Doctor Watson ebook now out
Priced $2.99. The text is slightly different from what was published here, as Richard Flowers made some useful suggestions. It also has a cover and a short introduction. It will be out within a couple of hours on Amazon (US) and Amazon (UK), and is already available for all non-Kindle formats at Smashwords.
As always, this is totally DRM-free. Given the relative lack of popularity of this story, whether I do any more will depend on sales of the ebook.
No print book at the moment (the story’s too short to justify it) but if I do more I may do a collected edition.
Epilogue: Doctor Watson Investigates – The Case Of The Scarlet Neckerchief, the final part
(To read the rest of the story, click on the Doctor Watson Investigates tag at the bottom. A revised ebook of this story is now available – on Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and Smashwords.).
On Holmes’ return, I told him of the events that had occurred while he was away, and how I’d solved the mystery.
“The red hair was the clue, of course,” he said, “along with you finding the killer’s face familiar. It was, of course, a family resemblance to his half-sister, the woman he claimed was his fiancee.”
“So you guessed that, too?”
“It was the only plausible explanation. The resemblance between the two sisters was too close to be anything other than biological kinship. Their being actual sisters was, of course, out of the question – Lord Hernshire is known to be a man of the utmost propriety – so they must be cousins.”
“That she was left on the doorstep suggests that she was born of some improper liaison, so one must look to males of the family, and we have only one suspect – the mother’s elder brother, thought deceased. And when someone with similarly red hair appears, who spends much of his time in the African colonies – the same colonies where the elder brother disappeared, presumed dead – that would tend to confirm the supposition. Roger Courtenay and Rose Travers were half-siblings, with the same father but different mothers. The one piece that eludes me is why he did this. What kind of scoundrel could become engaged to his sister, let alone kill her?”
“Oh Holmes, and you’d done so well! He mentioned, did he not, that he had nearly been engaged to Cynthia?”
“Of course, I see now!”
“Yes. He came to England hoping to claim the fortune he should have inherited, only to find that his father had been presumed dead while away in Africa. He at first intended to propose to Cynthia Travers, hoping by marriage to her to reclaim his inheritance, but when he met Rose and heard how she had come to be part of the family, he decided she needed to share in her birthright too. They concocted a plot together, to fake a marriage and also murder the elder sister, and to return to Africa with their inheritance and go their separate ways. A most despicable plot!”
“And of course they first faked the disappearance of the younger sister. The plan was to have Rose pretend to be Cynthia and make it widely known that Rose had disappeared and was likely dead. Then when they killed Cynthia, Rose could turn up again saying she’d escaped from Cynthia’s killer.”
“The one thing I don’t understand, Holmes, is why come to ask you for help? Why risk exposure?”
“Ah, Watson, I am glad to see that your new application of my methods has not quite rendered me superfluous! They wished to make it as widely known as possible that Rose Travers had been kidnapped, so that their story would appear watertight. They also wished for Rose to be away from Hernshire temporarily, so had her travel to London. And of course, that was their downfall, and the cause of Rose’s death, for they had not reckoned on you, Watson.”
“On me?”
“On your good and chivalrous nature. Had I been present, I should undoubtedly have told her to return to Hernshire and wire me as events developed – this is my normal practice. They would then have been able to commit their murder with no-one the wiser. But you, Watson, have a better soul than I. You could not stand to see a woman suffering, so you took her to your house and then took it upon yourself to travel down there and investigate, arriving before the planned murder.”
“This of course made the deception plain, and Hemingford did the only thing he could think of in the situation – he staged his own kidnapping, murdered the only witness to his plot, and attempted to escape back to the colonies. And he very nearly succeeded.”
“You know, Holmes, I would not have been nearly so protective had it not been…”
“Yes. I know. But on to happier matters. My trip was successful, you shall be pleased to hear.”
“What was it you were doing over there, Holmes?”
“Ah, that I cannot tell even you, Watson. But the end result, I think I can. I think I may have prevented a rather large war. Or if not prevented, at least postponed by some twenty years.”
I felt chastened. Holmes had prevented a war, while I, applying his methods, had not even been able to prevent the death of one woman (although as I now realised she would have been a murderess without my intervention, my sorrow was much lessened).
But I had also proved, to myself at least, that I was not merely Holmes’ Sancho Panza. Maybe I should set up practice again, and maybe even find a new wife.
A knock came at the door, and a man entered. He had only one arm, and was clutching a pair of bagpipes to his chest.
“Mr. Holmes, I need your help,” he began.
I decided to stay with Holmes a little longer.
The Capture (Doctor Watson Investigates: The Case Of The Scarlet Neckerchief part IX)
(For parts one to eight of the good doctor’s investigation, click on the Doctor Watson Investigates tag. A revised ebook of this story is now available – on Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and Smashwords.)
I stared, dumbstruck, at the hair for a length of time that felt like an eternity but must only have been a few seconds. This was the woman who had visited me the previous morning (was it merely a day hence? It felt like many months), but she was now red-haired, when she had been dark-haired when I had seen her later that day.
