being forcefully confined.”
“Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”
“Pardon me, Mrs. Kelly, but do you doubt his conclusion? After all, he said that she had left all her most precious possessions behind — her letters from her father, gifts from her former husband, and even her diary.”
“Aye, that she did, and so I can see why that might lead some to think that she had been taken against her will. But I would be on the side of those folks who would differ.”
“And why is that?”
“Because sir, her clothes were gone with her — a trunk load of nice dresses as well as her lingerie. So that is why I do not completely share the Master’s opinion, sir.”
“Indeed. An astute observation. Thank you. Now, my dear Mrs. Kelly, you have seen Lord and Lady St. Simon together now for the past two years. Surely, you cannot believe that she would shoot her husband after spending the night together in a lovely select hotel. That really does seem beyond belief, does it not?”
Mrs. Kelly reached for her glass of claret and took a swallow of sufficient volume that I could hear it descend from across the table. She leaned forward toward Holmes and dropped her voice. “Well now, sir, good staff are supposed to know when to speak and when to act as if they have never seen anything. However, if you ask me, or any of the other help for that matter, we would have to say, being truthful Christians and all, that if she did not shoot him, she should have. He gave her more than enough reasons to do so. They were all lovey-dovey when she first arrived with him from his voyage to America. But then she got all big with child, and you know what that does to the lovey-dovey of course. And then he starts leaving her at home with the baby and staying in London for days on end.”
At that point, she stopped and sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “Now that sir, is all I can say. I do take my responsibilities to my Master and Lady with p
roper seriousness even if one is dead and the other not to be found, sir. So that’s all I can say and you’ll just have to let it rest there, sir.” She reached for her glass.
I knew that Holmes had no such intentions, and he did not disappoint me.
“Yes, quite right, Mrs. Kelly. One must be proper and discreet, mustn’t one? So please just bear with me through one more question, if I may. How did Lady St. Simon react to the presence of Lady Flora Miller, Lord St. Simon’s mistress?”
I thought the poor Mrs. Kelly was going to choke on her claret. First her eyes went wide as she drew a sharp breath, and her face paled slightly. She stared at Holmes very hard for a tense few moments. Then she reached again for her glass and took another audible swallow.
“Well now, sir. It appears that you already know all the gossip about Bobby and Hattie and Florey, as we called them. Not to their faces, mind you. So, I am not violating any confidence by answering your question then, am I? Very well then, sir, Lady Miller and Lord St. Simon knew each other as neighbors for many years. She was betrothed to him for nearly a decade and he kept postponing a wedding using his voyages back and forth to America as excuses. But if you were to ask the staff, we knew he was no more than a sailor who had one in every port, if you know what I mean, sir. Well now, Lady Flora is an elegant looking woman and all, but she is not getting any younger, and so going on three years ago she lays down the law and demands that His Lordship do the right thing or she will sue him for breach of promise. Now His Lordship has to agree because any court in the land would support her, so he promises that as soon as he gets back from his next time in America they will get married. And then, when he does get back, he has this beautiful young blonde American thing on his arm, and she is already in the family way, and he announces that they are getting married.”
Another swallow of claret and she continued. “Well now, isn’t Lady Flora furious. She comes charging into the house and calls His Lordship every name in the book, most of which I could never, as a decent Christian, repeat sir. And she has a few choice words for Her Ladyship, or Miss Harriet as she still was then. So, His Lordship has her removed forcibly. Kicking and screaming she was. And then doesn’t she show up at the wedding ready to jump up and scream when the Rector gets to the ‘If any man knows just cause …’ part of the service, but again His Lordship has a couple of the local bully boys waiting for her and they restrain her and keep her from even getting near the chapel. And, of course, all the staff, we were making a few friendly wagers as to what might happen next. It was known that Lady Miller had some Greek blood in her from her mother’s side, and we all know, don’t we, what that can do to someone. Those hot-headed so-and-so’s would up and cut your throat as soon as look at you. In your sleep, they would.”
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Three: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition (Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 11
