We left the table and returned to the back parlour where the fire was now burning low. At the last moment, the maid had handed Mrs Jones a parcel wrapped in brown paper and, as we sat down, she passed it to her husband. ‘I am sorry to trouble you, Athelney, but I wonder if you would mind walking up the road to Mrs Mills?’
‘Now?’
‘It is her laundry and some books for her to read.’ She turned to me and continued in the same breath, ‘Mrs Mills is a member of our congregation and recently widowed. To add to her misfortunes, she has not been very well and we do what we can to be good neighbours.’
‘Is it not rather late?’ Jones asked, still holding the parcel.
‘Not at all. She does not sleep very much and I told her you would be looking in. She was delighted to hear it. You know how fond she is of you. Anyway, a stroll will do you good before bed.’
‘Very well. Perhaps Chase will accompany me …?’
‘Mr Chase has not finished his coffee. He will keep me company while you are gone.’
Her strategy was obvious. She wanted to speak to me on my own and had arranged things to that effect. Throughout the evening, I had been amused to watch my friend, Athelney Jones, in the privacy of his home. So forceful and single-minded when pursuing his investigation, he was altogether quieter and less demonstrative in the company of his wife. Their closeness was indisputable. They filled each other’s silences and anticipated the other’s demands. And yet I would have said that she was by far the stronger of the two. In her company, Jones lost much of his authority and it made me think that even Sherlock Holmes might have been a lesser detective had he chosen to marry.
Her husband stood up. He took the parcel, kissed her gently on the forehead, and left the room. She waited until she had heard the front door open and close. Then she looked at me in a quite different way, no longer the hostess, and I realised that she was assessing me, deciding whether to draw me into some inner circle of confidence.
‘My husband tells me that you have been a detective with Pinkerton’s for some time,’ she began.
‘For longer than I care to remember, Mrs Jones,’ I replied, ‘although strictly speaking, I am an investigator, not a detective. It is not quite the same thing.’
‘In what way?’
‘We are more straightforward in our methods. A crime is committed. We investigate it. But in most cases it is simply a matter of procedure, which is to say that, unlike the British, we do not go in so much for duplicity and deception.’
‘Do you enjoy the work?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Yes. There are people in this world who are very bad, who bring nothing but misery to others, and I think it is right to bring them down.’
‘You are not married?’
‘No.’
‘You have never been tempted?’
‘You are very forthright.’
‘I hope I do not offend you. I only wish to know you a little better. It is important to me.’
‘Then I will answer your question. Of course I have been tempted. But I have been of a solitary nature ever since I was a child and in recent years I have allowed my work to consume me. I like the idea of matrimony but I am not sure that for me it would be ideal.’ I was uncomfortable with the way the conversation was turning and tried to change the subject. ‘You have a beautiful home, Mrs Jones, and a charming family.’
‘My husband is very taken with you, Mr Chase.’
‘For that I am grateful.’
‘And what, I wonder, do you make of him?’
I put down my coffee cup. ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’
‘Do you like him?’
‘Do you really want me to answer that?’
‘I would not have asked you if I did not.’
‘I like him very much. He has welcomed me as a stranger to this country and he has been singularly kind to me when others, I am sure, would have been obstructive. He is also, if I may say so, a brilliant man. In fact, I would go further and add that I have never met a detective quite like him. His methods are extraordinary.’
‘Does he remind you of anyone?’
I paused. ‘He reminds me of Sherlock Holmes.’
‘Yes.’ Suddenly her voice was cold. ‘Sherlock Holmes.’
‘Mrs Jones – that you have deliberately arranged for your husband to leave is obvious. But I don’t know why, and I feel it is discourteous to discuss him in his absence. So why don’t you tell me. What is it that is on your mind?’
She said nothing but examined me carefully and, sitting there with the firelight reflecting softly on her face, I suddenly thought her very beautiful. Eventually she spoke. ‘My husband keeps an office upstairs,’ she said. ‘He uses it sometimes as a retreat, when he is involved in a case. Would you care to see it?’
‘Very much.’
‘And I would very much like to show it to you. You need have no concern, by the way. I am permitted to enter when I wish and we will only be there for a minute or two.’
I followed her out of the room and up the stairs past watercolours – mainly birds and butterflies – hanging in plain wooden frames on the striped paper. We reached the first landing and entered a small, uncarpeted room that looked out onto the back garden. I knew at once that this was where Jones worked. And yet it was not he who dominated the room.
