The Best British Mysteries III

The Lady Downstairs by Christopher Fowler

What annoys me most is that he doesn’t notice.

There are so few females in his life, and the ones that he does meet are usually in distress or hiding something. They’re titled, or troubled, or – well, one wouldn’t use the word in polite company, but it also begins with a T, and may be preceded by the word ‘Bakewell’. I see them all, because I see all of his clients. I open the door to them, I send them away or ask them to wait, or show them up the seventeen stairs to his room. You don’t let a stranger into your house without noticing something about them, and there’s usually something to notice. The ladies may have red-rimmed eyes and damp handkerchiefs, or may adopt a disdainful air to make me think they are the mistresses of their situations. The gentlemen are more obvious still, their rage barely concealed as they hop from one foot to the other, their eagerness to see my lodger brushing aside the most common courtesies. Sometimes our visitors are fearful, and search the street to make sure they have not been followed. These ones rush inside as if they have been scalded, and once my door is safely closed behind them, apologise for their behaviour, wringing their caps and glancing to the top of the stairs, half-expecting him to pop out of his rooms and solve their problems right in the hallway, as if I would allow such a thing.

I shouldn’t complain, for a landlady’s life is rarely interesting, and the comings and goings are a small price to pay for housing such a famous London figure. There are annoyances, of course; the infernal scratching of that violin, the muffled explosions from unstable compounds in the laboratory he has rigged up in my back room (without my permission), the immovable stains that appear on the carpets, the ghastly burning-cat smells that waft down from the landing, invariably at tea-time when I am about to tuck into a kipper, the unsocial hours kept by a man who finds sleep a stranger. Yet I am fond of him because his enthusiasm leaves him so unprotected. He knows the doctor is concerned for his well-being. But he never notices me.

Of course, he is the Great Detective, and I am only the landlady. To hear him pronounce judgement you would think no one else was born with a pair of eyes. We don’t all have to shout about it from the rooftops. But my job is to notice everything, though I get little thanks.

Allow me to present you with an example. Only last week, on a drizzling Tuesday night at half past ten, as I was readying myself for bed, there came a knock at the door. The girl had gone up to bed, and I was left to greet the caller, a frantic lady of some forty summers, in a dripping fur hat, clutching a wet fox-collar about her throat.

‘Is this the house of Mr Sherlock Holmes?’ she asked, without so much as a good evening.

‘Why yes,’ I replied, ‘and I am his landlady, Mrs Hudson, but Mr Holmes has left strict instructions not to be disturbed.’

‘I must see him,’ said the lady. ‘It is a matter of the utmost urgency.’ I say lady, for I assumed her to be one though she was not wearing gloves, and the wetness of her clothes suggested that she had not alighted from her own carriage, or even a Hackney. She had a bearing, though, and a way of looking that I have seen too often when ladies look at landladies.

‘If you’d care to wait in the front room I’ll see what can be done,’ I told her, and trotted off upstairs. I am nervous of no one in my own house, but sometimes Mr Holmes can be alarming. On this night he spoke to me rudely through the door, and finally opened it a crack to see what was amiss.

As I explained that a lady waited downstairs, I could see my lodger hastily rolling down the sleeve of his shirt, tidying something away and complaining that it really was too bad he should be disturbed in such a manner. Knowing him, I took this to be an agreement that he would see her.

‘Is she in need of medical attention?’ he asked briskly. ‘Dr Watson is still away.’

‘No,’ I replied, ‘but she is quite distraught, for she has run here in the rain without stopping to dress for visiting.’ And I showed her up. As she passed me, I smelled essence of violets on her clothes, and something else I recognised but could not place, a nursery smell.

I stood on the landing, listening. She introduced herself as Lady Cecily Templeford, but then the door closed and I heard no more. Still, it was enough. I read the women’s weeklies, so I knew that Lady Templeford’s son recently married beneath him. It was quite the scandal among the leisured classes, which I am not part of, but I make it my business to read about their small sufferings, who is engaged to whom, and why they should not be.

