The House at Baker Street (12 page)

‘“How secretive,” he said, watching me very closely.

‘“Not at all,” I replied. “I am merely working on my own recognisances.”

‘“Ah. How charming. How may I be of help?”

‘He lit a cigarette then, a violet one from a gold case very clearly marked with initials that were not his own, and using a lighter with a rather florid inscription from a lover. I am
unsure of which gender. And as he did that, he took the opportunity to look quickly around the park, and in that moment he took in everyone, the strolling soldiers, the nursemaids, the riders in
Rotten Row, the boats on the lake. “Excuse me a moment,” he said, and I saw his attention had been caught by a woman in a carriage, trying to hide her face with a parasol. He took out a
small gold note case and scribbled something whilst watching a carriage go by. “Now,” he continued, as he put the note case away, “tell me what I can do for you, and I will decide
how you can help me in return.”

‘“I need information,” I said. “I need to know the names of any ladies who have disappeared from society with no apparent reason – possibly after their husbands
committed suicide. Or rather, accidentally shot themselves whilst cleaning their guns, or whatever other lie was used to cover up their fates.”

‘I saw no point in being coy. It might while away an afternoon, playing games of allusion and hints, but it wasn’t going to get me what we needed to know.

‘“You’re very direct,” he said, and I think he was surprised. I don’t suppose he’s used to people being that straightforward with him.

‘“I see no point in dissimulation,” I told him.

‘“Quite,” he agreed. He has an odd voice, smooth and silky. You could listen to it for hours, and tell it everything just for the pleasure of hearing him soothe you. And he
chooses his conversation so carefully – he uses exactly the right words with exactly the right intonation. He never strikes a false note.

‘“You wish to know a lot of secrets,” he said. “What can you offer me in return?”

‘“I don’t have much money . . . ” I began to say.

‘“I don’t want money,” he said sharply, and I think I almost insulted him. “I deal in stories, my dear. Tell me a story. A true story.”

‘I could not think what to tell him for a moment. Then I realized I had the perfect story for him.

‘“I know a tale,” I told him. “It concerns a woman who also disappeared from society. I don’t know her real name, but you may. My story may solve another mystery .
. . ”

‘“How intriguing,” he said, and I had his complete attention. I remembered what Billy said – that Langdale Pike doesn’t pass on nearly half the stories he has been
told. He just likes to know everything. He wants to know the secrets of everyone’s soul, but he’s content to keep most of them locked away.

‘So I told him the secret story of the Whitechapel Lady. ‘It was a good story, and I think I told it well. I held him spellbound. But when I spoke the final words, he sat back, and
he was shocked. He knew of her, of course, of the suicide and the accident with the fire, which was very memorable, but he had no idea about the blackmailer. He had no idea she had been driven so
far and had lost so much thanks to this one man. And all just for his satisfaction.

‘“This cannot go on,” he said, and he was very determined. “I will not have the brightest lights of society dimmed for this man’s pleasure.”

‘He told me the name of the Whitechapel Lady and who she had once been. She was once so high in society! You would recognize her name from court circulars. And then, without any more
demands or questions, he gave me a list of women who have disappeared, and asked me to make sure no one else suffered like the Whitechapel Lady. I think, perhaps, he had been rather fond of
her.’

Mary sat down then, and handed me the list. It was long, of about thirty women.

‘These are the women he could think of who have retired from society for no reason, or gone abroad suddenly or just disappeared.’

‘Dead?’ I asked.

Mary blinked. ‘I didn’t think of that. Yes, I suppose some of them must have died. Do you mean . . . ?’

‘Suicide. I mean they killed themselves. At least I think that’s what I mean.’

‘At least seven separated from their husbands despite seeming to be blissfully married up to that point.’ Mary pointed their names out. ‘Five of them, well . . .’

‘Their husbands had inexplicable accidents?’ I asked. Mary nodded.

‘Next, we go to the library,’ I said firmly. ‘We shall research each and every one of these names. In
Debrett’s Peerage
, in old newspapers, every reference source
we can find. There must be a link between them: a family friend, a lawyer, a servant. Someone!’

