Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 151, Nos. 1 & 2. Whole Nos. 916 & 917, January/February 2018

The Noble Bachelor by Terence Faherty

EDITOR’S NOTE

When notebooks of Dr. John H. Watson were discovered, containing first drafts of the earliest of his immortal short stories, one of the volumes was found to be water damaged. The material in this notebook was unreadable, and it was feared it would remain so. However, using imaging techniques developed to recover a treatise of Aristotle’s that had been overlaid by a medieval religious text, the pages have been deciphered. As a result, “The Noble Bachelor” can now be presented to the public. It shares with the earlier first drafts in this series a certain informality with respect to Sherlock Holmes’s speech and behavior, one source of a heated debate regarding the notebooks’ authenticity. There is also a reference to Holmes’s musical tastes that is certain to spark further controversy. (As before, Watson’s notes and asides to himself are inserted in the text in parentheses.)

Most of Terence Faherty’s recent contributions to EQMM have been Sherlock Holmes parodies such as this one, which we present in celebration of the annual Twelfth Night banquet of the world’s oldest Sherlockian organization, the Baker Street Irregulars. The Shamus award-winning author’s most recent novel is Play a Cold Hand (Perfect Crime Books), an entry in his long-running Scott Elliott private-eye series. Many of the World War Two-generation detective’s short-story cases first appeared in EQMM.

The scandal surrounding Lord Strachan’s brief but eventful marriage has faded from the public’s equally brief memory, but not from my own, as it occurred only weeks before the black (bright) day of my own nuptials. I was still rooming with Sherlock Holmes in Baker Street, and it was to those hallowed rooms that he returned one afternoon following his usual round of the pubs (constitutional? postprandial stroll?). I’d stayed indoors, for the threat of rain had stirred my old Afghan wounds, received when a jezail bullet had found me while I was taking private yoga instruction from a young native woman in my tent, the bullet passing through my leg and lodging in my shoulder due to the advanced position we (I) had achieved. (Strike this; Mary is sure to misconstrue.)

“You’ve gotten a letter from a toff,” I remarked and handed him an envelope of the finest quality. “A pleasant change from your usual correspondence.”

“If the letter isn’t ‘postage due,’ it’s a pleasant change from my usual correspondence,” Holmes replied with a weary smile. “Even so, if this is a wedding invitation, it goes straight onto the fire. I’ve bought my last silver fish slice.”

He broke the heavy wax seal, glanced over the enclosure, and whistled.

“Not a wedding invitation?” I asked.

“Not exactly.”

“But from a prospective client?”

“One with blood that’s bluer than Ellen Terry’s eyes.”

“Congratulations!”

“I promise you, Watson, that a client’s social weight is of far less importance to me than the heft of his pocketbook. Give me a well-heeled baker over an impecunious baron any day. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It is a capital mistake to judge a client’s wherewithal before you’ve made discreet inquiries at his bank.

“And speaking of discreet inquiries, have you come across any mention in the press of my correspondent, Lord Strachan, and his recent wedding?”

“Yes, several stories.”

“Excellent. You can read me some of the choicer bits, in chronological order. While you’re sorting through the discard pile, I’ll just look up the gentleman.” He extracted his Court Register from our groaning bookcase. “Here’s the very chap. ‘Philip St. John Basil Strachan, eldest son of the Duke of Navin. Born in 1846.’ No spring chicken, he. ‘Assistant to the Governor General of Canada 1880 to 1883.’ That’s odd. The Governor General usually serves for five years. One assumes his assistant would as well. Hmmm. Plantagenet blood on both his father’s side and his mother’s. I’m not sure that was wise.

“How are you doing with the newspapers?”

“Ready when you are, Holmes.”

“Fire away.”

“This first item is from the Morning Intelligencer of some weeks ago. We really have to speak to Mrs. Hudson about shoveling us out more regularly.”

“Data, Doctor.”

I cleared my throat. “ ‘A marriage will shortly take place between Lord Philip Strachan, eldest son of the Duke of Navin, and Miss Kitty Devlin, only daughter of Fergus Devlin, Esq., of Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.’ ”

“Succinct,” Holmes said. “Too much so.”

“Here’s another piece from a later society page that’s chattier. ‘Lord Philip Strachan, perhaps the most confirmed of our confirmed bachelors, has decided to tie the knot. Lord Strachan, whose father, the Duke of Navin, has been quietly selling off the family plate and paintings—’ ”

“Oh me,” Holmes groaned.

