The Strange Adventures of Charlotte Holmes Read online

  ‘Shall I stay?’ asked Mary.

  ‘Please do, if you wish.’

  The young woman who came into the room was of medium height and about twenty-two years old. Her face was tanned, her hair, under an old blue hat, hung down her back in one long, brown plait, like a schoolgirl’s. She wore a brown cotton dress, topped by a dark blue cloak, and on her feet were tired-looking black boots. She gazed timidly round the room.

  ‘Come in, my dear,’ Charlotte said affably. ‘I am Charlotte Holmes and this is my friend, Mrs Watson. Come and sit down. Can I offer you some wine? You look a little tired.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ replied the young woman. ‘I drink no alcohol.’

  Charlotte nodded. ‘Very wise. You won’t refuse a cup of tea, though?’ She rang the bell and gave the order to Betsey.

  ‘My name is Emily Revere,’ the young woman said, as Charlotte took off her cloak and put it on the piano stool.

  Without turning round Charlotte said, ‘And you have been down in Kent, picking hops, whereupon you left in something of a hurry this morning and got a lift to London on a cart containing apples and then, if I am not mistaken, you visited a friend and now – you are here!’

  She swung round to look at the young woman’s startled face.

  ‘How could you know?’ she asked. ‘Even to what the carter was carrying?’

  ‘Not hard,’ said Charlotte. She moved over and sat down, looking earnestly at Emily Revere, who sat on the couch. ‘There is, though you may not be aware of it, a tiny fragment of hop still clinging to the hem of your dress. The colours are much the same or you would have observed it. Your face bears the marks of exposure to the sun. That is no London complexion – so I deduce you have been in Kent, picking hops. You left in a hurry, I think, because you have not cleaned your boots and you are, I think, the kind of person who would ordinarily make that kind of preparation before a journey. For the same reason when you did your hair you picked the simplest style imaginable. You must have left before midday because your cloak is still damp and the heavy rain this morning stopped at twelve o’clock. But you must have visited a friend, who dried your cloak and boots to a large extent, or both would be much wetter than they are.’ She paused.

  ‘You’re right,’ said the young woman. ‘But what about the apples?’

  ‘The wetness of your cloak meant you have travelled on a cart or walked – at any rate, you were exposed to the rain. And as for the apples – well, you came from Kent, where all the orchards are, it is the harvest season and – the smell still clings to your cloak.’

  ‘Astonishing,’ said Emily Revere. ‘I’m so glad I came to you. Can you help me?’

  Charlotte was still reconstructing Emily’s journey. ‘So,’ she brooded, ‘if you arrived in London at, say, one o’clock, where did you then go? It is after five, now. Who put your cloak in front of the kitchen range, and your boots, and dried them?’ She paused. ‘I have it. You went first to Baker Street to find my brother Sherlock. Mrs Hudson told you he was away and kindly dried your clothes, perhaps supplied some luncheon. But Mrs Hudson would not, I think, show quite so much friendship to a stranger …’ She looked hard at Emily’s face, now smiling broadly, and said triumphantly, ‘Of course, you are a relative. The resemblance is plain.’

  Mary burst into laughter and said to Emily, ‘There! Now you see what you are up against.’

  As Charlotte poured out tea Emily said, ‘I am glad of it. This must be the first time I have smiled or felt any peace of mind for almost a week. As you say, Miss Holmes, I did go to my great aunt, your brother’s housekeeper, when I realised if something were not done my brother …’ and here she closed her eyes against the vision which presented itself, then continued, ‘my brother will hang for murder.’

  ‘Ah – the Bellavista murder,’ Charlotte said gravely. ‘Where Sir Arthur Grimmond was shot dead on his own lawn. Now, calm yourself, my dear. I am sure I can help you. For now, though, I think it’s best if you return to 221B Baker Street for the night. Tomorrow we shall meet at Victoria station where, unless I am mistaken, there is a nine thirty train to Rickett’s Cross, which I believe is the place we require. From there we will go to Shepping and do what we have to. Let me put you in a cab to Baker Street.’

  When Charlotte came back from seeing Emily off, Mary Watson was in front of the glass above the mantelpiece, putting on her hat. She turned as Charlotte came in. ‘I must go – domestic duties call. And there may be some message from Baskerville Hall. Tell me, Charlotte, do you really think you can help the girl, Emily Revere?’

