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

I took the letter from his outstretched fingers. The following brief and unsigned message, untidily written in black ink, was all it contained:

‘Keep out of matters that do not concern you, Mr Holmes. Your intervention in the private affairs of others can do no good and may well bring harm. Drop the matter at once and forget that you ever heard anything of it. I give you this warning for your own good and for that of your client.’

‘Whatever does it mean?’ I cried.

‘Simply that someone does not wish us involved.’

‘In the Davenoke case?’

‘So we must suppose; I am engaged in no other inquiry at present.’

‘But who?’

Holmes shook his head, his brows drawn down into a frown of concentration. ‘The letter bears an ‘E.C.’ postmark,’ said he.

‘It was posted in the City, then!’

‘Precisely, Watson, precisely!’

‘The writing is exceedingly untidy,’ I remarked, ‘which perhaps indicates an ill-educated person.’

‘I think not,’ returned my friend. ‘The letters are strong, firm and regularly formed. They quite lack the artificial and unnecessary flourishes with which the ill-educated feel obliged to decorate their script. In addition, the grammar is impeccable and the choice of words precise. It is apparent that whoever sent this note is no stranger to the art of writing.’

‘What then?’ I asked in surprise.

‘He is a reasonably well educated man – for a man’s hand it surely is – who was simply in a very great hurry when he wrote this note.’

‘Why should he be in a hurry?’

At this, Sherlock Holmes broke into one of those strange, noiseless bouts of laughing which were peculiar to him. ‘Perhaps,’ said he at length, ‘he had a train to catch.’

For the remainder of the day my friend did not once refer to Lady Davenoke’s mystery. In the afternoon he went out for an hour or two, returning with a small brown-paper package, which he placed upon his desk and did not open. All evening he occupied himself with some particularly malodorous chemical experiment, the air of our little room gradually thickening to an unhealthy reek, until I was at length driven to my bedroom by the noxious fumes. As I left the room I bade my friend good night, but he was engrossed over a bubbling retort and did not hear me. It was evident to me that he had deliberately concentrated his mind upon other matters since the morning, in order to drive the Davenoke case completely from his thoughts, that he might return to it afresh and with renewed mental energies at a later date. As I have had occasion to remark elsewhere, Holmes’s powers of mental detachment in such circumstances were quite extraordinary. Perhaps, I reflected as I climbed the stairs, he would return to the matter in the morning, if the letter he was expecting from Lady Davenoke arrived then.

We were seated at breakfast the following day when the maid brought up the post. Eagerly my friend sifted through the envelopes with his long thin fingers, selected two and put the rest aside. He tore open the first, glanced briefly inside and tossed it across to me. I was most surprised to see that it contained nothing at all. From the second he extracted a large, folded blue sheet, which he spread out upon his plate and studied closely for several minutes, a frown upon his face, before passing it to me. It was in the neat, rounded hand of Lady Davenoke and ran as follows:

MY DEAR MR SHERLOCK HOLMES,

I was most surprised to receive your letter, which arrived this morning. Your queries are easily answered however: Edward has not returned, but all else at Shoreswood is as it should be, and all the staff were present when Miss Strensall and I returned. I had wired ahead to say when we should arrive and Staples met us at the station with the trap, Mrs Pybus had prepared a meal for us, and I believe I saw everyone else at some time or another soon after our return. As for Hardwick, he was the very first person we met upon our return, for he was at the railway station at the same time as we were. He had just returned on the up train from Yoxford, a village which lies some miles to the north, where he had spent the day visiting his brother, who has been ill lately. He travelled back in the trap with us to Shoreswood. Miss Strensall found that journey a delight. She has now established herself satisfactorily in her bedroom and I have moved upstairs, so that our rooms can be next to each other. I am very much looking forward to enjoying her companionship in the days ahead.

However, to leave all this for the moment, I must tell you my one thoroughly splendid piece of news: When your letter arrived this morning it was not alone, but came accompanied by a letter from my husband! You will appreciate how thrilled I was when I recognised his handwriting upon the envelope. Is not life strange in its odd and unpredictable arrangement of events! It seems that all my worries will soon be at an end. But I will let you judge for yourself and copy down here for you the relevant parts of my husband’s letter:

‘MY DEAR AMELIA,

How sorry I am not to have written sooner to you. Please forgive me, but I have been ill for some days with megrim and have scarcely left my bed. Prior to that I was so completely occupied in settling certain outstanding matters of my father’s that I had energy left for nothing else. I believe now, however, that my task is nearly complete and that I shall soon be returning to Shoreswood – and to you, my sweet.

‘You will observe that there is no address at the head of this letter. I decided when I arrived in London that I would not stay at the Royal Suffolk on this occasion but at a smaller hotel. Unfortunately, this has proved less than satisfactory, so I shall be moving this afternoon. I am therefore without an address at present and you will thus not, I am afraid, be able to write to me. Save up all your news until I come home.

EDWARD’

I think you will agree, Mr Holmes, that that is good news indeed! I feel quite foolish to have allowed myself to become so distraught. My heart is so much lighter now. However, I shall certainly do as you requested and keep you informed of all that occurs here from now on.

‘Well, Watson, what do you make of it?’ enquired Holmes, as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

‘It seems the very best news your client could have hoped for,’ I replied. ‘No doubt the matter will soon resolve itself now. It is good that Lady Davenoke is now so cheerful.’

‘Oh? So that is how it strikes you?’ said he, passing me the toast-rack. He pushed back his chair in silence and took his coffee cup to the mantelpiece, where he set it down amid a litter of chemical bottles and test-tubes, and took up his black clay pipe.

‘I regret that I cannot share your optimism, Watson,’ he continued after a moment. ‘You will appreciate that I feel professionally responsible for the well-being of my client. From that point of view, this letter she has received is perhaps the most sinister development so far.’

‘You amaze me, Holmes! It struck me as extremely cheering!’

‘So are fairy-tales, Watson – and they contain as much of the truth as does that letter.’

‘Really, Holmes! What possible evidence can you have for such an assertion?’

‘The most significant evidence lies in the first envelope I passed you.’

‘But that envelope was perfectly empty!’

‘Therein lies its significance.’

‘Oh, this is absurd!’ I cried. ‘I can make neither head nor tail of it!’

‘You know my methods,’ said he laconically. ‘Apply them!’

I picked the empty envelope up from the table and examined it. It was very cheap, penny-a-packet commercial stationery, and bore the previous evening’s date and the ‘E.C.’ postmark, indicating that it had been posted in the City area. I remarked as much to my friend and he nodded.