“ ‘—has caught himself an heiress. Kitty Devlin is the only child of Fergus Devlin, one of the silver kings of the American West, and is herself a third owner of the Devlin-Morris Mine, rumored to rival the fabulous Comstock Lode.’ ”

“That’s more like it,” Holmes said. “Carry on.”

“Those are the only mentions I could find from before the actual ceremony and the bride’s subsequent disappearance.”

“Her subsequent what?”

“Disappearance. Shortly after the ceremony, she oozed off, took it on a creep, caught a breeze, pulled a vanishing act—”

“I’m with you,” Holmes said with some asperity. “You might have mentioned that sooner.”

“I thought you’d surely heard of it.”

“No, I’ve been busy on a case. Laid something of an egg with it too. A family over in Grosvenor Square had its house completely cleaned out while they were visiting friends in the country. Everything gone but the wallpaper. I postulated a gang of international furniture and bric-a-brac thieves, led by the Napoleon of furniture and bric-a-brac thieves. Turned out a moving van had simply come to the wrong address. So, how shortly after the ceremony did the bride catch her breeze?”

“It was during the wedding breakfast.”

“That may be a new record.”

“It’s all here in the next piece, which is entitled ‘Pop Goes the Heiress.’ ‘The friends and family of Lord Strachan are greatly concerned over the mysterious disappearance of the newly minted Lady Strachan. Following a quiet wedding ceremony at St. George’s, Hanover Square, the party had proceeded to the house of Fergus Devlin, at Lucas Gate, for breakfast. The peace of the morning was disturbed by a mysterious woman, one Fannie Moreau, who forced her way into the house and had to be removed by the butler and a footman.’ ”

“A butler and a footman to eject one woman? They’re not building domestics like they used to, Watson.”

“ ‘Shortly afterward, the bride, pleading an indisposition, retired to her room. When her father went to check on her some time later, he found her room empty. Subsequent inquiries by the family and the police have produced no word of the missing peeress.’ ”

“Well,” Holmes said, “that certainly explains this letter.”

He retrieved a single sheet he had earlier taken from the sealed envelope and read its message aloud.

“ ‘I wish to consult you in reference to a painful event subsequent to my wedding of yesterday. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard recommended this action and assured me of your discretion. I will call at four, time being of the essence.’ It is signed, ‘Lord Strachan.’

“Lestrade will want his standard cut, but it will be worth it if this business turns out to be a back door to a silver mine. Ah, I think I hear a delicate tread upon our steps.”

“Lord Strachan,” our bootblack (make him a page) announced, after kicking our door open in his usual abrupt manner.

The gentleman who followed that cue had a pleasant if somewhat vacuous face, pale and long in the true Plantagenet pattern. His attire was exact and perhaps even overexact: a mirror-bright silk hat, a black frock coat, pearl-gray waistcoat and trousers, and gloves and gaiters of an identical buttercream. He entered the room in the manner of a billiard ball, approaching and recoiling from several pieces of furniture before coming to rest before Holmes.

“Nice of you to receive me, what, what?” he said nervously. At the same time, he twirled a pair of gold eyeglasses by their black ribbon, occasionally hitting himself on the chin.

“Not at all, Lord Philip,” Holmes said airily. “That basket chair is very comfortable.”

The peer sat down, though it was plain that he was used to furniture less inclined to squeak.

“It’s Lord Strachan, by the way,” he said. “Not Lord Philip. I have the honor to be the eldest son of a duke, what?”

“You carry your years remarkably well,” Holmes assured him.

“I wasn’t calling attention to my age. I was describing the proper mode of address. Never mind. One must make allowances, what? I don’t suppose you’ve ever had a client of my rank.”

“I dunno,” Holmes replied. “I was recently of some small service to a northern king.”

Lord Strachan was visibly impressed. “Northern, eh? Scandinavia, per chance?”

“Closer to Manchester. The gentleman styled himself the Cotton King of Oldham.”

The basket chair emitted a sound like a chorus of mice attempting Handel’s Messiah. “You’re making sport of me, what?”

“Merely trying to put you at your ease, Lord Phil. I’ve acquainted myself with that portion of your story that is known to the public. Now perhaps you’ll favor us with the rest.”

