The Case of the Missing Valet
by Jem's Bird

Chapter Six

“I should say death occurred sometime between eight and twelve hours ago; I shan’t be able to give a more precise time due to the low temperature in here,” I said, ignoring my complaining joints as I pulled myself up to my feet, rubbing my hands vigorously to warm them. “The blow shattered the skull and pushed fragments of bone into the occipital lobe; death was instantaneous.”

“But not before a considerable struggle,” Holmes added, looking around with distaste as he wrapped his coat tighter around him. There was no mystery here, no features of interest to stimulate the intellect, just a battered corpse in an ice-house. I did not need my many years’ association with my friend to be able to reconstruct the salient points of the fight that had led to Lord Sidcup’s death: the earl and his murderer had come here together, smoked exactly two cigarettes each, and then quarrelled violently, attacking each other with anything and everything that came to hand. After the fatal blow, the killer had fled the scene, closing the door behind him. It would barely be worth sticking around to watch the young CID man trace the murderer; he and his squad would be able to wrap up this case within a day, if they were sharp.

“We haven’t been able to find the murder weapon yet –” Bowes started hopefully.

Or two days, I thought ruefully.

Holmes gave a disgusted titter and wheeled around to examine a non-existent spot upon the wall. I shook my head sadly; this nasty, brutish bludgeoning in the heat of a fight was no way to end a brilliant career, and even the slight eccentricity in the choice of final weapon did nothing to change that.

“You will find the murder weapon melting in a puddle about our feet, Inspector,” I said with a weary sigh. “There are still pieces of the ice sculpture clinging to his hair. What was it of, I wonder? It would have to have been a bit more bulky than the traditional swan to do that kind of damage.”

“Nelson’s Column,” Holmes answered, kicking a large chunk of rounded ice from underneath the pile of sawdust. “Well, Inspector, I will not insult your intelligence by telling you your job. You have a general description of your assailant?”

Bowes nodded. “We know he’s right-handed, about five-eight, smokes that foul blend that –”

“He is about five-ten, but crouches slightly,” Holmes interrupted with an irritable edge creeping into his voice. “He is perhaps mildly hunchbacked, but not to the point of it being a debilitating condition. He is most likely an older man; I should say at least fifty years of age, but in reasonably good health and physical training, although with a slight decline in his level of activity in the past year. He also has a peculiar sidelong gait that suggests he might be bowlegged, but not severely so.”

“How sure are you about the age, Mr. Holmes?” Bowes asked nervously.

Holmes turned swiftly upon his heel to face the man, smiling slightly. “You’ve been holding out, Inspector.”

“There is someone about that could fit that description, but he’s a young man.”

“And does this young man have a motive to want his Lordship dead?”

Bowes looked down at his feet. “Well, I hardly like to speak ill of the dead, but Lord Sidcup was known for his violent temper. No less than three gentlemen guests at Totleigh Towers – your client included – have had some sort of physical altercation with the man in the past few weeks.”

“Liked to speak with his fists, eh?”

“It looks like his Lordship went too far this time,” I said quietly, looking down at the pugnacious face.

“So did the other fellow, Watson. So, Inspector, who is this suspect of yours?”

“His name’s Glossop. I’m not sure I suspect him, but he does fit the description. And he has had an altercation with his Lordship.”

“So has everyone else, apparently. But there’s something else, isn’t there?”

“Well, a few weeks ago, he was caught skulking around here disguised as a plumber, of all things. He and a local man were found purloining some sort of book in one of the ladies’ rooms. He was run off by the local police, leaving behind a huge monster of a machine that he had plugged into the house’s drains.”

“You mean the one that caused that sewage explosion at the chapel?” I asked.

Bowes looked slightly pained. “Yes, the incident did cause quite a flutter in the society pages. In any case, Glossop and had a history of running afoul of the earl; he was apparently in disguise specifically to avoid his lordship’s wrath.”

“And when Lord Sidcup found out Glossop was at Totleigh Towers?”

“He threw the man out the dining-room window.”

“Dear me! What a charming fellow! Well, I think I have seen enough here, and my client is waiting for me to investigate the matter for which he engaged me. I’m sure you have an interesting day ahead of you, Inspector –”

Bowes’ face fell. “Of course, Mr. Holmes,” said he in a small voice, looking for all the world like a child deprived of a treat. He coughed slightly. “There is just one small matter, sir. It’s only a matter of routine, but I must inform you that your client’s recent behaviour –”

“I understand completely. I shall advise him to give you his statement as soon as he recovers consciousness,” Holmes said politely.

