A Study in Sherlock

“Damages?”

“Chemical burns on the carpet, dirty finger marks on the wallpaper from those street urchins who were up and down the staircase at least once a fortnight, and surely you have not forgotten how he used a pistol to inscribe the queen’s initials in my beautiful oak overmantel?”

(To be quite honest, when I heard the shots, I was almost as upset as Mr Powell, a bookkeeper in the City, whose sitting room was directly overhead and who immediately gave notice.)

Smiling, the doctor spread jam onto a bite-sized piece of scone and assured me that he had not forgotten.

“I have twice written to Mr Mycroft Holmes to ask what should be done with his brother’s personal effects. In response to my first letter, he came, looked at the mass of books and papers, and said he simply could not deal with it at the time. He claimed pressing affairs of government, but I suspect that a disinclination for physical exertion is the true reason he insisted I take his cheque for another year’s rent.”

“You say you wrote twice? Did he not reply the second time?”

“Indeed he did reply, Doctor. Another cheque for another year. I fear that he does not accept his brother’s death and wishes everything to be left as it was in the event that Mr Holmes—our Mr Holmes—should ever return. I understand and I sympathise. I, too, mourn the loss, but turning my house into a memorial is more than I can bear. Mrs Jamison shivers every time she passes that door. You ask if this has been a financial hardship? No, but it has been an emotional hardship, sir.”

Tears blurred my eyes and I fear my voice trembled.

Dr Watson patted my hand in manly consternation. “My dear Mrs Hudson! Shall I ring for your maid?”

“Please don’t.” I dabbed my eyes and apologised for my lack of control, but he waved my apology aside and made sure my cup still held tea, which he urged me to drink.

“You are quite right to be troubled. You should not be asked to continue this morbid arrangement. I confess that I, too, have had difficulty in accepting our friend’s death, yet I have not been daily reminded of our loss as have you. Shall I speak to Mr Mycroft Holmes on your behalf?”

“Oh, Doctor!” I exclaimed. “If only you would! Surely he will listen to you, a man who held his brother in such esteem. I’ve had a new carpet laid and the overmantel repaired even though the cabinetmaker was hard-pressed to match the central panel. Were Mr Holmes’s personal possessions removed, Alice and I could give the rooms a good cleaning and perhaps have a new lodger settled in by the first of May.”

Assuring me he would call on Mr Mycroft Holmes the very next day, Dr Watson accepted a cream biscuit and the rest of the hour passed in pleasant reminiscences of the past.

“I do miss the adventuring,” he said wistfully, when he rose to go. “I find that medicine is so much duller than detection that I have considered selling my practice and perhaps going to America.”

I hardly knew what to say. We moved out into the vestibule, but before I could hand him his hat and cane, the bell rang long and loudly.

The fashionably dressed young woman who stood there with her hand still on the bell pull seemed startled to have the door opened so promptly.

I myself stared in surprise at the pale face beneath that pert straw boater. “Elizabeth?”

“Oh, Aunt, please help me! Mr Holmes—is he still with you? I must see him at once!”

Before I could gather my wits, she greeted my guest by name. “It’s Dr Watson, isn’t it? Benissimo! If you’re still here, then surely Mr Holmes is, too? Someone wants to kill me.”

“My dear girl!” Dr Watson gasped.

“Kill you?” I exclaimed.

When last I saw my niece, she was a child of twelve. My late brother had lived and worked in our native Edinburgh and while his widow, a woman of Italian parentage, settled his affairs there, she had sent Elizabeth to stay with me a month.

During that visit, Mr Holmes had several times required the services of his ragtag “Baker Street Irregulars,” and Elizabeth had been so curious about their business with my lodger that even though he frightened her, she trailed them upstairs one evening and hid behind a chair to listen as they rendered their report. When he charged them with the task of following a certain lady, Elizabeth revealed herself and begged to be allowed to help.

The boys had sneered, but Mr Holmes considered her dainty dress and determined chin, then silenced them with a look. “You chaps have followed our quarry to a milliner’s shop twice this past week, but we do not know what she does there nor to whom she speaks. This young lady can enter the shop without exciting suspicion. If your aunt will allow it, Miss Elizabeth, I myself will escort you to the shop’s location and wait for you to come out.”

I should not have agreed to such a plan for anyone except him, and Elizabeth carried it off admirably. Or so he said. I myself did not see the significance of the hats the lady had ordered, but Elizabeth’s descriptions were enough to let him deduce that she planned a trip to Russia in the near future. With that information, Mr Holmes was able to bring the case to a satisfactory conclusion for his client.

Indeed, he was so pleased that he gave my niece half a crown and said he was sorry she could not remain in London to assist him should such a need ever arise again.

After my sister-in-law’s return to Italy, I tried to keep in touch, but she was an indifferent correspondent. A year or two later, I received a letter that she planned to remarry. After that, nothing. My letters were returned unopened.

Now, suddenly, here was my niece, ten years older, a wedding band on her finger and fear in her eyes.

“You’re not well,” Dr Watson said, and indeed she was near swooning.

We helped her to the sofa in my parlour and I rang for Alice to bring smelling salts and a fresh pot of tea.

When she had somewhat recovered, Elizabeth explained that her mother had died six years earlier and that she had gone to live in Venice with her grandparents, who were itinerant musicians. She earned her keep by giving private English lessons. “My grandfather arranged for me to work with the opera company there, and I played piano for singers who were learning their roles. That’s how I met William.”

I took her hand in mine and touched the ring. “William is your husband? Is he English?”

She nodded. “William Breckenridge. He’s a concert pianist and a composer as well. Perhaps you know his Venetian Springtime?”

I did not, but Dr Watson seemed impressed. “A suite of caprices, are they not? Mr Holmes had one of them transcribed for the violin. The Bridge of Sighs, if I’m not mistaken. By Jove! That’s your husband?”

Elizabeth flushed with shy pride at his praise.

I was not deterred. “Surely he’s not the one who wants to kill you?”

“No! Yes! Oh, Aunt, I can’t be sure. That’s why I hope Mr Holmes will help me.”

Sadly, I had to tell her that the great detective was no more. “But what has happened to make you fear for your life?”

“This is William’s first tour in England since our marriage two years ago. I hoped it would be a second honeymoon. Instead it’s been a nightmare. He has become distant and almost cold to me. Normally, I wouldn’t worry because he always withdraws into himself when he is composing and working out the musical problems he sets himself, but the difference this time is that I’m being poisoned.”

I was shocked. “Poisoned? How?”

For a moment her old spirited nature flashed in her brown eyes. “If I knew that, do you not think I would avoid it? I can’t even be sure he’s the one doing it, yet who else could it be?”

She looked at us in despair.

“Tell us everything,” Dr Watson said. “Perhaps we can help.”

“It began two days after we arrived in London,” Elizabeth said. She spoke flawless English but an occasional word or phrase and a certain musical lilt in her inflections reflected her years in Italy. “William took rooms for us in a pensione where he has stayed before. It’s popular with musicians. There’s a grand piano he can use in the front parlour and it’s near his copyist.”

“Copyist?” I asked.

She nodded. “He met Mrs Manning on his first tour of England and has used her ever since. He sends her a