'Mr Holmes,' she came close to him and looked earnestly into his face, 'please allow me to apologize for my words of Friday evening. My sister and I have not been on good terms for many years, but it still shocks me that she would hire a detective to spy on us. Are you aware of her motives?'
'I am not at liberty to discuss Mrs Bertram's motives,' Holmes replied, coldly.
Minter re-appeared, pushing a tea-trolley. Holmes refused to partake and returned to the window. Feeling rather embarrassed, I joined Miss Abernetty in a cup of tea, but refused the seedcake.
'Are you watching for Charles?' enquired Sabina, almost tranquilly. 'He shouldn't be long.'
She lingered over her tea, making desultory small talk with me. Instead of becoming impatient, Holmes in his expression grew grimmer. When at last a bell sounded somewhere in the house there was a gleam of irony in his eyes.
'I think your mother is ready to receive us. Shall we go up?'
With the strain on my nerves occasioned by our eerie walk through the fog, I fancied the dim passage had a clammy feel as if the fog had seeped into the walls. Sabina moved softly, almost stealthily before us until she came to the door of the sickroom.
'Mother, I've brought some gentlemen to see you.' She pushed open the door.
The shadowy figure in the four-poster bed hunched itself up on the pillows. Wisps of grey hair from under the frilled nightcap straggled over the forehead, eyes glared peevishly from a face grey with age and ill-health. Her hand came up from beside the bed, holding a walking-stick.
'What's this, you know my orders. I won't see anyone,' she shrilled at us, querulously. 'Go away, all of you. Get out of my sight.'
'Mother, don't upset yourself,' the daughter glided towards her, but was driven back by the flailing stick.
I will never forget the scene that followed; though I do not remember the words, the tone of the dreadful imprecations, the humiliating insults and cruelties that stripped the soul of our companion bare have never left me. I felt a deep shame at being, however obliquely, the cause of Miss Abernetty's discomfiture.
Throughout she was calm, but at last she turned to us and said in a low, tremulous voice. 'Will that be all? Are you satisfied?'
Holmes turned abruptly and walked out of the room and I was fast on his heels. The strident voice followed us down the stairs. In the hall, Miss Abernetty faced us gravely. Her eyes looked large and dark in a face that had been drained of all its colour.
'Miss Abernetty, I owe you the profoundest of apologies and bid you good afternoon,' said Holmes. 'Minter, my Ulster.' The elderly butler was hovering by the front door.
'You are leaving,' she said, quickly. 'Won't you wait until my brother returns? Don't you also owe him an apology?'
'Pray convey to him my regrets. Come,Watson, we must go.' 'At least allow me to send Minter down to the corner for a cab.'
'Thank you, no, we will return as we came – on foot.'
I smothered a groan as I struggled into my damp greatcoat and picked up my stick.
'That was an embarrassing exposure for Miss Abernetty,' I observed, when we had regained the square. 'I hope you're satisfied.' I could not suppress the note of censure that crept into my tone.
Holmes gripped my arm. 'Not another word.'
We had reached the corner when he suddenly swung back. 'Come, Watson, I want a word with Lady Abemetty.'
'What! Have you gone mad, Holmes?'
'Not I. Not as mad as that poor raving invalid we've just left. Come on, Watson, the chase is on, this way through the mews and around to the coach-house. Ah, just as I thought!'
A candle was burning within, visible through a dingy window. My companion flung open the door. A figure in nightdress and frilled cap gave a startled cry.
'The game's up,' Holmes said, grimly, 'Mr Charles Abernetty.'
Abernetty shrank back against the wall, his features contorted with fury under the grotesque make-up. 'Damn you! I was brilliant. How could you possibly have found me out?'
'Indeed, you were comparable with the great Dan Leno. Let's say there were other factors that led to your unmasking.'
Abernetty's eyes skimmed past Holmes to the doorway. 'No, Sabie, don't!'
Sabina, equally as grim as Holmes, had materialized through the fog. She aimed a pistol at the detective's head.
'Do you feel quite so clever now, Mr Sherlock Holmes? Don't move, Dr Watson. Put your hand near your pocket and I'll put a bullet through your friend's head.'
'Don't be foolish, Miss Abernetty,' said Holmes, quietly. 'You haven't yet committed murder.'
Her face was a mask of cold, calculating fury. 'There's no proof that you've been at Grosvenor Square. You didn't even hire a cab.'
Holmes's hand moved swiftly to his lips. He blew three sharp blasts on his police whistle. 'Inspector Lanner and his men will be here soon. Put away the pistol, Miss Abernetty. You'll only make things worse for yourself.'
In her rage she fired at him. The expression on her face changed quickly to one of chagrin as the pistol misfired. I quickly brought up my stick, taking advantage of her confusion, and knocked the weapon from her grasp. Holmes kicked it out of sight as Inspector Lanner and two constables burst into the room.
'Good afternoon, Mr Holmes,' the inspector nodded cheerfully at my friend. 'How may I assist you?'
'I think if your men pry up the flagstones of the cellar floor and dig about a little you'll discover, as I suggested in our earlier conversation, the body of Alice Abernetty.'
'Murdered?'
'No. I'm sure Lady Abernetty died of natural causes. Concealment of death and wrongful disposal of a body is the only crime here.'
'I fear I shall not be the hero of this chronicle should you set it down on paper.' Holmes stretched his slippers towards the fire and leaned his cheek pensively on his hand. 'I have disinherited brother and sister for the sake of a greedy, already wealthy woman, who seeks to impress and snare a younger man with a fashionable address. The terms of Sir William Abernetty's will, now a matter of public record, gave me the answer. The house in Grosvenor Square only belonged to Lady Abernetty during her lifetime. On her death it passed to his eldest child Mabel from the first marriage. Charles and Sabina Abernetty were to be dispossessed. There was very little real money. They were, shall we say, in an unenviable position. There were many times, Watson, when I nearly abandoned the case, but I was drawn on to its fascinating and macabre conclusion.'
'The law must be upheld, Holmes.'
'Oh, yes, the law,' he retorted, bitterly. 'There are other laws, natural laws, that have been broken here.'
Since our return he had fallen into a mood of black depression and I was worried that he might disappear into his room and seek solace in his unfortunate addiction to cocaine. I therefore attempted to distract him by laying before him the points of the case I did not yet fully understand.
'Who was the woman we saw in the sick-bed on our second visit?'
'That I suspect was Mrs Minter, the cook. However unwilling they may have been, the Minters were accomplices to all that occurred. They probably agreed to the conspiracy knowing they could find no other place at their time of life.
'Charles thought he was very clever with that little ruse, but it only served to convince me further that Lady Abernetty was dead. Of course, he wasn't aware of my identity then. But Miss Abernetty had already confirmed her suspicion of me. She was the youth watching our premises, Watson. When she burst into the sickroom later that day she was wearing a dress I had seen hanging up in the coach-house on my earlier visit as the groom in search of work. In their loveless, friendless childhood and youth they turned to a world of acting and make-believe. I'm quite sure Charles had his mother's character down accurately in that little display today. Can you imagine, Watson, their bleak, deprived existence, reviled by the one person who might be expected to give them affection. It makes my blood run cold to think of it.' He leaned forward, his elbows hunched on his knees.
'What will become of them?'
'I can only hope the law will be kinder to them than I have been.'
'Come, Holmes, you deal with yourself too harshly. Things would have gone much harder for Miss Abernetty if