And then I remembered. Rose Travers, the missing woman, had looked just like her sister. Cynthia had even told me when she visited me “Were it not for the flaming red hair for which she was named, one could almost have thought her my twin.”
I had been visited not by Cynthia at all, but by her sister Rose.
But why should Rose have visited me with a story about her own disappearance? A story, what is more, that both Cynthia Travers and Earl Hernshire seemed to believe to be correct, as well as Rose’s unfortunate fiance Roger. This was becoming a most perplexing and bizarre mystery indeed.
I related the events of the last day to Lestrade, along with the story that Rose had told me. How much of that tale was fictitious I, of course, did not know, but those few events which I had been able to verify had proved trustworthy, so I believed that in its broad outlines it was true.
And in telling Lestrade the story – of the dead mother who had inherited a fortune after her brother’s disappearance, of the appearance of the baby, of the fiance who travelled a lot, of the adopted sisters who nonetheless looked like twins, and of the woman who had come to me to report her own disappearance – I had a horrifying realisation, one that I should have had much earlier.
I knew who the murderer was, and what his motive had been. The final proof came when I examined the body, and found the neckerchief which she had shown me yesterday nowhere to be seen.
“Lestrade! Quickly, we must get to the docks! And pray God we are not too late!”
I do not exaggerate when I say that that six-mile journey seemed one of the longest of my life. The cab journey to Wapping could surely have taken no more than three-quarters of an hour by the clock, but it felt like an eternity to one who knew that justice would be served or forever denied by our speed. Rose Travers had, it now appeared, been a liar and a party to terrible crimes, but her death still needed to be avenged by the law.
Upon finally arriving at the docks, we found them bustling with all the many species of humanity from all parts of the Empire, loading and unloading crates, boxes and barrels of every imaginable exotic item. After some confusion, we finally found someone who spoke something recognisably akin to English.
“Is there a boat going to Africa from here any time soon?” I asked.
“No boats here, mate.”
“A ship, then. Is there a ship going to Africa from these docks today?”
“Yep. That’un over there. Leaves in a hour.”
We raced to the ship, ran up the gangplank despite protestations from some of the sailors, and Lestrade and his two constables began their search, looking for the man whose description I had given them on the journey. However, as they were looking, I saw a figure approaching from the docks.
It was the killer! We had managed to arrive before him, and looking at him it was clear to see why. He had obviously changed his clothes, from the respectable outfit I had seen him in to the drab workman’s clothes he now wore. He had also affected a stoop, in order to fit in better with the mass of humanity around him. I, however, would have recognised him anywhere.
In retrospect, it would have been the intelligent thing to hide, allow him to board the ship, and then arrest him. In my enthusiasm and anger, though, I shouted “Hoy!” as soon as I saw him, and he turned, dropped his bag, and fled.
I sprinted down the gangplank, closely followed by Lestrade and his constables. Had the dock been less crowded I should have pulled out my service revolver and shot at the miscreant, for he was younger than I and unencumbered by a war wound. Fortunately, the policemen were faster than I, and they caught him before he could make good his escape.
They dragged him, still protesting, in front of me.
“Is this the man?” asked Lestrade.
It was. The man in front of me, bedraggled though he was, was undoubtedly the same man I had met the day before, and who without realising I had glimpsed catching the earlier train that morning.
“That’s the man. He calls himself Roger Courtenay, but I doubt it’s his real name.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” protested the villain, “I’ve never heard of any Roger Courtenay.”
“Search his pockets.”
His pockets were searched, and in one was found the same blood-encrusted red neckerchief that Rose had shown me the day before.
“That should be enough to see him hanged,” said Lestrade.
“Indeed. But it should be under his real name. Would I be right in thinking that your real name is not Courtenay but Hemingford?”
The shock on the villain’s face told me I was correct.
“How in God’s name did you know that?”
“Oh, it was obvious. Why else would you kill your sister?”
(Tomorrow – the return of Holmes and the final explanation)
Doctor Watson Investigates: The Case Of The Scarlet Neckerchief part VIII
(For parts one to seven of the good doctor’s investigation, click on the Doctor Watson Investigates tag. A revised ebook of this story is now available – on Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and Smashwords.)
Not only was I being accused of murder, the betrayal of everything that as a medical man I hold sacred, but the murder of Cynthia Travers, the very young woman I had sworn to protect. And Miss Travers had, to the best of my knowledge, still been alive when I had left Hernshire Hall earlier that morning.
“Miss Travers… Cynthia… is dead?” I asked.
“We responded to reports of screaming and cries of ‘murder’ coming from this house at about noon today. Upon entering, we found the body of a young woman, carrying about her person a handkerchief monogrammed with the letters C.T., and near her a handbag containing letters addressed to Cynthia Travers. We visited your lodgings, and your landlady informed us that you had not been seen since yesterday, and that when she had last seen you you had been in the company of a woman named Travers who matched the description of the deceased.”
