Encounters of Sherlock Holmes Part 18

But I could hardly let my friend down, and there was the poor dead girl to take into account. So without even stopping to change my jacket, I headed out into the rain.

Given recent events, I half expected the station to be closed, but then as now, money carried more weight than propriety, and the platforms and waiting room were busy with travellers. Typically, Holmes had failed to give a precise account of where he would be, and so I found myself leaning casually against a wall, scanning the pa.s.sers-by for a familiar, if disguised, face. A group of giggling schoolgirls skipped past, then a very short woman, followed by a rush as a recently arrived train disgorged its contents onto the platform in front of me. As the ma.s.s of humanity flowed round me as though I were a rock jutting from the sea, I realised the futility of the exercise. Holmes could be any one of a hundred men in the crowd and I would be none the wiser, so great were his powers of disguise and deception. Not for the first time, I cursed his high-handed arrogance. In fact, I was muttering imprecations against him when a hand descended on my shoulder and a peculiar voice whispered in my ear, "Follow me, if you would be so kind, sir. There is someone of your acquaintance who wishes to speak to you."

The speaker began to push his way against the tide of the crowd, evidently and correctly a.s.suming I would do as requested. From behind, the best I could say of him was that he was an elderly railway porter of slightly below average height with thinning grey hair. Holmes would not have been impressed.

The porter headed for a door set in the side wall of the station tearoom. I followed him in and took a seat at a table opposite Holmes and my strange guide.

Holmes' habitual elegant dress had been discarded in favour of a rough jacket and working man's trousers, topped with a cap which had seen considerably better days. His face, however, was unchanged and I was surprised at the simplicity of his disguise, if I could even call it that.

His voice at least was rougher than usual. "'Umble apologies for the cloak-and-dagger stuff, sir, but I've got me reasons, I can a.s.sure you. I 'ad the thought of examinin' the scene of the crime un.o.bserved, but this gentleman-" he gestured towards the porter "-is an old Indian 'and, not, it transpires, one to miss an inquisitive stranger in 'is station. Not even one disguised such as 'ow I am just now. Corporal Archibald Aberdeen, meet my client, Mr Williams. Mr Williams, Archibald Aberdeen."

It was all very peculiar, but I had been in enough sc.r.a.ps and sc.r.a.pes with Holmes to know when to play along. "How do you do, Mr Aberdeen?" I said, with a frown aimed in Holmes' direction, confident it could be construed in any number of ways by the porter. "But perhaps you could tell me what you have discovered to date, my man?" This last was aimed at Holmes, who merely smiled roguishly at my discomfort and took up his story.

"After serving under General Wheeler for many years," he explained, "Mr Aberdeen 'ere returned 'ome to find 'isself-you'll forgive me-fallen on 'arder times and forced to take employment where 'e could find it. So 'e's now a porter at this very station. A stroke of luck for us," he concluded, "for 'im it was as found the body. Beggin' your pardon, sir, for any unpleasantness this might cause you."

Aberdeen looked up and, at some signal from Holmes, began to speak.

"My part is straightforward enough, Mr Williams, sir, and quickly told," he began. "Your man here is correct that I am the one who discovered the lady, as it were. Your daughter would it be, sir?" he asked with a degree of tenderness and consideration I would never have expected. "My most sincere condolences. It is a terrible thing to survive such a loss."

I am not ashamed to admit that at that moment I would gladly have told the porter I was a fraud, for I could not help but feel the most appalling charlatan, accepting heartfelt commiserations for a loss not my own. The slightest of warning signs from Holmes caused me to hold my tongue, however, and as Aberdeen returned to his narrative, I leaned forward with interest.

"I'm sorry to say, sir, that there isn't much I can tell you. Nothing important, in any case. The door and window were shut tight, sir, so that from the outside everything seemed as it should be. The lady was sitting straight as a preacher on Sunday, she was, with her bag neat as you like on her lap. Even her little bonnet was sat pretty as you could wish for on top of her head. If her eyes had been closed you'd have thought her sleeping, you really would, sir. Not that I did, not for a moment. I could tell she was done for."