  ‘So far,’ said her friend, ‘we have only the case for the prosecution – and very convincing it is, too. Two young men, drunk, both poor, one, even more significantly, a Romany, decide to break into a house, and are caught by the householder. They shoot him in a panic and run away, leaving highly incriminating items behind them – and are later discovered hiding. An open and shut case, don’t you think?’

  ‘Sadly, that is just what it looks like.’

  ‘I shall discover the case for the defence. A visit to Inspector Lestrade is indicated. And tomorrow I shall go to see my old friend Sarah Smith at Shepping. She is said to be one hundred years old and Queen of the Gypsies.’

  ‘I hope you will be back in time for the ball,’ Mary said.

  ‘Will you come at seven to help me attire myself?’

  ‘Very gladly,’ answered Mary. She made a final adjustment to her hat then said, ‘Well. Thank you for a most exciting afternoon. I’m for home.’

  ‘And I’m for Scotland Yard,’ said Charlotte Holmes.

  ‘I sometimes think the police would always prefer to accuse poor young men, preferably gypsies,’ Charlotte said, standing in her bedroom in front of a long mirror on the wall. In her hand she loosely held the necklace known as the Osteire Blood and Grass. ‘They so much long for these desirable malefactors that in the case of the Grimmond murder they rushed to accuse the young Robert Revere and his gypsy friend before reminding themselves of the old police rule that, where a married man or woman dies a violent death, it must always first be a case of cherchez la femme, or l’homme of course, depending on the sex of the victim. A chance meeting on a train – ’

  ‘Do stand still, Charlotte,’ interrupted Mary Watson, bringing from behind her back a long corset, curved at front and back and designed to turn Charlotte’s figure into the fashionable S shape. Charlotte groaned faintly, but continued, ‘As I say, I met the late Sir Arthur Grimmond’s disillusioned business partner on the train to Kent with Emily Revere. He was going to attend Sir Arthur’s funeral. From what he told me, after I persuaded Emily from the railway carriage for a moment, Sir Arthur’s death took place just in time to prevent him from driving their business completely into the ground. He indicated, too, that the dead man had been a womaniser. What better argument for his business partner – or his wife, insulted by his affairs and facing financial ruin – to kill him? The disappearance of Emily Revere’s sister, who had accompanied her family on the hop-picking excursion, also aroused my curiosity.’ She looked down at the necklace in her hand. ‘Shall I wear this? It’s a temptation. But I fear not: it would arouse more criticism in Kravonia of Prince Rudolph’s ways. I should be taken for a ballet girl on whom he was bestowing the nation’s treasures.’ She continued, ‘It took little to deduce that Sir Arthur, found dead on his lawn, fully dressed down to sock suspenders and watch-chain, smelling of bay rum and with the key to the kitchen door in his breast pocket, had not left the house to tackle suspected burglars, who then shot him. It was far more likely that he had dressed carefully to keep an assignation – with Emily Revere’s sister. I thought it was likely, too, that a wife who was being bankrupted by her husband, as well as betrayed by him, could well have leaned out of the drawing-room and shot him. Oof!’ she cried out, as Mary hauled on the corset strings like a sailor in a gale. ‘The trajectory of the bullet as it entered Sir Arthur’s body proved all. Sherlock’s help in deducing where Emily’s sist
er could be found, which he did without leaving Baskerville Hall, provided the end of the story, for she had all the information necessary to clear her brother and the other young man.’

  ‘That is all very well, Charlotte,’ Mary told her, still tugging, ‘but do try to breathe in, my dear. Breathe in. I know you do not like stays but it is most unsuitable for gentlemen dancing with ladies at a ball to sense that their partner is …’

  ‘Unconstrained?’ suggested Charlotte.

  ‘Uncorseted,’ Mary corrected firmly. ‘Particularly as you will be dancing with a cousin of Her Majesty.’

  Charlotte refrained from saying that Queen Victoria’s distant cousin had felt her – in fact, seen her – corsetless on certain midsummer nights in Kravonia. She spared her friend’s susceptibilities, breathed in and endured the tight lacing. Then on went the silk stockings – red – and shoes and the low-cut cream silk dress. Out came the curling tongs, for Charlotte’s fringe; the hairbrush was applied to her wild black locks, the pins and combs and the long string of seed pearls were cunningly entwined in Charlotte’s coiffure and Mary, with a sigh of satisfaction, sat down on the bed while Charlotte stood in front of her long mirror.