“Did Mr. Wooster hire you to find Mr. Jeeves, sir?” Bowes asked.

Holmes smiled with a rapid flicker of mirth at the corners of his mouth. “Yes,” he answered simply.

“We don’t suspect him of any wrongdoing, of course,” Bowes continued after a short pause, “but his disappearance coming just before his lordship’s death is bound to cause some talk, and I like to have all my ducks in a row. You see, there’s something else strange about Mr. Jeeves –”

“You mean his parentage?” I scoffed, making a show of putting my instruments away. “If I had a shilling for every society manservant or governess who could claim a father in the peerage–”

Bowes interrupted with a polite gesture. “Oh, not that, Doctor. That part of his background checks out; he is indeed the son of the reclusive Earl of Cheltenham. Unlike his employer, he checks out without a stain on his record. His character is completely above reproach, except …” he paused.

“Yes?” Holmes snapped.

“Well, about three weeks ago, he was masquerading as one Chief Inspector Witherspoon – you know the name?”

Holmes pinched the bridge of his nose and clucked in irritation, but there was no taking back the sudden gasp that had come from both of us at the name.

To my surprise, Inspector Bowes did not look shocked, but moved to the door and shut it slowly, then turned to us solemnly. “I’ve been at the Yard long enough to recognize a Secret Service man when I see one, even one as good as this man Jeeves. Is Witherspoon a particular code name?”

My chest tightened and I shivered, a tingle running down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold. I looked over to Holmes and he nodded; if Jack had been using the name “Witherspoon,” then we would need all the help we could get.

“Inspector Bowes,” I began slowly, “I am afraid we shall need to ask for your absolute silence in this matter.”

The man drew himself up to his full height. “I swear it for king and country,” he said fervently. I could not help but smile a bit, despite the growing fear clouding my thoughts.

Holmes, however, was not amused. “This is not a Saturday matinee, Inspector. We shall not be merrily chasing cloaked men in strange hats, nor shall the cavalry arrive at the last minute. You see, our man Jeeves knew that the story of him posing as a Scotland Yard man would get back to us.”

“And the name ‘Witherspoon’ was a message, just like I suspected,” Bowes whispered, his eyes wide. “What does it mean?”

“It means that his life is in jeopardy,” I muttered, my stomach now twisting uncomfortably.

Holmes rubbed his hands together with grim satisfaction. “It also means that Lord Sidcup’s death is most likely not the haphazard murder of revenge it seems to be; no, Watson, it cannot be a coincidence, not with the events falling so closely together. You see, Inspector, Jeeves was tracking down a known German agent named Sorenson, who has been operating in this area for some time.”

Bowes frowned slightly. “I’m not sure I understand. If he knew he was in enough danger three weeks ago to use that codename –”

“Inspector, Jeeves is well used to danger,” Holmes said sharply. “The codename ‘Witherspoon’ only becomes of concern once he actually disappears. Now, I am not saying that whoever murdered his Lordship is also responsible for the disappearance of a Secret Service man, but I suspect that the two events are related. In any case, I shall need to interview the complete household. Shall we retreat to the warmth again? It is rather cold in here and the doctor and I are no longer young men.”

I had already withdrawn my notebook and started scribbling a few opening case notes, following behind Holmes as he swept out of the room. It was only when I paused to navigate up the darkened staircase that this would be the last time that I would make such an entry.

Holmes stopped upon the stair ahead of me.

“Is there something wrong, Mr. Holmes?” Bowes asked from below.

Holmes turned around, his grey eyes flickering in the light of my lamp. He smiled down at me in silence. Behind us, young Bowes called Holmes’ name, but neither of us paid him mind, as our gaze locked and time stood still.

Between any two people who love one another deeply enough, there is an instinctual bond, a power of communication at the most profound level of consciousness that transcends language and intellect. Using only his eyes, Holmes told me of his love as eloquently as he ever had with mere words; I answered him, proclaiming my deepest devotion with a quirk of my lips and a nod of my head.

“Mr. Holmes? Doctor Watson?”

Holmes looked over my shoulder. “You must forgive a couple of old men a moment of nostalgia, Inspector.” And with a charming flicker of a smile, he turned once more and swept up the stairs.