He leaned in close to Holmes, as though to prevent my hearing what he had to say next, but I could just about make it out. "This is not my first body, not by a long shot. But my first lady, if you take my meaning, native women not counting."

He leaned back again and continued at a more normal volume. "n.o.body came out of that carriage before I went in, Mr Williams. I'd swear that on oath, if need be. I watched the engine from the moment it came out of the tunnel over yonder, you see, until I opened the door to the lady's carriage, and n.o.body went near it."

His voice tailed off weakly. "Such a pretty young thing," he said, then frowned. We sat - the three of us - in awkward silence for a minute or two, before Aberdeen announced that he must get back to work.

I thought for a moment that Holmes intended to hold him back, for he certainly stretched a hand out as Aberdeen stood to take his leave. But he evidently thought better of it and allowed the movement to turn into a gesture of farewell instead. Aberdeen all but saluted in return, and nodded politely to me with a murmured, "A pleasure, Doctor."

I was about to correct him but he left the tearoom without another word. Through the window I saw him take a luggage cart and, pus.h.i.+ng it in front of him as an effective plough through the crowds of travellers, make his way towards a small building at the back of the station. He allowed the cart to come to rest to the side of the entrance to the building then pulled his collar up against the rain and moved out of sight.

Holmes sat back in his chair as the figure disappeared into the rainy station. "Mr Aberdeen is distressed and requires some time alone. And here -" he concluded, indicating an approaching boy "- comes someone bearing the reason for his distress, if I'm not mistaken."

The boy handed Holmes a folded piece of paper then disappeared into the crowd. Without long experience, I doubt that anyone else could have identified any emotion on Holmes' face as he read, but I was sure that whatever it contained, it had confirmed a suspicion already held. Wordlessly, he handed the note to me.

It was not, in fact, a note all, but rather a newspaper cutting. As Holmes explained that it had been fetched from his own archive, I recognised an artist's likeness, prominently displayed in centre page, of Archibald Aberdeen. Younger, granted, but unmistakably the same man. The text, however, was in a language I did not recognise, though it did bear similarities to some of the writings I had come across in Afghanistan.

I glanced up at Holmes quizzically.

"The clipping is from an Indian newspaper and not as well written as one would prefer, so I will summarise for you. Put simply, Aberdeen was suspected, some thirty years ago, of the brutal murders of a young native man and the man's intended wife. No charges were brought but this newspaper at least thought it a grave miscarriage of justice and campaigned sufficiently loudly for Aberdeen to be transferred out of the country."

"And we just let the man stroll out of here!" I protested, already rising from my seat.

Holmes was more sanguine. "Wait, Watson!" he cautioned. "There is little to link Aberdeen to the dead woman, nor should we a.s.sume the guilt of a man never charged of any crime, no matter what some colonial newspaper might once have had us believe.

"Aberdeen will not run in any case. He has no reason to do so, having no suspicion that this decades-old accusation is known to anyone but himself. Indeed, in spite of recognising the unusual name as soon as you read it out to me, I did not place it in its correct setting until I actually saw Aberdeen himself. And this newspaper clipping from my archive confirms my suspicions. I doubt there are more than three people in the whole of London who know of Aberdeen's story, and two of those people are sitting at this table. No, he will not run. But he will bear watching, I grant you."

With that, Holmes gestured to someone I could not see and the same boy who delivered the newspaper clipping re-appeared at my shoulder. A brief, hushed conference ensued and the boy departed in the direction of the rear of the station.