I went to the parlour and searched through the periodicals in the fire bucket. I soon came to the story. The Honourable Archibald Templeford married Miss Rose Nichols after a brief engagement. His mother refused to attend the wedding nuptials on account of Miss Nichols’ former profession, namely performing as a songstress in the twice-nightlies, where she was known as ‘The Deptford Nightingale’. Miss Nichols subsequently gave birth to a baby boy named Godwin. I was still reading this item when the door to Mr Holmes’ apartment slammed open.

‘If you do not help me, I do not know what I shall do,’ she said loudly enough to wake up the serving girl on the top floor. ‘I have no one else to whom I can turn, and need not tell you what this would do to our family should the news be made public.’ And with that she swept past me once more, almost knocking me flat, her grand exit only marred by her struggle with the front door latch.

‘Allow me,’ I offered, squeezing past to shove the lock, for the wood swells in wet weather, for which help I received a look that could freeze a pond in midsummer.

‘The poor lady seemed very distressed,’ I ventured, wary of my lodger’s reluctance to discuss his clients. ‘I do hope you can help her.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ said Mr Holmes, ‘but it is nothing you should concern yourself with, dear lady,’ and with that he shut his door in my face. This does not bother me, for I am used to his ways, and I am just the landlady. I open the doors and close them. People pass me by. I stick to my duty, and they to theirs.

The next morning Mr Holmes went out, and did not return until five. He appeared haggard, in low spirits, and I gathered from his mood that the investigation he had undertaken was not going well. I knew he had visited the home of the Honourable Archibald Templeford because I heard him giving the cab driver the address, which was published in my weekly along with a fetching painting of the drive and grounds in Upper Richmond.

‘How was your day, Mr Holmes?’ I asked, taking his soaking great-coat to hang in the hall.

‘Somewhat less productive than I had hoped, Mrs Hudson,’ he replied, ‘though I venture to surmise not entirely without purpose.’ He often speaks like this, saying much but revealing nothing. Most times, I have little interest in my lodger’s cases. He does not vouchsafe their details, and wishes to discuss them with no one but the doctor, but sometimes I glean a sense of their shape and purpose, although I see them through the wrong end of a telescope, as it were, the clients coming and going, the snatches of hurried conversation, the urgent departures late at night, the visits from policemen like Inspector Lestrade, full of cajoling and flattery, and when those tactics fail, threats and warnings. It is like being backstage at some great opera, where one only glimpses the actors and hears snatches of arias, and the setting is all around the wrong way, and one is left to piece together the plot. Like any stagehand I am invisible and unheard, but a necessary requirement in the smooth running of the performance.

My lodger spent the next morning locked in his rooms, banging about, the ceiling above my dining room creaking like a ship in a tempest. Resolving to see what caused his agitation, and knowing he had not eaten, I took him some beef broth, and was gratified when he accepted it, bidding me enter.

‘I worry you are letting this business with Lady Templeford tire you,’ I ventured, only to have him fix me with a wild stare.

‘What on earth do you mean, Mrs Hudson?’ he snapped, sipping at the broth before setting it aside with a grimace.

‘I noticed that because she arrived here in such agitation, you were compelled to deal with her case, despite being busy with other work.’

To my surprise he raised his long head and gave a great bark of laughter. ‘Well Mrs Hudson, you will surprise us all yet,’ he said. ‘First Watson, and now you. I shall start to wonder if my investigative technique is catching. So tell me, what do you discern about the lady in question?’

‘It’s not my business to voice an opinion,’ I said, wary of incurring his displeasure.

‘Let’s say for a moment that it is your business. It would be intriguing to know the female point of view.’

‘I know she is upset by the marriage of her youngest son to a girl she considers to be of low morals,’ I replied, ‘and is shocked by the early arrival of a child. More than that I cannot tell.’

‘But you have said much, perhaps without even realising it.’ He inclined his head, as if seeing me through new eyes. ‘The night before last, Lady Templeford’s new grandchild was snatched from his cradle, and no one has seen him since. What do you make of that?’

‘Its poor mother must be quite mad with grief,’ I said, remembering the picture of Rose Nichols in my paper. Then I considered the enmity that existed between the bride and her mother-in-law, and how the son must be caught between them.

Mr Holmes was clearly thinking the same thing. ‘Then take pity on Archibald, trapped between them, Scylla and Charybdis. At six o’clock his wife Rose enters the nursery to wake and feed her son, and there where the child should be is only rumpled bedding. They search the house until half past six, when Archibald returns from the city, and are still searching when Lady Templeford arrives to dine with them.’