I was horrified. The day before, I had sworn upon my honour to protect the life of this young lady, and now she was dead.
But more, I was confused. Cynthia Travers had been in Hernshire the previous evening. Only one passenger, a man, had boarded the earlier train back to London in the morning, and nobody had boarded the one on which I had travelled. Surely she could not have travelled by coach overnight, only to be murdered upon her arrival?
But this thought of trains made me aware of something.
“Inspector, I couldn’t possibly be the murderer.”
“Why not?”
“You said the murder took place at noon?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, at noon I was in the middle of a train journey, and thankfully I still have the ticket to prove it.”
Having only had a chance to change my shirt and waistcoat before the door-knocking had commenced, I was still wearing the trousers in which I had been travelling. I pulled the ticket out and showed Lestrade.
“Well… I did think it most unlikely that you would kill someone, Doctor, but in barbarous times like these you can never tell. But do you have any idea why this young lady would have been in your house in the first place?”
So I explained the whole story to Lestrade, how Cynthia Travers had come to me for help after her sister’s disappearance, how I had allowed her to stay in my own house in order to help protect her, and how she had later appeared in Hernshire, disavowing any knowledge of me.
“A ghastly business indeed!” said Lestrade. “What does Mister Holmes think of it?”
“Holmes is unfortunately indisposed at present, with a very bad case of the influenza. We shall have to solve this problem without him, I fear.”
“A pity. Mister Holmes’ flashiness will never replace real police-work, of course, but for an amateur he’s quite good. I always think it a shame he never joined the force – we might have made a real detective of him.”
I nodded politely. My own opinion of Holmes is a great deal higher than that professed by Lestrade, but then I hold Lestrade in a rather higher esteem than does Holmes. I also suspect both men to have higher opinions of each other than they claim.
“Well, Doctor”, Lestrade continued, “since you’re here anyway, and the police surgeon hasn’t yet arrived, why don’t you examine the body?”
As we proceeded toward the bedroom, I thought back to the last time I had entered that room, several months before. That time, too, it had been to see the corpse of a young, beautiful woman who I had sworn to protect. I had been unable to save my wife, and now I had also been unable to save Miss Travers.
But while my wife’s killer had been consumption, against which all of us in the medical profession can only battle in vain, Miss Travers’ killer was a human being (loath though I am to apply the term to such an infernal wretch), and he could be arrested, tried and hanged. I determined that I should not rest until this consummation had been achieved.
I shall spare you any description of the horror I saw upon entering that room, but it remains engraved on my mind’s eye to this day. I am no stranger, of course, to violent death – as a battlefield surgeon it is a constant companion. But death on a battlefield, in honourable combat, in service of one’s country is, if not always glorious, always understood and expected. The soldier knows when he takes the Queen’s shilling that he is not taking a wage but a loan, and that the debt may be called in at any time in his own flesh and blood.
But the young girl lying there, in an indescribable state, had made no contracts and taken no money. She was the victim of a vicious, callous brute, of a ferocity I find unimaginable.
I bent down to examine the poor girl, who I noted was again wearing the apparel in which she had been clothed when she had visited my lodgings the previous day (even though I had seen her since, clad in different garb). That one who had so recently been so full of life was now an empty shell, her soul having departed, I still found hard to believe.
I loosened her clothing, looking for marks that might be of some use in identifying the killer. In order to look more closely at her neck, I loosened the veiled bonnet she was wearing, which was tied around her chin. The bonnet fell back, onto the floor.
And along with the bonnet fell a long black wig, revealing underneath, tied up to keep it out of sight, the young woman’s real hair.
It was tied into a tight bun, but they were plainly the tresses of a different woman from the one I had seen the previous evening. For they were a bright, shining, red.
Doctor Watson Investigates: The Case Of The Scarlet Neckerchief part VII
(For parts one to six of the good doctor’s investigation, click on the Doctor Watson Investigates tag. A revised ebook of this story is now available – on Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and Smashwords.)
I stood there with the card in my hand for many minutes, stunned at the latest turn in this grotesque business. There was now a second kidnapping – and, I feared, a second murder – alongside the first.
I still had no means of alerting Holmes to this terrible series of events, and I was horribly afraid that the worst was already upon us. Even had Holmes been alerted, a young couple on the eve of their marriage had been snatched away to their doom already. He would undoubtedly be able to identify the miscreant responsible, but nobody could now protect Courtenay or Rose Travers from whatever grisly fate had awaited them.
I trudged back to Hernshire Hall with a heavy heart. No doubt they would be as unwelcoming as they had been the previous evening, yet I had to inform them of this latest dreadful turn of events.
My presentiments proved correct. After several entreaties, I could not persuade the butler even to grant me entrance to the hall, and so eventually told the man the barest facts of the matter, presented him with the card, singed round the edges from the fire, and departed to the railway station.
