A Study in Sherlock

THE ADVENTURE OF THE CONCERT PIANIST Margaret Maron

The bell rang at two o’clock precisely that early April afternoon and when my maid showed him into the parlour, my caller was, as I expected, Dr Watson. Although heavy mourning had somewhat gone out of style for men, he still wore a band of black velvet on the sleeve of his brown tweed jacket, which indicated to me that his grief for Mrs Watson had not fully abated despite the months that had passed.

“So good of you to come,” I said.

“Not at all, Mrs Hudson.” He handed Alice his hat and stick. “Indeed, I should have called upon you sooner. Your kind expression of sympathy upon my Mary’s passing touched me immensely, and I—” He broke off and looked around the parlour with undisguised pleasure.

“So many changes in my life and yet nothing has changed here.”

I smiled and did not correct him. Whilst he lodged here before his marriage, Dr Watson had taken tea with me several times. Mr Holmes had joined us here but once before his tragic end, yet I daresay he would have immediately noticed my new curtains. In most respects, a very noticing man, Mr Holmes.

Tea had been laid in anticipation of the visit, and when my guest was seated in the chair on the other side of the low table, I poured steaming cups for both of us and passed the scones, still warm from the oven.

“I suppose you have let his rooms to a new lodger?”

“Not as yet,” I replied, offering him gooseberry jam.

“After all this time?” He was clearly surprised. “You have left your best rooms vacant for nearly three years?”

I nodded.

“Forgive my presumption, Mrs Hudson, but does this not represent a financial hardship?”

“Perhaps not as much as you may think, Doctor. Mr Holmes had paid through the end of his year before he left London. Moreover, after your marriage, he insisted on raising that rent to compensate for the damages.”

“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 manuscript and she returns it within the month. She’s quick and accurate and quite reasonable. She even inserts his scribbled notations neatly. William makes such a mess of his practice scores that he likes to have a fresh set for his performances.”

Dr Watson seemed surprised. “He doesn’t play from memory?”

She smiled. “Of course he does, but he doesn’t trust himself. Once he became so tangled in a Liszt concerto that he vowed never again to play in public without a score in front of him. I turn the pages for him and half the time he forgets to signal me to turn. If I did not follow carefully, he would be two pages ahead of me.”

Dr Watson may have been interested in this musical digression, but I was not. “Please come to the point, Elizabeth,” I said impatiently.

She sighed and complied.

Soon after settling into their lodgings, Mr Breckenridge had played at a reception for Lord P———.

“It is our custom to eat a light meal before a performance,” Elizabeth said. “Nothing more than bread and butter and some consommé. Just the two of us alone so that William can approach the music in a serene state of mind. Afterwards, we have a late supper with some of the other musicians or with the patron who sponsored the concert.

“That evening, all was as usual, yet by the end of it, I found myself light-headed and short of breath. I ascribed it to our change of air and thought little of it, especially as I felt fine the next day. Two nights later, it happened again, and again I was better for the rest of the week. The pattern has continued. I am quite well until I share a light meal with him before he plays, then I become increasingly ill until I can barely get through a performance. Three nights ago, I could not rise from my chair and had to be helped from the stage. It was so bad I had to miss the last two performances. Only today was I well enough to seek Mr Holmes’s help. Now you tell me I have come in vain.”

She sank back on the sofa, defeated.

“Not necessarily, my dear,” said Dr Watson. “I may lack his quick intelligence, but I learned much from close observation of his methods.”

“And I have read all your published accounts of his remarkable deductions,” I said. (I would not be so bold as to tell him that in one or two of those accounts Mr Holmes seemed to go around his elbow to reach his thumb whereas a woman would have gone directly across the palm, so to speak.) “Perhaps together we may help. Where do you take those light meals? Who prepares the food? Who serves it?”

We soon had a full account from her. Her maid brought up a tray to their rooms. As a rule, the tray held a small tureen of clear broth, a half loaf of bread and butter, and a pot of tea.

“Who serves?” asked Dr Watson as he made notes on a small pad he had taken from his pocket.

