The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes (16 page)

“Well played, Clarissa,” he mumbled, his face in his hands. “Well played indeed.”

“We find it interesting, Newbury, that she deigned to allow you to live. Perhaps she has a weakness for pretty men?”

“With respect, Your Majesty, she is a cold-blooded killer,” replied Newbury. “She took that innocent woman’s life purely to evade capture. I suspect she allowed me to live only because she considered me useful. I was her intended scapegoat, and she was relying on me to help her to escape from the wreckage.”

Victoria gave a disturbing, throaty cackle. “Don’t be so naive, Newbury. Do you think for a moment she didn’t know what she was doing? That ‘innocent woman’ you refer to was a German agent, most likely sent to assassinate Lady Arkwell following her alleged involvement in a theft from the Kaiser’s court. She probably killed her in self-defence.”

Newbury frowned. Perhaps things weren’t as black and white as he’d at first imagined. Could she really have killed that woman in self-defence? If so, that put an entirely different complexion on the matter. Perhaps she was more the woman he’d taken her to be, after all. He sighed. “I fear it is a moot point, Your Majesty. She’s probably halfway to Paris by now, or some other such destination where she might go to ground to evade capture.”

“Perhaps so,” the Queen conceded.

“Then that is an end to the matter?”

Victoria laughed. “No. You shall remain focused on the woman, Newbury. You shall track her down and bring her here, to the bosom of the Empire, where we may question her and discover her true motives.” Victoria grinned wickedly, baring the blackened stumps of her teeth. “We think she might yet prove useful.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” said Newbury. He stifled a smile. He knew that what he’d just been handed was a punishment for allowing the woman—Clarissa—to slip out of his grasp, but in truth, he couldn’t help feeling buoyed by the notion that, some day soon, he might see her again.

“Go to it, Newbury. Do not disappoint us again.”

“Very good, Your Majesty,” he replied, with a short bow, then quit the audience chamber to the sound of the Queen’s hacking, tortuous laughter.

“I was played, Charles. There’s no other way to look at it.”

Newbury crossed the room to where Bainbridge was sitting by the fire and handed him a snifter of brandy. Then, with a heavy sigh, he dropped into his battered old Chesterfield and propped his feet up on a tottering pile of books.

“Don’t look so dejected, Newbury,” said Bainbridge, unable to hide his amusement. “It’s no reflection on you that you were beaten by a pretty young woman.”

Newbury offered his best withering glare, but couldn’t help but smile at the gentle provocation.

The two of them had met at Newbury’s Chelsea home for dinner, and now it was growing late, and the mood more contemplative.

“It’s just... I was completely taken in by the woman, Charles,” replied Newbury. “As if she’d somehow bewitched me. I can’t believe I missed all the signs.”

“I refer you to my previous sentiment,” said Bainbridge, grinning. “You’re not the first man to be distracted by a feisty, intelligent—and beautiful—young woman, and you won’t be the last.” He took a long slug of brandy. “And let’s not forget, your brain was somewhat addled by the sedative. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

He knew that Bainbridge was right, but couldn’t shake the feeling that, in losing this first round of the little game he had entered into with Lady Arkwell, he was now on the back foot. He wasn’t used to being the one running to catch up.

Newbury shrugged and took a sip of his drink. “What of you, Charles? Are you faring any better? Tell me about Algernon Moyer.”

“All over and done with,” said Bainbridge, merrily. “It turned out he’d pushed his luck just a little too far. He got careless.”

“And you managed to find him?” asked Newbury.

“In a manner of speaking. It looks as if one of his victims might have bitten him after he’d administered the Revenant plague. We found him climbing the walls in a hotel room in Hampstead, utterly degenerated. The hotel called us in because of the noise and the smell.”

Newbury wrinkled his nose in disgust. “You had to put him down?”

Bainbridge nodded. “The blighter got what was coming to him. His corpse was incinerated yesterday.”

“It brings a whole new complexion to that old adage, ‘treat others as you mean to be treated yourself,’” said Newbury.

Bainbridge laughed. “It does that.”