In keeping with the recent course of events, I arrived at the railway station just in time to see, from behind, a single passenger boarding the train to London and the train departing. I had to wait another three hours for the next train, with no-one for company, and nothing to do but to think over my failure.
I determined that upon my arrival I should seek out Lestrade and, no matter what the consequences, inform him of the terrible events that had been taking place in Hernshire. While Lestrade might not be of the same intellectual calibre as Holmes, it was becoming increasingly clear that nor was I.
There were mysteries within mysteries here; the elder Miss Travers’ refusal to admit to having met me, in particular, beggared comprehension. Why should someone so desperate for help be so quick to disavow all knowledge of the man to whom she had so recently turned for assistance?
These thoughts and others went through my head during that long train journey back to London, and in my short cab ride thereafter to Baker Street. I wanted to collect my thoughts and make myself presentable, as my clothing was somewhat damaged by the smoke from the previous night’s fire, before bringing the dreadful news to Inspector Lestrade.
But by a curious coincidence, or so it seemed at the time, I was not the only one desirous of such a meeting. I had barely had time to button my waistcoat when there came a banging on the door. I opened it to see a young street-urchin there, one of the lads occasionally employed by Holmes. This time, though, he was in the employ of Lestrade.
“Doctor Watson?”
“Yes?
“Inspector Lestrade sent me. ‘E says ‘e wants to see yer. Yer to meet ‘im at your ‘ouse in ‘alf an ‘our.”
“How extraordinary! I was just on my way to visit Lestrade at Scotland Yard, but I shall make my way to my house instead. Was there any other message?”
“Yer. ‘E said you was to give me a shillin’ for my trouble.”
“Oh, he did, did he? More likely he said to give you tuppence – if he didn’t give it to you himself. Am I correct?”
The young lad had the grace to look sheepish at this deduction, which had hardly taken my whole intellect to produce, and so I gave him sixpence, because he had after all been of some assistance to me.
I made my way again to my former abode, musing on the strange twists of fate that had driven me twice in two days to the home of my all-too-short-lived happiness, after I had spent so many months studiously avoiding it. First I had come here to give Cynthia Travers a safe haven in which to avoid her fate (and why had she returned to Hernshire? And why had she feigned ignorance of me? And why had Roger Courtenay, not Cynthia Travers, been the next victim? Was Cynthia still in danger?). Now I was going to inform Lestrade about what was possibly the most macabre series of events I could recall. (And why was Lestrade at my house? And why did he wish to meet with me and not Holmes?)
Even more astonishingly, when I arrived at my house, I noticed the door was already open, and a bearded police constable was standing outside! Had I been burgled? I bounded up the steps and asked the constable what was going on.
“I can’t help you, I’m afraid, sir,” the constable replied, “my duty is merely to prevent entry by members of the public.”
“Then would you mind letting me in, so I could speak to someone who can help me?”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. As I explained, my duty is to prevent entry.”
“But dash it, man, this is my house! I’m John Watson!”
At this point, a voice from inside intruded on our discussion. “Doctor Watson! I’ve been waiting for you. Let him in, Watkins.”
I entered to see, in the drawing room, Inspector Lestrade waiting with several of his colleagues.
“Lestrade! My dear sir, it is a pleasure to see you. I apologise for my delay in arriving, but I was changing my clothing when your boy arrived.”
At this, Lestrade looked significantly at one of the other policemen, who raised an eyebrow. I continued, regardless.
“I actually have some business with you myself, but perhaps you’d like to say why you sent for me, first of all?”
Lestrade looked at me, his face devoid of that human sympathy with which he was normally so endowed, and said, in a colder voice than I had ever heard from him, words which chilled me.
“Doctor John Watson, you are under arrest for the murder of Cynthia Travers.”
Doctor Watson Investigates: The Case Of The Scarlet Neckerchief part VI
(For parts one to five of the good doctor’s investigation, click on the Doctor Watson Investigates tag. A revised ebook of this story is now available – on Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and Smashwords.)
I was utterly confounded!
“Miss Travers,” I responded, trying to control the tremor in my voice, “surely you must remember our meeting only this morning?”
“You must be mistaken, sir,” she replied, in a voice that was noticeably colder, “I have been here all day, and have been too grief-stricken to take any visitors.”
“But…”
“But nothing!” Her father interrupted. “Sir, I don’t know what kind of scoundrel you are, or why you should come to my house in a time of grief for my family and bother us with such a pack of obvious falsehoods, but I shall tolerate your presence no further.” He rang the bell, and the footman appeared again. “Chalmers, please escort this… gentleman… to the door.”
I attempted to protest, but in vain. Neither Lord Hernshire nor his daughter would listen to a word I said, and I had to leave.
As the servant was handing me my hat and cloak, with what seemed somewhat indecent haste, a thought struck.
“Would you mind telling me where Mr. Courtenay lives?”
“And why would you be wanting to know that?”
“I have some small business with him before I return to London.”
“He’s staying at the inn, sir. The Black Hen, mile and a half down the road.”