The first thing I saw, sitting on a table, was a neat pile of Strand Magazines, each one so well preserved as to appear brand new. I did not need to open them to know what I would find inside. They all carried accounts of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes as narrated by Dr John H. Watson and the great detective was present all over the room in photographs, daguerreotypes and newspaper headlines which had been tacked to the wall: BLUE CARBUNCLE RECOVERED, COBURG SQUARE BANK ROBBERY FOILED. On studying the books and monographs on the shelves, I saw that a great many of them had been written by Holmes. Among them was a sizeable volume on the scientific analysis of bloodstains, another (One Hundred and Sixty Ciphers Examined ) on codes and a third, which reminded me of the train journey from Meiringen, on different types of tobacco ash. There were other books by Winwood Reade, Wendell Holmes, Emile Gaboriau and Edgar Allen Poe, several encyclopedias and gazetteers and a copy of the Anthropological Journal lying open at an article concerning the shape of the human ear. Though austere in its general appearance – apart from the bookshelves, the only furniture was a desk, a chair and two small tables – the room was cluttered, with every inch of every surface holding one strange object or another. I saw a magnifying glass, a Bunsen burner, glass phials filled with chemicals, a stuffed snake – a swamp adder, I think – a number of bones, a map of Upper Norwood, what might have been a mandrake root and a Turkish slipper.
I had been hovering in the doorway. Elspeth Jones had gone in ahead of me and now twisted round. ‘This is where my husband works,’ she said. ‘He spends more time here than any other room in the house. I am sure I do not need to tell you who has been his inspiration.’
‘It is very evident.’
‘We have already spoken his name.’ She drew herself up. ‘There are times when I wish I had never heard it!’ She was angry and her anger made her quite different from the mother who had read to her child and the wife who had sat with me at the dinner table. ‘This is what I want to tell you, Mr Chase. If you are to work with my husband, it is vital that you understand. My husband first met Sherlock Holmes following the murder of one Bartholomew Sholto, an investigation that concluded with the loss of the great treasure of Agra. As it happens, he came out of it with some credit, although he never saw it that way, and the account published by Dr Watson portrayed him in a particularly unflattering light.’
Jones had already alluded to it. But I said nothing.
‘The two of them met again on a rather less spectacular business, a break-in in North London and the strange theft of three porcelain figures.’
‘The Abernettys.’
‘He has told you?’
‘He has al
luded to it. I know none of the details.’
‘He doesn’t speak of that affair very often – and with good reason.’ She paused, composing herself. ‘Once again he failed. Once again Dr Watson will have turned him into a laughing stock although, fortunately, he has yet to publish this particular tale. After it was all over, my husband spent weeks torturing himself. Why had he not realised that the dead man had been in prison? There was oakum under his fingernails – a fairly obvious clue when you think about it. Why had he been so blind to the significance of the three identical figurines when it had been so immediately obvious to Mr Holmes? He had missed every single clue of any importance … the footprints, the sleeping neighbour, even the fold in the dead man’s sock. How could he even call himself a detective when he had been shown up as a bumbling amateur?’
‘You are too hard on him.’
‘He was too hard on himself! I must speak to you in confidence, Mr Chase, hoping with all my heart that you are indeed the friend that you profess to be. Following the Abernetty business, my husband became very ill. He complained of tiredness, toothache, a sense of weakness in his bones. His wrists and his ankles swelled up. At first, I thought he had overworked himself, that all he needed was rest and a little sunshine. However, the doctor soon diagnosed something much more serious. He was afflicted with the rickets, a disease that had actually touched him briefly when he was a child but which had returned in a much more serious and vengeful form.
‘He was forced to take a year off work and during that time, I nursed him day and night. To begin with, all I looked for was his recovery but as the months passed and he became a little stronger, I began to hope that he might put his police career behind him. His brother, Peter, is an inspector. His father had risen to become a superintendent. There was, I knew, a sense of family tradition. But even so, with a young child and a wife who feared for him almost daily and with the knowledge that he would never recover his former strength, I allowed myself to believe that he might choose to begin a new life elsewhere.
‘I was deceived. My husband dedicated the year of his hiatus to the betterment of his career as a detective. He had met Sherlock Holmes twice. He had been beaten by him twice. He was determined that, should they meet again, history would not repeat itself a third time. In short, Inspector Athelney Jones would make himself the equal of the world’s most famous consulting detective and to that end he threw himself into his work with a vigour that belied the disease that had crippled him. You see some of the evidence around you but believe me when I say that this is but a small part of it. He has read everything that Mr Holmes has ever written. He has studied his methods and replicated his experiments. He has consulted with every inspector who ever worked with him. He has, in short, made Sherlock Holmes the very paradigm of his own life.’
Everything she said made sense to me. From the moment I had met Athelney Jones I had been aware of his interest in the great detective. But I had not appreciated how much it went to the heart and soul of who he was.
‘My husband returned to his office a few months ago,’ Elspeth Jones concluded. ‘He thinks he has fully recovered from the worst of his illness – but what actually sustains him is his knowledge of Holmes’s work and his belief that he is now Holmes’s equal.’ There was a terrible pause and then, faltering, she continued. ‘I do not share that belief. God forgive me for saying it. I love my husband. I admire him. But more than anything, if he remains blinded by this cruel self-belief, I fear for him.’
‘You are wrong—’ I began.
‘Do not try to be kind to me. Look around you. Here is the evidence. Heaven knows where this obsession will take him.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Protect him. I do not know these people he is up against, but I am terribly afraid for him. They would seem to be ruthless. He, in his own way, is so lacking in guile. Is it wrong of me to speak to you in this way? I do not know how I would live without him and these dreadful murders, the attempt today …’
She broke off. The whole house was silent.
