My Sherlock Holmes Page 25

  E.F. Has he said what he’s doing?

  Mrs. H. Very little. He has always been quite discreet about his detective work. But I believe he is sometimes called upon by the government. Once, when he visited, he was returning from some assignment for the Sea Lord, out in the Hebrides.

  E.F. And do you hear from Dr. Watson?

  Mrs. H. His wife writes sometimes. He is retired, too, and Mrs. Watson says he is often troubled by the war wound in his leg——or was it his shoulder? I can’t remember. Dr. Watson and I were not that close. I was just the landlady to him, a figure in the background, really—which is just as well, all things considered. As annoying as the visitors were to Baker Street, looking for Mr. Holmes, I can scarcely imagine how I would take being famous in my own right.

  E.F. Was it the visitors who sent you fleeing to a village in Scotland after those years in London?

  Mrs. H. Oh, no, I was born and raised in Perth, so coming here was really a bit of a homecoming. I have family nearby—my sister and her husband have the pub in the village, and another brother lives in Blair Atholl, and of course there are various nieces and nephews and their children. And after a lifetime in cities, I felt the country would be a welcome change.

  E.F. Was it? I know some fellow Londoners who were never able to be comfortable outside the city.

  Mrs. H. It took some time to get used to the quiet. But I stay busy with church fairs and charity work and looking after the children of my nieces and nephew, and I’m learning to raise vegetables and make preserves. I’m quite the country lady these days. Do have some more currant cake. It was one of Dr. Watson’s favorites.

  E.F. Thank you, I think I will have another piece. How did Sherlock Holmes become your tenant in the first place?

  Mrs. H. Oh, just in the ordinary way, by answering my advertisement for rooms to let. Now that I think of it, what a dreadful year that was!

  E.F. Oh, dear—what happened?

  Mrs. H. A number of things. The worst was that poor Harry—my husband—had fled to the Continent, because the police were after him.

  E.F. Really! Why?

  Mrs. H. They suspected him of being involved in a bucket shop in Edinburgh which ended very badly. I was so worried—

  E.F. A bucket shop? What’s that?

  Mrs. H. This one was some men selling shares in a gold mine in Canada.

  E.F. I don’t understand. What’s the harm in that?

  Mrs. H. I don’t recall the details very well. Either there wasn’t any gold or there was no mine, I don’t remember which.

  E.F. Goodness! How did your husband come to be suspected of being part of that?

  Mrs. H. Well, he was in that line of work, so to speak.

  E.F. Your husband was a swindler?

  Mrs. H. A harsh word—but not to put too fine a point on it, I supposed that’s what he was. He was “with the game,” as they called it. Which means he was a confidence man, and quite good at it. Never convicted of anything, though the police in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales were after him, on, and off, for thirty years.

  E.F. My goodness—and you weren’t troubled being married to him?

  Mrs. H. Honestly, no, except for worrying on account of the risk. No, Harry never did anyone any violence, and as for the money he took—well, I’m Scots, and the men he took from were mainly English and rich. As far as I’m concerned, they have a lot to answer for. My grandparents were thrown off their farm in the Clearances, and lost everything they had. Many people like them starved or were forced to emigrate. Two of my grandmother’s brothers set sail with their families for New Zealand, but their ship was lost at sea. They say my grandmother died of a broken heart when she heard the news. My granddad walked with his children—my mother and her sister and brother—to Perth and found work in a mill. My father was a millworker, too, but he turned to drink and was killed in a brawl. So my mother supported us by taking in laundry, and my sisters and I worked with her. We worked from sunup to well past sundown, and seldom had warm clothing or enough to eat. As I see it, what Harry took was only what the English and the owners of the land and the mills took from us. I tell you, miss, after Harry and I were married, while my mother was alive I sent money to her every month, so that she could have a few of the comforts she could not afford when we were children. And I felt that what I was giving her was no more than she was owed.

  E.F. My goodness—How did you go from those beginnings to being a London landlady?

  Mrs. H. I was fortunate in some ways. I was a lively girl, with a nice singing voice and a knack for mimic. When I wasn’t helping my mother wash and iron, I made a bit of extra money singing on the street. Then a friend of my uncle’s who worked in a theater recommended me to the manager. I apprenticed there, more or less, singing between the acts to keep the audience in their seats while the candy butchers worked the aisles. When I grew older, I played character parts. And then I met Harry.

