Associates of Sherlock Holmes Page 15

  “The photo of you and Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia.”

  I allowed myself a bitter smile at Watson. “How clever of Dr Watson to protect us all with pseudonyms. The King of Bohemia. Irene Adler. Godfrey Norton. No one would ever know the true identities of the characters he splashed across the pages of The Strand. Or at least that’s what you obviously hoped.”

  “They worked out who you were,” Watson intoned.

  “No,” I replied, quietly. “They worked out who he was.”

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think?” I spat in fury, jumping back to my feet. “Your oh-so-dramatic visitor with his mask and his barrel chest and, what was it? Oh, yes – ‘the limbs of a Hercules’. Well, it appears that your Hercules is as unlucky in love today as he was then, and has found himself in the middle of another scandal. The vultures are circling and have seen beyond the smoke and mirrors. Once they had realised the true identity of your King of Bohemia, it didn’t take them long to work out which prima donna had so vexed him in London, the woman who still held proof of his past indiscretions.”

  Watson’s face was pale, smudged only with the grime of his subterranean prison. “Evidence that could be used against him.”

  “The last thing that Nicholas wanted was for his brother’s sins to be found out all over again and so the photograph that had kept me safe for so many years became my death sentence.”

  “Or rather that of Robert Langtry,” said Sherlock Holmes.

  The memory of that fateful night brought tears to my eyes. “They came to our house, demanding the photograph. They had already killed poor Cammi.”

  “Your maid.”

  “Robert tried to protect me, only to receive a knife to the stomach. They already had the photograph. There was no need for him to die.”

  “You escaped.”

  “Evidently. Our footman – Pierre – tackled my husband’s murderer, and in the confusion I managed to slip away. I ran from the house, from everything I owned. I had nowhere to go, no friends I could turn to. Do you think the Tsar’s agents would let me live, after what I had witnessed?”

  “So you lost yourself in Paris, returning to the stage, rebuilding your life.”

  I threw my hands wide and turned on my heels. “And here it is, my new nest.”

  Holmes didn’t pass comment, but reeled off what I already knew, ever the showman. “The apparently fine clothes you wore this morning were as false as the name Watson gave you all those years ago, costume reproductions designed to fool an audience from the stage.”

  “Or a doctor,” I added, with little humour.

  “And when I kissed your hand, there was a distinctive odour, barely disguised by inexpensive soap and cheap perfume: sulphur, used to create the allusion of walking through a volcano.”

  “Or an inferno,” Watson added with a grimace.

  “The reason you dressed yourself as a man tonight is that you are known at Le Cabaret de L’Enfer, not as a customer, but a member of staff, perhaps one of the musicians who play from within the cauldron. There are usually six from what I can gather, although tonight there were only five. That’s where you discovered the pit. No one pays to be buried alive at the back of the cabaret. That was a fiction, designed to reel Watson in, appealing to his more melodramatic tendencies. His early grave was nothing more than a little used storage area, not opened from one year to the next.”

  Watson’s eyes bored into me, bristling with recrimination. “I may never have been found. If Holmes hadn’t forced his way past the curtain…”

  “Needless to say that the infernal masters of the cabaret are keen to keep the entire sorry affair out of the public eye.”

  “Until Dr Watson writes an account of it…” I sneered.

  “As for your accomplice,” Holmes continued, ignoring my interruption, “the obliging nymph who just so happened to remember Robert Langtry, she has vanished into the ether.”

  “No doubt assisted by the two hundred francs purloined from my wallet,” Watson added.

  “Not stolen,” I reminded him. “You gave it gladly.”

  “To help you!”

  “Instead you have helped her escape a life in the Pigalle, and for that I am grateful. At least something good has come of this evening.”

  “Quite so,” agreed Holmes.

  I looked the detective in the eye. “And what of me?”

  Holmes walked over to my mirror to remove the last scraps of his make-up. “From the ticket on your dressing table, you are preparing your own escape, although the chances of you now catching the last train to Vienna are minimal.”

  “Because you intend to turn me over to the police?”

  Holmes turned to face me. “Because you will never make it to the railway station in time, that is all.”

  Holmes strolled across the room with such confidence that I wanted to scream. He opened the door and indicated for his companion to take his leave. Watson walked out without so much as a backwards glance.

  Before he followed his friend out into the corridor, Holmes paused, turning to face me. “Mrs Langtry, you sought to take revenge on the man you believe ruined your life. You lured him to the City of Lights with the intention of leaving him to rot in the dark. I for one am grateful that I was on hand to ensure his safety. I bear you no malice, and hope you can indeed rebuild your life.”

  The man’s hubris made me sick to my stomach. “How gracious of you.”

  “But know this: move against Watson again, and I will move against you. Yesterday, I was your admirer. Today, I am your enemy.”

  With that, Sherlock Holmes closed the door behind him.

  * * *

  A chill wind blew along the banks of the Seine the following morning. As Holmes had predicted, I had missed my train. There would be others, of course, but for now I was content to sit, gazing over at the great cathedral of Notre Dame, wondering what might have been.

