Chapter 1 #2
The Surrey fields were white with frost on Monday morning as Harry made her way back to London.
The train was busy, filled with commuters returning to work after the New Year celebrations and Harry thought herself lucky to have bagged a seat beside the window, through which she watched the countryside whizz past. And whizz it did – the electrification of the line some three years earlier had made the journey considerably faster, although Harry found she missed the comforting chug-chug-chug of the steam locomotive.
Often, the rumble of the engine had served to soothe away the edges of a chaotic visit at Abinger Hall.
It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy being with her family, more that the occasional clash of headstrong personalities could produce sparks that ignited otherwise dormant tensions.
On Sunday evening, she had overheard a ferocious argument between her mother and Rufus that she guessed must be to do with the bombshell Seb had dropped, and the resulting iciness between them had created a tension that had almost soured the wine at dinner.
Harry had tried to lighten the mood by asking Rufus about his trip to Scotland but he had remained monosyllabic and simmering, and eventually she had given up.
All of which meant she was more than a little relieved to be returning to London, where no one glowered at her if she asked them to pass the salt.
As the minutes ticked by, Harry turned her attention to her fellow passengers.
All were unremarkable at first glance but she amused herself by studying them over the top of the book she was pretending to read, trying to elicit their secrets as Holmes or sharp-eyed Miss Marple would.
The man sitting directly opposite was someone important in the City, Harry felt; his black bowler hat, wooden-handled umbrella and neatly folded overcoat were obviously the uniform of a gentleman banker.
A leather briefcase rested beside his highly polished shoes.
When he turned the page of the newspaper he was reading, she caught a glimpse of weighty jowls and florid cheeks on either side of a slightly crooked nose that suggested it had been broken at some time in the past. Perhaps he’d been a boxer in his youth.
He might even enjoy gambling on such matches now.
Her gaze moved on to the next passenger, a young woman in a plain blue day dress and a cloche hat.
She too had a coat across her lap and a pair of sensible shoes on her feet.
Her brown hair was neatly curled beneath the hat and her face was expertly powdered and rouged.
Imitation pearl earrings matched the string she wore around her neck.
A Selfridges shop assistant, Harry decided, although she might just as easily be a secretary or even a nanny.
Holmes was always so accurate in his observations of the people he encountered while solving his mysteries, plucking truths seemingly from thin air and astonishing all around him.
But, as Harry had observed on many occasions in the months since she’d begun to tackle the mountain of letters that had amassed in the Abbey Road Building Society post room, it was easy to be brilliant when you were written that way.
At length, the train pulled into Waterloo station, depositing its tide of passengers onto the platform to disperse throughout the city.
Harry took the Underground to Baker Street and made her way to the towering white facade of the bank.
Opening in 1932, no expense had been spared in the construction of the building society’s flagship offices; from the tall, intricately carved lighthouse statue inlaid above the grand entrance to the marbled lobby and gilded lift that served the upper floors, every effort had been made to assure potential investors that their money would be in very safe hands.
Beyond the public areas, Harry had always enjoyed the ordered predictability of her work.
It had never stretched her, not even when she had occupied the coveted position of personal assistant to Mr Simeon Pemberton, but she had enjoyed knowing that every task had been completed in a timely and highly professional way.
It was a shame Mr Pemberton had turned out to be significantly less professional.
The ensuing connection between her knee and his ardour had seen her demoted to the post room, located in the basement, and it was only through the kindness of her new manager, Mr Babbage, that she was not there still.
Declaring immediately that the post room was no place for a young woman, he had found Harry a tiny, forgotten office on the second floor and arranged for Holmes’ letters to be delivered to her there.
It was a compromise Harry was still grateful for.
Her new office was quiet, ignored by everyone except Bobby the post boy, and it was hers alone.
‘Good morning, Miss White,’ Patrick the doorman said cheerfully as she passed by. ‘Happy New Year.’
‘And to you,’ Harry said. ‘Did you have an enjoyable Christmas?’
Patrick nodded. ‘I did, thank you. Took the family to the circus over East London and had an elegant time.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ Harry replied warmly.
She glanced towards the other doorman, Danny, but he kept his chin tucked inside the black woollen scarf that swathed his neck and lower face as he mumbled an unintelligible greeting.
Harry supposed she could hardly blame him; it was thanks to her that his face and hands were stained purple with gentian violet, although he’d brought it on himself by breaking into her office several weeks earlier and triggering the trap she had laid.
The dye would eventually fade, she’d reassured him when he’d confronted her after the crime.
She imagined his shame would take longer to disappear.
At the door to her office, Harry paused the way she now did every morning to assess the rudimentary burglar alarm she set upon leaving.
The golden hair caught between the door and its frame was still in place.
Satisfied, she fitted the key into the lock and entered.
If Danny’s intrusion had taught her anything, it was that she could not be too cautious in hiding her efforts at detective work.
Both the Longstaff family and John Archer had been glad of her help but the men in charge of the bank would take a very dim view of her initiative.
Danny had broken in on the orders of Simeon Pemberton, who was desperate to find a reason to dismiss her, and the doorman’s confession had shown Harry she needed to cover her tracks more thoroughly.
The true correspondence she had exchanged with Esme Longstaff and Archer was no longer kept in her office, but safely hidden away at home.