There was a polite knock at the drawing room door. Newbury glanced round to see his valet, Scarbright, silhouetted in the doorway. He was still dressed in his immaculate black suit and collar, despite the lateness of the hour.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, gentlemen, but I have a message for Sir Maurice,” he said, holding up an envelope.

“Come in, Scarbright,” said Newbury, intrigued.

“A message? At this time of night?” exclaimed Bainbridge, with a frown. He sat forward in his chair, glancing at Newbury with a quizzical expression.

Newbury shrugged. He hadn’t been expecting anything.

“It arrived just a moment ago,” explained Scarbright, “brought to the door by an urchin, who insisted the message it contained was quite urgent.” He passed the envelope to Newbury and waited for a moment while Newbury examined it. “If there’s anything else you need...”

“What? Oh, no,” said Newbury, distracted. “We’re fine, Scarbright. Thank you.”

The valet retreated, closing the door behind him.

Newbury turned the envelope over in his hands. There was no addressee. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed the seal. It smelled of roses.

“What the Devil are you doing?” asked Bainbridge. “Just open the ruddy thing, will you?”

Newbury chuckled. “It’s advisable when one receives anonymous post, Charles, to first ensure it’s not going to kill you.”

Bainbridge’s eyes widened. “You don’t think it’s poisoned, do you?”

Newbury shook his head. “Thankfully not.” He ran his finger along the seam, tearing it open.

Inside, there was a small, white notecard. He withdrew it. Printed on one side in neat, flowing script were the words:
Still on for dinner?

Newbury dropped the card on his lap and threw his head back, laughing.

“What is it?” said Bainbridge. “What does it say?”

“It’s from her,” said Newbury.

“Who? The Queen?”

“No. Lady Arkwell. Clarissa.”

Bainbridge looked utterly confused. “And?”

“She’s letting me know that the game is still on,” replied Newbury. “That there’s more still to come.” He handed Bainbridge the note.

Bainbridge glanced at it almost cursorily. “The gall of the woman! You should toss this in the fire and forget about it.”

“That would hardly be following orders, Charles,” said Newbury. He drained the rest of his glass. “You know what Her Majesty had to say on the subject.”

“So you’ll do as she asks?” said Bainbridge, incredulous. “You’ll keep up the search?”

Newbury grinned. He took the card back from Bainbridge and looked wistfully at the note. “Yes, Charles,” he said. “I rather think I will.”

During the many years in which I served as both a friend and chronicler of Sherlock Holmes, there was but a rarefied handful of occasions upon which I witnessed that cold logician rendered speechless or flustered by the unexpected outcome of a case. Irene Adler evoked one such response, and the events that I have come to consider as “The Case of the Night Crawler” elicited yet another. It is due in part to the sensitivities of my friend that I have never published my notes regarding this most singular of adventures, but I record them here for the sake of posterity and completeness. I am, if nothing else, a thorough man, and it would not do to allow such a startling series of incidents to go entirely unrecorded.

So, here, in this worn leather journal, where perhaps my words will go forever unread, I shall set it down. I am old now, and I have little better to do with my time but to reflect upon the more adventurous days of my past.

The biggest irony of all, of course, is that Holmes himself had very little to do with the unravelling of the case. Indeed, he resoundingly turned his nose up at the opportunity to involve himself in such “coarse, ridiculous matters,” as I remember so well that he put it, plucking violently at his violin strings as if to underline the significance of his words. His dismissive attitude was, in this rare instance, a cause for his later embarrassment, as it would transpire that the matter in question was quite as far from ridiculous as one might ever imagine. Not that Holmes was ever one to learn from such mistakes.

The aforementioned events marked also my first encounter with that remarkable individual Sir Maurice Newbury and his most astonishing associate, Miss Veronica Hobbes. It was not, much to my regret, the beginning of a long-lasting friendship, but Newbury and I nevertheless identified a mutual respect, and there would follow a number of other occasions upon which we would throw our hats in the same ring—most notable among them that dreadful matter of the Kaiser’s unhinged spiritualist during the early days of the war.

