Encounters of Sherlock Holmes Part 34

The Markinswells owned a fine, large villa on an elm-lined avenue. After a brief exchange of pleasantries with Mrs Markinswell, Holmes and I were given free rein of the house, permitted to look where we wished and speak to any of the domestic staff we chose to.

In the event, Holmes was interested only in two locations: Jacob Markinswell's dressing room and his study. In the dressing room he went through the closets, scrutinising Markinswell's suits. In the study, he pored over the contents of the desk, turning up personal correspondence, some bills, all of which had been paid before due, and a well-balanced chequebook. In other words, nothing of particular interest, until his attention fell on an item half hidden under the ink blotter.

"This, now," he said, holding it up, "may be a clue of some significance."

It was a playbill for a show that was running all season at the Hippodrome Theatre-a variety revue featuring a dozen acts ranging from a ventriloquist to a conjuror to a spirit medium to a small chorale offering a selection of songs from the comic operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. I scanned the list of performers, but nothing leapt out at me.

Holmes and I went to the drawing room, where he asked Mrs Markinswell if she and her husband were devotees of the theatre.

"Myself, no," she said somewhat frostily. "I don't mind a concert and the opera but I'm not in the habit of exposing myself to lowbrow entertainment."

"But Jacob is?"

"I believe he has attended at the Hippodrome once or twice. On his own, of course. He claims to find it relaxing. He works hard, so I allow him such indulgences, however trivial and mindless."

"Well now, Watson," Holmes said as we departed. "This all becomes somewhat clearer."

"It undoubtedly does, Holmes," I said. "I have seen no evidence so far that contradicts the theory that Jacob Markinswell took his own life. The facts, indeed, seem to point inescapably to that conclusion."

"What about the lack of a suicide note?"

"That, I admit, is problematic, but then suicide can often be a spur-of-the-moment decision, not premeditated-a sudden and catastrophic descent into utter despondency."

"Quite," said Holmes. "But I must show you these threads which I gathered from a hawthorn thicket up on Beachy Head while you were in a state of deep repose. They are worsted wool, and the fibre matches exactly, in colour and weight, the material of Jacob Markinswell's suits, all of which were made by the same tailors, Quiller and Son of Chancery Lane."

"So?" said I. "All that indicates is that Markinswell was up on Beachy Head and snagged his sleeve on a twig. I would say it bolsters rather than disproves the suicide hypothesis."

"I should have specified that I found the threads inside the hawthorn thicket."

"Ah. Is that important?"

"Important? My dear chap, it is crucial."

"How so?"

"In place of an explanation, allow me to treat you to a matinee." He waved the playbill. "What do you say?"

We took our seats in the stalls at the Hippodrome on Seaside Road, just in time to catch the start of the revue. Holmes was being his usual infuriating self, in possession of the key to solving a mystery but loath to share it with anyone-even his old comrade and fellow veteran of many an investigation-until such time as he saw fit. I itched to ask him to reveal all, but knew better than to try. I would be met with a stone wall of silence and a gleeful twinkle in those wise, grey eyes.

I resigned myself to watching the revue, which was, in the manner of these things, good in parts and less good in others. The conjuror was impressive, making objects appear from where they could not possibly be and disappear into places they could not possibly go. The spirit medium, by contrast, was dull, unable to convince that she was in contact with spectral ent.i.ties from beyond the veil, her p.r.o.nouncements too nebulous and all too often patently guesswork to sway any but the most gullible. The conjuror made no pretence that what he was doing was fakery. The medium, in her clumsy efforts to persuade the audience that she was genuine, came across as nothing but a fraud. With the former we willingly suspended disbelief, colluding in his illusions. With the latter we could not conquer our scepticism.

The Gilbert and Sullivan singers were polished, if a tad amateur, and a dog act, in which trained poodles were required to jump through hoops and perform other tricks and stunts, descended into inadvertent farce as the animals collectively decided not to heed their master's commands and turned on one another. The curtain was rung down on a scene of canine combat and anarchy, the trainer rus.h.i.+ng to and fro in a vain attempt to separate antagonists and reimpose order.

Last on the roster was a girl by the name of Jenny Volteface- a stage pseudonym if ever there was one-who combined quick-change artistry with sketch routines. I have to say she was the star of the show. A slip of a thing, with a delightful rounded face, she ran through a series of impersonations, each more sophisticated and convincing than the last. One moment she was Henry VIII, stamping stoutly across the boards and demanding cake, ale and wives. Next she was Milton's Lucifer, reciting a soliloquy from Paradise Lost with a mixture of terrible hubris and wounded pride. She delivered an amusing and somewhat scurrilous skit on Parliament, switching from one side of the House to the other, pretending to be alternately Conservative then Liberal, and showing how narrow a distinction there was between the two parties and their policies. Then followed a retelling of the myth of Persephone, told from the point of view of the reluctant wife of Hades and detailing the niceties and drawbacks of domestic life as the spouse of the ruler of h.e.l.l. The whole thing was rounded off by a recitation of Ba.s.sanio's soliloquy from The Merchant Of Venice, the one beginning "So may the outward shows be least themselves..." and a haunting rendition of the story of Pocahontas, featuring an aria especially composed for the occasion.