  Would I really have gone through with it? Would I have let a man die in that pit? I told myself not, that I would have sent word when I was away. The police would have raided the cabaret and found Watson, despairing but unhurt. It would have been hard to keep such an occurrence out of the papers, the good doctor finding himself in the middle of a scandal of his own making, indirectly at least.

  I watched the gulls whirl in the sky above the ancient buttresses, convincing myself that yes, that’s exactly what I would have done.

  And Holmes was right. Now I had to start again, to build another nest, far away, where no one would find me again. It was time to take another name.

  The gulls shrieked, twisting in the air before swooping away. I watched them go, barely noticing the man who came to sit alongside me on the bench. He regarded the cathedral for a moment, before rising to walk back the way he came. I waited, counting to ten, before dropping my gloved hand down to the envelope he had left behind.

  Opening the flap, I removed the photographs that I had ordered – Dr John Watson sat in the bowels of the cabaret, his hand on the arm of a handsome young man, their faces surprisingly close, lips inches away from each other. Then there were the images of the good doctor handing over a wad of notes to a scantily clad girl. You couldn’t see her face, but Watson’s profile was clear for all to see.

  Certain editors on Fleet Street would pay good money for such shots. Think of the papers they would sell. Think of the headlines. Give the people what they want, and all that.

  My words of yesterday came back unbidden.

  I have never demanded so much as a penny for my silence, never acting in spite or retaliation.

  I slipped the photographs safely back into the envelope and smiled. If I sent them, I would not ask for recompense. Instead, copies would land anonymously on every news desk in the land.

  If I sent them.

  I rose from the bench and strolled along the banks of the river. Interesting times lay ahead for Dr Watson, and I wished him well.

  After all, whatever threats Sherlock Holmes
made, to me, John Watson would always be the man.

  THE CASE OF THE HAPHAZARD MARKSMAN

  Andrew Lane

  Langdale Pike never appears in the canon, although he is mentioned in “The Adventure of the Three Gables”. He is described as being “strange” and “languid” (a condition I have aspired to ever since I was a teenager) and he apparently makes a living as a gossip columnist. He does actually turn up in the 1980s TV adaptation starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes, played memorably by the excellent Peter Wyngarde. It is Wyngarde who I imagined when I was writing this story.

  —Andrew Lane

  My name is Langdale Pike. You have probably heard of me. In fact, I would be surprised if you had not. I write what are popularly known as “gossip columns” for several of the more popular newspapers and magazines available in this, the greatest city in the greatest nation of the world. From the centre of my web of information I pick up on the slightest of vibrations in strands that extend into the servants’ quarters of every large house, into the snugs and taprooms of every tavern and bar, into the fronts-of-house of every theatre and music hall of note and into the comfortable seating of every café and coffee house. Or, to put it more prosaically, from my preferred window seat in my club in St. James’s I have a network of runners who perpetually shuttle snippets of information from maids, footmen, attendants and serving girls into my hands and, subsequently, small sums of money from me back to them. There is no assignation, no affair, no gambling debt and no underhand activity of which I am ignorant – if, that is, the public would find it titillating. If not, you need have no fear. If your fumbled indiscretion with your wife’s sister or your surreptitious channelling of church funds into your own pocket would not sell a few more newspapers were it to be reported in the press then, rest assured, I am not interested. Go, as they say, and sin in peace.

  Gossip is, I am convinced, one of the basic drives of humanity. Without gossip what would we have to talk about over the garden wall or across the dinner table? Only the weather, and given London’s dismal record in that regard the conversation would soon peter out. We all have a burning desire to know what members of the aristocracy, royalty, the Church and the House of Commons get up to behind closed doors. I am merely fulfilling a public service by collating and disseminating these details.

  Contrary to certain canards that have been spread around about me recently, I do not, I promise you, blackmail people using the information I have about them. Blackmail is an appalling crime, and I am a law-abiding citizen. I have never taken a single shilling to suppress details of a scandal, but I have taken many shillings in the service of getting those details in front of a voracious public. These wicked slurs have, I am sure, been spread by some who have been hurt by the – to them, uncomfortable – truths I tell in print. I understand that their marriages may have been destroyed and that they may be facing financial ruin, but to them I would say that their travails are a result of their own peccadilloes. If they had not lapsed, they would not have lost so much.

  Not only do I not profit from the vile trade of blackmail: my services are, in fact, taken advantage of by various guardians of law and order in London – the police, and the increasing number of consulting detectives setting up shop in Paddington and Pimlico. It is often crucial to their investigations to know that this suspect has been having a torrid love affair with that maid and that his recently murdered wife had, just prior to her death, discovered them locked in an amorous embrace. In the interests of telling the complete truth I have also, I admit, been approached by those who labour at the other end of the spectrum of legality. They, of course, do not share my repugnance at blackmail. I try my best not to get involved with these insalubrious characters. We have something of an armed standoff – I know the details of their dirty little schemes and could expose them to the police if I so chose. In fact, I have collections of information lodged with several solicitors scattered around London like so many infernal devices. If anything were to happen to me then that information would be released, and for a while the streets would be a great deal cleaner. But only for a while.