Holmes, of course, had quite a different opinion of Newbury, but I suppose that was only to be expected; although without equal in his field, Holmes was not above a modicum of professional rivalry if he felt his reputation—or more truthfully, his pride—was at risk. His attitude towards Newbury would change over time, and I believe by the end, following the resolution of that matter in 1915 and the destruction of the spectrograph generator, he might even have granted Newbury the respect he deserved. War does that to a man, I’ve found. It teaches him to work alongside those he might otherwise have considered, if not enemies, perhaps the unlikeliest of allies.

It was during that bitterly cold autumn of 1902, early in the season, when the leaves were first beginning to turn and the days were growing noticeably shorter, that the seeds of the affair were sown. My friend and fellow medical practitioner, Peter Brownlow, had called on me unexpectedly at my club. It was late in the evening and I’d been enjoying a solitary brandy by the fire when the poor chap practically collapsed into the chair opposite me, his face ashen. He generally suffered from a pale complexion and maintained a rake-thin physique; a condition he claimed was a result of a stomach disorder but which I attributed more to vanity than any inability to digest his food. Nevertheless, he had a good heart and was a fine doctor, but on that blustery September afternoon he had about him the look of a man who’d seen a ghost.

“Whatever is the matter with you, dear chap?” I said, leaning forward in concern and passing him my brandy. “Here, drink this.”

Brownlow nodded, grabbed gratefully at the glass and choked it down in one long gulp. I could see his hand was trembling as he placed the glass on the side table beside his chair.

“Now, tell me what has perturbed you so.”

Brownlow took a deep breath. “I barely know how to give voice to it, John. I’m sure you’ll think me quite insane.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that,” I said, chuckling. “I’ve grown quite used to seeing the impossible rendered mundane, and to madmen proved sane. Speak what’s on your mind.”

Brownlow smiled, but there was no humour in it. “I have seen the most terrible thing, John. A creature... a beast...” He held his hand to his mouth for a moment, unsure how to go on.

I frowned. “A beast?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s the only word for it. A beast of the most diabolical appearance, as if it had dragged itself from the very depths of Hades itself.” He turned, staring into the grate at the glowing embers of the fire, but I could tell that he was seeing something else.

“Go on,” I prompted.

He closed his eyes, as if trying to blink away the after-image of whatever it was he was attempting to describe. “It had a fat, bulbous body, about the size of a hackney cab, and it pulled itself along on eight thick, tentacle-like limbs that wriggled beneath it like those of an octopus. The sound of its passing was like the screeching of a thousand tormented souls. It was devilish, John. The most horrendous thing I have ever seen.”

“And where was this, man? Where did you see this beast?” I watched Brownlow shudder at the very thought of this terrible sight to which he claimed to have borne witness. My first thought was that he must have been drunk or otherwise inebriated, but Brownlow had never been much of a drinker, and he was clearly terrified. Whatever the truth of the matter—and I was sure it could not be that he had genuinely encountered such a bizarre specimen—Brownlow believed what he was saying.

“Cheyne Walk,” he said. “About an hour ago. The darn thing pulled itself out of the Thames right before me and slithered off down the street.”

Well, I admit at this point I was close to rolling my eyes in disbelief, but Brownlow had such a desperate air about him, and I was sure there must have been more to his story.

“I came directly here. It was the closest place to hand. I couldn’t think what else to do. And then I saw you sitting here and knew you’d know what to do.”

In truth, I had no real notion of what to do with such a remarkable tale. Surely the police would have only sniggered at Brownlow’s story and sent him on his way, putting it down to nothing but a hallucination, or the fabrication of an unhinged mind. But, Holmes aside, Brownlow was one of the most rational men I knew, and there was no reason he would lie.

“Well, first of all, I think you need another stiff drink for your nerves. I’ll fetch you another brandy.” He nodded enthusiastically at this. “Beyond that, I want you to set it out for me again, this time recalling as much of the detail as you can muster.” I’d seen Holmes extract information from enough of his potential clients to know that this was the best way to begin unpicking Brownlow’s story. Perhaps he might give something away, some little detail he had missed the first time around that might help to shed light on what had truly occurred. I admit, my interest had been piqued, and I felt pity for the chap, who had clearly had the wits scared out of him.