“I do,” Elizabeth told him. “I dismiss the maid and ladle the soup from the tureen into identical bowls. I also cut and butter our bread. My husband pours the tea, then adds one lump of sugar to each cup, and a few drops of milk.” She paused before continuing with a bitter look of shame. “It pains me to admit that when I asked him to fetch a handkerchief from our bedroom three nights ago, I switched our cups in case he should have slipped something into the tea without my seeing even though I had watched his every movement. That night, as I’ve told you, I was as sick as ever I have been. It was a long programme and I almost collapsed before it was finished.”

Dr Watson looked up from his notes. “Your maid?”

“Maria was born in my grandparents’ house. If she wishes me harm, why wait until we are in London? As for the manservant, Giorgio did resent me when William and I first married. A wife does bring change, does she not?”

“Indeed,” Dr Watson murmured, and I felt he was remembering the changes his own marriage had wrought.

“He has since forgiven me, though, because he and Maria are to wed when we return to Venice. Nevertheless, my first suspicions fell there, yet how could either of them poison a tureen of soup, a loaf of bread, or a pot of tea without poisoning both of us? No, it has to be William. There’s no one else. But how? And why?”

“Is there another woman?” I asked.

“No, Aunt. At least I don’t think so. He’s very handsome and many women have thrown themselves at him whether or not I am there, but I can honestly say he doesn’t seem to notice. His family tell me that he was quite homely as a boy—all arms and gangly legs and interested only in his music. He still thinks of himself that way.” A blush brought colour to her pale face. “I am the first woman to break through his reserve.”

“Would he benefit by your death?” asked the doctor.

With a smile for me, Elizabeth shook her head. “As Aunt will tell you, sir, my father married for love, not money; and what money he did leave disappeared into her second marriage.”

“When is your husband’s next performance?”

“Tonight. We will sup together as usual and I will be there to assist him as long as I am able. It’s a shorter programme than last time, so perhaps I can manage.” She reached for her handbag. “I brought two passes. I hoped that you and Mr Holmes might agree to come and we could act as if the meeting were an accident.”

“An excellent idea,” I said briskly, plucking the tickets from her hand. I gave one to Dr Watson and retained the other for myself. “Even better would be if I joined you for your early meal.”

She started to protest but I held up my hand to stop her. “While he may prefer to sup alone with you, I am your aunt whom you have not seen in years. We can go back to your lodgings together as if the accidental meeting occurred this afternoon.”

“I have told William about you,” she said slowly, “and we did plan to call on you during our stay here.”

“Excellent,” said Dr Watson. “Having met accidentally, it would be only natural that your aunt should wish to meet your husband immediately. I do not see how he can object and I doubt he will attempt anything with two pairs of eyes watching.”

He questioned Elizabeth a second time about her exact symptoms, then asked if he might borrow the key to Mr Holmes’s rooms. “I should like to consult his notes on poisons.”

I handed it over most willingly.

At about six o’clock that very day, my niece and I arrived at a large and attractive house near the West End that had once been a nobleman’s private residence. We entered to the sound of piano music and Elizabeth led me straight through the hall into a spacious room furnished with two pianos, a harpsichord, several music stands, and many small gilt chairs. Three of the chairs stood near the grand piano. A stout gentleman of middle age sat next to a younger woman. Their dress indicated wealth and taste. A second woman in a modest skirt and jacket with lilacs pinned to the collar of her shirtwaist occupied the chair slightly behind and to the left of the man who was playing so beautifully.

Upon seeing us enter, she rose and hastily gathered up the loose sheets of music on the piano.

Surprised, the pianist followed her eyes, then sprang to his feet. “Elizabeth! I was beginning to fear something had happened to you. You’re not well enough to go out alone.”

“Something has happened, William,” she said. “This is my aunt whom I told you of, Mrs Hudson. We met in one of the shops and I insisted she come meet you at once.”

“Splendid!”

Mr Breckenridge appeared to be eight or ten years older than Elizabeth. I was prepared for his handsome features, his height, and his long fingers; I was not prepared for the warmth of his smile and the genuine pleasure he seemed to take in meeting me, nor the pride with which he introduced my niece to the others.