“At the inn? I thought he was local.”
“Oh no, sir. He travels a lot – he has a house in London, but he spends a lot of time in foreign parts. I hear he was born in the colonies, and still travels there on business. So he stays at the inn when he’s around Hernshire.”
“So what brought him to Hernshire in the first place?”
“That wouldn’t be any of my business, sir. And nor, if you don’t mind me saying so, would it be yours. Now his Lordship has asked me to escort you off the premises, and I would be obliged if you would leave quietly and allow me to be about my work.”
I walked to the inn – which turned out to be closer to two miles away, most of it uphill, and led me to wish that I had worn a pair of sturdy hiking boots rather than the indoor shoes I was wearing – lost in thought.
Clearly some very grotesque business was afoot. Cynthia Travers did not remember our meeting – and her bafflement had appeared genuine enough, rather than the result of some thespian trickery – but it had only happened that morning. Not only that, but everything she had told me in that meeting appeared to be correct. Her sister, Rose, did appear to be missing, and the family did appear to be assuming her death.
After my unfortunate first impression, I could count on no help from anyone in Hernshire Hall, even though our aims must surely be as one. The only person left to turn to was Roger Courtenay. Rose’s fiance would surely be of some assistance, and his mind had not been prejudiced towards me.
By the time I got to the Black Hen, it was nearing dusk. Enquiring after Mr. Courtenay, I found him sat alone. I asked to join him, and while he seemed surprised he consented readily enough.
Over a steak-and-kidney pie and pint of ale, the first food I had been able to have since breaking my fast many hours earlier, I spoke with Mr. Courtenay, and found him as described, a charming, articulate man with a noble bearing. Behind his bright red beard, his face seemed somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t place the resemblance.
I explained the situation as I understood it, and was grateful to find that he did not seem to disbelieve me.
“Cynthia is a strange child,” he said to me when I had finished relating my tale, “and somewhat given to odd behaviour. I was almost engaged to her myself at one time, before I met poor Rose… Thankfully, Rose is much less hysterical than her sister.”
“We must try to find Rose, despite her sister’s strange behaviour. Sir, I give you my word that I shall do everything that is in my power to return your bride to you unharmed.”
“Sir, I am grateful. Why, with your help, and that of the great Sherlock Holmes, I believe I shall soon see my bride again. Perhaps even tomorrow, eh?”
“Indeed. Stout fellow! That’s just the spirit!”
“But for today, sir, it draws late, and the day has been an exhausting one. I must retire. Are you taking a room here?”
It hadn’t occured to me until then, but it was too late to get back to London that night, so I requested a room, and I too retired for the night.
My sleep was disturbed in the middle of the night by a noise, and I woke up to hear the doorknob rattling. I had, of course, locked the door, but fearing burglary or something worse I nonetheless called “Who’s there? I warn you, I have a gun!”
The reply was, however, one that amused me at my own anxiety, for it was Roger. “Only me, Doctor. Sorry. Got up for a quick breath of fresh air, because I couldn’t sleep, and tried the wrong door in the dark. Mine’s next door.”
Mollified, I lay down and went to sleep again. But I woke not long after to a smell of smoke.
Running out of the room, I noticed the smoke was coming out from under Roger’s door. I knocked on the door and enquired “Roger, are you in there?”, but I heard no reply. I knocked louder. “Roger!”
Satisfied that he was not going to answer, I started shouting “Fire!”, and roused the landlord and landlady from their bed. While the landlady got to safety outside, the landlord and I started attacking the door with our shoulders, it being locked and the handle too hot to touch.
Eventually, after several attempts, we broke the door down. We fetched water and doused the fire (one lucky aspect of the fire being in an inn was that liquids were plentiful there), but even through the smoke, we could see that Roger was no longer in the room.
Instead, near the burning mattress, was a note.
It read “I SHALL STILL HAVE WHAT IS MINE!”
Doctor Watson Investigates: The Case Of The Scarlet Neckerchief Part V
(For the first four parts of the story, click the Doctor Watson Investigates tag. A revised ebook of this story is now available – on Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and Smashwords.)
I stared at the telegram in horror. I had no means of contacting Holmes other than by telegram, and without him I was lost. There was a young girl in desperate fear for her life, and I had pledged on my honour to help her, but my one means of doing so was unavailable to me.
What could be done? Had these events taken place a few years later, I should undoubtedly have enlisted the help of Holmes’ brother Mycroft, who possessed something of his brother’s deductive powers (Holmes sometimes claimed his brother was even more intelligent than he, but I believe that to be the normal hero-worship a younger brother always has for the older). However, at this time I had not yet been introduced to the elder Holmes, or to the strange club in which he spends the majority of his days, and so I was at a loss.
I did not consider turning to the police. Not only would this have meant betraying Holmes’ confidence by admitting that he was out of the country, I valued Holmes’ opinion of me too much. I could imagine all too well Holmes’ reaction when, upon his arrival, I confessed to him that I had been unable to assist Miss Travers without calling upon the assistance of Inspector Lestrade. Given Holmes’ low opinion of Lestrade’s skills, how much lower would he consider me, were I to turn to that “infernal bungler” (to use one of Holmes’ most frequent terms for the Inspector)?