‘Mrs Jones,’ I said. ‘You have my word that I will do everything I can to guide us both through to safety. It is true that we find ourselves up against a formidable enemy but I do not share your misgivings. Your husband has already demonstrated to me, time and again, his extraordinary intelligence. I am perhaps a few years older than he, but even so I recognise the fact that I am the junior partner in this enterprise. That said, I promise you with all my heart that I will look out for him. I will stand by him. And should we find ourselves in danger, I will do everything in my power to protect him.’
‘You are very kind, Mr Chase. I can ask no more.’
‘He will be back very soon,’ I said. ‘We should go downstairs.’
She took my arm and we went back down together. Shortly afterwards, Jones returned and found us sitting before the fire, discussing the five boroughs of New York. He did not see that anything was amiss and I said nothing.
But as I returned to Camberwell station, I was deep in thought. The night was still black, the fog rolling across the pavement. Somewhere far away, a dog howled in the darkness, warning me of things I did not want to know.
TWELVE
Foreign Soil
Jones was in a more ebullient mood when we met the next day, exhibiting that strange alacrity of spirit which, I now knew, had found its inspiration in the example set by the greatest detective of all.
‘You will be relieved to hear that, finally, we make progress!’ he announced as we met outside my hotel.
‘You have been back to Chancery Lane?’ I asked.
‘Silas Beckett and his associates can wait. I would say that it will be at least a week before they slip away into the night.’
‘How can you be so sure if you have not returned?’
‘I knew it before we left, my dear Chase. Did you not remark upon the position of the hurdy-gurdy player? He was standing precisely eight paces from the front door of the barber’s shop.’
‘I’m afraid I do not follow you at all.’
‘I begin to think that you and I might have a future together. You shall leave Pinkerton’s and I shall resign from Scotland Yard. You will enjoy living in London. No! I am quite serious. The city has need of a new consulting detective. We might even take rooms on Baker Street! What do you say?’
‘I am not sure what to say.’
‘Well, we have more pressing matters at hand. First, our friend Perry. We have now learned that he entered Scotland Yard at twenty minutes to three and claimed to be carrying a package for me, a large box wrapped in brown paper. He was directed to my office on the third floor.’
‘Why didn’t he leave it in your office?’
‘He could not have done so. I was behind my desk and would have been sure to recognise him. Instead, he placed it as near as he could, which was on the other side of the wall in the telegraph office. They are used to seeing messenger boys, apprentices and cadets coming in and going out and one more would have made no difference.’
‘But you left.’
‘I left to meet you, as we had arranged. Perry must have been just a minute or two ahead of me. That’s how close it was! You saw him enter the carriage. Have you had any further thoughts as to the identity of his companion?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘No matter. Our adversaries may have made their first serious error, Chase. Had they chosen a hansom for their adventure, it might have been impossible to find them. The streets of London are littered with hansoms, licensed and unlicensed, and the driver might never have come forward. The brougham is an altogether rarer beast and its driver is even now in our hands.’
‘How did you find him?’
‘We have had three divisions on the streets, almost a hundred men. Did you really think that we would allow such an outrage as took place yesterday to go unpunished? Not an inn, not an alley, not a coach house or stable has been overlooked. All night they have been out and now, finally, we ha
ve a man who remembers carrying a fare to Whitehall, who picked up a second passenger moments before the explosion.’
‘And where did they go?’
‘I have yet to speak to the driver. But if he can tell us where he took them, or where this man came from, then our task will have been accomplished and Devereux may yet fall into our hands.’
Jones had arrived in a cab, which was still waiting for us, and we travelled across London, battling our way through the interminable traffic, without speaking. I was grateful for the silence. It allowed me to reflect on what Elspeth Jones had said to me the night before and to wonder if she had some intuition about what lay ahead. For his part, Jones had not referred to the dinner, although he must have been aware that his wife had arranged things so as to speak privately with me for half an hour. Did he know that we had entered his study? In retrospect, I had found the encounter strangely disturbing. I wished that she and I had spoken a little more … or perhaps less.
We finally drew in to a cabstand near Piccadilly Circus, the very heart of the western end of the city, the equivalent, if you like, of Times Square. I saw at once a well-maintained, brightly polished brougham parked with a uniformed police constable standing beside it. The driver, a huge man in a topcoat that seemed to billow out like a tent, was sitting in his place with the reins across his knees and a scowl on his face.
We climbed down. ‘Mr Guthrie?’ Jones asked, striding forward.
‘Aye, that’s me,’ the driver responded. ‘And I bin ’ere an hour or more. What’s it to be when a honest man is kept from ’is livelihood like this?’
He had not moved, staring down at us as if he were as firmly tied into his seat as the horse in its harness. He really was a vast man, with rolling cheeks, side whiskers and crimson-coloured skin that had come either from long exposure to the air in all weathers or, more likely, from sclerosis.
‘I am sure we can recompense you for your time,’ Jones remarked.