‘Mr Pike did give me one possible name,’ Mary said. ‘A man with a very bad reputation with women. He is apparently irresistible. He tricks them and uses them and then abandons
them, and yet still they love him. I suppose they think they can save him. I swear, I have problems understanding my own sex sometimes. He did say he is not the kind of man to indulge in this kind
of nasty abuse. Violence is not quite his style; he is, at heart, a coward. Still, he is the kind of man who easily gains power over women, and then abuses it.’

‘“A most convincing rogue”,’ I quoted. ‘How many of these women is he linked to?’

‘So far, Mr Pike knew of five.’

‘That’s not many, in a list of thirty.’

‘There may be more. Besides, it’s a start,’ Mary said, rising.

‘Then we’ll research him too. What’s his name?’

‘Sir George Burnwell.’

‘To the library!’ may not have the same dramatic ring as ‘the game’s afoot!’ but it was far more useful. Mr Holmes employed a Mr Mercer for the
endless slogging work, trawling for information from papers and journals and registries and records. (Not a fact John knew yet. At this time, Mr Holmes liked to maintain his infallible image with
John, especially after his remarks in writing about Mr Holmes’ lack of knowledge of the solar system.) But Mary and I had to do it ourselves, with the occasional help of Billy. Mary haunted
the periodical section of the library, Billy took advantage of Mr Holmes’ absence – he was away a lot at the time, there must have been a very complex investigation going on – to
plunder his cuttings books, and I went through the piles of newspapers that had built up in the attic. Mr Holmes hated to have anything that might one day be useful thrown away – and his
definition of ‘possibly useful’ was very wide-ranging.

By the end of a week, we had two names – or rather, confirmation of one name and a new one. I had found several divorce notices, as well as advertisements for sale of goods ‘to be
applied for via the solicitor’ – a sure sign the seller had left the country quickly. Mary had found several names that simply disappeared from the society pages for no good reason,
notes of at least two court cases quickly abandoned and several wills changed at the very last moment.

The same person had kept popping up in all the gossip columns, court cases, divorce notices, even court circulars. The same man was named in connection with all these women, sometimes as little
as being mentioned as being at the same ball as them, but it was there.

Sir George Burnwell.

The other man was the reporter who covered these stories. Of course, most of the reports were anonymous, just snippets in a gossip column. However, whenever the story was meatier, often it was
the same man who wrote the story. He seemed to take a subtle pleasure in the downfall of these women, and the further they fell, the better. He also seemed to hint that he knew far more than he was
telling. It was a tenuous link, but a link nonetheless. His name was Patrick West. I did not have the first idea how to investigate a reporter, but Billy did. He was anxious to use some of the
skills he was learning from Mr Holmes, so I set him on to the task of discovering all he could about Mr Patrick West – discreetly, of course.

Before I went out, I popped up to Mr Holmes’ rooms to check the street. I did that a lot lately, only if he was out, though. I just looked down the street, one way and the other. As usual,
there was nothing sinister, nothing odd, just busy Baker Street, same as always. But the ditherer was back, the tall blond man standing on the opposite side of the street, still staring at our
windows (and incidentally getting in the way of everyone on the pavement). Billy came in at that moment.

‘There’s a ditherer,’ I said to him. ‘Maybe we should make up his mind for him and just invite him in.’

Billy peered out of the window, and then leaned in closer, staring hard at the man.

‘I know him!’ he said, making sure the lace curtain covered us. ‘I saw him when we were following Mr Shirley – he’s a friend of the Shirleys.’

‘Get him in here,’ I demanded. Billy ran down the stairs, but by the time he got there, the man had gone, marching briskly down the street.

‘Sorry,’ Billy said, coming back in as I walked down the stairs. ‘He’s fast!’

‘You definitely saw him with the Shirleys?’ I asked. Billy nodded.

‘It’s not a coincidence he’s here, is it?’ Billy wondered.

‘I doubt it,’ I told him. ‘Someone directed him; he had the address written down. He may be a victim too. If you see him again, grab him.’