  The only exception I make in this regard is a certain, shall we say, academic gentleman who occasionally seeks out my services. He is the kind of man whose mild requests have the force of barked orders, and unpleasant things happen to those who ignore those requests. Fortunately, he regards blackmail as trivial and beneath his intellect. The information with which I provide him is used in other ways that I rarely get to see. He also invites me for lunch every now and then at his club. He is a surprisingly pleasant conversationalist.

  Talking of this gentleman brings me in a circle, back to the consulting detectives who seek me out and pay me for information. One in particular – a Mr Sherlock Holmes – frequently takes advantage of my services. He does not approve of me, but I am well past the time in my life when I require anybody’s approval. He finds me useful, however, and it does amuse me to see the daemons of his practical side fighting with the angels of his better nature. The poor man does suffer so.

  I keep up to date with the cases undertaken by Mr Holmes by reading the accounts written by his fellow lodger and amanuensis, Dr John Watson. Often I can see within those accounts elements that I provided to Holmes but that he has, I presume, failed to explain properly to Dr Watson – preferring instead to take the credit for discovering them himself. And, who, frankly, can blame him? I trust, by the way, that Dr Watson’s skills as a physician exceed those he displays as a writer of prose. Or perhaps I am just irritated by the way his lumpen phraseology seems to catch the public imagination. Those of us who make a professional living from journalism tend to look darkly upon the fortunate amateur.

  Perhaps that is why I have turned my attention now to writing up one of the times when Holmes required my assistance – and, as it turned out, for more than just information. This was during one of the periods when Watson was living separately from Holmes, thanks to a recent marriage. It was his third, I believe. Holmes seemed to have a blind spot where Watson was concerned: the man was a serial womaniser with a serious gambling problem, but Holmes never criticised him for this, as far as I know. He certainly had enough reason: Watson was always criticising Holmes for his dalliance with the needle.

  At the time this particular case came to my attention Watson was out of London – holidaying in Eastbourne with his new wife. I already had a thin file on her, but I saw no need to spoil the good doctor’s marital bliss by telling him anything of his wife’s rather colourful past. Perhaps he already knew. At any rate, it was early one morning at my club when Holmes appeared, accompanied by a footman and a young woman who looked as if she had been crying for some time.

  I nodded to the footman, and as he withdrew I gestured to my visitors to sit down.

  “Mr Holmes,” I said, “it has been too long.”

  “Not long enough for me, Pike,” he rejoined. “I apologise, by the way, for the timing of my visit. I know that the hours you keep tend to run completely counter to the hours of the civilised world.”

  “And I know that you keep whatever hours you choose, without recourse to looking at any clock,” I responded. “We are both as bad as each other.”

  “Certainly not,” he snapped. He had thrown himself into a chair when he arrived, but now he drew himself up and nodded his head towards the lady with whom he had entered. “This is Miss Molly Morris,” he said. “Miss Morris has consulted me on a problem, and I find I am in the regrettable situation of requiring your unique brand of assistance.”

  I gazed at Miss Morris, who was wiping her eyes with a lace handkerchief. She was dressed quite cheaply, but well. I would have put her down as an assistant in a haberdasher’s shop, rather than one of those women often and confusingly described as being “no better than they should be”, and I am rarely wrong on these matters.

  Holmes continued: “Miss Morris’s fiancé was killed several days ago in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, down near the Embankment. The exact nature of his
death is odd; odder still has been the reaction of the police.”

  “He was shot,” she interjected forcefully. “My family has worked in fairgrounds for generations, and I’ve seen shooting galleries. I know what a rifle shot sounds like. Gordon was standing in front of me, just opening his mouth to say something, when he was shot in the chest. He clutched at the wound, and keeled over.”

  “I’m terribly sorry for your loss,” I said, leaning forward and patting her hand. “I fear that Mr Holmes may have misled you, however. I know he disapproves of the way I make my living, but I do not, I assure you, either commission shootings or know anyone who carries them out. Nasty, unpleasant, noisy things.”

  “You make your living by making other people unhappy,” Holmes snapped. “Nevertheless, I am aware that you have a finely tuned ear for gossip and innuendo. Miss Morris’s fiancé is of, shall we say, a higher social station than she. I would like to know whether there is any family feud, any argument over a legacy, any dubious business arrangements, or any other reason why young Mr Gordon Drake might have been shot.”

  “Drake is a common name,” I pointed out.

  “Indeed. But this particular family have been involved in maritime insurance for generations.”

  “Ah – the Cheyne Walk Drakes, with offices in Fenchurch Street and Deptford.” I nodded. “I have indeed heard of them, but not in any way that would help in your investigation. There is, as far as I am aware, no hint of scandal in that family.” I smiled at Holmes. “I would consider them to be consumers of the work I do, rather than the fuel for it.”

  “The police tried to tell me he was stabbed,” Miss Morris interjected. “They told me that some mugger tried to take his wallet, and that when he resisted was knifed through the heart, but that’s just not so.”

  I patted her hand again – I wasn’t sure if I was helping, but I had to do something. “Perhaps his family were unhappy at the impending marriage,” I said, “and they were trying to kill you, but missed. Had you thought about that possibility?”