Miss Volteface brought the house down. It wasn't just the speed at which she slipped between roles, pa.s.sing behind a screen in one costume and emerging scant seconds later in another. It was the commitment she put into her acting, the way she could transform herself into any character, evoking the person with her entire body, every gesture and mannerism devoted to becoming someone else. You could believe she was Henry VIII, despite her being of the fairer s.e.x, no less than you could believe she was a fallen archangel, or a puffing popinjay parliamentarian, or a young Venetian man daring all to win the heart and hand of his lady, or a Red Indian chief's daughter pining for love. The audience rose to their feet in approbation, and I don't mind admitting that I joined them.

Before the applause had died down, with Miss Volteface still taking her bows, Holmes grabbed me by the sleeve.

"Now, Watson," he said urgently. "Let us go backstage."

"Backstage? Why?"

Even as I said this, I had an inkling. I was not always as slow on the uptake as Holmes liked to make out.

We left the theatre via the main entrance and slipped round the side to the stage door. A silver half-crown from Holmes' pocket secured our ingress past the stagehand who was posted there as a rather lackl.u.s.tre sentry. In no time we were knocking on the door of the dressing room marked with Miss Volteface's name.

The person who greeted us was not the actress herself but a gruff and disagreeable man with a coa.r.s.e thick beard and the manners of a navvy.

"What do you want?" he growled, fixing us both with a suspicious glare.

"To pay our respects to Miss Volteface, naturally," said Holmes in his gayest and most charming voice. "I am an ardent admirer of her work, as is my colleague."

"Wonderful stuff," I enthused, not insincerely. "A remarkable turn."

"Well, you can both-" Here the man invited Holmes and me to leave the premises in an unrepeatably crude fas.h.i.+on.

"Not even an autograph?" said Holmes, unabashed. He brandished the playbill. "Surely the good lady can spare us a moment for that."

A voice came from within, Miss Volteface's, and while I didn't catch her words, the gist was clear.

The man grumbled but let us in.

Miss Volteface was busy removing her makeup in the mirror, still in her Pocahontas outfit. Close up, she was even more beguiling than onstage. She reminded me in many ways of my dear departed Mary-the same broad intelligent forehead, the same flash of wit and hint of mischief in the eyes. I found myself wis.h.i.+ng that I were several decades younger, a single man again in the prime of life. These were foolish thoughts, but the sight of an accomplished, attractive young girl makes fools of all men, whatever their maturity or marital status.

"Miss Volteface," said Holmes, "may I be the first to tell you that your skill at imposture is second to none."

"You may tell me that," replied she, winsomely, "but you would hardly be the first."

"Oh, I think in this particular instance I am. It was a remarkable feat that you pulled off up on Beachy Head the other day. You put your talents to the test in a public arena, in the open air, and the results were most plausible."

"Hoy, what's all this?" demanded the bearded man, who appeared to be cross between bodyguard and bulldog. He moved menacingly on Holmes, fists raised.

"You really have no idea?" Holmes answered calmly "Come now, sir, you of all people should know what I'm referring to. You, after all, are just as much a part of this as Miss Volteface."

I a.s.sumed Holmes meant the man had served as some sort of accomplice. Together this pair were responsible for the disappearance and possible demise of Jacob Markinswell. They had contrived to stage an apparent suicide, after having kidnapped the financier and indeed caused his death, either through mishap or sinister design.

It struck me that we were in the presence of dangerous and potentially desperate criminals, and I had had sufficient experience of that to know that violence was likely to ensue. This would not be the first time that events had taken an unexpected, unforeseeable turn for the worse during one of our investigations; and Holmes and I were not the virile young men we used to be, ever ready to meet intimidation head-on. We had aged. We had slowed.

My heart began to race. I found myself wis.h.i.+ng I was still in possession of my trusty old service revolver.

Whereupon Miss Volteface said, "It's all right, Jack. We might as well come clean. This is Sherlock Holmes, isn't it? A famous incomer to the area. If he's already figured it out, there's no point trying to string him along any further."

The man called Jack didn't drop his aggressive posture. "What's he doing snooping around anyway?" he barked. "It's none of his business."

"No," said Holmes, "but it is your wife's business, Mr Markinswell, and she has made it mine."

"My...?"

Holmes reached out and gave Jack's beard a firm, insistent tug. It peeled away from his face, revealing the features of a man in early middle age. Greasepaint had been applied to the upper portion of his face, lending it the rough, reddish complexion of someone who worked outdoors and perhaps drank more than was healthy. The bare skin beneath the beard, aside from a few stray flecks of spirit gum, was pale and smooth.

"Mr Jacob Markinswell, I presume," said Holmes. "Not dead. Far from it. Alive and well and on the cusp of embarking on a new life with a new woman."