Holmes, now apparently satisfied, settled himself back into his chair. "Not that he is a man who would be difficult to find again, if need be. Archibald Aberdeen is not an overly observant man, I a.s.sure you, Watson, for all my recent flattery of him. It took me nearly twenty minutes of wandering round the station in as suspicious a manner as any amateur pickpocket before Mr Aberdeen finally spotted me. If that is the standard of scouts in Her Majesty's Army I am astonished we are not commonly trounced by our enemies! In any case, spot me Mr Aberdeen eventually did, and once I had established my bona fides as a private policeman working for the family of the dead girl, he was more than willing to chat freely." Holmes chuckled wryly. "I have observed that one rascal discovering what he believes to be another will be a friend and confidant from that moment on. Perhaps Mr Aberdeen would have been happy to speak to me regardless, but I think not. Railway people are an insular, clannish group and not always open with strangers.

"So it proved, in any case. Once Aberdeen believed he had caught me snooping about, not only was he willing to describe the scene of the crime in detail, he even provided me with its present location. It will have been cleaned, of course, but even so it may yield an item or two of interest. There is one theory in particular that I am anxious to test."

He brushed some crumbs from his jacket. "But first, what of the sister? Did she offer up anything of note?"

In the recent flurry of revelations, I had quite forgotten my earlier interviews. Quickly, I recounted my impressions of the Fellows and the interesting snippet of information from the railway staff. The grin that greeted this was unexpected in its ferocity, for all that I had thought that Tyler's story would interest him. Typically, Holmes refused to elaborate.

"I'm afraid to say that the carriage in question is being held in a siding at the station you so recently left, Watson. Shall we take the train back, and so sample the same journey as the unfortunate Miss Williams?"

A train journey can be many things and can serve many purposes. In this new century, it can transport a man in luxury from Venice to Vladivostok, or it can be used to ferry a platoon of troops across the crater-filled ruins of France to their deaths. When Sherlock Holmes and I frequently criss-crossed London and the Home Counties on the trail of villainy, however, trains were slower, more basic and far less luxurious. The special express Miss Williams had taken was an oddity; the slow, noisy locomotive we took in the opposite direction was far more common.

We boarded at the run, just before it pulled away, and by sheer luck snagged an empty carriage, just as Miss Emily Williams had done before us. I pulled the door shut and sat down heavily as the engine jolted into action. Immediately, Holmes fell into deep thought, staring intently out of the window in silence. Generally, when Holmes becomes thus distracted while travelling I fall back on reading or updating my notes, but as I had not intended to take the train at all, I was entirely unprepared. As a consequence, I was forced back upon my own thoughts for the duration of the journey and I freely admit that I allowed my mind to wander as the train began to pick up speed.

After only a minute or two in the dark tunnel which appears to be a requirement of every English railway station, we emerged into a world of only slightly more light, as the train settled into its place on a sunken track cut into the very body of the city. Had I hoped to spend a pleasant half hour idly watching the countryside fly by, I was in for a shock, but fortunately I had lived in the capital long enough to know that greenery was in short supply, especially near railway lines. Consequently, the view of embankments covered in thick weeds and dusty grey gra.s.s was no surprise. Ahead, a gang of labourers were doing their best to clear some of the overgrown undergrowth, but it looked to be back-breaking work and unlikely to achieve much longterm success. As the train pa.s.sed them, each man took a moment to look up and wave to the pa.s.sengers. When I lifted a hand selfconsciously in reply, Holmes started violently across from me.

"Holmes?" I said, with some concern, but he gestured impatiently for silence.

As soon as we arrived at the train terminus, he ran into the street and, waving down a pa.s.sing hansom cab, ordered the driver to take him back to the very station we had departed so recently. As the cab pulled away, he leant out and shouted that he would prefer it if I did not examine the carriage myself.

"But perhaps a word or two with the mysterious Bill Fraser?" he shouted at the last, then pulled his head back inside and was gone.

Bill Fraser, when I tracked him down, was a small, slim man with a quiet, hesitant manner of speaking. He wore his brown hair trimmed short, almost to the skull, and his neat moustache was cut similarly close. When he spoke his hand invariably fluttered to his mouth, where his fingers spread out over his lips like the guard on a helmet. The impression of some form of nervous bird was unmistakable.

Fraser's room reflected its tenant in every respect. Tidy and spotlessly clean, I considered ruefully how different it was to my own lodgings. He politely bade me take a seat and, in response to a question about his meeting with Miss Williams the previous day, proved happy to talk at length.

"Our meeting was pure coincidence, Dr Watson," he began in a friendly tone. "It so happened that I had the afternoon off work and a couple of errands to run in the city, so I'd taken a train that morning and then spent about an hour engaged in shopping. I was actually thinking that I'd best be heading back, so you could have knocked me down with a feather when I opened the door to the last shop I had to visit and out walked Mrs Fellows and her sister. I mean to say, I didn't know that it was her sister, not having had the pleasure before, but I would have guessed she was family in any case, so strong was the resemblance."

I nodded my understanding. "And Mrs Fellows asked you to walk with them?"

"Not quite, Dr Watson. Mrs Fellows was kind enough to say h.e.l.lo and even to introduce me to her sister, but I could see she was in a hurry to be going. They had one or two small bags with them but it seemed that not much had caught Miss Williams' eye, for she said that they had been walking about the shops for several hours. In fact, she said that it was fortunate that her sister had accompanied her, as she-Mrs Fellows, that is-had far greater experience in furnis.h.i.+ng a new home and had prevented Miss Williams buying many unsuitable items. Please believe me, Doctor, when I say that I would never have dreamed of imposing myself on them, but it so happened that Miss Williams noticed that I was carrying some sheet music, and asked about it."

He laughed, a little self-consciously. "I am teaching myself the violin and had just bought the score to the latest Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Miss Williams, it turned out, had a similar fondness for their work and asked me to walk with them so that we might discuss our favourite sections. She was a fanatic for the earlier operettas, Pirates of Penzance for preference, she said, while I prefer their more recent work."

"When did you leave the ladies?" I asked as he fell silent.

"Why, I did not," replied the man in surprise. "At least not at the same time. Mrs Fellows began to feel unwell and suggested that they should cancel their expedition for the present. Mrs Fellows said she would walk her sister to her train, but Miss Williams was kind enough to say that she would be perfectly willing to have me escort her directly to the station, so that Mrs Fellows could more quickly get her herself home, before her illness worsened. So I hailed a hansom for Mrs Fellows, though she objected to being treated like an invalid, and then walked Miss Williams to the train station, where I left her at the gates, having no platform ticket of my own."

"And that was the last you saw of her?" I asked.

Fraser nodded. "It was. I only wish she had listened more to her sister. They-that is Mrs Fellows and Miss Williams-had been discussing the dangers of a single lady travelling alone on the railway, you see. They asked my advice and I told Miss Williams to be careful who she allowed to sit in the carriage alongside her, what with there being so many strange men about. Which seems so ironic now, when she died all alone in a locked carriage."

For a moment I wondered why Mrs Fellows had not mentioned this discussion when we spoke, then I remembered that the interview had broken off early and we had not covered the time after she and her sister had met up with Fraser.

I asked the man a few other questions, but he was unable to tell me anyhing of use to the case. We briefly discussed his employer (a good man, who worked hard and thought the world of his wife) and Mrs Fellows (who he claimed barely to know, beyond exchanging pleasantries), but he could suggest no person who might have carried out the a.s.sault on Miss Williams. I thanked him for his time and left.

It was early evening by the time I emerged. I could return to Baker Street and a well-deserved dinner courtesy of the redoubtable Mrs Hudson, which was undeniably a tempting thought. But it was only a short walk to Leyton station, and the guard, Nicholas, had suggested returning at six to interview the mysterious gentleman who had struggled to find a carriage on Miss Williams' train.

So it was that I found myself once more at the entryway to Leyton station. No less than earlier, the platforms and thoroughfares were thronged with people, bustling past with heads down, m.u.f.fled against the cold fog, resembling nothing so much as a river in full spate. It seemed a hopeless task to identify one man in such an a.s.sembly, but fortunately Tyler happened to be pa.s.sing as I stood irresolutely at the edge of this tide of London life.

