The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle Read online

  “No need, I’ll have some of that coffee,” I answered. She poured a cup for me.

  “Bette?” Holmes stopped her as she was going out. “Have you seen the boy this morning?”

  “Robert? Yes, sir, he’s folding linen for Mrs. Pearce.”

  “Ask him to step in, please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I cast a questioning look at Holmes.

  “Watson, do you remember the curious incident of the dog in the night?”

  I did indeed. It was an important clue in one of our cases from the nineties. But before I could answer, Robert entered. He seemed no worse in the morning after his night of discomfort.

  “Robert, Mr. Barton and I are going out this morning. Need you to brush off my dark suit and give a lick of polish to my black shoes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Mr. Barton’s shoes, too. They’re looking pretty sour.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Feeling alright, son? You look a little green around the gills.”

  “Quite well, sir.”

  “That plate of tarts didn’t go down so well, though, eh?” Robert cast his eyes to the floor, though I fancy he stole a sidelong glance at me.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t snitch. A man’s got to look out for himself. Shame you missed all the hubbub, though.”

  “I suppose so, sir.”

  “Weren’t you curious?”

  “No, sir,” the boy mumbled.

  “Burglars crawling around rooftops not your shine?”

  The boy mumbled again.

  “Especially when you’re used to them, eh?”

  Robert hung his head. Holmes had tumbled him somehow. “It’s only business, sir. He’s paid to keep his eye on her, he says.”

  “And he pays you to keep an eye on her, too?”

  “Sometimes. Like wot I said, only business.”

  “Who pays him? Speak up and don’t be scared.”

  “Shirley Combs of Scotland Yard. A famous detective, so he says, sir. Miss Eliza’s a secret princess or some such, so he says, sir, wot needs watching.”

  I chuckled at the name “Shirley Combs.” Fame does not merely fade away; first it must be pierced with a thousand darts of mortification. Robert shot me a hot look, as if I had questioned his veracity.

  “He’s not the only one, is he?” Holmes persisted.

  “I seen some others about. Hard-eyed men. But they doesn’t talk to me.”

  “What’s this fellow look like, then?”

  The boy described a man who could only be the attacker from Swandam Lane. “His looks makes my blood run cold, sir, but he gives good coin, does old Ned Hyde.”

  “Hyde?” Holmes rasped.

  “Sir?”

  “Edward Hyde?” Holmes’s face went ashen.

  “That’s the chap, sir.”

  “Leave us. Hurry with the boots.”

  “Yes, sir. Sir?”

  Holmes had already plunged into the deeps of thought, but he dragged himself back to the surface to give attention to the boy.

  “Did you really strangle Gino Donati wif a piano wire, sir?”

  “Mum’s the word,” answered Holmes, winking. The boy scampered away happily.

  Holmes sat staring into space while I pushed my food about my plate. “Are we still going out, then?” I asked, when I could hold my tongue no longer.

  Holmes slammed his palm upon the table and the cups jumped. “We are indeed, Watson. A most formal visit. Make sure you look your best. But first I must send a wire.”

  There was a new urgency in his voice, and a deep well of light behind his eyes. The gloom which had hung about him so long, like a December fog, had been swept away, as if the lumber room of his mind held no more cobwebs, no more scraps of warped or knotted wood, but only true, straight-stacked planks, planed to an exactness. Whatever sluggishness had attended his mental exercises before had vanished and would not return. And all, I guessed, because of the potency of that one name: Edward Hyde.

  Holmes bounded upstairs. As I made to follow, Mrs. Pearce entered from the kitchen. Her eyes fell upon our half-eaten breakfasts.

  “No appetite this morning, Mr. Barton?” she asked.

  “Oh . . . I suppose not.” I didn’t want to lay charges against the cook.

  “I’ll ask Cook to make up a special batch just for you, sir.” She gave me a conspiratorial wink, which seemed most unlike Mrs. Pearce.

  My confusion must have been evident. “I heard you moving about last night,” she said teasingly. “The strawberry tarts were my husband’s favorite, too.”

  Enlightenment struck. Mrs. Pearce had apparently discovered the theft of the tarts, and laid blame for the crime upon my shoulders. I had not the heart to disabuse her of the notion. Besides, what favors could I not purchase from Robert with those tarts as my currency? I attempted to return her wink, though I may have only managed to blink.

  The house was barely stirring when Holmes and I made our departure. The streets were already busy with traffic, and we soon found a cab.

  “Where to, sir?” the driver asked.

  “Necropolis Station.”

  It didn’t take a detective to guess who we were making our visit to, but my heart welled up when I heard those words. A fine cold mist lanced against our faces as we huddled into the cab.

  Necropolis Station was as I remembered it. There were all the sights and sounds of any London railway station, yet the sounds were muffled and the hues muted. The latter no doubt was engendered by the fact that nearly all the passengers were dressed in mourning, even the golfers out for a cut-rate trip to Woking. There was silence in the chapel, and the quiet conversations were absorbed into the heavy padded furniture and thick carpets. Holmes and I sat silent in one of the waiting rooms, drinking chocolate until boarding time, each buried in our own thoughts.

  It wasn’t till we were on the train and our journey underway that I leaned toward Holmes to ask the question burning in my mind. “This fellow Hyde. It seemed you were familiar with the name.”

  Holmes looked at me as if considering how much to share with me. At last he asked, “Do you recall the Carew murder case?”

  “Sir Danvers Carew? The M.P.? I remember it vaguely. Wasn’t he robbed in the street? They never caught his killer. Must be over twenty years ago now.”

  “That was the story Scotland Yard fed to the papers, to stave off a panic. It was a ghastly affair. Bludgeoned to death with the head of a walking stick. We knew from the first who the murderer was. He had killed before, but this was the first time we had a witness to the attack. It was the whereabouts of the man that was the puzzle. The Yard should have had him in its net from the start. I found a dozen strong leads, which all turned inexplicably into blind alleys. He vanished into thin air.”

  “Slipped off to the continent, no doubt.”

  Holmes gave me a look full of disparagement. “If he’d fled to Holland or France or Scotland or the Isle of Capri, we’d have known. We might not have been able to touch him, but we’d have known. I tell you the man vanished into thin air. He was well known in certain quarters, detested and feared by all who knew him. He had no friends to turn to and no ready money to make a run with. Yet we could not get a whisper of him. That man’s name was Edward Hyde.”

  “Holmes! You’re saying this is the same man? After all these years?” It seemed an outlandish proposition.

  “I’m saying it is a name of ill omen, and a face from a nightmare. I’ve taken the liberty of calling in an old acquaintance to consult on the matter. But now our train is about to pull into the Necropolis, and we have our respects to pay.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The mystery of Miss Doolittle had driven it from my mind, but that day was the anniversary of a sad occasion, the death of our long-time, long-suffering landlady, Mrs. Hudson. She may have been the only soul on earth that Sherlock Holmes ever displayed simple genuine affection for, but he had been unable to attend her funeral, being detained in Montpell
ier on family business. When he had removed himself from his Baker Street rooms to the Sussex countryside, he had begged me to look after her, and I had done my best to honor my promise. I had urged her to sell the Baker Street house and come live with me, but she insisted on her independence, though she did hire a maid to see after chores she could no longer do herself. I caught a glimpse once of Mrs. Hudson’s new tenants after Holmes had left: a young couple with one child toddling behind them and the other crying in a pram. They were entirely happy with the rooms, Mrs. Hudson told me, except for the occasional disturbances from visitors who insisted on seeing Mr. Sherlock Holmes, always on a matter of life and death. The couple assumed that Mr. Holmes had been a doctor, she said, and that he had passed away. She did not attempt to correct them on either count.

  This was the first chance Holmes had to visit her grave. Brook-wood Cemetery, or the London Necropolis, as it had styled itself when its gates first opened fifty years ago, was meant to be frozen in a sort of eternal spring, so by design most of the trees planted there were evergreens. The main avenues of the cemetery were lined with tall stands of American redwood and sequoia like cathedral columns. There was a dark clump of magnolias close at hand, the rain beading off their waxen leaves. We stood together before a cold marble angel, hats in hand. The angel’s finger pointed not heavenward but straight ahead, as if in accusation. Our cheeks were wet with the mist and the cold settled in our shoulders. There was a sough of wind through the wet grass.

  “How did she make her end, Watson?”

  We had both witnessed our share of sudden, violent death. We were less inured to death as it comes to the mass of humanity, like a thief in the night that first robs us of sight and hearing, and strength, and at last hope. “Her maid said that she had gone to bed early the night before, claiming tiredness. The next morning she was dead.”

  “Ah, that is something I have wanted for myself.”

  “An easy death?”

  “To be tired.”

  We gave ourselves over to reminiscing about that good lady who had shared a part in so many of our adventures. As young men we had taken her good will and solicitude for granted, though we were perhaps the queerest lodgers any landlady ever admitted under her roof. But as the years went by, affection grew between us, and we took on something roughly in the shape of a family. I would never have got through the death of my dear Mary without her kindness.

  I cannot say when I knew we were being spied upon. The greensward about us sloped upward to the tree line. A man stood crouching among the low branches of a magnolia, watching us. He wore a dark frock coat and his face was shadowed by the foliage. There was a glint of light along the barrel of the revolver in his hand.

  Holmes, whose back was to the stranger, had been recalling the unique talent Mrs. Hudson had revealed in the case of the Salisbury hunchback. Now he broke off, alive to the warning in my eyes. “What is it, Watson?”

  “A man in the trees. Watching,” I answered tersely.

  “Ah, yes. He’s been stalking us since Wimpole Street. And now we have lured him to this desolate spot, it’s time we beard the lion.” He started toward the trees, but I threw him to the ground as a shot rang out.

  I found myself lying on top of Sherlock Holmes in the grass. “I should have said ‘a man in the trees with a gun watching.’” He grunted in agreement as I rolled off him. We both dove behind Mrs. Hudson’s angel as another shot whistled over our heads.

  “Mrs. Hudson would undoubtedly disapprove of this untidy state of affairs,” said Holmes.

  I stared at him in amazement. Either he had the coolest nerve of any man I ever met or else he had descended into senility. Another shot exploded; the bullet ricocheted off the angel’s wingtip. “You wouldn’t happen to have your service revolver about you?” Holmes asked. I was panting too hard to answer, but I threw up my hands helplessly.

  “Then we must wait,” he said. He did not say what we must wait upon.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “I believe I can reduce the number of possible instigators to a round dozen, but further intelligence must wait upon our rescue.”

  Another shot rang out. We huddled closer together behind our granite redoubt.

  “What if I try to work my way around behind him?” I said.

  “You will be shot. Patience, Watson.”

  At that moment along the path behind the magnolias appeared a stocky, white-haired, rubicund old duffer dressed as a country gentleman in a Norfolk jacket and gaiters, a shillelagh in hand and a pipe in his mouth. He looked as if he had wandered in from the nearby golf course, looking for a misplayed ball. As another shot was fired, he leaned nonchalantly against a gravestone, knocked the dottle from his pipe, and drew a pistol from his coat pocket as casually as if it were the Sunday Times. Then the mask of suburban complacence fell away.

  “Scotland Yard!” he barked. “Drop your weapon!”

  The man in the trees twisted swift as an adder and shot. But his shot was hurried and went wide. The old fellow returned his fire, and the assassin tumbled from the tree with a cry. He hit the ground, rose jerkily, and aimed. Then he seemed to crumble like a sand castle: trigger finger first, then in waves from his wrists to his shoulders, the torso cascading into his knees, till there was only the surprised look on his face; then, that too dissolved.

  The old man lowered his gun and started toward the assassin. Holmes and I got to our feet and collected ourselves. My knees creaked as I straightened up.

  Holmes signaled a thumbs-up to our rescuer.

  “Holmes! You know him?” The conjurer at work again.

  “I invited him.” Holmes chuckled. We joined the old fellow, who was crouching over the wounded man, holding his wrist. The man’s lips were working, endeavoring to speak, but a pink froth bubbled from his lips and his eyes stared into eternity.

  “Damn damn damn damn. I fear I’ve killed him, Mr. Holmes.” He dropped the man’s limp hand.

  “He spoke to you,” said Holmes eagerly.

  “Wasn’t any of it English,” the man from Scotland Yard answered. “There was only one word I understood: ‘Vendetta.’ He said it more than once.”

  “Is there any hope, Watson?”

  I opened the man’s coat and peeled back his blood-soaked shirt-front. I probed for the wound. I shook my head. When I found the hole I winced. “Turn him over,” I said. “Gently. He’s drowning in his own blood.” The other two turned the man on his side as I worked to stop the bleeding.

  But my efforts to stanch the wound were in vain, as I knew they must be. The inspector’s shot had perforated a lung. The man stiffened suddenly, and then slumped over in Holmes’s arms. We laid him down to face the sky. I wiped the mess from my hands on the wet grass.

  “I’m sorry,” said the old man. “I don’t like to kill a man, especially a young man.”

  “He gave you no choice. Watson, you remember George New-comen?”

  Indeed I remembered Inspector Newcomen. He had been among that small cadre of young Scotland Yard detectives who were not ashamed to throw up their hands and seek assistance from Sherlock Holmes when they got in over their heads. Whether I truly recognized the young, zealous inspector in this blear-eyed, grizzled old man with hunched shoulders, or simply recognized in him the dour attitude of a career police officer, I am not certain. He shook my hand eagerly enough, the admiration in his eyes reminding me that I had once myself been celebrated in certain circles.

  “If the man can’t talk, perhaps the body will,” the inspector commented philosophically. He started going through the man’s pockets, searching for clues. “Did you know him, Mr. Holmes?”

  “Not I,” Holmes answered. “Hello? What’s this?”

  The inspector had pulled a blood-spattered paper from the man’s coat pocket. He peered at the writing. “It’s Greek to me,” he said. He handed the paper to Holmes.

  “Italian, I would say,” Holmes corrected.

  I peered over his shoulder at the lette
r. There were only a couple of paragraphs, partially obscured by blood. I couldn’t recall whether Holmes knew Italian. “Can you make anything of it?” I asked.

  “Enough to know it’s of little use to us. It’s a letter from a girl named Susanna to a man named Piero. That must be this fellow. She pleads with him to come home soon. And she warns him to look out for someone named Carlo. Probably a rival.” He handed the letter to the inspector.

  “That word ‘vendetta.’ It don’t take a scholar to parse that one, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Indeed, Inspector. He was almost certainly a member of one of our Italian crime societies.”

  “On a mission of revenge. Against you?”

  “I rather fancy someone else.”

  “Always something knotty with Mr. Holmes. Is this why you invited me to Brookwood on a Saturday morning?”

  “No, but I’m grateful you came along just when you did.”

  Newcomen flashed his gun again, alert. A young man in work clothes came crashing through the trees. He stopped like a stone a few yards above us, seeing the gun leveled at him. His face was pale under dark curls, and a vein beat on his forehead. “I hear the—the gunshots,” he said falteringly.

  “This is a police matter. Who might you be? Friend of this chap?”

  “I’m assistant . . . caretaker here. Is—is he dead?” He crouched over the body in morbid fascination, unable to tear his eyes away.

  “You should have seen enough corpses to know,” said Holmes.

  “I’m not used to ’em this fresh, sir, am I?” the young man answered with a sob in his throat.

  Newcomen strode over to the young man and clamped a hand on his shoulder. “What’s your name?”

  “Charlie, sir.”

  “Charlie, is there a telephone nearby?”

  “There’s one in the chapel of the souls. Not so far.” He made a vague gesture up the path.

  “Charlie, I need you to get to that phone quick as ever you can, and call the metropolitan police. Can you manage that?’

  The young man rose and mopped his face with his kerchief. “Right you are, sir. I go.”