  E.F. How did you meet Harry—er, Mr. Hudson?

  Mrs. H. He was an actor, too, touring with a company from London. We met through a friend and he courted me. After he returned to London, he sent for me, and we were married there. But the theater company folded a few months later, and we were both out of work. Luckily for us, an old friend of Harry’s showed up around then, and introduced him to the confidence trade. A fine and funny Irishman he was, named O’Brien, God rest his soul. Harry took to the game—his experience as an actor helped—and he did quite well.

  E.F. Did you work with Mr. Hudson at his, uh, profession?

  Mrs. H. Once or twice at first, in a minor way. But Harry didn’t like the idea. This may sound odd, given how he made his living, but he craved respectability. He was a Cockney, born and bred, but he always had a yearning for a better life. Especially after young Harry was born, he kept us well away from his business dealings. It was Harry’s idea to get us the house on Baker Street, after a particularly good score. He used to say that the house and I were his insurance and his pension. “I know that when I decide to rest from my labors, I’ll have my bonnie Jean to come home to,” he would say to me. “And if the worst happens, you’ll at least have a place to live and an income for yourself and the bairn.” Harry’s always been a good man, in his way.

  But you wanted to know how I met Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson. Well, as I said, it was hard times for us. I lived in fear that Harry would be caught and tried for murder, and I truly wondered whether I would ever see him again.

  E.F. My goodness! Murder?

  Mrs. H. Yes. It was a nasty business. A baronet—Sir Roderick Parr, if I remember correctly—was murdered, and the story was that he was a bates who had uncovered the con and was killed because he threatened to go to the law. A peach here in London claimed that Harry was one of the men involved in the scheme.

  E.F. How terrible! But what do you mean when you say that Sir Roderick was a bates?

  Mrs. H. That he was one of the people being swindled.

  E.F. Goodness! And what is a peach?

  Mrs. H. Oh, dear, I fear I’m giving you an education in the ways of the criminal classes! A peach is a snitch, a police informer—a criminal who goes around tattling to the police about what his fellow criminals are up to.

  E.F. Why would someone do that? One keeps hearing about honor among thieves, you know, and all that.

  Mrs. H. Oh, there’s little honor in the criminal element. A peach usually tells on his fellows to get some leniency from the police and the judge for his own crimes. This one didn’t know anything, really, but Inspector Gregson had been trying for years to catch Harry and was only too ready to believe him. Poor Harry insisted to me that he had nothing to do with it and that he was working an entirely different game in Liverpool. But of course he couldn’t tell that to Inspector Gregson, so he had to drop out of sight or be arrested.

  Then, on top of everything else, I lost my lodger, Mr. Postlethwaite. He was caught stealing from the theater he was managing—cleared out in the middle of the night, owing most of a qua
rter’s rent. Scotland Yard inspectors were trooping through the house for days, ransacking his rooms for clues about where he had gone and badgering me and my poor girl until she threatened to give notice. And Gregson suspected Harry somehow had a hand in that, too. They found Postlethwaite about a year later, some where in Yorkshire. I’m sure Mr. Holmes would have nabbed him much sooner, had he been called upon. He and I talked once or twice about Postlethwaite, and Mr. Holmes surmised that he wouldn’t have left England. I can’t recall why—when Postlethwaite was actually found I thought it was just a lucky guess. But as I was saying, it was a month or more before the uproar died down enough that I could advertise that the rooms were to let. I was afraid even then that no one would want rooms in my house, what with all the attention we were getting from the police. I was truly grateful when Mr. Holmes showed up.

  E.F. I would imagine so, after all that. What was your first meeting with him like?

  Mrs. H. I remember that he came to look at the rooms and was interested in taking them, but said he would need another lodger to share the expense. He came back the next day with Dr. Watson in tow, and they rented the rooms on the spot.

  E.F. What was your first impression of Sherlock Holmes?

  Mrs. H. A gentleman, nice manners, but a bit stiff and standoffish. I’d like to say I saw something about him that suggested greatness, but in all honesty, he was just a tall, thin young man, a bit formal and distant, with a rather superior attitude. I took more to Dr. Watson, actually, at first. He had a friendlier manner—though I think he was a bit shocked when he learned how his landlady’s husband made his living. Mr. Holmes, though—he was a much cooler character. Even then, I don’t think there was much that could surprise him.

  E.F. It must have been rather disconcerting having Holmes as a tenant—the strange people visiting at all hours, the chemistry experiments, the gunplay, suspects jumping out of windows, that sort of thing.

  Mrs. H. Not really. I’d had other tenants who were at least as trying. Postlethwaite, for one. And then there was the Great Ponti, a fire-eater. He decided to practice a new effect in his rooms one evening after having a bit too much wine with dinner, and set fire to the drapes. We were lucky the entire house didn’t burn down. And there was M. Fleuron, with his boa constrictor that escaped and ate one of the cats. Mr. Holmes was actually fairly tame by comparison. And of course he always paid for the repairs. And he did Harry and me a great favor soon after moving in.

  E.F. What was that?

  Mrs. H. He cleared Harry of the murder business. He learned about it on his own. I didn’t tell him or Dr. Watson about poor Harry’s problem. They were gentlemen, after all, and I didn’t think they would take kindly to hearing that their landlady’s husband was a wanted criminal. I think I explained Harry’s absence by saying something about him being a traveling man. But one day when Dr. Watson was out, as I was bringing Mr. Holmes his breakfast, he suddenly said to me, “Mrs. Hudson, how would you like to see your husband here in London again?”

  I wasn’t sure what he was at, so I simply said something about how it was always a pleasure when Mr. Hudson’s work allowed him time with his family.

  “Mrs. Hudson,” he said, “I know your husband is in hiding because of trouble with the law. Inspector Gregson saw fit to tell me about Mr. Hudson and the murder of Sir Roderick Parr not long after I took these rooms. I have looked up some accounts of it in the Edinburgh papers and taken the liberty of writing to a police inspector of my acquaintance there. From what I have learned of the case I believe that your husband’s claim that he is innocent of the murder may be worth looking into.”

  “Sir?” I said, but I felt about to faint from fear. I knew Mr. Holmes was clever and he was beginning to make a name for himself as a detective. But I couldn’t tell if I could trust him. For all I knew, he was working with the police to apprehend Harry and hoping to gain my confidence to track him down. And, if the truth be known, even I had only Harry’s word that he was not part of that scheme. Harry was not one to talk about what he was up to. “If you don’t know, you don’t have to lie,” he used to say to me.

  “Mrs. Hudson, please sit down,” Mr. Holmes said, and I sat in Mr. Watson’s chair at the table, trying to decide what to do next. I must have looked the picture of wretchedness. Mr. Holmes surprised me with the kindness of his tone. “I can see you are reluctant to trust me in this,” he said, looking me in the eye, “but I am in good faith. You are a friend, and I would not betray you. Besides,” he went on, with a twinkle in his eye, “consider the fact that if I did, I would have to find other lodgings, and Dr. Watson would never forgive me.”

  I smiled a little at this, and he continued. “I take it that you have a way of communicating with Mr. Hudson.”

  I thought about it a moment and then decided I could trust him at least that far. “Yes,” I said, “I can get a message to him.”

  “Well, then, why not let him decide? Send him a letter, and enclose this with it.” And he went to his desk, wrote a few words on a sheet of paper, folded it, and handed it to me.

  E.F. What did he write?

  Mrs. H. I waited until I was downstairs to look at the paper, even though he hadn’t said not to. He had written a brief note: “Mr. Hudson: If you are indeed innocent in the death of Sir Roderick Parr, I am willing to attempt to clear you, but I will need your help. If you wish my assistance, meet me at a time and place of your choosing—Sherlock Holmes.”

  Well, the letters Harry and I wrote to one another took a roundabout route, because we feared that the police might be watching to see if I posted any letters to him or received any from him. I gave the letter with Mr. Holmes’s note in it to Mr. McBeath, our butcher. Mr. McBeath was a friend of Harry’s, and he gave my letters to another of Harry’s friends, Mr. Delagnes, who was a traveler in wine. Delagnes mailed them poste restant to the town in Italy where Harry was staying. Harry’s replies—under the name Pietro Ruvolo, if I remember—were posted to Delagnes in care of his overseas supplier in Calais. Harry told me all this afterward; at the time I didn’t know how the letters got to him from the butcher. Mr. McBeath and I had a code, when a letter came from Harry. When I went to choose the meat for our dinner, he would say that the kidneys were particularly nice that day, so that I would know that a letter would be in that day’s delivery and would be sure to open the package myself instead of letting the girl do it.

  Weeks went by before I received a response to Mr. Holmes’s note. Then a letter came to me from Harry, with a note inside it addressed to Mr. Holmes. Mr. Holmes showed it to me. It said, “Dear sir: I appreciate your efforts on my behalf. I will be in Paris for a week, beginning September 15. There is a cafe, Le Chien Sourd, on the Rue des Ecoles. Tell the proprietor, M. Launay, who you are, and he will send for me.”

  E.F. My goodness, what intrigue! Why, it’s like a spy story!

  Mrs. H. Well, dear Harry did a bit of that, too, later in his life. To continue, though, Mr. Holmes read the note and studied the paper, saying little but “hmm,” and “indeed.” I offered to pay for his passage to Paris, but he declined. Before he left, though, Mr. Holmes asked me for a photograph of Harry. The only one I had was from his acting days—Harry didn’t want photographs of himself lying about—but I gave it to Mr. Holmes with as good a description as I could. He was gone for several days. Upon his return, he told me, “Mrs. Hudson, I have met your husband, and he is a fine, intelligent man, despite his unfortunate profession.” He said nothing else about the meeting, but left again a few days later, with Dr. Watson in tow. It was well over a week before they returned. Poor Dr. Watson looked drawn and tired and said something about never having been so seasick in his life. But Mr. Holmes was all afire and as intent as a dog on a scent. He summoned me to his rooms, and said to me, “Mrs. Hudson, your husband will come here in the next evening or two, in some sort of incognito. Is your girl likely to recognize him?”

  “Probably not if he is disguised, sir, but I can’t be certain.”

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p; He thought for a moment and said, “Make sure that you are the one to answer the door, then. When he comes he will ask for me. If you recognize him, make no sign, but tell him that the sailor will be coming presently and show him upstairs as if he were a stranger.”

  I sat up that night and the next. And on the second night, some time after ten o’clock, the doorbell rang, and I ran to answer it. A worried-looking man came into the hallway, put down a carpetbag, and as he took off his hat and unbuttoned his overcoat, asked in a low, rather embarrassed voice for Mr. Holmes. “I believe he’s expecting me,” he said. He wore a clerical collar, and had reddish side whiskers and a fringe of hair around a bald pate. It took a moment for me to recognize the man as Harry, but hard as it was, I gave no sign that I knew him, but showed him upstairs, and told him what Mr. Homes had said to say about the sailor. “Oh, good,” he murmured, and glanced at me with a the hint of a smile.

  Holmes answered the door and let him in. A few minutes later, Dr. Watson came down the stairs and said, “I’m going out to fetch another visitor, Mrs. Hudson. Mr. Holmes would like you to sit up and wait for our return.”

  As anxious as I was, tiredness overcame me, and I fell asleep in my chair. I was awakened by the sound of Dr. Watson’s key in the door. With Dr. Watson was a tall man, dressed in workman’s pants and a sailor’s peacoat, and holding his cap. He was old, but strong-looking, with angular features and a steady, direct gaze. “Mrs. Hudson, this is Peter Moodie,” Dr. Watson said. “Would you please come upstairs with us?” Thoroughly mystified at this point, I followed them.

  As we reached the top of the stairs, Mr. Holmes appeared on the landing. “Ah, Mr. Moodie!” he greeted him. “Come in. Mrs. H., may I have a word with you?” As Dr. Watson and Mr. Moodie passed into the sitting room, Holmes stayed with me in the hall and whispered, “It is very important that Mr. Moodie not know Mr. Hudson’s identity until the proper moment. Please do not say his name or your own, until I tell you.”