with his friends, all laughing.
‘I pulled Johnny back, in case he intended to follow. The whole thing had been bad enough as it was. It was going to be the talk of all the embassies in Paris in the morning, and I wanted to make sure that Johnny didn’t suffer for it. So far he’d carried himself very well, but you never know how far a fellow can be pushed. I took him out on the balcony and got him a drink and calmed him down before he went back to Agatha. She, of course, had heard some of it from ladies who had been in the buffet, but we made light of it. The Russian seemed to have made himself scarce, and by the end of the evening it all seemed to have been forgotten, except by Johnny. He was taking Agatha and her mother back to their hotel, and I remember that, as he left me, he said, “I’ll make that filthy scoundrel smart for that, you see if I don’t.”’
Colonel Wilmshaw paused and stared into the past he had awakened. ‘That was the last thing old Johnny ever said to me, you know. I never saw him again. He didn’t come back to our digs that night.
Well, I didn’t worry much about that. I admit I thought he might have found a way of slipping past Agatha’s mother and be enjoying himself at their hotel, but when he didn’t show up the next day I got worried. Then I saw Agatha and she said that they’d said goodnight at the hotel and Johnny was going to stroll back to our place. That’s when I got bothered and reported him missing. It was five days later that the French police took me to a mortuary to identify his body.’
He paused again. ‘I’ve seen a deal of dead men,’ he went on at last. ‘Some of them fellows I’ve messed with and fought alongside. You’ve been in Afghanistan, Doctor. You know the kind of things that happen to a fellow there. Nothing has ever made me feel as bad as seeing poor Johnny’s body, laid out on a table.’
‘He had been beaten and stabbed, I understand,’ said Holmes.
Colonel Wilmshaw nodded. ‘There must have been at least three of them,’ he said, ‘and Johnny had fought like a tiger from the injuries he took.’
‘The French police put it down to boulevard assassins, garrotters. Do you agree?’
Wilmshaw snorted. ‘Garrotters! Rubbish! I grant you Paris is full of street bandits, but they’re not stupid. Why would they take on a young man in uniform, who looked like he could give an account of himself? There are always plenty of old men about late at night to make prey for them.’
‘Would he have been armed in any way?’ Holmes asked.
Wilmshaw smiled. ‘He’d been to a ball, not on manoeuvres, Mr Holmes. You try waltzing with a
sword. No, he was in evening kit with decorations. But there was something else, Mr Holmes.’
‘What was that?’
‘They said it was garrotters, but I remember when I went to the mortuary, the inspector said to me, “We have his watch and his pocketbook. There is very little doubt that it is Captain Parkes, but we require a formal identification.” What do you make of that?’
Holmes’ eyes blazed. ‘They had not robbed him!’ he exclaimed. ‘They attacked a man on the street at night, beat him, stabbed him to death and did not rob him. Then it was not street thieves.’
‘I’m glad to hear you agree, Mr Holmes. I never thought it was, and I tried to make a fuss about the way the French were treating it all. So did Agatha’s father, but it never got anywhere. I got told off by the Ambassador for being a nuisance and a hindrance to diplomacy, and then I got shot off to the East.’
‘If you did not believe the Paris police, Colonel, what theory had you as to Captain Parkes’ death?’
asked Holmes.
Wilmshaw looked at my friend without answering for a moment. Then he took a swallow of brandy.
‘You may tell me that I’m wrong, Mr Holmes - you wouldn’t be the first - but I couldn’t help feeling then and I can’t help feeling now that it had to do with that damned Russian colonel. I poked about a bit when I realized that the police weren’t doing much. It seems the fellow was a member of the Tzar’s family. He had a filthy reputation in Paris. Seems he had pots of money and spent it mainly on women, but his habits were so bad that even the French houses wouldn’t do business with him. There were some very unsavoury tales about him.’
Holmes nodded. ‘Do you, by any chance, recall the Russian officer’s name, Colonel?’
‘Now, there you’ve got me. Never was much good at names and he had one of those complicated
Russian names.’
‘Was it,’ said Holmes, ‘by any chance, Count Stepan Skovinski-Rimkoff?’
‘That’s it!’ exclaimed the colonel. ‘That’s the man!’
Twenty-Two
Danger Threatens
‘How do you know, Mr Holmes? Is his name in the file?’ asked Wilmshaw.
Holmes shook his head. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘There is no mention of the count in the official file, nor is there any mention of the incident in the buffet.’
‘I told them, Mr Holmes! I told the French police all about it!’ Wilmshaw burst out.
‘I’m sure you did,’ said Holmes, ‘but all they recorded was the time at which you saw Captain Parkes leave the ball with his fiancee and her mother and the fact that he failed to come home that night.’
The colonel snorted. ‘I knew it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Because the scoundrel’s a Russian nobleman, they covered it up, but you mark my words, Mr Holmes, after his row with Johnny, that man arranged for Johnny to be waylaid and beaten. Whether he intended him to be killed I don’t know, but I’m sure he arranged it.’
‘I am very largely in agreement with you,’ said Holmes, ‘but there are two matters to be considered.
Firstly, Count Skovinski-Rimkoff is presently in London as an official guest at the Jubilee. I suggest that you are at pains to avoid him. Secondly, and more to the point, the man’s presence here poses a danger to Miss Wortley-Swan.’
‘To Agatha!’ exclaimed the colonel. ‘How?’
Holmes raised a hand. ‘I am not, at present, at liberty to reveal the reasons for my fears, but believe me, Colonel, they are genuine. Now, would it be in order for you to visit the lady to apprise her of your return from Egypt?’
‘Well, of course,’ said Wilmshaw. ‘I was intending to do so in any case.’
‘Then do so this afternoon, Colonel. It is most important. See Miss Wortley-Swan and contrive, if you can, to spend as much time in her company as possible over the next few days. Do not, I enjoin you, tell her that you have seen me or my brother, but stay as close to her as you may.’
The colonel cast a puzzled eye on Holmes. ‘Sealed orders, eh? Very well then. If Agatha’s in any kind of danger, you can count on me, Mr Holmes.’
When the door closed behind our visitor I chuckled.
‘I do not know, Watson, what you find amusing in all this,’ said Holmes. ‘This affair becomes darker and more dangerous with every passing day.’
‘I was merely considering,’ I said, ‘that you seem to have turned this agency into a matchmaking business.’
Holmes smiled thinly. ‘I sent the colonel post-haste to the lady’s door in the slender hope that his appearance may distract her from her dangerous purpose.’
‘Which is?’ I asked.
‘Oh, Watson! Colonel Wilmshaw’s narrative has only served to confirm what I have suspected for a long time. Whether the count was really responsible for Captain Parkes’ death, Miss Wortley-Swan believes so. That explains her curious connection with Professor Gregorieff. Both of them believe that they have suffered grievous wrong at the man’s hands and they propose to murder him.’
‘Holmes!’ I exclaimed. ‘You are surely not serious!’
‘I was never more so, Watson. The evidence stares us in the face. Captain Parkes was involved in a public exchange of insults with the count on the night he died. Shortly thereafter he is beaten and stabbed, ostensibly by street banditti who are so inept that, having killed their quarry, they fail to take his watch and pocketbook. Colonel Wilmshaw and Miss Wortley-Swan attempt to press an
investigation into the matter, but no progress is made and the matter is pushed aside, indubitably for diplomatic reasons. The colonel is sent off abroad, but Miss Wortley-Swan has considerable finances available to her, so she bides her time and lays her plans, part of which is the creation of a charity which concerns itself with
