The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes (15 page)

Once inside the cab, he broke out into a fit of silent laughter and it was several moments before he had sufficiently recovered his composure to inquire, ‘Well, Watson, what did you think of our interview with Miss Gordon?’

‘You were capital, Holmes. You played the part to perfection.’

‘I thought you put on a very good performance yourself, my dear fellow.’

‘Did I? But I cannot see,’ I continued, expressing a doubt which had occurred to me while we had been in the Duchess’s study, ‘what possible use that little charade of ours can be to the investigation.’

Although I would not have dreamed of admitting it to Holmes, I was disappointed at the outcome of the interview. I had secretly hoped for a dramatic scene of confrontation in which Holmes, throwing off his disguise, would point an accusing finger at the culprit, the police would be sent for and the blackmailer would be marched off in handcuffs.

But nothing of the sort had happened.

I could not even be certain that Holmes had found the final piece of evidence which he had assured me would lead to the positive identification of the criminal. Was it Miss Gordon? If
so, what had he discovered that proved her guilt? Or was it the footman? Or the housemaid we had passed in the upstairs corridor?

Holmes, meanwhile, seemingly unperturbed by such questions, was getting out his pocketbook.

‘Allow me to give you this,’ he said, handing me the envelope containing the Duchess’s donation. ‘It would appear to contain two guineas which I am sure the inestimable Mrs Watson will be able to give to some worthy cause. May I also ask you to take charge of this for the time being?’

As he spoke, he began removing his clerical neckband which he passed to me, substituting for it a starched collar and a grey silk cravat which he took from his coat pocket. A gold watch and chain looped across his waistcoat front and a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose completed the transformation. In a few seconds, he had thrown off his role of an elderly cleric and had assumed that of a retired clerk or shopkeeper, dressed in old-fashioned black attire.

‘Mr P. Smith, dealer in antiquarian curios, semi-retired and resident in Brighton. As I can only get up to town from time to time, I occasionally ask my clients to forward any items for appraisal to a convenient hotel. It saves the trouble of carrying them up to London on the train. Here is my card,’ he explained, producing it from his waistcoat pocket. ‘I asked Gill to run it off for me yesterday when he printed the other items. And now,’ he continued, as the four-wheeler approached the Coventry Hotel, ‘I shall only be a few moments, Watson, collecting my curios. Wait for me here. We shall take the same cab back to Baker Street.’

He was as good as his word. Within minutes, he had returned, carrying not two but three packets, the third a little larger than the others.

‘The Welbourne pearls,’ he said in a low voice, turning it over in his hands as soon as he had given directions to the driver and the cab had started off. ‘Are you not curious to see them, Watson? I know I am. Although the packet is sealed with wax, I am sure I could open it without arousing the owner’s suspicions.’

‘Now look here, Holmes –!’ I began.

I was not only about to protest at this suggestion, eager though I was to see the famous Welbourne heirlooms, but also to demand a full explanation. It seemed beyond doubt that Holmes had reached a conclusion regarding the identity of the blackmailer, for he clearly intended to return the earrings the following afternoon to his client.

But Holmes forestalled me. Placing a finger against his lips to advise silence, he indicated the cab-driver’s back and, seeing the wisdom of his warning, I was forced to contain my impatience.

Even when we were installed in the privacy of his rooms in Baker Street, Holmes was still not prepared to offer an account.

Without waiting to remove his disguise, he carried the package over to his desk, selected a small scalpel from among his scientific instruments and, with one dexterous movement, sliced through the wax seal. Unfolding the brown paper, he revealed a small jeweller’s box with the ducal coat of arms stamped in gold on the lid. Inside, nestling in a cocoon of quilted satin lay the Welbourne pearl earrings.

At the sight of them, my curiosity overcame me and I pressed forward to look over Holmes’ shoulder at the jewels.

They were exquisite; two perfectly formed, lustrous drops of a delicate rose-pink colour and glowing with such a deep nacreous sheen that they seemed as if they must contain in the hidden heart of them some soft, living radiance of their own.

‘Impressed as I am by their beauty,’ Holmes remarked, ‘as a student of chemistry, I can only wonder that a concretion, largely composed of the common inorganic compound calcium carbonate which has been produced by a seawater mollusc in order to isolate an irritant inadvertently introduced into its shell, should be considered such a valuable rarity. And now,’ he added, more briskly, snapping shut the lid of the box, ‘we have more practical matters to attend to. You, Watson, must change out of your clerical disguise. It might tax Mrs Watson’s tolerance too far if you returned home dressed as you are. I, meanwhile, have a letter to write which must catch this afternoon’s post.’

Even before I had retired to the bedroom to change, he had seated himself at his desk and had commenced writing. By the time I returned, the letter was finished and Holmes was in the act of handing it to Billy, the page-boy, with instructions to run to the nearest postbox in order to catch the five o’clock collection.

The boy in buttons having departed, Holmes turned his chair about to face me.

‘I know what you are waiting for, my old friend, and your patience shall now be rewarded. I propose to reveal to you the identity of the blackmailer and to give you a complete account of how I reached my conclusion.’

‘About time, too, Holmes,’ I remarked, taking a seat by the fire and giving him my full attention.

‘It was quite evident from the interview with our client that someone among her own staff had gained access to her letters,’ Holmes began. ‘Note that fact, Watson.
Her
letters; not his. That is crucial to the investigation. The question was – who? There seemed to be several possible candidates but I was able to eliminate all but one on the basis of negative evidence, the importance of which I stressed at the beginning of this inquiry.

‘Firstly, it could have been one of the housemaids whose duties took them into both the study and Her Grace’s bedroom where she kept her letters before they were posted. But that seemed unlikely. The letters were securely locked in the bureau and besides, the blackmailer was evidently educated, could spell correctly and could express him or herself with ease. Most ordinary servants have no more than an elementary education.

‘Then there was the footman who, under normal circumstances, would have been responsible for collecting any correspondence and seeing that it was posted. Again, he had to be eliminated. The lady’s letters had not been handed to the footman but had been placed in a postbox by her companion and former governess.

‘What of the lady-companion then? She had accompanied Her Grace to the concert and no doubt to other social functions and could have witnessed our client in conversation with the
gentleman, from which she could have deduced that a relationship was forming. She was also asked to post the letters to him and could have read his name and address on the envelopes. But did she have the opportunity? Our client insisted that she placed these letters inside a bundle of other correspondence and her companion had no time to examine the separate items. Besides, like the housemaids, she had no access to the bureau.

‘This left the secretary, Miss Gordon …’

‘Now, wait a moment, Holmes!’ I protested. ‘She, too, can surely be eliminated on the basis of negative evidence? She had no access to the bureau either and I cannot see how she knew that the correspondence had continued.’

Holmes leaned back in his chair, his expression indulgent.

‘Go on, Watson. Pray explain your theory.’

‘Well,’ I began a little hesitantly, struggling to put my argument into a cogent form. ‘The Duchess of Welbourne specifically stated that, apart from the first two letters which Miss Gordon produced on the typewriting machine and which were merely formal, all subsequent correspondence with the gentleman was conducted in private, after Miss Gordon had left the house, and was written in Her Grace’s own hand. The letters were then locked up in the bureau in the bedroom and were subsequently posted by the companion under the Duchess’s supervision. As far as Miss Gordon was concerned, all contact with the gentleman had ceased after the exchange of those first two letters.’

‘A valid objection on the basis of negative evidence and well argued, my dear fellow. My congratulations! But you have failed to take one important factor into account.’

‘And what is that, Holmes?’

‘The fact that the gentleman’s letters were delivered to the house and would have been handled by Miss Gordon in the course of her normal duties. As they were marked “Private”, she would not, of course, have opened them but she would have recognised the handwriting from her previous acquaintance with the first two letters. By that means, she was perfectly well aware that the correspondence had continued.’

