Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

Holmes gripped my arm. "Not another word."

We had reached the corner when he suddenly swung back. "Come, Watson, I want a word with Lady Abemetty."

"What! Have you gone mad, Holmes?"

"Not I. Not as mad as that poor raving invalid we've just left. Come on, Watson, the chase is on, this way through the mews and around to the coach-house. Ah, just as I thought!"

A candle was burning within, visible through a dingy window. My companion flung open the door. A figure in nightdress and frilled cap gave a startled cry.

"The game's up," Holmes said, grimly, "Mr Charles Abernetty."

Abernetty shrank back against the wall, his features contorted with fury under the grotesque make-up. "Damn you! I was brilliant. How could you possibly have found me out?"

"Indeed, you were comparable with the great Dan Leno. Let's say there were other factors that led to your unmasking."

Abernetty's eyes skimmed past Holmes to the doorway. "No, Sabie, don't!"

Sabina, equally as grim as Holmes, had materialized through the fog. She aimed a pistol at the detective's head.

"Do you feel quite so clever now, Mr Sherlock Holmes? Don't move, Dr Watson. Put your hand near your pocket and I'll put a bullet through your friend's head."

"Don't be foolish, Miss Abernetty," said Holmes, quietly. "You haven't yet committed murder."

Her face was a mask of cold, calculating fury. "There's no proof that you've been at Grosvenor Square. You didn't even hire a cab."

Holmes's hand moved swiftly to his lips. He blew three sharp blasts on his police whistle. "Inspector Lanner and his men will be here soon. Put away the pistol, Miss Abernetty. You'll only make things worse for yourself."

In her rage she fired at him. The expression on her face changed quickly to one of chagrin as the pistol misfired. I quickly brought up my stick, taking advantage of her confusion, and knocked the weapon from her grasp. Holmes kicked it out of sight as Inspector Lanner and two constables burst into the room.

"Good afternoon, Mr Holmes," the inspector nodded cheerfully at my friend. "How may I assist you?"

"I think if your men pry up the flagstones of the cellar floor and dig about a little you'll discover, as I suggested in our earlier conversation, the body of Alice Abernetty."

"Murdered?"

"No. I'm sure Lady Abernetty died of natural causes. Concealment of death and wrongful disposal of a body is the only crime here."

"I fear I shall not be the hero of this chronicle should you set it down on paper." Holmes stretched his slippers towards the fire and leaned his cheek pensively on his hand. "I have disinherited brother and sister for the sake of a greedy, already wealthy woman, who seeks to impress and snare a younger man with a fashionable address. The terms of Sir William Abernetty's will, now a matter of public record, gave me the answer. The house in Grosvenor Square only belonged to Lady Abernetty during her lifetime. On her death it passed to his eldest child Mabel from the first marriage. Charles and Sabina Abernetty were to be dispossessed. There was very little real money. They were, shall we say, in an unenviable position. There were many times, Watson, when I nearly abandoned the case, but I was drawn on to its fascinating and macabre conclusion."

"The law must be upheld, Holmes."

"Oh, yes, the law," he retorted, bitterly. "There are other laws, natural laws, that have been broken here."

Since our return he had fallen into a mood of black depression and I was worried that he might disappear into his room and seek solace in his unfortunate addiction to cocaine. I therefore attempted to distract him by laying before him the points of the case I did not yet fully understand.

"Who was the woman we saw in the sick-bed on our second visit?"

"That I suspect was Mrs Minter, the cook. However unwilling they may have been, the Minters were accomplices to all that occurred. They probably agreed to the conspiracy knowing they could find no other place at their time of life.

"Charles thought he was very clever with that little ruse, but it only served to convince me further that Lady Abernetty was dead. Of course, he wasn't aware of my identity then. But Miss Abernetty had already confirmed her suspicion of me. She was the youth watching our premises, Watson. When she burst into the sickroom later that day she was wearing a dress I had seen hanging up in the coach-house on my earlier visit as the groom in search of work. In their loveless, friendless childhood and youth they turned to a world of acting and make-believe. I'm quite sure Charles had his mother's character down accurately in that little display today. Can you imagine, Watson, their bleak, deprived existence, reviled by the one person who might be expected to give them affection. It makes my blood run cold to think of it." He leaned forward, his elbows hunched on his knees.

"What will become of them?"

"I can only hope the law will be kinder to them than I have been."

"Come, Holmes, you deal with yourself too harshly. Things would have gone much harder for Miss Abernetty if you had

told the inspector she attempted your life. It was only pure luck that the pistol misfired."

"It was probably an old weapon that had belonged to her father and had been lying about in a drawer for years. She had every reason to hate me. By my interference I had brought their brief and pathetic idyll to an end. But they could not have carried on their deception indefinitely, not with that woman of remarkable perspicacity Mabel Bertram waiting in the wings."

"What was the significance of the parsley in the butter?"

"Ah, yes! Did you not hear Mrs Bertram remark that her stepmother invariably had a roll with parsley butter for her breakfast. I believe that the cook had been preparing her tray and the butter had been taken from the icebox. Meanwhile, Miss Abernetty had gone to the sickroom to tend her mother's needs and discovered she had died during the night.

"She acted quickly, Watson, and with great presence of mind. The servants were summarily dismissed and the plan put into action of burying the body under the flagstones in the cellar.

"In such a household, Watson, where the discipline is so rigid, so unyielding and the presence of the mistress, even one confined to a sick-room, so omnipotent, the butter in the natural course of events would have been returned to the icebox. The fact that the parsley had sunk so deep into the butter meant it had been left out for hours and other events, unnatural events, were taking place."

He reached inside his pocket and drew out a slip of paper. "This is the fee I require from Mrs Bertram."

"Holmes!"

"As she herself observed she intended to be grateful and Mr Aston Plush added the rider of generous. I have acquired for her a fashionable address and possibly a new husband. You shall have your little jaunt to Baden-Baden, Watson."

"That's exceedingly generous of you, Holmes," I stammered.

A smile warmed his austere features. "You deserve it, my dear fellow, after all I've put you through today. Even a solitary misanthropic chap like myself knows the value of true friendship."

After "The Incumbent Invalid" there was a brief period when little came Holme's way and he soon began to complain that his practice was "degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools," an attitude which coloured his initial feelings about the case that became "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches". Despite the success of that case matters again went quiet and it is probably during his period that Holmes became more open in his use of cocaine for stimulation. Watson refers to it in. "The Yellow Face", a case which arose in the spring of 1886 and which was one of Holmes's few recorded failures. Holmes was clearly in the doldrums during this period.