Denis Smith - The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

A moment later, our landlady announced Count Laszlo of Sipolia and that broad, powerful-looking figure was shown into the room. I pulled a chair up to the fire for him and, having rubbed his hands together in the warmth for a few moments, he got quickly down to business.

‘First of all,’ said he, ‘I must apologise most profoundly for my conduct at our interview yesterday. You were quite correct. I had no right to ask the questions I did, and you had every right not to answer them. But you must understand, gentlemen, that my position was an extremely difficult one. I have had very grave suspicions for some time as to what might be afoot, but have had no proof of these suspicions. Naturally, I was keen to know if you had discovered anything which might have tended to confirm or refute my suspicions. But, just as you, who had been retained by Miss Ballantyne and Mr Hardy, could not speak freely to me of what you had learnt, so I, who had the most terrible suspicions but no proof, could scarcely speak freely of the matter to you, a perfect stranger to me. I did not doubt your integrity; but I had no way of judging your competence. For all I could tell to the contrary, you might have discovered nothing at all, or you might have discovered some vital fact and, not suspecting Trent’s involvement, have spoken of it in front of him. All of this left me in a perfect agony of indecision.’

‘Did you reach any conclusion, as a result of our interview?’

‘I judged – forgive me – that you had discovered nothing of significance, but were reluctant to admit it. I therefore determined that I should have to act alone. As it turned out, it appears I would have been too late to prevent that devil murdering Miss Ballantyne. In which case, I would have shot him dead.’

‘You would have hanged for it,’ remarked Holmes, in a matter-of-fact voice.

‘If so, then your intervention in this business has saved not one life, but three.’

‘How came you to be so intimately involved in the matter?’ asked Holmes; ‘and what caused the suspicions you have spoken of?’

‘I will tell you,’ said Count Laszlo. ‘As you may be aware, I have followed Isabel Ballantyne’s career with very great interest and appreciation, and have known her personally for many years. Indeed, I will admit to you, gentlemen, what it might embarrass me to admit before a larger audience, that I harboured hopes in the past that she would one day do me the honour of consenting to be my wife. You may consider such a hope absurd, or impertinent, but nevertheless, that was the case. When, however, Captain Trent appeared upon the scene, and conducted his courtship of Miss Ballantyne with the ruthlessness and dispatch with which he no doubt conducted his tiger-hunts, I bore him no ill-will. Indeed, I wished him well, for it appeared, for a time at least, that he had achieved what no one else had managed, including, I regret to say, myself, which is that he seemed to have made Miss Ballantyne happy. After a while, however – for I still saw them from time to time, although not so frequently as before their marriage – it seemed to me that this was no longer so. Indeed, to one who knew her of old, it was apparent that Isabel was profoundly unhappy. This, as you will imagine, caused me great concern. Then, quite by chance, information came my way which suggested that Trent was being despicably cruel to his wife, both mentally and physically. At first I was shocked at this and could not believe it was really true; but further information which reached me confirmed the suggestion beyond doubt.

‘I suppose the fact that I had become anxious about the situation opened my ears a little and gossip which would have previously quite passed me by began now to catch my attention, and contribute to the ugly picture which was forming in my mind. It must have been something of the sort, for I assure you that I did not go out of my way to discover things, or to interfere in what was not my business; but, little by little, further intelligence relating to Trent came my way: that he had been engaged to be married once before, whilst in India, and that the engagement had been broken off by his fiancée when certain facts about his conduct had come to light; that he had come very close to being charged with murder over the death of another man during a tiger-hunt; that he was not quite so wealthy as he liked people to believe; and that shortly before his whirlwind courtship of Miss Ballantyne he had spoken to acquaintances of how great he believed her own wealth to be.

‘I imagine you can see now the picture that formed in my mind: of a ruthless, reckless man, who had pursued Miss Ballantyne chiefly on account of the wealth he imagined she possessed. But I have, as I remarked, been intimate with Miss Ballantyne for many years, and I know that she is not nearly so wealthy as is popularly supposed. Her antecedents were very humble ones. Her father was a railway employee, at a place called Laisterdyke, near Bradford in Yorkshire, and when he died, some years ago, her mother was left in very difficult circumstances. Throughout her professional life, Miss Ballantyne has been sending money regularly to her mother and to her two younger sisters. She has also, although she does not wish this to be generally known, contributed a great deal of money to various charitable and philanthropic causes. Thus, although she has earned considerable sums of money in recent years, she has given much of it away and has amassed very little for herself. How disappointing it must have been for the grasping Captain Trent to discover this after they were married!

‘Recently, I engaged a private detective to report to me on Trent’s activities. It may not seem a very honourable thing, to spy upon another man’s private life; but the conduct upon which I was spying was itself not honourable. The very first report I received informed me that Trent had dined privately, on several occasions, with Lydia Summers. At once I recalled how keen Trent had been to recommend Miss Summers to Mr Hardy when the latter was first beginning work on The Lavender Girl , and how he had laid great stress upon her father’s wealth, and how useful it might therefore be to have Sir Cecil Summers connected with the theatre company. Again, that villain was thinking of wealth and, I was convinced, of how he might acquire it. It was then that I began to seriously fear for Miss Ballantyne’s safety. When a man is as reckless and unprincipled as Trent, there is no knowing what he might do.

‘The part played by Miss Summers in all this, incidentally, is, in the main, I believe, an innocent one. She is a somewhat dull-witted girl, and her chief points of attraction definitely lie in her purse – or in that of her father, at least. Whether it struck her as at all unusual or improper to dine alone in an obscure restaurant with another woman’s husband, I cannot say. No doubt Trent convinced her that it was the most natural thing in the world. He talks well to women. But she is not essentially dishonourable. Had she guessed the fiendish scheme that was in his mind, I strongly suspect that she would have declined to have anything more to do with him.

‘This scheme, I am convinced, was first to rid himself of his wife, and then to woo and wed Miss Summers. And had it not been for your timely intervention, gentlemen, the despicable villain might well have succeeded!’

‘It cannot have been very pleasant for Miss Ballantyne to learn that her husband has been plotting to murder her,’ remarked Holmes. ‘It is scarcely a morale-boosting discovery, two days before opening night. What will happen to The Lavender Girl now, Count Laszlo? Will it be postponed?’

Our visitor shook his head. ‘Isabel Ballantyne is very brave,’ said he, ‘and if anyone can survive such a blow, she can. She is staying with friends now, who will, I know, treat her with a kindness she has never received from her husband. Besides, terrible though the revelation is, I suspect that in her heart Isabel has known for some time that something was seriously amiss. I believe that intuitively she suspected that Trent was behind the recent events at the Albion, but could not bring herself to acknowledge that suspicion. Now, her chief consideration is not to let her friends down. She insists that The Lavender Girl will open as advertised, on Saturday evening. Miss Summers, I might add, has withdrawn from the production. She could scarcely do otherwise. Her name will inevitably figure in any future court case involving Trent, either criminal or civil. Her role in the play has been taken by a delightful girl from the chorus, who has a sweet voice and will, I believe, do very well. Hardy is already reconciled to the likelihood of managing without Sir Cecil Summers’s bounty, but as he has not yet seen a penny of that fabled wealth, that will be no loss. In any case, I have informed him that I shall in future take a more active part in the business, especially upon the financial side. I look forward to a prosperous future for the company.’