Markinswell's face fell. The financier slumped into a chair, his hands flopping into his lap.

"The jig's up then," he said in altogether more cultured tones than he had employed beforehand. He sighed. "I thought we'd got away with it, Jenny my dear. Clearly I am not the thespian you are."

"You did fine, my love," said Miss Volteface consolingly. "You were most convincing."

The whole story emerged. There wasn't much to be said. Markinswell had become smitten with Jenny Volteface-real surname Stubbins-after seeing her perform. Relations with his wife had become, if not strained, then unexciting. They had, as a couple, settled into that kind of marital complacency which in some breeds contentment and in others boredom and frustration. An absence of offspring had caused them to drift further from each other. Children can be the mortar which binds a marriage together. Lack of them can be the wedge that fissures it.

"I'm not making excuses for myself," said Markinswell. "But with Jenny I discovered a pa.s.sion, a love, that had been missing from my life for a good long while, and she, to my great delight, reciprocated. I was ready to give up everything for her. Everything. And I did. I have done. She, for her part, has been willing to take me as I am, unenc.u.mbered by wealth and expectation, and help me start again from scratch."

It was Jenny who had come up with the plan of faking Markinswell's death. But how to make a man disappear in broad daylight, before witnesses? Pretend to be him, that was how. Wear his clothes, impersonate him, feint a suicide, then duck into a hawthorn thicket and come out moments later as a woman. Jenny was the "pretty little creature" the Country Squire had mentioned. She had helped promulgate the story that a man matching Markinswell's description had thrown himself over the edge at Beachy Head.

"And now what do we do?" she asked, taking Markinswell's hand. Whatever else I thought of these two, the love between them looked to be the genuine article. The feelings they exhibited were mutual and abiding.

"That," said Holmes, "is not up to me. I shall leave it to you and your own consciences. For what it's worth, my advice is to come clean. This deception is thrilling in its illicitness, I'm sure, but honesty will get you further in the long run. Confess all to your wife, Mr Markinswell. Put the poor woman out of her misery. It will be hard for you but kinder to her."

We left the two of them in the dressing room to debate their future and decide on the best course of action. It was none of our concern now. Holmes was firmly of the opinion that Markinswell would do the right thing.

Out in the mellowing warmth of the late afternoon, we returned to the promenade, where this brief escapade of ours had begun just a few hours earlier.

"A rather tawdry little affair, don't you think?" remarked Holmes. "Hardly worth your writing it up as one of those tales you hawk to Greenhough Smith at The Strand."

"I think I should be the judge of that, Holmes," I said. "What it does demonstrate is that for once you're wrong."

My friend arched an eyebrow. "Oh? And how do you arrive at that conclusion?"

"You told me, did you not, that a wide gulf lies between what people seem to be and what they are, and the difference is usually a disappointment."

"I recall saying something to that effect."

"But weren't these two, Markinswell and Jenny, more than they seemed to be? Indeed better? Despite the disguises and the trickery and the deceit, behind it there are two people deeply in love."

"Markinswell is rich. That could be her motive for loving him."

"But he has sacrificed all he has for her, and she knows it. It is, in its way, as pure a meeting of souls as can be imagined."

Holmes was sombre for a moment, then surprised me by chuckling. "You, Watson, are a hopeless romantic," he said. "And I wouldn't want you any other way. Now, I don't know about you, but I am famished and parched. The Tiger Inn, hard by my cottage in East Dean, serves an excellent partridge pie and a range of thirst-quenching Suss.e.x ales. We can be there in under an hour if we walk briskly." He made an ushering gesture, squinting against the low sun. "Shall we?"

And side by side, companionably, we did.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

James Lovegrove was born on Christmas Eve 1965 and is the author of nigh on 40 books. His novels include The Hope, Days, Untied Kingdom, Provender Gleed, the New York Times bestselling Pantheon series and Redlaw and Redlaw: Red Eye, the first two volumes in a trilogy. Shortly to come is The Stuff Of Nightmares, the first of two Sherlock Holmes novels for t.i.tan Books, and the fifth Pantheon novel, Age Of Voodoo, plus a collection of three novellas, Age Of G.o.dpunk.

James has sold more than 40 short stories, the majority of them gathered in two collections, Imagined Slights and Diversifications. He has written a four-volume fantasy saga for teenagers, The Clouded World (under the pseudonym Jay Amory), and has produced a dozen short books for readers with reading difficulties.

James has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the British Fantasy Society Award and the Manchester Book Award. His short story "Carry The Moon In My Pocket" won the 2011 Seiun Award for Best Translated Short Story James's work has been translated into twelve languages. His journalism has appeared in periodicals as diverse as Literary Review, Interzone and BBC MindGames, and he is a regular reviewer of fiction for the Financial Times and contributes features and reviews about comic books to the magazine Comic Heroes.

He lives with his wife, two sons and cat in Eastbourne.

Coming soon from George Mann and t.i.tan Books.

Sherlock Holmes: The Will of the Dead.

The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes.

Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes.