The House at Baker Street (4 page)

‘That is what one drinks when one is celebrating, is it not?’ I asked, carefully extracting the cork.

‘You are full of surprises,’ Mary said. ‘But can I point out it’s only four o’clock in the afternoon?’

‘I wish to drink a toast, and tea won’t do,’ I said firmly, as I carefully poured the champagne. I held my bubbling, fizzing, golden glass of champagne up to Mary.

‘And the toast is: Mary Watson and Mrs Hudson – detectives,’ I cried giddily. Mary laughed, stood up and raised her glass in return.

‘Mrs Hudson and Mary Watson – detectives!’

Later, much later, once the Watsons had left for the day and I had sobered up somewhat – I had forgotten champagne made me quite so light-headed – I took Mr
Holmes’ tea up to him, with the evening post, which included a postcard sent from the Isle of Uffa. One arrived each year since 1887, with no message but ‘all well’, and signed
Grice Paterson. I did hope he wouldn’t have to go back there. It had not been comfortable, or safe for him. The sun was setting, one of those glorious deep red sunsets that make London rosy
and glowing, as if the old city was new and clean and bright. Mr Holmes stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back. He watched not the sunset, but the comings and goings in the street
below. I thought he was looking for Dr Watson, so I told him the doctor had gone home.

‘I wasn’t looking for Dr Watson,’ he said. ‘I thought she’d come back,’ he murmured.

‘Who?’ I asked, as I laid the white cloth over the table and set out his tea things, in precisely the correct place, as he liked it.

‘Mrs Hudson, the woman who just came to see me . . . ’

‘She left in tears,’ I said, perhaps more sharply than I had intended. He must have caught the tenor of my voice, because he turned to face me in surprise.

‘I only wanted her to tell the truth. I needed her to tell me everything. I expected her to return, duly chastened, and tell me what I asked. I had every intention of helping her, but I
must have data!’ he snapped, picking up his cup of tea. He was almost defensive. ‘I was sure she’d come back. Why wouldn’t she?’

‘Perhaps she found someone else to help her,’ I said quietly, picking up my tray.

Mr Holmes bridled. ‘Who else can help her?’ he demanded. ‘Who else in London could there possibly be to help her?’ He went back to the window, and his ceaseless
watching.

‘Who indeed?’ I replied. ‘Surely there is no one else suitable, in the whole of London.’ And with that, I left him alone.

For so long, the three of us had rubbed along together quite nicely. Sherlock Holmes, the detective, his reputation growing by the day, John Watson, the doctor, Mr
Holmes’ staunch companion and chronicler (and how good he turned out to be at that!) and Mrs Hudson, housekeeper, forever running in and out with cups of tea, and learning that these men
would never keep ordinary hours, or have ordinary visitors. Not to mention the strange requests from Mr Holmes at all hours of the day and night.
Mrs Hudson, I need such and such a chemical. Mrs
Hudson, do you know where I can get a tracking dog in Central London? Mrs Hudson, instead of putting breakfast on this plate, please put this roll of paper on it.

It was the most exciting time I’d had since meeting Hector. Even if, every once in a while, when I watched them charge off hot on the chase, I wished I could go too. I swallowed that
feeling. It was not my place to hunt down the villains or track the clues or save the victim. It was my place to wait quietly at home, and look after my tenants when they returned. I was where I
was meant to be. This was, I was certain, my place in life. And in this way, the three of us, I hope and think, were happy.

Then along came Mary Morstan, with her straight back and beautiful eyes and stubborn nature. Mary, who would have walked straight into hell with her head high rather than hurt any of us. Mary,
who loved us all. Mary, who one day would tear our hearts into tiny pieces. But that is a story for another time, if I ever have the strength to tell it.

The morning of the day after Mary and I had drunk champagne and decided to become detectives, of a sort, I sat in my room and told myself I was a silly woman.

My bedroom was above Mr Holmes’ sitting room, and I often lay there in bed at night, listening to him pace and up and down, muttering to himself, working out the complexities of a case
that had baffled Scotland Yard. What made me think I could do such a thing?

I sat on the large iron-framed, neatly made bed and looked in the mirror. I saw a woman of slightly below the average height. She looked older than she actually was; even I forgot my own age
sometimes. She had a plain, comfortable face, and a plump body, a sign that she enjoyed her own cakes too much. There was a mass of brown hair, turning grey now, tightly pulled into a bun on the
back of her head. She wore a respectable black bombazine dress, with a long thin gold chain hanging around her neck, carrying a watch that was tucked into the waistband.

I sighed. In my mind I was still the slim, pretty, giggling girl who had caught Hector’s eye. Then I would look in the mirror, and see an ageing, ordinary woman, not worthy of notice or
attention, and wonder what had happened to me. Sometimes I felt I was invisible, just one more number in the huge mass of London’s respectable older women, always in black, always doing the
right thing, always silent.

I glanced towards the wardrobe. In there were two dresses I had bought on an impulse. One was dark green, the colour of horse chestnut leaves in shadow. The other, even more daringly, was a deep
russet red.

Hector would have loved the green dress. My eyes were brown, but they had flecks of green and blue which were always more noticeable if I wore those colours. Hector loved me in green. He said it
made my eyes bewitching. But I was an almost-silver-haired widow now, nothing but a landlady, and we weren’t supposed to wear green dresses and have bewitching eyes. As for red – that
was beyond the pale!

I looked again in the mirror. Perhaps I would go along with Mary’s idea, just for a little while. Just to occupy my mind. Just to chase out the sad thoughts I had sometimes. I went down to
the kitchen. The bedroom was only where I slept. The kitchen was my domain, my kingdom, my refuge, my home. I loved that room, and I always felt at peace there.