“Very well. I met my wife during a tour of the western United States. Her father is, as you’ve doubtless read, a former prospector who is now a wealthy mine owner. I found Kitty to be a breath of fresh air, to coin a phrase. She was raised in a series of ‘roaring camps’ and is unlike any woman I’ve ever met, though inclined to be headstrong.

“Her father brought her to London last season, and she consented to be my wife. She is my wife, though sadly misplaced.”

“Brought a big dowry, did she?”

“She owns a third of her father’s mine. He and his late partner made her the gift on a whim, but it’s perfectly legal.”

“How was she during the run-up to the big event?”

“In high spirits.”

“No nerves that morning?”

“None whatsoever. Not until we were leaving St. George’s.”

“What happened then?”

“The merest trifle. She dropped her bouquet on our way out. A gentleman handed it back to her.”

“A gentleman? He wasn’t known to you?”

“No. Of those in attendance, I knew only Mr. Devlin, my mother, and a select group of our friends. The church was open to all, however, and the ceremony had attracted a few lookers-on.”

“Can you describe the gentleman?”

“I only noticed that he was short. When he handed back the flowers, his eyes were on the same level as my wife’s. Kitty seemed much put out by the incident. Perhaps it’s bad luck in America, what? Dropping one’s rosebuds, I mean.”

“Gathering one’s rosebuds can be risky as well, Lord P.,” Holmes observed. “Tell us about Fannie Moreau, the woman who disturbed the wedding breakfast.”

The mice inhabiting Lord Strachan’s chair now seemed to be trying out the “Dies Irae” from Verdi’s Requiem.

“As you’ve surmised, she is a lady from my past. I knew her quite well when I resided in Ottawa, Canada, some years ago, while in the service of the Crown. And by ‘Crown,’ I’m not referring to any textile manufacturers either. Fannie has no hold on me, though that did not keep her from hounding me back here to England. But her behavior on my wedding day reached new heights. She literally forced her way into Mr. Devlin’s house after the ceremony.”

“Did she gain an audience with you or your wife?”

“No. We never set eyes on her, though I believe she was able to speak to my wife’s maid.”

“Did the maid subsequently speak to her mistress?”

“Only very briefly. Lady Strachan used the expression ‘jumping a claim’ in the exchange, whatever that means. Slang is a weakness of hers. Inspector Lestrade thinks Fannie lured my wife away. Certainly, it was shortly after the incident that Kitty disappeared.”

“Do you think Miss Moreau is involved?”

“I do not. I think it far more likely that Kitty has suffered some kind of mental aberration. How else can one explain her passing up, well, me?”

He made a gesture with his golden glasses that took himself in from wing collar to yellow gaiters.

“How indeed?” Holmes echoed with a wink toward me. “That is just one of the mysteries before us. I’ll be in touch.”

Our noble client caromed out, and Holmes sent Boots (the page) to fetch a pitcher of beer, which he called “suds,” in honor of the missing American lady with the penchant for slang.

After he’d blown the titular foam from his first glass, he asked, “Any light from your end of the tunnel, Watson?”

“Quite a bit. I believe I can explain the whole business.”

“No fooling? Lay on, Macduff.”

“It’s quite simple, really. The stranger in the church is some man from Lady Strachan’s past. A sweetheart, say, or fiancé. Perhaps even a husband from a secret marriage. He chose the eleventh hour to reappear in the poor woman’s life, throwing all into confusion. By the time she had returned to her father’s house, the lady had decided that this stranger had a stronger claim on her than Strachan. That is surely why she used the ‘jumping a claim’ expression. I believe it figuratively means to take something to which someone else has a prior claim, in this case, her hand.”

“An interesting hypothesis, Watson, as far as it goes.”

“It goes all the way to a complete solution!”

“Does it? Here are some of the questions it fails to answer. One: Why did this stranger with a stronger claim to Kitty Devlin’s hand stand by like a dummy while she married another? I believe there’s a spot in the marriage ceremony specifically designed for speaking now or forever holding one’s peace. Two: Why, most particularly, would he keep silent if he were the woman’s secret husband? He would be exposing her to a charge of bigamy by allowing her to marry another man. Three: Why didn’t Mr. Devlin recognize so important a figure from his daughter’s past? And if the father did recognize him, why didn’t he raise the alarm? He had two excellent opportunities to do so: at the church and later when the police were called in. Four: Why didn’t Miss Moreau accost the couple at the church, when there was still time to affect the outcome, instead of waiting until the wedding breakfast? Five—”

“Enough!” I cried.