"Dr Watson," the guard cried as he emerged from the throng. He explained that he was finished for the day, but would be delighted to point out the man I was looking for before setting off for home. He led me along the front of the crowd for a moment or two, then cut across them in determined fas.h.i.+on, an old hand in such matters. I followed more tentatively, apologising first to one side then the other, as our path disturbed the pa.s.sage of commuters and caused various pa.s.sengers to come to an unexpected halt.

We emerged from the other side into an area of comparative peace. Tyler gestured at a man walking towards us. His chin was held low and tucked into the top of a substantial scarf. As he also wore a somewhat shapeless brown hat, pulled down over his eyes, it was difficult to see anything of his features until he was almost upon us.

"Excuse me, sir!" said the excellent Mr Tyler, placing a hand on the man's arm. He stopped at once and looked up at us, expectantly. Now exposed, I could see that the man had a patrician look about him, with a strong chin, thin lips and a long, straight nose. His eyes, however, were his most prominent feature. They were pale blue and sparkled with such evident delight in life that I found myself warming to the man before he had said a word. When he did speak, in response to Tyler's introductions and mention of the trouble he had experienced finding a carriage a few days previously, his voice was a match for his face, a rich baritone with a hint of the florid about it. He had a tendency to speak at length with no apparent pause for breath.

"Why yes indeed! I remember it most vividly! It was very peculiar all round, in point of fact. But first! My name is Henry Clarendon, an actor by profession, and I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Dr Watson." He handed me his card and beamed at us both. "I make a point of keeping up to date with the activities of Mr Sherlock Holmes and yourself. I appreciate the drama of the thing most of all, of course, but the clever way that Mr Holmes comes to his conclusions are worthy of praise indeed!

"But let me think back to that day. I am currently appearing as Gloucester in a production of Lear-in fact I have just returned from the theatre-but I was not required for rehearsals that day so had been pottering here and there. Little antique shops, sellers of bric-a-brac, you know the sort of thing, I'm sure. Quite exhausting in its way, and so I had a spot of tea in a little cafeteria not far from the station prior to meeting a friend in town. I arrived at the station, saw that a train was shortly to leave and made my way to the platform." The actor's brow furrowed with indignation as he recalled the events of that day. "The first carriage I attempted to enter contained but a single young lady," he continued. "I made to move within but I had no sooner put a foot inside when the foolish woman began caterwauling as though I were Franz Muller himself! I removed myself with dispatch, let me a.s.sure you, gentlemen. I have no wish to be another innocent man pilloried in the newspapers for the crime of travelling alone in a carriage with a vaporous woman possessed of an overactive imagination!" The man's voice had risen to a near-shout by now, and in my medical opinion his face was dangerously flushed, which made the huge grin which next spread over his face surprising, to say the least. "But never mind, eh?" he boomed. "Never stay where you're not wanted is my professional motto, and it makes a dashed good one for other areas of life too.

"In any case, finding myself once more standing on the platform and the train in danger of leaving without me, I hurried to the next carriage along, flung open the door - and met with a barrage of abuse that, were I not a peaceful man, could well have led to the fellow within receiving the thras.h.i.+ng of his life. 'Blackguard' was the very least of the epithets cast in my direction, Doctor, but I decided discretion was the better part of valour and closed the door on the dreadful man. I then moved along to a third carriage, where a very friendly couple - from Grimsby, would you believe! - were happy to welcome me into their snug little abode. We wiled away the journey most pleasantly, I may say, with the two young people delighted to listen to a selection of my speeches from the Bard. So all's well that ends well, eh?"

He beamed at us from underneath his battered hat. "And now, if there's nothing else with which I can help you, gentlemen, you will have to excuse me. This fog does nothing for the vocal cords, and my voice is my instrument, when all's said and done." I had just enough time to obtain a brief description of the foul-mouthed pa.s.senger before he offered his hand and his business card, and with a hearty "Good day!" was swallowed up by the crowds, which even yet ebbed and flowed through the station.

I offered the same farewell to Tyler and, content in a day's work well done, made my way to the street outside, where I hailed a hansom back to Baker Street.