‘There will be a dreadful scandal if you do not find it,’ I said excitedly. ‘Lady Templeford would naturally suspect her daughter-in-law, for a woman who sets a son against his mother will always be blamed, especially when there is a child involved.’

‘Do you really think so?’ Mr Holmes’ eyes hooded as I continued.

‘Mrs Drake, the lady who keeps house at number 115, informs me that Rose Nichols had a long-time suitor in the Haymarket, and there is talk that the child might be his.’ I realised I had gone too far, offering more of an opinion than was wanted on the subject. ‘Well, I must get on with my dusting,’ I said, embarrassed. ‘The parlour maid is off today and the coalman has trod dirt into the back passage.’

He showed me his back with a grunt of disapproval before I had even turned to close the door.

I know my place. Landladies always do. I cannot help but form an opinion when I see so much going on around me. And, dare I say it, Mr Holmes is so convinced of his abilities he sometimes takes the long route to solve a simple puzzle. The disguises, for instance. I have seen him enter this house as a tramp, a blind man, a war veteran, on sticks, with a funny walk, first hopping, then dragging, in hats, in beards, in rags and on one occasion with a wooden leg, and frankly I have seen better impersonations at the Alhambra. I wonder that his suspects are not put off by laughing too hard. What is wrong with simply keeping out of sight? It is what a woman would do, because they know the ways of men.

But Mr Holmes does not know the ways of women. Oh, he acts superior around them, opening the door in his smoking jacket, listening to their stories with his elbow on his knee and his hand at his chin, appearing the man of the world. Why, then, does he become flustered when Elsie offers to clean his rooms? Why does he watch her from the turn on the landing as she smooths beeswax into the banisters? I shall tell you; it is because he sees the female form from afar, and puts them on a pedestal, because they have never been close enough to disappoint him, and he will not let them nearer.

But I am speaking out of turn again, for which you must blame a Scottish temperament. Let me describe the conclusion in the case of Lady Templeford. The morning after I had spoken out of turn with Mr Holmes, Inspector Lestrade turned up on my doorstep. I took his coat and requested he wait in the parlour, for I do not want the police trampling mud upstairs. Mr Holmes came down presently. As my offer of tea was accepted, I stayed outside the door while I waited for the kettle to boil.

‘Well, this is a fine business, Mr Holmes,’ I heard the inspector complain. ‘A baby kidnapped from its cot and no ransom note! It has been more than two days now, and I cannot hold off my men any longer for your shenanigans.’

‘Your men will destroy any chance we have of uncovering the crime,’ my lodger replied with ill-concealed temper. ‘The answer lies in Rose Nichols’ house, and I cannot have the scene damaged until I have ended my investigations.’

‘But what have you uncovered? Precisely nothing, sir!’

‘Not true, inspector. Rose Nichols’ nursery is situated at the back of the ground floor. Its door was shut with keys belonging only to the master of the house, and the rear of the building is surrounded by flower beds. You will recall that rain has fallen constantly for the last few days, and the garden earth is soft. Yet not so much as a single shoe or bootprint has been left beneath any of the windows. Nor was any latch or lock on either the door or windows forced. I must conclude, therefore, that Lady Templeford has indeed been right in her suspicions, and that the crime occurred at home. It is now a matter of proving the wretched girl’s guilt before she brings further disgrace to her new family.’

Well, when I heard this I nearly scalded myself. Entering with the tray, I set to providing some hospitality in that chilly room. ‘Hot tea, inspector, and for you Mr Holmes.’ As soon as I entered, my lodger ceased to speak. He was waiting for me to leave. ‘Will there be anything else?’ I asked.

‘No, Mrs Hudson, we must not detain you. Go about your duties.’ His long hands waved me aside impatiently Unable to find a reason to stay in the room, I took my leave. Now, as if suspicious of my whereabouts, Mr Holmes rose and firmly shut the door behind me, so that I could hear no more.

But I had heard enough. The ‘wretched girl’ was obviously a reference to Rose Nichols. Lady Templeford was accusing her of maternal neglect at best and murder at worst, suggesting she was solely responsible for the abduction of the child. I may know nothing of the criminal mind, but I understand a mother’s nature.