“One point more, Doctor, a subtle one but suggestive. If a physician or a plumber speaks of ‘jumping a claim,’ it is not unreasonable to assume he’s doing so metaphorically. But when a prospector — or in this case a prospector’s daughter — uses the phrase, the smart money must surely be on a literal rather than a figurative interpretation.”

Before I could ask Holmes to elaborate, the door to our room burst open and Inspector Lestrade strode in. He presented a striking contrast to our earlier, natty visitor, as he wore a pea jacket and corduroy trousers, baggy at the knees.

“Going to sea?” Holmes asked. At the same time, he extended an invitation by nodding toward the pitcher of beer.

Lestrade helped himself to a glass. “At sea already,” he replied ruefully. “It’s this Strachan marriage business. I can’t seem to find my feet.”

“So you’ve decided to swim around instead?” Holmes patted the arm of the professional’s jacket. “You’re even wetter than usual.”

“So would you be, if you’d been dragging a lake all day. There’s one in the park across the street from Fergus Devlin’s house. It’s my theory that the Moreau woman lured Lady Strachan to that park and that lake and drowned her.”

“What gave you that brainstorm, Inspector?”

“This, Mr. Holmes.” Lestrade produced his card case and removed from it a damp square of paper. “It was found floating in the lake yesterday afternoon by one of my men. It bears a scribbled note which reads, ‘Come at once.’ And it’s signed with Fannie Moreau’s initials.”

“They’re also the first and last initials of F.D. Maurice, the famous theologian,” Holmes observed.

“And of Franz Mesmer, the hypnotist,” I added.

“Good one, Watson. Also Frederic Myers, the philosopher.” Noting the policeman’s blackening brow, Holmes mumbled, “Just saying.”

“I would have Miss Moreau in the clink right now,” Lestrade continued, “but she has an alibi for the time of the wedding breakfast.”

“Has she indeed?” Holmes asked, setting down his empty glass.

“Yes, but it has to be a lie, as she was seen making a row at the Devlin manse. I’ll soon break it and her.”

He was standing with the note in his hand, as though still in the act of reading it. Holmes suddenly leaned forward and snatched it away.

“Hullo, hullo, hullo,” he said. “There’s something written on the back side.”

“Just a receipt,” Lestrade said. “Room and breakfast, but no hotel name.”

“What’s this item under the meal heading? ‘Grits,’ isn’t it?”

“Never heard of it,” I said.

“Just a scribble,” the policeman said. “Probably some waiter’s personal abbreviation for ‘gratuity.’ ”

“Must have his own system of spelling too. By the way, I wouldn’t be too rough when breaking Fannie Moreau’s alibi. In the spirit of fair play, you might want to treat her as you would, say, Lady Strachan.”

Lestrade was still muttering “fair play” as he marched down our steps.

Before he’d reached the bottom, Holmes was out of his chair. “You have the bridge, Number One,” he said with a crisp salute. “I shall return.”

I was left alone to dwell upon my own approaching marriage, but I had little time to mope (muse). Only an hour after Holmes’s departure, two men arrived from the Needle and Thread, our local pub. One carried jugs of beer and the other a wooden box that turned out to be a veritable Aladdin’s cave. It disgorged fried potatoes, sausages, boiled cabbage, and a particular variety of pretzel, which the Needle stocked especially for Holmes.

The conjurors had barely gone before Holmes himself returned. He sniffed the air with relish. “I hope our guests arrive before it all gets cold. Ah, here is the first one now.”

Lord Strachan entered in his previous tangential fashion. As the aroma of the cabbage reached his thoroughbred nostrils, he appeared close to fainting.

“I received your message,” he told the detective. “Are you sure—”

Before he could finish the question, two strangers arrived. That is, the newcomers were strangers to me. But one, at least, a tall young woman with a frank and open face, was known to our noble guest.

“Kitty!” he cried out.

“Yes, it’s me, by gum,” was her somewhat cryptic reply.

“Lord Strachan,” Holmes said, “permit me to introduce Mr. and Mrs. Finley Morris.”

“Finley Morris!” I exclaimed. “The F.M. of Lestrade’s note?”

“The very same, Watson.” Speaking behind his hand, he added, “I’ve invariably found that, if initials figure in a case, at least two of the principals will share them.”