He stands upon the hearthrug playing his violin, his lithe movements and sonorous melody sweetly torturing me. I sit at my writing-desk and stare out the window, trying to write; although I trained as a doctor, my secret ambition has always been to pen a set of novels set in the days of chivalry, and I have decided to make use of my enforced convalescence to achieve this goal. Of late, however, I find my mind drawn away from my brave knights and their quests, my thoughts drifting instead to my new flatmate.

Like many doctors, I have a healthy appreciation for the human body, and this young man is an excellent specimen, with well-defined muscles upon a lithe frame, his stature proud and his movements graceful. He reminds me of a panther I saw once in the palace of a Rajah, a sleek and glorious creature, with eyes that took everything in with self-assured ennui. I see that same proud look in this lad’s eyes, but not when he looks at me.

The gleam in his eye when he looks at me is not bored, but hungry, and it is this that makes his serenade such pleasurable pain. He has made sure that I saw the green carnation pinned upon the mirror in his room; I have left my edition of Catallus upon the dining-table open to a particularly inspiring passage. I have made no secret of my attraction to him, and he, in turn, has made it clear that he finds me desirable as well. When Sherlock Holmes turns his steely gaze to me, the lurid gleam in his eyes promises me wild nights of wanton abandon, and when he moves his hips in time to his violin playing, I find I have to cross my legs as the taste of salty-musk springs unbidden to my lips.

And yet, every time I initiate a sexual advance, he playfully and good-naturedly rebuffs me, all the while pretending complete ignorance as to the nature of my intentions. I tap at the blank page in front of me, ignoring the fact that he is now less than two feet away, his beautifully rounded bottom deliberately upon display. I take a deep breath and think about the names for different parts of armour. Gauntlet, visor, codpiece –

Damn. I shake myself out of it, and then make the mistake of glancing his way.

As if reading my thoughts, he has turned around. He is looking directly at me as he plays, a tiny smile curving the corner of his mouth. It is not anything above his waist which transfixes me, however; rather the obvious swelling below his belt holds my attention as he sways suggestively in front of me. Codpiece, indeed!

I bite my lip and count to ten. I have done everything possible to act with propriety and honour, but a man can only take so much.

I am sure that in a fair fight he could overpower me almost immediately, but surprise can be a strong advantage, and in the blink of an eye he is helpless upon the hearth rug on his back, and I am astride him with my mouth upon his, forcing his lips open with my tongue as I tear his shirt from his chest.

At my first touch, he becomes strangely compliant, submitting meekly to my every move. As I kiss him, he opens himself to me, lying motionless yet pliant underneath me, and it is not too long before I pull away, touching his cheek lightly.

“Do you wish me to continue?” I ask gently.

He lowers his gaze and bites his lip, nodding silently. I find this sudden vulnerability of his strangely appealing, and yet I know that something is dreadfully wrong; his current affect is so alien to his normal manner, I know I cannot continue without making a few things clear.

I kiss his forehead. “Are you sure this is what you want? Answer me with words.”

“You may have your way with me,” he whispers.

I roll off him and sit up, shaking my head. He also sits up, a puzzled frown clouding his features.

“I said you could –”

“I didn’t ask you if I could take you like a piece of meat,” I snap, and feel immediately guilty as the lad flinches. I reach out my hand. “I don’t want to force you,” I tell him in a soothing voice, “but I should very much like to make love to you.”

Holmes looks at my hand as if it were a loaded gun. “I don’t believe in love,” he says in a quiet voice.

“I see.” I rise sharply to my feet.

“Please – wait,” he calls softly after me, his voice trembling.

I turn around, glaring at him. “Look,” I pant in exasperation, “if you don’t want me, then why have you been teasing me so mercilessly?”

“I do want you, but I don’t – oh, I don’t know!” He throws up his hands in a gesture of sheer frustration. “You see, I’ve had plenty of sex, but never with a fellow whom I had to face the next morning at the breakfast table. I don’t make friends easily, and yet I know already that I find your company more tolerable than that of anyone else I’ve met in a long while. I’m not sure …” he pauses, and shakes his head. “I do not believe in love, doctor. But I do believe in friendship, and I do not wish my sexual desire for you to destroy what I have gained in you as a friend.”

Once more I reach out a hand to him, and this time he takes it, allowing me to pull him to his feet. “It need not spoil anything between us,” I tell him. “In fact, it may strengthen our friendship.”

He frowns deeply, his brow furrowing in confusion. “I do not see how adding a sexual element to our relationship would strengthen it,” he says slowly.