  ‘Thank you, Mary,’ she said. ‘I feel ready now to meet and dance with all the crowned heads of Europe, if necessary. Thank you so very much.’

  ‘Well,’ replied Mary, ‘if you have just saved two innocent men from the gallows, the least I can do is save you from social disgrace.’

  2

  The Kravonian Adventure

  It has to be admitted that the day after the Mansion House ball Mrs Mary Watson was on the step of Number 11, Tuesday Street, Chelsea far too early. It was only eight o’clock and a woman who has solved a crime during the morning and afternoon of the previous day and then gone on to a Mansion House ball in the evening, from which she would be unlikely to get back before two or three next morning, will not welcome the breakfast-time arrival of a friend, however keen that friend is to hear all the details of the night before. Mary herself knew she was too early, but had been unable to resist leaving the Watsons’ Battersea house, breakfastless, just after seven.

  The door was opened by Betsey, Charlotte’s maid, who had lost her presence of mind completely, ‘Oh, Mrs Watson, Mrs Watson. Don’t come in. I don’t know where to put you. She’s upstairs, drinking tea. He’s downstairs eating an egg just like a normal person.’

  ‘Pull yourself together, Betsey,’ Mary Watson said sternly. She then pushed past Betsey and entered the breakfast room where, with sun streaming from the garden all over him and the table, eating an egg, as Betsey had reported, was a tall, handsome man with a long, aristocratic nose. He wore a red silk dressing-gown over cream silk pyjamas. The slightly long, very fair hair, the prominent nose and large blue eyes of Charlotte’s visitor were familiar to Mary Watson, a student of the better class of magazine. She mustered herself, curtseyed where she stood in the doorway just as Crown Prince Rudolph, heir to the throne of Kravonia, put down his egg spoon, stood up and bowed. Betsey, after the flurried encounter at the front door, had retreated to the kitchen. Mary began to introduce herself, but as she began to speak, Rudolph of Kravonia said, smiling, ‘I believe you must be Mrs Watson, of whom I have heard so much. Miss Holmes promised me you would be here early. Will you sit down and have some breakfast? I shall ring the bell for that eccentric maid.’

  Mary, having managed the curtsey and even tried to give her name, realised now she would have to go further and speak to the Prince. Mercifully, as she opened her mouth to reply, the sound of Charlotte, evidently shouting into the kitchen, was heard. ‘Come out of there, you silly girl. Come straight to the breakfast room and ask for orders.’

  Charlotte entered the room wearing a simple blue dress. Her hair was pinned on top of her head with tortoiseshell combs. The Prince half rose from his seat, then sat down again. He observed to Charlotte, ‘For a member of the Fabian Society and a supporter of the working classes, your manner to your servant is surprisingly autocratic’

  ‘I must try to train her,’ Charlotte responded, ‘otherwise she will be fit for no one’s service in future. Mary, my dear, I’m so pleased to see you. I see you and Prince Rudolph have already met. Now, sit down and join us for breakfast.’

  In this way the amazed Mary Watson found herself on an ordinary Wednesday morning drinking coffee and eating toast and marmalade with her friend Charlotte and the future King of Kravonia who had, it was explained, accepted Miss Holmes’s offer of shelter for the night after the ball, rather than return to Buckingham Palace, where he was a guest of the Queen. Mary was not too sure about this. Royalty is royalty, she thought, but propriety is propriety. Charlotte, a single woman, was living alone, except for two female servants, so by all the rules she ought not to have had gentlemen other than relatives in the house with her overnight. Perhaps royalty was different, pondered Mary Watson – and then gave up the thought as the conversation went on, disappointingly not about the ball but the crime down in Kent solved the day before by Charlotte.

  Now, Mary was shocked to hear that, for want of evidence, in all probability Lady Grimmond would go to Australia to live with a relative, rather than to the gallows for the murder of her husband. Forgetting her timidity about speaking in front of royalty, however lightly dressed and now smoking a cigar – after breakfast – in the morning room – Mary said, ‘But should such a woman really be left at liberty, completely unpunished for her crime?’