Anyone who went rifling through the filing cabinets that contained the original letters would find the same standard response Harry sent to every other supplication received – that Mr Holmes had retired to Sussex, where he now kept bees.
Even so, she set a hair in place when she left the office each day.
She was confident that Danny himself would not attempt another break-in but it would be interesting to see if anyone else did.
She had been settled at her desk for perhaps an hour when the faint squeak of a wheel in the corridor heralded the arrival of Bobby.
He rapped on the door, poking his head inside when she called out a greeting.
‘Got a bumper post bag for you today, Miss White. It seems Christmas is quite the time for murder and whatnot.’
‘Alleged murder,’ Harry corrected, not quite able to hide a smile at his irrepressible conviction that every letter written to Holmes concerned a real crime. ‘But I imagine it’s simply that people have more time on their hands and let their imaginations run riot.’
Bobby sighed as he retrieved several thickly bundled packages of envelopes from the brass trolley and handed them to Harry. ‘You must wonder about some of them.’
This was a well-worn conversation and one Harry was always at pains to nip in the bud.
She liked Bobby immensely but she couldn’t afford for him to hit upon anything close to the truth.
‘As I have pointed out more than once, these letters are written by people who believe Sherlock Holmes is a living detective who will answer their cry for help. They may not have the strongest grip on what is real and what is not.’
She felt a twinge of guilt as she spoke.
While it was true that the majority of the letters were far-fetched and fanciful, she had never felt inclined to laugh or poke fun at those who had written them.
In some cases, Holmes was appealed to as a last resort, when the police had failed to show an interest, or procure a satisfactory solution.
In others, as in the case of John Archer and his unfortunate uncle, a more discreet investigation was sought.
And notwithstanding the detective’s fictional status, Harry could almost understand the reasoning that drove so many people to write to him.
Sherlock Holmes had an impressive success rate.
Nothing got past his gimlet gaze. But there was another reason that ensured Harry treated every letter with respect and compassion.
It was that she herself had bought into the pretence that Holmes was real, when she had replied to Esme Longstaff and John Archer, and agreed to investigate the mysteries they laid out before her.
Bobby sniffed. ‘They can’t all be loopy. I bet there are more crimes going unpunished than you’d think.’ He nodded at the bundles of letters. ‘It’s a shame Sherlock Holmes don’t exist. He’d make a fortune out of that lot.’
In the stories, Holmes had never been motivated by money, often charging a minimal fee or sometimes nothing at all.
Harry had followed his example, refusing payment for her own investigative efforts.
To do otherwise would have felt very wrong.
But once again, Bobby’s innocent musings were scratching at a door she needed to keep firmly locked.
She fixed him with an apologetic smile. ‘I’m afraid I really should get on. Was there anything else?’
As ever, he didn’t seem to take the dismissal personally. ‘Fair enough, Miss White. See you tomorrow, I expect.’
Once he had gone, Harry turned her attention back to her typewriter and continued with the tedious work of typing the same letter she had produced so many times before.
She tried not to think about the cluster of envelopes Bobby had left for her.
The job was never ending, a mind-numbingly dull task that would surely have driven even the legendary Sisyphus to throw up his hands in despair.
But that had been Simeon Pemberton’s goal.
He couldn’t have sacked Harry without the danger of a scandal, so his revenge had been relegation to a role she would find intolerable.
But Harry’s doll-like appearance hid a steel spine, something Pemberton might have suspected had he been aware of Harry’s true status in life.
The Abinger family motto was SUIS STAT VIRIBUS – ‘He stands by his own strength’ – and she had always been taught to hold her ground when it mattered.
The fact that she had not been the only victim of Pemberton’s lustful nature only made Harry more determined not to show any sign of dissatisfaction with her work.
Tea helped, as did a selection of excellent biscuits from Fortnum and Mason, and the occasional deviation from the standard reply to the letters she read.
It was a little depressing that Oliver had made her promise not to do so again.
The rest of her working day passed without incident.
She took her lunch break in Regent’s Park, enjoying the faded blue skies above the spindle-fingered trees in spite of the bitter chill in the air.
When it was time to go home, she set her trap in the frame of the door and made her way to Baker Street.
The temperature had fallen along with dusk; people hurried along the darkening pavements, heads down against the wintry wind.
Few paused at the newspaper sellers but their cries rang out in an effort to tempt them.
‘Read all about it! Priceless diamond stolen from locked room. Read all about it!’
Harry almost stopped in her tracks, which caused irritated exclamations to ring out behind her.
She ignored the muttered complaints, staring at the newspaper board upon which the headline was emblazoned in bold black print.
‘I wonder,’ she muttered, frowning as she rummaged in her purse for a coin to pay the seller.
A moment later, she stood in the lee of the nearest building, squinting at the newsprint with avid interest. It was exactly as the headline proclaimed – the priceless Sora-Sora diamond had been stolen from a seemingly locked room in a Mayfair town house.
The theft had been discovered that morning and the police were said to be baffled.
Harry read the entire article twice, then lowered the newspaper, staring absently at the trundling traffic.
Could this be the impossible crime referred to in Moriarty’s advertisement in yesterday’s edition of The Times?
Was there a chance it might be a serious challenge after all?