No, I would have to solve Miss Travers’ problem alone.
If I wanted any success in this matter, I should have to apply Holmes’ methods. But Holmes would see so much more than I in Miss Travers’ story. I thought back over every detail – the sister left on the doorstep, the abduction on the wedding day, the bloodied neckerchief – but where Holmes would have been able to see a pattern instantly, any greater understanding eluded me.
I can honestly say that in all the years of my association with Holmes, nothing connected to that association had caused me greater pain than knowing that Cynthia Travers’ life was in my hands. Even later, when I believed Holmes dead, I had at least the consolation that he had died (as I thought) ridding the world of a great evil, and that I had had no part in that death. If Miss Travers were to fall victim to the fiend that had taken her sister, though, that would be my fault and mine alone. If I did not manage to match my friend’s unmatchable reasoning, Cynthia Travers would soon be dead.
But I could not allow myself to think of this as my problem. I had to be as clear-headed about this as Holmes would be, for only then would I stand a chance of emulating his methods.
As I had been unable to find anything in Miss Travers’ story which would allow me to begin understanding this most macabre of problems, there was only one possibility open to me. I would have to visit Hernshire Hall and speak to Miss Travers’ father, and to her poor sister’s fiance, and hope that one or other of them had some vital clue that as yet eluded me.
I comforted myself with the thought that at least Miss Travers was safe for the present, though I knew it would be only a matter of time before her presence in my old home was discovered by her pursuer, and headed towards Hernshire.
Arriving at Hernshire Hall, I was annoyed to see a carriage leaving as I arrived, containing a young man who I presumed to be Roger Courtenay, the fiance of the missing Rose Travers, and I cursed myself for my earlier inaction. Had I come here as soon as I had ensured Cynthia Travers’ safety, rather than brooding in my rooms, I would have been able to speak to him alongside Earl Hernshire. As it was, I would have to seek him out later.
I knocked on the door, presented my card, and was escorted in to what appeared to be a small but well-furnished library, to await Earl Hernshire. I spent a few idle moments looking at the books, most of which appeared to be on the subjects of history and philosophy, before the Earl’s presence was announced.
“I don’t recall sending for a Doctor, sir, and as far as I am aware we have no need of one,” the Earl said after initial pleasantries, “has there been some misunderstanding?”
“I am not here on medical business, Lord Hernshire, but to assist in this upsetting business regarding your daughter.”
“Then I thank you for your offer, sir, but would request that you take any information you may have to the police.”
“I fear I have not made myself clear, my Lord. I am here on behalf of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. He sends his apologies, but he is indisposed at present, and has requested me to make inquiries on his behalf.”
“Holmes? Good God, how extraordinary! I’d heard tell that the man had almost preternatural powers, but we only decided to send for him not ten minutes ago. Roger only just left to send the telegram. Tell me, sir, how did Mr Holmes know his assistance would be needed?”
“I beg your pardon, my Lord, but did your daughter Cynthia not inform you she was coming to London to ask for Holmes’ aid?”
“What are you talking about, man?”
“Your eldest daughter, Cynthia, came to visit Holmes and myself this morning, and gave us all the details of your terrible experience.”
“Sir, my youngest daughter has been kidnapped and may be dead. This is no time for practical jokes. Cynthia has been in the house the whole time!””
“I assure you, my Lord, she has not. She is in London at the moment, in fact, where I have found her a place of safety for the time being.”
“I dislike being called a liar by a guest in my own home, sir. I shall prove to you that your claims are so much fanciful nonsense, and then I shall have you thrown out.” He rang a bell and a footman entered. “Chalmers, please request Miss Cynthia’s presence.”
Moments later, through the door walked Miss Travers! She was clothed differently, wearing lighter clothes than the deep mourning she had been affecting on her visit to Baker Street, but more than her change of clothing what amazed me was that she was there at all, having had no way to get back from London before my arrival.
“Cynthia, would you mind telling this blackguard how you’ve spent the day?”
“Why, I’ve been here all day, father. I helped search the grounds for clues about poor Rose, but was quite overcome with grief and had to retire to my room an hour ago.”
“You see, you scoundrel? Now who really sent you?”
“I don’t understand… Miss Travers, how did you get here? Tell your father – his Lordship – about our meeting!”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but I don’t quite understand. Have we met?”
Two Wires (Doctor Watson Investigates: The Case Of The Scarlet Neckerchief part IV)
(Click the Doctor Watson Investigates tag for parts 1 – 3. A revised ebook of this story is now available – on Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and Smashwords.)
I examined the cloth carefully, but however many secrets it may have yielded to Holmes’ eye, to mine it was only a bloodied cloth.
“And you say your sister kept this with her at all times?”