Lord Strachan had turned the favor of his countenance away from Mrs. Morris. She took a step toward him.

“Guess you’re plum riled with me, Philly,” she said. “Guess you’ve got a darn good reason to be.”

“Humph,” the duke’s eldest son said.

“Perhaps if you related your story,” Holmes suggested.

“I’ll be quicker than a spooked hare,” the lady replied. “Finley here is my gol-dern dad’s prospectin’ partner. They discovered the Devlin-Morris Mine together in ’eighty-one and split it three ways, with me gettin’ a third. Fin was that fond of me, even then. My low-down dad went along with it, thinkin’ it would give him control of the works, what with his vote and mine, me bein’ a young’un. But I grew up fast, and Fin and me got married — on the sly, on account of Dad bein’ dead set agin it. He didn’t want my share of the mine slippin’ out of his hands, you see.

“That very day, while Fin was out huntin’ our weddin’ supper, he got jumped by some dry-gulchin’ Jicarilla Apaches and scalped. So I was told. After that, I met His Lordship, and then we fell in again when my hornswogglin’ dad drug me over here to England. We palled around, and I finally agreed to wear Philly’s brand. Then who should show up at the church but Fin! I near to let out a war whoop, but he signaled me to keep quiet. I dropped my flowers on our way out, and he passed ’em back with a note sayin’ that he’d come fer me.”

She turned to Morris. “You’d better pan a while, Fin. I’m plumb tuckered.”

Surprisingly, Morris spoke English. “Fergus had made a deal with the Apaches to kill me, but they double-crossed him and kept me as a slave. After a couple of pretty hard years, I escaped. I trailed my partners to London and learned of Kitty’s engagement to Lord Strachan.”

“Why didn’t you confront Devlin immediately?” I asked.

“He’d tried to kill me once, and I didn’t put a second try past him, maybe with the English aristocracy taking the place of the Indians as his murderous allies. No offense, Strachan.”

“Humph,” the other replied.

“I did some checking up on His Lordship and learned that there was no danger of Kitty becoming his wife, even if she went through with the ceremony. By that, I mean I met the real Lady Strachan.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Lord Strachan, shocked into volubility.

Holmes said, “He’s referring to your common-law wife, Fannie Moreau, the woman you lived with for three years in Ottawa, a scandal that forced you out of government service.”

“There is no such thing as a common-law marriage in England,” the peer said stiffly.

“There is in Canada,” Holmes retorted. To Morris, he said, “I now understand why you didn’t confront Fergus Devlin directly, why he fears a public airing of your charges, and why you allowed your wife to go through with the farce at St. George’s. But why did you gain entrance to Devlin’s house disguised as Fannie Moreau?”

“What?” I gasped.

“Of course, Watson. That explains why two servants were required to expel one ‘woman.’ You will note that, though small, Morris is wiry.”

“I wanted to get the lay of the land, Mr. Holmes, and to pass Kitty’s maid a note, telling her mistress to come at once. We had important business to finish. You see,” he added, a blush deepening his manly tan, “we never had a honeymoon.”

“You mean a wedding trip?” I asked, confused.

“Not a journey, old fellow.”

“He means we had to do the deed,” said Mrs. Morris, without a trace of a blush.

“The deed to the mine?” I suggested, still groping.

Holmes came to my aid. “They’re trying to say that their marriage had never been consummated, Doctor. So the wily Devlin might still have had it annulled.”

“Ain’t happenin’ now,” Kitty assured us.

“Humph,” said his lordship for the final time. Shortly after that pronouncement, he left us, declining Holmes’s offer of supper. The American couple stayed and did us and themselves proud.

When they’d left in turn, I asked Holmes how he’d managed to trace them.

“You’ll recall that the receipt on the back of Lestrade’s note mentioned ‘grits.’ That’s an American breakfast delicacy made from ground corn and unlikely to be on the bill of fare at your average English hostelry. So I canvassed London hotels run by Americans for Americans. I located the loving couple and told them that — for a biggish fee — I could arrange a meeting with Lord Strachan for the purpose of clearing the air.”

“It’s a shame he wasn’t more gracious.”

“Who would be gracious, after losing a beauty and a fortune? Hand me my banjo, would you? I feel a bout of ‘Oh, Dem Golden Slippers’ coming on. Though, in honor of the happy couple, I may make the slippers silver!”