Mary had already arrived – she often came to see me in the morning – and sat there, turning Mrs Shirley’s letter over and over in her hands. Mary was the only
person ever allowed to sit in my kitchen when I was not there, the only one permitted to make tea with my own teapot, the only one authorized to make the occasional small meal. Not cakes and
pastries though; only I ever baked in my kitchen, and only I ever would.

‘May I read it?’ I asked.

‘It is vile,’ she warned. Yet she did not withhold the letter from me but held it out willingly.

‘I understand,’ I said, taking it from her.

It was indeed vile. It accused Laura of unnatural acts with any number of men, in most explicit and lascivious tones. I felt sullied just reading it. It was ridiculous to think of that quiet,
small woman doing any of these things. I doubt she even knew half of them existed. And yet – it was a clever letter. It had a few small touches here and there that seemed true. The tone was
not hysterical. This letter would be enough to raise a doubt in the mind of a man who truly believed an innocent woman’s reputation remained untouched. Women – good women – had
been ruined by milder whispers than these.

Mary sat at the table, turning her tea cup – the tea had long since gone cold – round and round in her hand, staring into the distance.

‘Where to start? That is the question,’ she said softly.

‘With the letter, surely,’ I said, sitting down opposite her. ‘Mr Holmes always starts with the evidence.’

‘I think we’ve got all we can from that letter,’ Mary said ruefully. ‘I’ve no doubt Mr Holmes would find some clue from the irregularity in the ink or the way the
sunlight has fallen on the paper, but my skills don’t stretch that far.’

We sat in silence for a moment, and then I said, ‘With the victim – we start with the victim.’

Mary looked at me questioningly, expecting me to defend my hypothesis.

‘This is not random,’ I said slowly, thinking as I talked. This moment – this right here, what I was doing – was . . . exciting. After years of feeling like I was nothing
more than a middle-aged lady doing nothing that required any intelligence, I was finally thinking. I was making deductions and connections and coming up with ideas and using my mind. It felt odd,
it almost felt like my brain was rusty, and needed to be coaxed back into life – but I could feel it working, for the first time in years.

I loved it.

No wonder Mr Holmes was addicted to this. No wonder he turned to stimulants when there was nothing to think about.

‘He has chosen his victim carefully,’ I said to Mary, continuing my train of thought. ‘A meek woman, no real friends, with a jealous husband. She is the perfect
target.’

‘Target for what?’ Mary asked. ‘He hasn’t said what he wants yet.’

‘That is not the point, presently,’ I said urgently. ‘The point is, he has not just picked a name at random out of the society pages. He has made a well-informed choice. And
that means . . .’

‘He knows her!’ Mary cried, picking up on my thread of thought. I smiled. This was going satisfactorily. ‘He’s not just a passing acquaintance either.’

‘Exactly – which means he is probably part of her social circle. We need to know who her acquaintances are.’

‘It’d be someone she’d never suspect,’ Mary said. ‘Which means, she won’t give us his name – if she gives us any.’

‘Perhaps we should find a way to meet her friends?’ I suggested. ‘Pretend to be her new acquaintances, be introduced to her social circle?’

‘I doubt Laura could lie to her husband,’ Mary objected. ‘I doubt she could even lie by omission. She’d blush and stammer. She’d never be able to calmly introduce
us to her husband as her new friends that she just happened to make. And if this . . . man – and I use the word in its lightest possible sense,’ she made a sound of disgust, ‘does
know them, he might be suspicious of a shy little mouse like Laura suddenly acquiring two new friends, even if her husband would not suspect a thing.’

She was right, of course. I’m not even sure I could have carried the lie off myself, anyway, let alone Laura with all her worries.

‘Besides,’ I said, ‘he may not even be a friend. He may be someone Laura contracts business with. A dressmaker, a solicitor, a butcher. My grocer knows to a nicety how much my
budget for weekly shopping is, and whether I have guests and whether or not I have the nerve to argue the bill, but I wouldn’t invite him to afternoon tea.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Mary admitted. ‘You are right, of course. We need to find a way of watching Laura, seeing who she meets, and why, and we need to find a way of
doing it without Laura, her husband, or anyone else knowing.’

‘It would be good to keep the husband under surveillance too,’ I added. ‘Perhaps it is one of his acquaintances. And he would have a far wider range of business
contacts.’

Mary blew out her breath.

‘That’s an awful lot of spying for just the two of us,’ she said.

‘It can’t be us. We don’t have the skills,’ I pointed out. ‘Laura knows us, and would react if she saw us. And someone as devious as this blackmailer would be bound
to spot us. We need someone he’d never notice.’

It didn’t take the two of us long to come up with the answer. We’d practically talked ourselves into it. We looked at each other, grinned, and said together,

‘The Irregulars!’

If you have read John’s stories, you will know about the Baker Street Irregulars – but if you haven’t, then I will tell you their story.

Back then, during the last century, London’s streets thronged with boys – and occasionally girls – running wild. They often had no home or family, or if they did, it was not
somewhere they were welcome. They roamed the streets, living as best they could, running errands, carrying messages, doing any little task that needed doing and that they could earn a shilling for.
Whenever Mr Holmes needed anything fetched from some shop or another, there was always a boy on the street who would run the errand. Sometimes they committed petty crimes – stole an apple, or
a bun. And some were tempted into bigger crimes, into working for bigger criminals, destined to end up in jail – or at the end of a hangman’s rope. And some just . . . disappeared.