“She had never been parted with it from the day we found her. I fear, Doctor Watson, that Rose would not be parted from it by anything short of her death. And I fear that whoever did this will do the same to me.”
“The fiend!” I expostulated. “And you have no idea who it could be?”
“Sir, I can honestly say that neither Rose nor myself has an enemy in the world. We have led a solitary existence, and have few acquaintances and fewer opportunities for disagreement. Had this occured some years previously, I should perhaps have suspected one of father’s political opponents, but he has retired now, and surely not even a Tory would choose to attack a man through his children?”
I declined to comment. One does not discuss politics with ladies.
“It might be, though, someone opposed to father’s stance on Home Rule for the Irish. He is a Moderate, and received threats from both sides. Few things arouse men’s passions as much as a devotion to the land of their birth, whatever land that may be. But still…to go after poor Rose seems too brutish!”
“I should say so. To fully describe my feelings about such animals would require me to use language that a gentleman would never use in the presence of a lady.”
I pondered the situation for some moments, then walked over to the writing desk. I took out a telegraph pad and pencil, and quickly jotted down “FOUL BUSINESS STOP ONE PROBABLE MURDER ANOTHER YOUNG LADY THREATENED STOP POSSIBLE POLITICAL MOTIVES STOP PLEASE ADVISE ADDRESS TO WRITE WITH MORE DETAILS JHW” along with the false name and address Holmes had given me, and rang for Mrs. Hudson.
I gave the telegram to Mrs. Hudson and asked her to arrange its delivery as soon as possible, then turned my attention back to the young lady.
“I shall, of course, inform Holmes of all of this, but from time to time Holmes requests the assistance of specialists in other fields. Your tale has some points of interest that I thought one of his associates might be able to help with, hence the telegram.”
“What points of interest?”
I must confess I hadn’t expected such a question. When Holmes says such things his clients invariably accept it.
“Oh, nothing to concern yourself with. What we do have to concern ourselves with is your protection. While I devoutly hope that your suspicions as to your sister’s fate are unfounded, we do not want you to share that fate. Have you anywhere you can stay?”
“My father has a house in town.”
“No, that won’t do. If this is someone who wishes your family harm, he will surely know of the address.”
I pondered the matter for some moments, and then it came to me. I knew the perfect place. I had only recently moved back in with Holmes, and my old house was currently empty. I had been planning to let it, but as yet it had no tenant.
I explained the situation to Miss Travers, but she seemed concerned.
“Is it entirely proper? I am an unmarried woman, and you are, if you will forgive me for saying so, an older gentleman.”
“I’m not yet forty!”
“Even so. It would not appear right.”
“My dear lady, we do not wish it to appear like anything. We shall inform no-one of your presence there. In fact to do so would be to open you up to precisely the attack we are attempting to avoid.”
I hailed a cab, and escorted her to the house that had so recently been the centre of my life, and which held so many happy memories now turned bitter-sweet.
I quickly excused myself, once I was assured of Miss Travers’ safety, and left in something of a despondent mood. I consoled myself, however, with the thought that the old house was being used once more, and by a woman almost as beautiful as the one who had lived there so recently. My unhappiness would, at least, have some positive effect.
Having returned to the rooms I shared with Holmes – rooms whose memories were far more eventful but far less melancholy – I poured myself a brandy and began to consider the next course of action. Miss Travers was safe for the moment, but her story hinted at an almost diabolical intelligence, one who would stop at nothing to get what he thought was his.
It seemed to me an utterly insoluble conundrum. Letters arriving without being delivered, sent by the enemy of a girl who had no enemies, leading to that macabre bloodstained neckerchief. Rarely had such a ghastly case been brought to my attention, and rarely had one seemed so incapable of solution.
Nonetheless, I put my trust in Holmes. Some of my readers have mocked the way I marvel at his deductive skills, claiming that his feats of reasoning are mere parlour tricks, of which any normally observant man would be capable. If this is the impression I have given, I can only say that the fault is in my work, not in Holmes. I cannot imagine that a quicker, more lively mind exists in the world. He is, in the field of deduction, what Newton or Napoleon had been in their respective fields, and I daresay it will be many centuries before a fourth brain of that calibre arises to join that exalted trio.
So I was certain that were Holmes to be apprised of the facts of the situation, he would undoubtedly find a solution to the problem in a short time. Luckily, my questioning of Miss Travers had elicited so much detail that Holmes would surely have all the information he needed without having to cut short his European adventures.
I sat down at my desk and began composing a letter to Holmes, detailing the strange and marvellous occurences Miss Travers had related to me. But I had only got as far as her sister Rose’s mysterious arrival as a baby, when there came a knock on the door.
It was a telegram being delivered. And its twelve words were ones that made my heart stop.
“SH NO LONGER AT THIS ADDRESS STOP NO FORWARDING ADDRESS STOP APOLOGIES”
Miss Travers’ Story (Doctor Watson Investigates part 3)
(Click the tag to see parts one and two of Watson’s tale. A revised ebook of this story is now available – on Amazon (US), Amazon (UK) and Smashwords.)