I smile a little and gently cup his chin in my hands. He starts slightly at the contact but allows it, his eyes closing as I draw his mouth to mine. He does not respond to my kiss at first, but as I continue to caress his lips with my own, he melts into the embrace, slowly and shyly wrapping his arms around my waist. I take my time tasting him, and he responds in kind, tentatively at first, his mouth exploring mine with growing enthusiasm.

He groans slightly when I pull away, his eyes fluttering open. “I never knew it could be like that,” he breathes. “I have never been kissed in such a fashion before.”

I express some surprise at this, and he shrugs his shoulders. “I have not been kissed often,” he explains, “and it was always done roughly before.”

“You make it sound as if you’ve been taken against your –” I stop myself, too late. I draw him into a hug, soothing him with murmured reassurances and soft kisses. Slowly, carefully, I lead him to the settee, pulling him down so that he lies atop me, my arms companionably around his waist.

He pushes himself up on his elbows and looks down at me. “Don’t you want to take me to bed?”

I lay a finger across his lips. “Not tonight,” I whisper, stilling his immediate gasp of protest with a kiss upon his nose. I pull him gently down upon my chest, stroking his soft raven hair. “Soon, my darling, but not tonight.”

He shudders. “No one has ever called me –”

“I know.” I kiss him upon the forehead. “And that is why it would be wrong to take advantage of you. You are right; our friendship is far too important to waste on sex. That is why we must wait until you are ready to make love.”

We remain silent for a long time, he with his head upon my breast, me pressing my lips to his brow. When he speaks, his voice is so unlike his own that I barely recognize it as his.

“What does it feel like?” he asks.

“What does what feel like?” I murmur, my lips not moving from his forehead.

“To be in love. What is it like?”

For answer, I draw his mouth to mine. There are no more words, not tonight.

“I don’t like it, Watson,” Holmes muttered, lighting a cigarette. I frowned sharply at him, but he merely raised an eyebrow at me. We had had this particular argument so many times that we no longer needed to express it in words.

I rolled my eyes with a weary sigh, signalling my surrender; after all, his nicotine habit had already cut his life away to just short of seven decades; what could a few hours more or less matter?

I curtailed this line of thought quickly. “So what is it you don’t like?” I asked numbly, watching the smoke curl from the burning end of his cigarette. We had had a long afternoon of interviewing an endless string of wedding guests and staff and had pieced together a coherent, if confusing, picture of the previous week’s events, and now stood together upon a low balcony in the back garden, looking out at the rolling Gloucestershire hills beyond.

“All of this,” he said, waving a long white hand in a petulant gesture that seemed to take in not only the turreted manor house looming behind us but the moonlit landscape as well. “It’s all too complicated. Weddings where the groom changes at the last minute, by-elections where the candidates change every other week, romantic intrigues where the partners change every hour, and plumbing accidents sending rivers of sewage spouting everywhere.”

“And then there’s that Ganymede Club book,” I said, leaning back against the balcony. “For a man who knew he was in danger, Jack was certainly spending a lot of time and effort chasing after a compilation of blueblood rumours.”

“I thought it slightly odd, as well,” Holmes conceded. “But I’ve read the book myself, or at least skimmed it, that time we visited Jack at his club a few years back. It’s filled with inconsequential, if amusing, details of the various peccadilloes of the members’ employers, nothing more.”

“They allowed a non-member to read the book?” I asked.

“Of course not,” Holmes smiled. “Who said anything about being allowed?”

“You could have gotten Jack in trouble,” I said reproachfully.

“Not at all. He was playing billiards with you and some of the other fellows at the time, as I recall. In any case, according to Wooster and the others, Jack was merely performing his usual machinations to keep his young master free of matrimonial entanglements.”

“Strange that Jack didn’t mention he was in danger that night.”

“What night?”

“The night he came to stay with us at the Carleton. The night before Wooster burst in on us, remember?”

“I remember, Watson. Jack was slightly preoccupied with his emotions, if you recall. But in fact he did inform me of his risk, when I talked with him alone.”

“You didn’t tell me!”

“There was nothing you could have done, or I, for that matter. We’re retired, remember?”

“But if Jack was in danger –”

“Pshaw, Watson! The lad was born in danger. If you must know, Jack told me that he’d eliminated two suspects, but picked up two more. Sorenson is proving an elusive one to pin down.”

“But if Jack has disappeared after giving the codename –”

“Doubtless he has found which of his suspects is his man and has dropped out of view to facilitate better surveillance. In the meantime, we shall review your notes of today’s interviews, along with the evidence Bowes’ squad has gathered at the scene, and see if any of it contains a thread which might lead us to see what our son has discovered.”

I shook my head, heaving a weary sigh. I knew better than to argue, but something seemed disastrously wrong. The fact that this man I loved had less than ten weeks to live was a major consideration, of course, but Jack’s disappearance seemed to conform to a pattern that I could almost see, but not quite grasp.

As was his wont, Holmes divined my thoughts, the ghost of a smile curving the corner of his mouth upwards as he lightly touched my wrist in reassurance. “He’ll be fine, John. No doubt as soon as he hears of our presence here, he shall be contacting us to let us know the true identity of his quarry.” His long fingers stroked the inside of my wrist, gliding lightly along the cuff, pressing gently upon the pulse point there. I gazed up at him, thinking once more how beautiful he looked in the moonlight, his grey eyes shining brilliantly in the silver glow playing across his aquiline features. Age had not withered his beauty; rather the passing years had crystallised the graceful angles of his face into an elegant sculpture, the very personification of pure intellect. I was the sole person upon this planet who had ever seen the passion beneath the emotionless veneer, the only man who knew the depths of his heart. When it occurred to me that that heart would soon cease to beat, I felt a desperate wrench in my own breast, and my traitorous eyes welled with sudden tears.

“I am not dead yet,” he murmured, sliding his hand into my own.

“I know, Sherlock, but –”

“I say! there you are!”

We drew apart quickly to see a pert, round-faced girl descending the path toward us. I recognized her as one of the wedding party, but could not place her name immediately.

“Miss Byng, isn’t it?” Holmes asked politely, stepping forward to meet her.

“Stiffy to my friends,” she said with a light smile. “A few of us have gathered in the drawing-room. Uncle Watkyn’s going to say a few words.”

“Indeed, Miss Byng. Thank you for letting us know,” he said, turning away from her with a dismissive wave.

“I think you misunderstood me, Mr. Holmes –”

“Not at all, Miss Byng. I do not, as a rule, socialize during an investigation.”

The girl’s smile widened into a positively crocodilian grin. “You know, Doctor Watson,” she said slowly, “I’ve read all your stories, from the time I was a little girl. In fact, I was quite in love with you, you know. It was ‘The Sign of Four’ that did it, I think.”

Holmes gave a loud, barking laugh. “As charming as I find your attempt to ingratiate yourself by your transparent flattery of the good doctor’s literary efforts, I assure you that I do not wish to come hear Sir Watkyn deliver his friend’s eulogy.”

Miss Byng frowned sharply. “You know, Mr. Holmes, there are three things I always wondered about you.”

Holmes gave her a long-suffering look. “Only three things, Miss Byng?”

The woman drew herself up to her full height. “Firstly, I always wondered exactly how the doctor could stand your company.”

“And secondly?” Holmes growled.

“I’ve always wondered how you two fell in love.”

“How dare you!” I barked, darting forward, but the girl stood her ground, laughing merrily. “What do you mean by this insulting behaviour?” I continued, my face growing red.

“It’s only an insult if you believe it’s wrong, Doctor,” she said. “Frankly, I don’t give a fig if you two love each other or not, but your reaction was interesting indeed. Even this late in the game, you don’t want people to know. Which brings me to the third thing I always wondered about you, Mr. Holmes,” she finished with another reptilian smile.

My stomach twisted and writhed inside me. Forty-six years, I thought. Forty-six years of looking over my shoulder and worrying about discovery, and now to be caught by an impertinent slip of a girl with a pug-nose and an irritating giggle … I gritted my teeth.

“What do you want?” Holmes said in a low voice.

“A simple answer.”

“An answer to what?”

“To my question.”

“I thought you already decided that we were –”

“Not that, Mr. Holmes. To the question I haven’t asked.”

“Then don’t you think,” Holmes sighed, “that you should ask your question?”

“Are you as good a violinist as everyone says you are?”

Holmes and I gaped at the girl in shock. She laughed, chuckling lightly. “I saw your case in Bertie’s roadster, so you can’t refuse me,” she said, turning to walk back to the house. “I’ll see you in the drawing-room in twenty minutes. Cheerio.”

*****

Illustration by Spacefall
 

*****

Chapter Seven