"Getting down to the train track on foot proved to be more difficult than I expected," Holmes began. We were sitting once more in our rooms in Baker Street, with the fire roaring and the fog and steady evening rain safely outside.

Holmes had returned some two hours earlier, still in his working man's clothes but covered in mud and dirt. He had immediately disappeared into his bathroom and remained there for some time, singing a soft aria to himself which I could hear through the door. When he returned to his chair by the fire he was once again Mr Sherlock Holmes. As he stuffed his pipe with his favourite rough s.h.a.g tobacco, I regaled him with the tale of my meeting with Bill Fraser, before he in his turn described his activities that afternoon.

"The bank is fairly steep, and the late rain has caused it to become slick and dangerous underfoot. It was all I could do to slide down to the gravel path, and even so I admit to a slight stumble or two. I was glad not to be in finer dress, Watson, I can tell you. To discover then that there was no easy access to the tunnel from the station was a crus.h.i.+ng blow, and one which might have stumped me altogether had it not been for the lucky happenstance of our old friend, Archibald Aberdeen, seeing what I was up to and coming to my aid.

"You must understand, Watson, that along each side of the tunnel runs a walkway for railway staff. After examining the carriage, it was my intention to take a stroll along one of these walkways and thereby effect a meeting with the workmen who have been clearing the wilderness at the side of the tracks for the past two weeks. Unfortunately, this particular station has locked gates barring just such access-to prevent the poor from sleeping under the bridge, I believe-and the entire walkway is enclosed in iron bars, creating a form of cage which would have left me standing foolishly in the drizzle, had not Mr Aberdeen fortuitously appeared at my shoulder."

At this point, Holmes leaned forward and pointed at me with the stem of his pipe. "We have misjudged that man, Watson, misjudged and maligned him. For one thing, it seems that Mr Archibald recognised me from the off, but chose not to speak, in fear of jeopardising our on-going investigation. Secondly, and more importantly, he had approached me at the tunnel mouth in order to explain the circ.u.mstances of his problems in Afghanistan."

From his uniform pocket, Holmes said, the porter had pulled a small etching of a native lady, dressed in the full ceremonial regalia of her people. This, he said, was the girl of whose murder he had been accused. She was engaged to be married to a local man, and he of course was a soldier in Her Majesty's Army; more even than Romeo and Juliet, theirs was a love which was doomed from its very beginning, and their every meeting a danger to them both.

And yet meet they did, Holmes continued, for over a year, stealing an hour together when they could, always a single misstep from discovery. Twice, Aberdeen claimed, he had had asked the girl to marry him and return to England as his wife, but each time she had refused, though she must have known that their secret liaison could not last forever. Sure enough, one day Aberdeen had gone to the abandoned temple which they used as a rendezvous and had discovered the girl's fiance standing over her unmoving body, the rope he had used to strangle her still in his hands. Aberdeen had broken down at this point in his tale and Holmes, never a man comfortable with strong emotion, quickly finished recounting the story to me, eager to be done with it. In short, Aberdeen managed to overpower the man and revenge himself for the girl's death - surely a hollow comfort. Shortly after, he was discovered insensate on the ground by a pa.s.sing patrol and taken into custody. Luckily, the army had believed his story, especially when it emerged that the native he killed had boasted of his intention to slay the woman who had dishonoured him.

"Whoever our killer is," Holmes concluded, "I am certain that it is not Mr Aberdeen."

Returning to his narrative, my friend described how Aberdeen unlocked the gate blocking the tunnel and bid Holmes to precede him into the gloom before them.

"As he and I walked along the narrow path," Holmes continued, "we had some difficulty keeping to a steady pace, so dim was the tunnel and uneven the ground underfoot. In fact, I almost missed something of vital importance because of it. At one point, I felt my foot slip on what I fancied was a damp rock or discarded rag and I stumbled and fell against the tunnel wall. Had Aberdeen not taken the time to check that I was unhurt, I might never have bothered to examine the object which had so nearly caused me to come to grief."

In his hand he held a crumpled lady's glove, dirty and soiled but recognisably the double of that Lestrade had described. One of the three pearls on the back of the glove was held in place by but a single thread and the st.i.tching had come away a little at the junction of the thumb and the palm, but it was definitely Emily Williams' missing garment. I glanced at my friend's face as he held it out to me, but if this was a clue which shed decisive light on the case, it was impossible to tell. His brow was furrowed and his lips thinned in what I would have called barely repressed anger, had it been any other man.

"So it was murder," I said. Clearly no woman in her right mind would board a train and then almost at once remove and discard a single glove, never mind doing so immediately before suffering a fatal heart incident. I said as much to Holmes and, given an opportunity to demonstrate his intellectual powers, he shook his foul mood a little, though I could see from his manner that he remained uncommonly angered by something.

"Murder it was, Watson," he agreed, "and this glove tells us something important about the murderer as well as confirming the act itself. Do you remember what Aberdeen told us about finding the body?"

I nodded. "That the lady was sitting very properly in her seat, with her bag in her lap and her hands folded before her."

"And that the door and window were closed, Watson. Miss Williams is hardly likely to have opened the window, discarded her glove, and then closed it again. More likely, I would say, that she was at the open window when something came through it and knocked the glove from her hand-and whoever or whatever that something was, it closed the window afterwards."

"Something came through the window? On a moving train in broad daylight? Are you suggesting that something flew into the carriage?" I have always had the greatest respect for the intellect of Sherlock Holmes, but there have been times when I have found some of his theories more reasonably described as flights of fancy. This idea of a flying killer seemed to me to be one such theory.

"No, Watson! It-or rather he-did not fly into the carriage, he climbed in! While the train was going through the long tunnel just after leaving the station, the murderer opened the door by reaching in through the window, and then swung himself inside. Perhaps Miss Williams saw him appear from nowhere and tried to keep him out by pus.h.i.+ng the door closed, or perhaps there was a struggle in which the window remained open. Either way, in the moments immediately before her death, Miss Williams' glove was dropped out of the train and ended up in the weeds and dirt at the side of the track.

"I checked the carriage before returning home this evening, and I believe there is s.p.a.ce on top for a man to have hidden and then carefully lowered himself down once the train was obscured from sight by the railway tunnel. There are footprints on the outside of the door, immediately below the window. Rather an oddity. One or two footprints as our killer swings himself down, gains his balance and reaches down to the door handle - that I can accept. But this is a collection of prints, one over the other, smudged and obscured, as though he hung there, braced against the door for some time. Which cannot be correct, for surely Miss Williams would have spotted him."

"Unless he was hidden in the next carriage along!" I interrupted with excitement. I explained to Holmes what Mr Clarendon had told me about being ejected from not one, but two carriages.

My friend was instantly alive with exhilaration. Leaping from his chair, he cried, "We have him, Watson! We have him!" I have rarely seen Holmes so delighted, though I was unclear just how much it helped to know that the murderer had come from the side rather than the top of the train. "Or very nearly," he amended in an undertone. "Knowing is not the same as proving.

"But wait - I have something else to show you, Watson!" He brightened, pulling a second object from his pocket.

The hypodermic syringe he carefully handed to me was damaged beyond any chance of future use, the needle snapped off and the plunger missing. I sniffed the end cautiously and was rewarded with an unpleasant though unfamiliar odour. "Have you tested this?" I asked, indicating the tiny amount of liquid still in the barrel.

Holmes nodded. "I have," he said, "and it is undoubtedly the poison aconite: a product, as you know, of a common garden plant and available still from chemists across the land."