  The Prince, reflectively puffing smoke at the ceiling (perhaps she should be more tolerant about Dr Watson’s pipe, thought Mary irrelevantly, if royalty felt itself able to act in this way), said, ‘Fate, rather like the famous North-West Canadian Mounted Police, has the habit of getting its man. As with the Mounties, it may take a long time, but justice, one way or another, is usually done.’

  ‘In that case,’ Mary remarked tartly, ‘I wonder we bother with police courts at all.’ She felt then she had been sharp with a future king and wondered how he would react, but he only muttered, ‘Perhaps,’ while Charlotte, on her own tack, interjected, ‘I believe I have induced the influential to see that it would be helpful if, before departing for Australia, Lady Grimmond, who has influence in the country, managed to secure a place for Emily Revere as a pupil teacher in some local school. A cottage could be managed, I’m sure, for her and her parents.’

  Mary said, ‘That sounds very much like blackmail, Charlotte. You offer your silence in return for favours for the Revere family. Are you quite at ease with that?’

  ‘The evidence against Lady Grimmond might not be sound enough to convict her,’ Charlotte said placidly. ‘Even if it were, the choice is between penal servitude for a woman driven beyond sanity by her husband’s folly and vice, and a new start for a hard-pressed family. I know where my vote goes. I may be wrong.’

  ‘It’s a pity,’ remarked Rudolph of Kravonia pensively, ‘that, although as a species we have superiority over all others, God, or natural selection, or what you will, never added to man the asset of clairvoyance.’ His tone was melancholy as he added, ‘We must always make the best judgements we can and stand by them.’ Then he rose. ‘Well, ladies, pleasant as this is, I must go to join my councillors and Mr Gladstone at our conference. Excuse me – I will go and make myself ready.’

  When he had left the room Charlotte buttered more toast and took a thoughtful bite. ‘There is a grave constitutional crisis pending,’ she said sombrely.

  ‘But – the ball,’ insisted Mary. It seemed to her that she would never hear the details. Charlotte was about to speak when Betsey came into the room, carrying a telegram, which Charlotte opened and read, frowning. She put it on the table, where Mary could not help observing a jumble of letters and figures on the paper. Observing her glance, Charlotte told her, ‘It’s from Sherlock. We always communicate in code where the matter is secret. But …’ and here she hit her brow with a fist, ‘what on earth is he doing? I’m certain Stapleton is not the man.’

&nb
sp; ‘Please tell me what Sherlock says,’ Mary cried in alarm. ‘For John’s been away so long and I’m concerned about the danger he’s in. Does your brother say when they will be back?’

  ‘It will only be a matter of days,’ Charlotte assured her. ‘Let’s hope the outcome of this case is a good one – but I doubt it.’

  Before Mary had a chance to question her about what she meant there was a knock at the front door, followed by footsteps running downstairs. Prince Rudolph appeared briefly in the doorway to say goodbye to both ladies before joining the carriage which had come for him. As he departed he said to Charlotte, ‘I shall come tomorrow to say farewell – but I hope you’ll stand by what you said.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Charlotte responded. With a smile, the Prince left.

  ‘Such a handsome man,’ sighed Mary. ‘And so charming. He must be irresistible to women.’

  ‘Alas, not to all women,’ Charlotte said, adding, ‘But do not repeat that remark elsewhere.’

  Mary’s eyebrows went up. ‘It’s hardly worth repeating,’ she told her friend. ‘It means so little.’

  Charlotte smiled. ‘You’re angry,’ she said, ‘because you’ve been here for an hour and so far all that’s happened is breakfast with a prince and not one word of the lights and the table decorations, the jewels of the ladies, the orchestra – but come into my parlour and I’ll tell you everything, and play the music we danced to on my piano.’

  ‘I thought this moment would never come,’ said Mary.

  Mary Watson was very busy at home during the following days. Dr Watson’s locum had left unexpectedly and a new one had to be found. Dr Watson’s demanding elderly aunt arrived for a visit and was not best pleased that her favourite nephew was absent. A telegram then arrived from John Watson saying that the Baskerville case was solved and he would be back from the West Country next day. Mary got her one maid to turn out the sitting-room and ordered a turbot for his dinner. (Dr Watson was very fond of turbot). That afternoon, however, she received a further telegram to say that her husband was detained and would be with her in two days’ time.