“Was he dead?”
“Yes, quite dead. It appears he found his way into a hiding place in the cellar, but he could not have lifted the stone slab by himself. I believe that he enlisted Rachel to assist him in his unscrupulous undertaking, much as that sailor from Squire Trevor’s past enlisted Mrs. Hudson to help him blackmail Squire Trevor. They - Rachel and Brunston - could have lifted the slab together, but they would need support while Brunton went into the cellar to fetch the treasure. I saw her recently, by the way,” he added.
“Who? Rachel?”
“No, Mrs. Hudson. She was visiting her son Morse who apprenticed under the owner of the art shop on Kennington Road. He’s now the owner of the shop and employs assistants of his own. He’s still short and stout. Anyway, he sells statues and paintings... in fact, I believe I may consult with him about the Buddha replicas. He is not yet very experienced, but he has several colleagues with expertise in art.”
“Sherlock, you were saying that you ran into Mrs. Hudson.”
“Oh, yes, she was in London to visit Morse and inspect some properties, and I ran into her at his shop when I went to ask him if he knew anyone who could verify the authenticity of what we found on Musgrave’s estate. She’s doing well. She has been saving to purchase a lease of a home here in London and plans to rent out rooms and offer light housekeeping to her tenants.”
“That sounds like a good plan for her. Now what of Reginald’s maid and the butler?”
“We spoke to the other servants and it seems that Brunton did not return Rachel’s affections. She came to hate him. Based upon Rachel’s sudden breakdown and subsequent disappearance, I have deduced that while he was down in the murky cellar handing up his finds to her, she became enraged and clouted him and let the slab fall back. Or perhaps she deliberately kicked the supports away and left Brunton to die. I suppose it is possible that the slab fell back into place by itself and she panicked. Whatever actually happened, Brunton is dead.”
“Dear Lord,” I said. “And was there some buried treasure?”
“In fact, there was. Some things that we found were of no consequence, but in the mire, we did find something that, though quite bent and battered and dull, was quite the treasure. It was a crown! The crown of Charles II.”
“A royal crown buried in a cellar at Hurlstone?”
“One of Reginald’s ancestors served as Cavalier to Charles II, whose father had handed the crown down to him, and he, in turn, gave it to Reginald’s family. The riddle, this ritual as they called it, gave the clues to its whereabouts.”
“That’s quite fascinating.”
“It’s more than fascinating, Poppy, for I have been well compensated. Upon returning the crown to Her Majesty, Reginald was given several thousand pounds because his family had been guardian of the treasure trove. He generously shared some of that with me. But best of all, I have bested the King of Controlling Catastrophies.”
“I don’t understand. Who - ?”
“Mycroft! He had to report to the queen that his younger brother had recovered the missing crown. I must say, he did seem rather proud, in his own way. And I’ve enough money to keep me in beef and beer for some time to come.”
“You really are living by your wits then.”
He just smiled.
When we finished tea, I walked to St. Bart’s with Sherlock, hoping to see my brother. We paused at a newspaper stand. The entire front page of The London Times was covered with a depiction of the paddleboat and the steamer and the crowds on the wharf. Authorities continued to drag the river and many bodies had been recovered, but hundreds were still missing.
“Have you seven pence?” Sherlock asked. “I have not had time to cash Reginald’s cheque. I believe I spent the last of my coin on our tea.”
Laughing, I handed him the pennies.
“Thank you. We shall stop at the bank on the way,” he said, patting his vest pocket, “and I shall pay you back.”
As he reviewed the front page story about the collision, I thought to myself how fortunate he was to have made such an impression on Musgrave back at Oxford. I had often wondered how Sherlock managed to keep a roof over his head or any food in his stomach. Living by his wits alone did not seem any more prosperous than my medical practice had been, and I survived only because I lived with Uncle and my parents were most generous with ‘loans.’ As far as I knew, Sherlock had had no extraordinary cases prior to deciphering Musgrave’s coded documents, yet he wore very decent attire and maintained suitable lodgings in an upscale area, far nicer, for example, than the two-story row house in Finsbury Park where the victim James Dixon and his family resided. Sherlock told me that Dixon’s wife was much younger than her husband and their son was an infant. Sherlock surmised that he had married late for most banks did not permit the men in their employ to marry until they had reached a certain level of salary. Employers were concerned that, family in tow and strapped for money, a clerk might be tempted to help himself to the contents of a drawer.
From everything that Sherlock had told me about his own past, the Holmes family was part of the landed gentry. Simply by virtue of the fact that Mycroft held a position of considerable importance in the government, it was likely that their father had been held in high esteem and had significant connections. But I doubted that Mycroft assisted Sherlock financially, and I deduced that he continued to receive some sort of subsidy from his eldest brother Sherrinford, who managed the family holdings.
Having finished