“Sir Anthony Stockton, Lady Anne, allow me to present my wife and her aunt Mrs Hudson. Elizabeth, Sir Anthony wishes to commission a work to celebrate their wedding anniversary.”

Although Sir Anthony said all the proper things, I noted that Lady Anne boldly looked my niece up and down and murmured, “Delighted, Mrs Breckenridge. You are a very lucky woman to have such a … talented husband.”

Her smile gave a double meaning to the word talented, but the men seemed not to notice.

Elizabeth then introduced me to Mrs Sarah Manning, the copyist that she had so praised earlier. A soft-spoken woman of some thirty years, her manner was respectful and self-effacing. I later learned that she was the widow of a well-regarded piano teacher who now earned her living by turning drafts of manuscripts into finished scores and by providing fresh copies whenever needed. Lady Anne had been Mr Manning’s student and the friendship had continued after his death.

As the Stocktons took their leave of Mr Breckenridge and he walked them to the door, Mrs Manning asked my niece, “Will you feel well enough to assist tonight?”

“I’m quite recovered now,” Elizabeth said. “Thank you for taking my place these past two nights on such short notice.” She gestured toward a portfolio that lay upon the piano. “Is that tonight’s score?”

Mrs Manning nodded. “But Mr Breckenridge wanted me to make some small changes, so I’ll bring it to the theatre.”

Then she, too, took her leave and I went upstairs with Elizabeth and her husband. He seemed in exceptionally high spirits and soon explained the reason. “On our trip over, I suddenly realised that the coda of a new piece I’ve been working on captured the wrong mood and it has worried me immensely. This morning I finally saw what was needed.”

“Is that what you were playing when we came in?” Elizabeth asked.

He frowned and did not answer.

“And why did Mrs Manning gather up the sheets and put them in her portfolio as if she did not wish me to see them?”

My new nephew, who had asked me to call him by his Christian name, turned to me as if to an old confidant and said, “Was she always this curious as a child, Aunt Hudson?”

I smiled and said nothing.

“Elizabeth has told me so much of her happy childhood in Scotland that I accepted an invitation to play in Edinburgh this summer.”

“It will mark my first visit there since Father died,” she said to me. “But, William, what has that to do with Mrs Manning’s odd behaviour?”

“It’s a Scottish rhapsody for you, my dearest. I planned to play it on our first evening there as your birthday surprise. Unfortunately, Lady Anne saw the draft I had left with Mrs Manning and immediately wanted it. It seems that Sir Anthony’s fortune was built on Scottish wool and she thought it would be perfect for their grand anniversary celebration. They prevailed upon Mrs Manning to arrange today’s meeting and begged me to play it for them. He offered me quite a handsome sum, but of course I refused.”

“Oh, William!” said my niece, her face aglow with happiness.

Shortly thereafter, her maid entered, bearing a tray that held a light meal for the three of us. After his earlier display of affection, I could not bring myself to believe that William Breckenridge would do anything to hurt her. Indeed, he told me of his concern for her health and made her promise she would consult a doctor should her dizziness return. Nevertheless, I watched his every movement but Elizabeth managed it so that his hands never came near her food or drink.

A carriage had been provided by the theatre management and upon our arrival, I saw Elizabeth draw from her pocket a small lozenge and discreetly put it in her mouth. Before we parted in the vestibule of the theatre, I managed to question her privately about it.

“When I first began to accompany singers back at La Fenice, my grandfather warned me to take extra care that my breath would never offend. As a result, I always take a piece of peppermint before a performance.”

The odour of mint was quite distinct as I bent my ear to her lips. “Could that—?”

“No, dear Aunt, I threw away the drops I brought with me from Italy and purchased fresh ones here which I keep very close. They are much stronger than I prefer but they serve their purpose.”

When I slipped into my seat beside Dr Watson, I told him all that I had seen and observed. “Did you learn anything in your search of Mr Holmes’s notes?”

“Indeed I did. From her symptoms—giddiness, headaches, and difficulty in breathing—I suspected cyanide poisoning and Holmes’s notebook entries confirm it. Whatever the source, your niece must be ingesting very tiny amounts. A large dose would kill her instantly and would be quickly detected. It may be that the poisoner wishes to make it appear a natural illness.”