Two hours later, I had left Baker Street to meet Mary. I stood on a street corner in the drizzle, ostensibly staring at dress patterns in a haberdashery shop window but really
checking my reflection to see if the Ordinary Man was behind me. Not that I had much confidence in recognizing him without the distinctive splash of paint on his jacket. I had not seen him since
that day, and I was beginning to tell myself I had imagined the whole affair. Perhaps he, too, was a Baker Street resident who just happened to have business in Whitechapel that day. Perhaps I had
been over-sensitive, my nerves heightened by the Whitechapel Lady’s story. And yet . . . and yet . . . no. When I thought about it, calmly and sensibly, I knew he had been following me. Was
it for some reason of his own, or did Burnwell have his victims watched? Or was it not linked to our investigation at all – was I being followed merely because of my connection to Mr Holmes,
in which case, should I warn him? Questions, questions, questions, but at least I was getting close to answers now.

Mary came round the corner, wearing a dress of primrose yellow, carrying a jaunty umbrella and smiling to herself. She looked bright and lovely and sunny, as if she didn’t have a care in
the world. That impression was misleading. All those stories of despair she had uncovered had hit her hard. She had dreamed of them, she told me. She had dreamed of all those women, all those
families, so happy, so lively, and then that man had appeared and whispered in an ear and it all came crashing down. The dreams had not made Mary fearful or cautious though. Instead she had
announced we would catch him, and stop him, and there was a steely look in her eye when she promised me this. Kind as Mary was, she would nevertheless make an implacable enemy.

She joined me, crying, ‘Proof! That’s what we need,’ as we walked off down the street together. A tall, lovely woman in yellow, and a shorter, plainer one in black. We must
have looked like mother and daughter, instead of the closest of friends. ‘What are you looking at?’ she asked, as I glanced over my shoulder.

‘Sometimes I think we’re being followed,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s my imagination.’

‘Maybe not,’ Mary replied, looking around the street. ‘You notice things more than I do. You observe, as Sherlock says. Followed by whom?’

‘I don’t know. Just an ordinary man,’ I told her. ‘I thought I saw him in Whitechapel, and then in Baker Street.’

‘Are you sure?’ Mary demanded.

‘No, I’m not sure,’ I told her. ‘I’m not used to this, Mary, how can I tell if someone’s following me? I honestly don’t think I could pick his face out
of a crowd if it wasn’t for the stain on his jacket. But it’s probably just my imagination. I was a bit shaken by Whitechapel, and anyway he’s not here now. It doesn’t
matter. So how do we get this proof?’ I asked, as Mary blithely ignored a man trying to make eyes at her, and steered me round a puddle.

‘Well, the man we’re hunting must keep all kinds of letters and souvenirs and so on. I doubt he trusts a bank, or a solicitor.’

‘Why not?’ I asked, as we turned the corner into a quieter street, lined with trees.

‘All it takes is one nosy bank clerk or solicitor’s clerk or burglar, and he’d be undone. Besides, he likes power. I’d lay good odds he likes to gloat over those letters
of an evening. How can he do that if they’re at the bank? No, I reckon Sir George keeps them at home.’

‘“Good odds,”’ I quoted, amused. ‘Has John been taking you to the races again?’

‘I won five pounds last week,’ she said complacently. ‘John, on the other hand, lost ten shillings.’

‘Mary,’ I said, pulling her to a stop. ‘Are we sure about this? Sir George is very rich and very powerful.’

‘Doesn’t mean he’s not a blackmailer,’ Mary insisted. She had that stubborn set to her chin again.

‘But he’s very well known. The Whitechapel Lady said her blackmailer was an ordinary man, a man with an alias . . .’

‘Then Sir George hired an agent! It’s not hard to do, find an ordinary-looking man, and tell him to go and whisper certain phrases in a lady’s ear. I should imagine he’s
very well paid . . . or he too has a secret that Sir George holds over him!’ Mary said quickly. A heavily moustached man tutted at our blocking the path, and Mary pulled me out of the way, so
we could stand against a bookshop window. The earlier grey drizzle had cleared, and now the damp street sparkled in the sunlight. Even this usually quiet road was full of people, sober-faced men in
dark suits, laughing girls in colourful dresses, errand boys dashing between the crowds, flower girls offering their bright violets. It was such a lovely, perfect London street in the spring
sunshine.

‘I have seen his name everywhere,’ Mary urged. ‘His name appears over and over in the divorce court records. I’ve even seen it in records of the criminal court. Never the
accused, but always there in the background, always just where a good man would not be, always with a faint patina of villainy on him. I have found his name over and over again. I do believe it is
him: Sir George Burnwell is our man.’