I inhaled deeply in shock. Aconite poisoning was not a pleasant death, though it could be a quick one. The unfortunate victim would immediately have experienced numbness in her throat and difficulty in speaking, followed by a severe burning sensation there and along each of her limbs. Perversely, this burning sensation would have been accompanied by a heightened coldness in her extremities. A complete loss of control over her limbs would have ensued before her sight began to dull and her hearing fade away. Death could take place in less than five minutes (and leave no outward sign) if no help was available. And where was the poor woman to obtain help, locked as she was in a small railway carriage, with no exit and only her murderer for company? If I closed my eyes I could imagine him standing dispa.s.sionately over Miss Williams, lifting not so much as a hand in aid as she left this world in pain and terror and despair.

Seldom have I felt so nauseated or so revolted by my fellow man. "Where did you get this, Holmes?" I asked.

"After serendipitously discovering the missing glove, I continued on my original mission to speak to the labourers clearing the trackside. My intention had been to ask whether they had noticed anything as the train went past, but though they often wave, the speed of the train is such as to make any detailed observation impossible. They were, however, of far greater help with the second part of my mission. They had found a wild a.s.sortment of bits and pieces as they removed the undergrowth-old tins and discarded newspapers mainly, but here and there something more unusual. And amongst their most recent finds was the hypodermic you hold so gingerly in your hand. It could not have been lying in the weeds for long, for it had caught in the uppermost fronds of a clump of tall gra.s.ses and not yet fallen to the ground below. Once we find the man who threw this syringe from the train, the man in the next carriage along, then we shall have our killer."

He fell silent for a minute or two, staring into the fire. "How did your actor describe the man who so rudely lambasted him?" he finally said.

"m.u.f.fled and hatted, in a long coat with a turned-up collar. Which could be anyone."

I was painfully aware of the poverty of this description and fully expected Holmes to dismiss it offhand, but instead he seized on it avidly. "Perhaps so, but this man has seen the killer close to and may remember more with some prompting. You have his card still?" I pulled the card from my pocket and handed it to Holmes, who glanced at it then reached for his coat. "In any case, it is too good a lead to ignore. Come, Watson, there is still time tonight to speak to Mr Clarendon!"

Clarendon's room was exactly as I would have expected from our earlier brief meeting: unconventional, noisome and somewhat larger than life. It was dominated by an over-large though fine painting of one of the Christian martyrs displayed above an off-white plaster fireplace; the ascetic in the image was pierced with arrows and slumped forward from the tree to which he was tied. Open copies of the theatrical periodical, The Stage, were scattered on every available flat surface, alongside pencil-daubed scripts, pages of handwritten notes and, to Holmes' amus.e.m.e.nt, a much-thumbed copy of Mr Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. It was cold in the room but no fire was lit, nor did Clarendon make any move to light one, instead contenting himself with sweeping an armful of detritus from one chair and inviting my friend to sit. I forestalled any similar a.s.sault on the flooring by indicating I was happy to stand.

I was surprised to see that Clarendon was grinning from ear to ear. Apparently unable to stand still, our host paced up and down before the cold fire saying nothing but smiling constantly, until Holmes broke the silence. He had barely uttered a word, however, when Clarendon burst into a more extreme version of the constant stream of chatter I had remarked on earlier that day.

"May I stop you there, Mr Holmes, and make a few introductory remarks myself? Listen to me - Mr Holmes indeed! Mr Sherlock Holmes, detecting in my very home! Wait until I tell people about this! In any event, Mr Holmes, I must tell you that I take a great interest in you and your cases, and consider you the preeminent detective in London today, far outstripping the likes of Hewitt and that foreign chap Dupin."

With that he strode forward and extended a hand to Holmes, who, with a little trepidation, took it in his own and submitted himself to a hearty shake.

"I thank you, Mr Clarendon," he said, "though modesty forbids my agreement with your judgement. I will, however, agree with you that Miss Clarissa McCarthy does not have the gravitas required to play Cordelia, and extend my hope that your financial fortunes will soon return to their previous even keel. I am sure that you will be able to obtain a new role very soon."

For a second Clarendon's face fell in almost clownish dismay, then the grin which had already threatened to split his face in two extended a further few inches as the man threw back his head in the loudest of laughter. "I hesitate to utter the cliche, Mr Holmes-" he managed between guffaws "-but how did you know all that?"