‘Oh, yes, I see,’ I said, considerably dashed by this simple
explanation. ‘But how could Miss Gordon have known about the contents?’

‘She had no knowledge of the contents of the gentleman’s letters. Remember, Watson, I stressed that point from the beginning. I also stressed that the blackmailer was cognizant of
certain
words
and
phrases
only from our client’s correspondence. That, too, is vital. Can you offer an explanation for this fact?’

‘I am afraid not, Holmes,’ I confessed. ‘It is quite beyond me.’

‘Then permit me to do so. You may have noticed that, during our interview this afternoon with Miss Gordon, I took care to advance into the room, well beyond the doorway where her desk was placed. This was done with a purpose. I wished to examine the contents of the Duchess of Welbourne’s desk, which was placed by the window and where she had sat in private to write her letters to the gentleman. What I saw laid out on its surface was most revealing. Apart from a solid silver desk-set of rare workmanship and a tray of stationery of the same quality as that on which she wrote her letter to me, there was a large leather-backed blotting-pad of the type which contains several sheets, the topmost of which can be easily removed once it has been used and which it would be Miss Gordon’s duty to replace each morning before Her Grace arrived. All Miss Gordon had to do was to hold up an ordinary looking glass in front of the discarded sheet and any words or phrases which had been written the evening before and had been absorbed into the blotter because the ink on them was still wet, could be easily read.’

‘By Jove, Holmes! The answer is so obvious that I cannot for the life of me think why it didn’t occur to me.’

‘I believe I have remarked to you before that the most puzzling of mysteries usually has the simplest explanation. For that reason, it is often overlooked.’

‘But I still fail to understand the motive. As you yourself pointed out, it cannot have been pecuniary. The sums asked for were too small and, besides, she made no attempt to collect the money. And why demand the earrings? She could not hope to make any money by selling them. They were too easily recognizable as part of the Welbourne family jewels.’

‘Miss Gordon may have started off her blackmailing career with the intention of making money out of it but, when the time came, it is my belief that she was too frightened to go to the hotel to collect it. However, money was not her primary consideration. I think her main motivation arose out of malicious jealousy. That is why she demanded the earrings. They would be missed by the Duke when he returned to town and our client would have had an extremely difficult time explaining what had happened to them, a distress which Miss Gordon would have the pleasure of witnessing. The Germans have a word for it –
Schadenfreude,
which translated means “pleasure in the misfortune of others”.

‘Servants always know about such family tensions, however exalted the household and however careful the attempts may be to keep such disagreements concealed. And that, I believe, was the real reason behind the blackmail. Miss Gordon is a poor, unattractive spinster; our client a popular society hostess, famous for her beauty and philanthropy and married to a rich and powerful husband. We should perhaps pity the Miss Gordons of this world rather than condemn them. No doubt Miss Gordon considers that Fate has dealt her a very poor hand, as she would describe it. I prefer to regard it as the accident of birth. Perhaps, in all charity, we should consider her action as a protest against the prevailing social inequalities.’

‘But what are you going to do about her, Holmes? Despite what you say, she has broken the law. You can hardly allow her to continue in the Duchess’s employ.’

‘The letter I wrote was to Miss Gordon. She will receive it tomorrow morning by the first delivery. In it, I have laid out the case against her and advised her to retire immediately from her post otherwise I shall be forced to name her as the blackmailer. I have left it to her own good sense to supply an excuse for her resignation. I do not believe that she will ever try blackmail again. She is not by nature a criminal. One has to have some faith in the goodness of mankind, or at least, most members of it, or one would become a mere misanthrope. For the same reasons, I shall leave the decision as to her ultimate future in the hands of our client. It will be interesting to see
tomorrow afternoon when the Duchess of Welbourne again calls here exactly what she proposes to do about the sudden departure of her secretary. You will be present, will you not, Watson? I cannot imagine that you would want to miss the opportunity of witnessing the return of the Welbourne pearls and the final act of our little drama?’

‘No, indeed not, Holmes,’ I said warmly.