26. THE CASE OF A DEAD SUITOR

Life must go on even when Dr Watson is in the hands of influenza

The room was dim with a wavering half-light as the blinds cut out most of the gleam from a morning sun. It seemed to me that I was in the middle of a nightmare, yet when I opened my eyes and pinched my arm I felt the sharpness of the pain and knew that this was no nightmare. I was awake.

I tried to gaze around me, but all I could see was the amorphous outline of a spirit-being from the depths of my past. Yes, I’d met him before. Or her. I couldn’t tell which. It might easily have been a female.

But back in my Afghan days when I’d stopped a bullet aimed wildly across that blasted land and subsequently been thrown into the kind of torpor I would wish on no man as fever racked me and all I really wanted was the balm of death, back then, I say, I’d met him or her. And now my fiend was back, haunting me and blighting both day and night with a charmless efficacy that stank of fear.

Then it spoke. Through a tunnel, it seemed, its voice came upon me, powerful yet at the same time feeble so that if I could I would have risen to mock the very notion of any threat.

“Watson, stir yourself,” it said. At least that’s what I thought it said, though the words might have been anything.

“Watson, I say, stir yourself. There’s work ahead of us and we must be sharp for it!”

Clearer now, much clearer, instruction and yet dreamy.

“Holmes...” I managed to breathe out, “I think I’m dying...”

“Watson, you’re nothing of the sort!” This time he spoke almost crisply and my heart, already pretty low, sunk further.

“I just… leave me be...”I spluttered.

“Pull yourself together, man, it’s just a touch of the flu that’s got to you, that’s all, there’s plenty of it around and people are recovering from it all the time.”

“No!” I sighed. I didn’t want to recover, to be obliged to rejoin the procession of human life but just be left on my own to descend to whatever depth I felt inclined to, and to hell with Holmes and his cases.

“This one’s just down your street, Watson,” he managed to blast through the myriad bees that buzzed in my brain. “It’s a woman in trouble, a damsel in distress, and without our help she is doomed to an eternity in Hell with all its fiery monsters and their cutlery wanting to consume her right down to the last sliver of bone and the last tendon of her flesh...”

“Then let her die,” I wheezed.

“Watson, this is not like you! Not like you at all, and the Lady Sally Persephone will not forgive you for leaving her in the lurch!” His voice was insistent, and I opened my eyes. He was standing there, gazing down at me where I lay on the couch, my face dripping with the perspiration of disease, and there was no hint of anything remotely related to sympathy on his face.

“Go away Holmes,” I managed to hiss.

“Then close your eyes again and listen, and I’ll explain it to you, Watson,” he said, forcibly.

“If you must,” I sighed, closing my eyes.

“Lady Sally Persephone was entertaining a gentleman and several other friends to seven courses two nights ago, and all was going well until most of her friends decided, singly or in twos according to their status, that it was time for them to leave and she, in her own words was happy at the prospect of an early night because she had woken early that day and spent a great deal of her energy organising the social event. And that’s what happened until there was but the one gentleman left, and when it was clear to him that there were only servants between him and any dastardly scheme he had in his mind he made a fiendish move...”

I found that I couldn’t help listening for I have always been liable to find sympathy for a damsel in distress.

“Pray continue, Holmes,” I gasped.

“That’s more like it, old fellow! The fiend took her to one side and in full view of her maid, who was herself weary to the point of needing to sleep, he proposed to her! He asked, in the tone of voice I’ve been led to believe might have been forceful, for her hand in marriage, and she in no position to give it!”

“Pray conclude, Holmes,” I gasped.

“Conclude you say, Watson? I cannot conclude! For the Lady was trapped into accepting his proposal. She was tired and her bed was calling her, her maid also appeared to be nodding off, and was docked six pence from her wages as a consequence of such idleness, and in frustration she accepted for she was of the opinion that the calm light of a new day would see the gentleman, who had partaken of a goodly glass or two of brandy, return to her door in order to apologise.”

“As any gentleman would, Holmes,” I managed to force out.

“But not this fiend!” snapped Holmes, “but he did return later the following day and with a cavalry of ne’er do wells and comrades with him, and in the presence of that tawdry fleet he demanded that she stick to her word! That she wed him the very next week, for, he said, her word must surely be her bond!”

“The fiend!” I spluttered.

“Which is why she killed him,” concluded Holmes. “She shot him through the heart with an army pistol belonging to her father, and there could be no doubt about it: he was dead! And it was a good shot, first class if I may make so bold under tragic circumstances to explain. And that is about that, except she expects to be taken to the gallows and hanged because of it, for they’re calling what must be little more than self defence an act of deliberate murder! The jury, instructed by the judge who had his orders from on high, condemned her and unless we can think of something she must surely die!”

The conclusion to Holmes’ account made my open my eyes wide and sit up. His story had changed from one involving a callous proposal to one of murder.

“But this is horrific, Holmes!” I almost shouted, “surely any court in the land would know she was sorely provoked! Surely she would be acquitted! I know of Lady Sally Persephone and much admire her! For she is the sort of young woman that I myself would have chosen to court if I were many years younger and of a higher class!”

“That doesn’t surprise me, Watson,” he said. “And the truth of the matter is you will have appraised yourself of the likelihood of riots, violence, even civil war if the sentence is carried out, for the good lady has a great number of admirers and even more friends.

“She has that,” I breathed.

“I knew the tale of her downfall would waken you,” murmured my friend, “and it is for that very reason that I have invited my brother Mycroft here this very afternoon. I cannot guarantee it, but I believe he will want to see a good resolution to the lady’s problem. I believe he will want her to live!”

“But how…?” I asked.

“The lady you will know well,” Holmes told me, “but the young gentleman who lies buried six feet down in the churchyard has royal connections abroad, and it was those connections that guaranteed that she would be condemned in any trial in this land. Mycroft, though, has the ear of the Prince...”

“More than his ear, I hope,” I muttered.

“Maybe. But he has it, and both he and I know that if Lady Persephone is hanged there will be war in this land. And if she isn’t hanged there will be war abroad.”

“There’s always war abroad,” I said.

“We are approaching the dawn of a new century,” he said firmly, “and who can tell what seemingly trivial events will combine to rock the world we live on and bring death to thousands if not millions!”

There was the sound of a knocking downstairs and the heavy tread of Mycroft’s feet on the stairs.

Then the portly figure of possibly the most intelligent men of this or any century entered.

“Mycroft, she mustn’t hang, brother,” said Holmes, “and if she does Watson here has guaranteed that he will add to the catalogue of unseen and unsuspected killers, for he will seek you out wherever you be, and shoot you. I cannot talk him out of the course! So be a good fellow and sort it, will you?”

“There was no need for threats, Sherlock,” replied Mycroft, smiling, “for she is already free and as like to shoot the next suitor as the next woman! See: there will be no war. Not yet, anyway. Not yet.”

“And Watson can return to his sick bed,” murmured Holmes. “A swift resolution is always for the best.”

© Peter Rogerson 15.08.17