As the lights went down, I drew his attention to a box overlooking the stage. “Sir Anthony and Lady Anne,” I whispered. “I fear she has designs on Elizabeth’s husband.”

The first half of the program was devoted to a Beethoven string quartet. We remained in our seats during the interval and watched while Mrs Manning, in a charming yellow gown with a bouquet of primroses at her bosom, raised the piano lid, adjusted the bench, and placed sheets of music on the rack. A few minutes later, I saw her enter Sir Anthony’s box and take a seat beside Lady Anne. According to the programme, the evening was to end with Schubert’s “Trout” quintet.

I’m sure it was delightful. Certainly the audience applauded enthusiastically, as did Dr Watson, but all my attention was for Elizabeth, who sat in a straight chair behind and to the left of her husband and followed the notes on the pages before him. At regular intervals, she rose unobtrusively and, using her left hand so as not to obstruct his sight, she quickly turned a page, then sat down again.

Halfway through the music, I touched Dr Watson’s sleeve and whispered, “Watch my niece.”

A moment later, his eyes widened and I heard an almost inaudible “By Jove!”

It seemed to both of us that she grew steadily weaker through the playing of the concerto and after turning the last page, she quitted the stage with unsteady steps. As soon as the lights came up again, we hurried to the dressing room where we found Elizabeth lying back in a chair, her eyes closed and her mouth open as she laboured to breathe. Mr Breckenridge knelt beside her with a cold cloth in one hand and a glass of water in the other. Distraught, he looked up at me and said, “She’s had another attack.”

I quickly introduced Dr Watson, who took her pulse and said, “Can you hear me, Miss Elizabeth?”

She nodded weakly.

“Do you feel as if ice water is running through your veins?”

Her eyes flew open. “Yes! And my chest! It feels as if it’s bound by iron bands.”

“She needs fresh air,” Dr Watson said. “Now.”

My nephew gathered her up in his strong arms and strode down the hall through an outer door into an enclosed courtyard with a stone bench. He held her until her breathing slowed to normal and she could sit unaided.

William seemed more worried than ever and asked if Dr Watson could diagnose Elizabeth’s illness.

Before he could answer, Sir Anthony, followed by Lady Anne and Mrs Manning, pushed through the small group of musicians and their friends who had gathered in concern. “I know an excellent doctor in Harley Street, Breckenridge. Allow me to send for him.”

Elizabeth tried to protest, but even Dr Watson urged her to submit to a thorough examination. It was agreed that he would come to their rooms next morning and join Sir Anthony’s doctor for a consultation.

With the immediate crisis past, we went back inside and talk turned to the mundane. William was warmly complimented on his performance and Dr Watson asked if he might borrow the score that Mrs Manning had collected from the piano rack. “I am no musician but there’s a passage in the first movement that I should like to examine, if I may.”

“Let me give you a fresh copy, sir,” said Mrs Manning, who started to open a leather portfolio.

“No need,” he assured her.

Despite her protests, he insisted. “This one will do nicely for my purpose. I’ll return it when I come tomorrow morning.”

Carriages were called for and Dr Watson escorted me back to Baker Street, where he retired to Mr Holmes’s old rooms. I had the maid put fresh linens on one of the beds and sent up a supper tray. It was almost like old times.

Next morning, I was up and out at daybreak, yet I managed to be seated by my niece’s side when Dr Watson and Sir Ernest Fowler, the noted physician, arrived at ten o’clock.

After a thorough examination, the two left the bedroom to confer.

“What is it?” William asked anxiously when they returned.

“Will she recover?”

“Thanks to Dr Watson,” Sir Ernest said. “Mrs Breckenridge, I’m told you suspect someone is trying to poison you?”

William looked thunderstruck when she nodded. “Poison?”

“Without Dr Watson’s help, sir, your wife would surely have died by the end of the month.”

“But how?” she cried.

“And who?” William demanded. “Why?”