I shall relate the story Miss Travers told me in, as far as I can, her own words.
“I do not know where to begin when recounting my tale, or what details may be important to a more analytical mind than mine, so I shall attempt to give all the facts in my possession, and you may inform Mister Holmes of those which you find pertinent, though I do hope you shall show all due discretion otherwise.”
“I was born in Hernshire, twenty-five years ago. My father, Earl Hernshire, spent much of his time in London attending Parliament – he was Her Majesty’s Minister for War in the last Government. My mother was also of noble birth, though of the distaff line of one of our great families. She was, however, much wealthier than my father, having inherited on her own father’s death an estate which, through prudent management, brought her an income of some two thousand pounds a year.”
“My mother was not, of course, originally the heir to her father’s fortune, but her brother, Gerald Hemingford, had left to seek his fortune in Africa some years earlier, and shortly thereafter had been reported dead, though his body was never recovered. My grandfather, grief-stricken, had died soon after, and his estate had become my mother’s dowry.”
“My mother and father had a happy marriage, despite my father’s long absences, and I was born not a year after they wed. But two years after I was born, their marriage having produced no other issue, the most remarkable occurence of my whole life took place. For on my second birthday, my sister Rose arrived.”
“I do not remember that day myself, of course, but the story has been told me many times in the intervening years. At six in the morning, one of the maids was disturbed by a noise from outside. Going to the door, she found a crib containing a baby girl, barely a week old, clad only in a crude wrapping, made of a neckerchief such as a vagabond might wear, bright scarlet with golden spots.”
“My father, alert as always to possible dangers to our reputation, was wary, but my mother, who was the most loving soul God ever put on this earth, insisted that should a search for the baby’s parents prove futile, she should be adopted as a sister for me, and my father eventually relented, his good nature overcoming his sense of propriety.”
“From that moment on, Rose was my sister, and no distinction was made between us in our parents’ favours. She was loved by them as a daughter, and by me as a sister, and so great was our love for her that she grew up looking like she was born into the family. Were it not for the flaming red hair for which she was named, one could almost have thought her my twin.”
“As we grew up together, our childhood was idyllic. We wanted for nothing, having loving parents, a nursemaid who doted on us, and a life of pleasure. One might imagine we would become spoiled, but Rose had such a sweet nature that she could never behave improperly, and she set such an example of grace and kindliness that I could never bring myself to hurt her by doing less myself.”
“The only sadness to enter our lives was when my mother died, some five years ago, of consumption. My poor father, previously as outgoing a man as you could hope to meet, became increasingly melancholy and withdrawn after that, and gave up much of his public life, though he still doted on both of us as much as before, if not more.”
“A year ago, then, my sister met Roger Courtenay, a young man, a year or two older than her, and became besotted with him. He is, indeed, a most admirable man – charming, handsome, and of a good family. The two became betrothed this spring, and were to have married yesterday.”
“But my sister’s happiness was to be short-lived. The day the notice of her engagement was posted in the Times, we received this through the post.”
She handed me a postcard, addressed to Rose Travers, and bearing the inscription “I SHALL HAVE WHAT IS MINE.”
“We did not know, at first, what to make of this, but every day since then we received more cards. None were postmarked, but nor did we ever see the blackguard deliver them himself. At first, the cards said simply, as that one does, ‘I shall have what is mine’, but later…”
She pulled another card out of her bag. This one read, in the same hand “YOU SHALL RUE THE DAY YOU CROSSED ME. GIVE ME WHAT IS MINE.”
“And then finally, a week ago, we started getting these.”
She pulled out another card, reading “YOU SHALL NOT LIVE TO SEE YOUR WEDDING, IF I AM NOT SATISFIED.”
“We told the police, of course, but they said it was almost certainly a prank one of the villagers was playing. They posted a guard outside the house, but nothing untoward was seen.”
“And then, two nights ago, my sister retired early for the night, giddy with excitement, despite the strain that had been placed on her by these devillish postcards, because the next day was to be her wedding. But when I awoke the next morning and went to her room, to call on her to make herself ready, she was not there.”
“A search of the house and grounds revealed nothing. None of her clothes were missing, save the nightgown she had been wearing the previous night. None of the windows were open or broken, and none of the servants had heard anything, even though many of them had been awake all night preparing for the wedding.”
“The police searched the area, and we all helped, but by six o’clock in the evening it became clear that we were not going to find my poor sister, and so my father and I returned home, in the hope that maybe she would contact us there. When we got in, I found the most horrifying sight in all this ghastly business.”
She handed me a card, addressed this time to Cynthia Travers, and reading “I SHALL HAVE WHAT IS MINE.”
“That card was waiting for us at the house, along with this.” She pulled out a piece of red cloth. “It’s the neckerchief my poor sister was found in, all those years ago. She kept it with her always.”
She handed the cloth to me. It was caked in blood.
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