I thought of Rose, low-born and swept off her feet by a noble suitor. Soon she finds herself surrounded by new relatives who frown upon her profession and status in life, who doubtless try to prevent the marriage and stay away from the wedding, causing Rose great embarrassment. She is installed in a grand mansion, overseeing servants she has never before commanded. She is cut off from the theatre, forbidden to see friends from her old life. A child arrives with unseemly haste; the family cast aspersions on her honour – but what if the Honourable Archie Templeford has been forced to marry hastily to avoid a scandal? Even he would now be against her. No longer a star of the stage, admired by friends and suitors, Rose finds herself a prisoner in her strange new abode. Then calamity strikes. Perhaps she discovers poor Godwin smothered in its cot, and has hidden the body from shame – friendless and alone, she will be condemned by all those around her, including Mr Sherlock Holmes, who is himself in thrall to those of nobler demeanour, and believes all he has heard about women of Rose’s class.

When I passed my lodger on the stairs a little later, I found myself speaking out again. ‘I see the story of the missing baby has reached the noon papers, Mr Holmes. I heard the boy calling it out from the corner. I wonder if you have visited Lady Templeford in town,’ I asked. ‘Her husband is reported to be -’

‘It is common knowledge that Viscount Templeford is in poor health, Mrs Hudson, and does not welcome the attentions of strangers at his Devon estate. Her ladyship is presently staying in Mount Row. Perhaps -’ He turns and fixes me with an irritated look. ‘Perhaps it is best for us both to stick to our respective professions. On my part, I promise not to attempt to polish the silverware, nor wax the banisters.’

He was right to scold me. I had allowed myself to assume a role I was unfit for. I returned to the tasks of the day, preparing the luncheon menu and arranging payment for the tradesmen.

Still, I could not rid my mind of the suspicion that there was more to the case than Mr Holmes assumed. As I fulfilled the morning’s duties I thought the matter through most carefully. I myself am born of low parents, and have – to my shame – behaved poorly with women whom I regard as lower than myself. However, a mother’s bond is strong enough to cut through any ties of class, and I could not believe that Rose Nichols took the life of her first-born child in order to spite her husband’s family.

That afternoon, Elsie overturned a milk-can in the scullery, and we were forced to move the furniture to clear the mess before it curdled, so I missed hearing Mr Holmes’ return from what I assumed to be a further trip to Richmond. That evening, at the more respectable hour of seven, Lady Templeford called again, and I was on hand to usher her in. She removed a brown corded top-coat and, and finding it too hot in the front parlour, unbuttoned a matching jacket, which I took from her and hung in the hall.

Her manner had changed. The almost theatrical panic in her eyes had given way to a steely composure. She was determined to see Mr Holmes, and would accept no refusal. Deciding to forego the rigmarole of ascending, awaiting a reply, then returning to the parlour, I sent Lady Templeford directly to the first floor.

But I stayed on the stairs, watching and listening.

This is what I heard. A creak of floorboards. Mr Holmes pacing back and forth. A stern, high voice. ‘How you could allow the press to be informed…breach of confidence…this brazen woman paid her fancy man to take the child…public knowledge…drag my family name into the mud…cannot stay at Mount Street a minute longer.’

This is what I saw. The polished toecaps of my lodger’s shoes, twisting past the gap in the door. The glint of his grey eyes. The switch of Lady Templeford’s dress as she rose and turned, her buttoned boots matching the detective’s pace. Her pale hand brushing at a mark on her blouse. Suddenly I had an inkling of the truth.

I hurried back downstairs as the door to Mr Holmes’ apartment opened. There was barely time to find what I was looking for; Lady Templeford was already on the top stair, about to descend. I went to the cloak stand and removed her jacket, hastily searching the pockets. I knew she would see me with my hand upon her personal belongings and my reputation would be ruined, but was determined to prove my theory correct.

Thank heaven Mr Holmes called to her from the landing at that moment. ‘Lady Templeford, I have decided to accede to your wishes and search the premises of this mountebank, if you truly believe him to be the mastermind of such a deception. I shall accompany you.’ Clearly the finger of guilt now pointed to Rose’s former suitor. But I had found what I sought, and knew the truth. It suggested one solution. I turned to speak, but Mr Holmes gathered the coats from the stand and helped his client into them before springing to the front door. Then the pair were gone in their haste to reach the Haymarket premises of Rose Nichols’ supposed lover, leaving me alone in the hall.

With a sigh, I returned to my kitchen. The potatoes would not peel themselves, and Elsie could not manage alone.

I heard the rest from the newspaper boy outside Baker Street station. The evening papers were full of the story. The missing baby had been found unharmed on the premises of one Mr Arthur Pilkington of the Haymarket, formerly of Clerkenwell. Neighbours heard the baby boy crying on the step of his lodging house. The former suitor of the Deptford Nightingale had been taken into custody at Bow Street, though he denied any knowledge of the infant. He was to be charged with kidnap. It was alleged that Rose remained in love with her former paramour. The police were hoping to discover whether the mother colluded in the abduction of her child. Mr Sherlock Holmes was to be congratulated for the part he played in restoring the infant to its father, the Hon. Archibald Templeford.

I pursed my lips as Mr Holmes passed to his room that night, unable to congratulate him. He failed to notice the withheld compliment, but I managed to hold my peace. He had reminded me of my place often enough for one week.

The case was called to mind just once more, when Lady Templeford came again, this time at ten in the morning. Her mood was one of jubilation. ‘I must speak with Mr Holmes at once!’ she cried, as if announcing her intention to the street, and pushed past me on her way upstairs, as though I were a ghost and she had intended to pass right through me. She met him on the floor above. ‘Happy news indeed! They have arraigned the blackguard and his mistress, and my son is preparing to commence divorce proceedings. None of this could have happened without your help.’

At the foot of the stairs, I trembled for what I was about to say. My sense of justice was strong, but so was the conviction that I would be going against generations of wealth and class. A woman of my position cannot afford to make mistakes.

‘Mr Holmes,’ I called out, ‘I must speak to you plainly.’

‘Mrs Hudson.’ My lodger was taken aback. ‘You must see that I am entertaining a most distinguished visitor.’

‘What I have to say concerns her too,’ I ventured, standing my ground, although there was a quaver in my voice. ‘I fear you have been deceived.’

‘What is this imposition?’ Straight-backed and frowning, Lady Templeford drew herself up to her full imposing height and faced me upon the stair. I took an involuntary step back.

‘On the night Lady Templeford arrived in distress, a smell clung to her fox-fur coat, something a mother would recognise. It was the smell of a baby. But there was something else, a chemical stronger than that secreted by an infant. When she returned, the second smell still emanated from her pocket. While this lady was in your rooms, I glimpsed something in the jacket she gave me.’

‘Really, this is too much!’ Lady Templeford protested. ‘Mr Holmes, why do you allow your staff to behave in this unseemly fashion?’

‘Laudanum, Madam,’ I cried, forgetting the correct form of address. ‘Every woman of the working class recognises its smell, a drink cheaper than gin and sadly in just as much use. An opium-based painkiller prescribed for everything from a headache to tuberculosis, fed to infants by their nursemaids in order to keep them quiet – often with fatal results. I hear the drug has found popularity among even the grandest ladies now. You cannot deny it – the bottle was in your pocket.’ I had seen the octagonal brown glass and smelled its contents. ‘It is my conjecture you paid one of your son’s servants to remove the baby from its cradle and deliver it to your lodgings in Mount Row. But there are many apartments around you whose occupants might hear an infant cry, so you silenced the poor mite with laudanum. Shame upon you!’

‘The woman is mad!’ cried her ladyship. ‘I shall not countenance such an accusation.’

‘Then this will do it for you,’ I told her, raising the bottle so that Mr Holmes could see it. ‘Your name is written upon the label. Your doctor will verify the prescription, I am sure.’ No man can survive without the influence of women. But we live in a world that belongs to men. Even our own dear queen has withdrawn completely from British life, her strength brought low by the memory of her husband. What hope can there be for other women without her?

The truth did indeed come to light, although I do not know whether justice will be done. It is not my business to know. Certainly, Mr Holmes was not best pleased. How could he be in his position? Still, I look up to him. And he must look down upon me.

To him, I will always be the lady downstairs.