“The how and the who I can tell you,” said Dr Watson. “The why will have to come from the poisoner’s own lips.”

He drew the Schubert score from his bag, along with a small glass vial. The score was sadly the worse for wear. The upper corners had been clipped off.

“Last night, I soaked the corners in water, then added iron sulfate to the fusion.” He held the glass vial up to the light. The liquid inside was a rich, dark blue. “Prussian blue,” he said.

“A positive test for cyanide,” Sir Ernest said approvingly. “Well done, Dr Watson!”

Elizabeth and William both seemed stunned. “Cyanide on the corners of the music?”

“You did not become ill from any food you ate,” Dr Watson told her. “It came from the music, carried to your mouth on your own fingers. Each time you rose to turn a page for your husband, I observed that you touched your thumb and index finger to your tongue to moisten your fingers. The corners of the score had been painted with a thin film of cyanide. The bitterness you might have noticed was masked by the strong peppermint drops you habitually use before and during a concert.”

“Mrs Manning!” William exclaimed. “Why?”

“That is something you can ask her yourself when the police have arrested her,” said Dr Watson.

“She will not be there,” I said quietly. “She has fled the country.”

My niece was bewildered. “Aunt?”

“I did not think you and William would welcome the scandal of an arrest and a sensational trial, so I went to Mrs Manning this morning and found her just as she was leaving for Victoria Station. When Dr Watson insisted on taking the Schubert score, she realised that all was over and she sails for Canada this very evening,” I said. “Mrs Manning confessed to me that she was much attracted to you when you first met her, William. You were kind to her and she felt the attraction was mutual. When you returned with a bride, she thought that if Elizabeth should sicken and die, you might turn your attention to her.”

“Never!” he said sturdily.

“She realises now the hopelessness of that dream,” I told them, “and she begged me to beseech your forgiveness.”

The April day was unusually mild and after leaving my niece in the arms of her husband, Dr Watson and I decided to walk a few blocks before hailing a cab. He expostulated on my impulsive act, but I would not admit that I had been wrong to allow Mrs Manning to flee. Scandal had been averted, William’s reputation would continue to grow, and Elizabeth was no longer in danger. What was to be gained by prosecuting that unhappy woman?

As we crossed the street to a cab stand near Piccadilly Circus, a newsboy was shouting the latest headlines of a mysterious death in Park Lane. After an evening of cards at the Bagatelle Club, a young nobleman had been shot dead inside a locked room.

“The very sort of puzzle that would have intrigued Holmes,” Dr Watson sighed wistfully as he handed me into the hackney.

With a heart that was equally sad, I reminded him of his promise to speak to Mr Mycroft Holmes and he agreed to go that very day.

We parted at my doorstep and I fumbled in my handbag for my house key while a thousand bittersweet memories whirled through my head as I admitted to myself the true reason I had gone to warn Mrs Manning. I had seen the flash in her eye when Lady Anne spoke so boldly to Elizabeth and I had felt a certain kinship. As a young widow, I too had once yearned for what I could not attain.

For what now could never be attained.

Alice met me in the vestibule. “A rather strange old gentleman has been waiting ever so long to see you,” she whispered.

Through the open doorway, I saw an elderly deformed man with a curved back and old-fashioned white side-whiskers. Upon seeing me, he rose to his feet with unexpected ease, straightened his back, and gave a familiar smile.

And then I fainted.

Margaret Maron is the author of twenty-seven novels and two collections of short stories. Winner of several major American awards for mysteries, she has received the North Carolina Award for Literature, her native state’s highest civilian honor. Her works are on the reading lists of various courses in contemporary Southern literature and have been translated into seventeen languages. She has served as national president of Sisters in Crime, the American Crime Writers League, and Mystery Writers of America. She lives with her husband on their century farm near Raleigh, North Carolina. Her brother received a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories one Christmas, but she was the one who read it cover to cover. Despite her upbringing as a daughter of the colloquial South, Maron was captivated by the formal language of nineteenth-century London.

Dr. Watson provides an account of the events that occurred shortly after Mrs. Hudson’s fainting spell in “The Empty House,” published in the Strand (1903) and collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes.