Welcome to my lair! Muahahahahahahaha! Woops, wrong fanfic, sorry. Hang on, let me reorient myself…
Ah there we go. Before we get started with the story, I have a few items of business to take care of. First, the disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock Holmes or Dr. Watson. They are (despite what we all may want to believe) fictional characters created by the brilliant mind of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I, along with many other Baker Street Irregulars, am in his debt. So much for the disclaimer, now on to item two. This story is based on the stories by Conan Doyle and the writings of William S. Barring-Gould and June Thompson. Unfortunately, I am away at college and am without my copy of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes (sob, it was too heavy to take on the plane. I am just as much of a stickler for accuracy as the next Holmes fanatic, so if I make a mistake, forgive me, and tell me about it! I would love your comments.
So, buckle your seat belts and make sure your tray tables are in their upright and locked positions. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present for your perusal:
The Case of the Still Heart
Chapter One: The New Client
Of all the days to be raining, this was positively the worst. The grey sky loomed out the window, pouring vast quantities of the cold, miserable liquid onto the undeserving ground below, and I sat inside, nursing my old wound and hating every blasted drop. It wasn't only the grey weather that had put me in such a foul mood. Holmes and I had just returned the evening before after solving a particularly challenging case. The solution had been gratifying when it came, but reaching it was a long and arduous process that left us both physically and emotionally drained. I wanted nothing more than to wander the Strand in the sunshine, letting a pleasant day heal my shattered sense of peace, but the fickle London weather had defeated me. Instead of wandering the streets and parks of London in the sunshine, I was trapped in the sitting room of the quarters Holmes and I shared at Baker Street, listening to the strains of Holmes's violin, staring at the grey morning and reflecting on the cruelness of nature.
"Oh do stop brooding, Watson. Or do you expect to stop the rain merely by threatening it?" The sound of Holmes's voice jolted me out of my reverie. I felt a stab of irritation at his callous disregard for my discomfort, knowing he must be feeling similar, before I remembered that Holmes did not trouble himself with such earthly matters. Such things "clouded the logic"
"Come off it, Holmes, you're just as irritated as I am by the rain." My reply was slightly more acid in tone than I had meant it to be. I put it down to my foul temper and turned back toward the window.
Holmes snorted, "You have no control over the weather, Watson. You do, however, have control over your mental faculties. Moods are self-imposed and have nothing what-so-ever to do with the weather out of doors." I was busy thinking up a cutting remark to make in reply when a hansom cab pulled up to the curb under my window and a figure disembarked. My vexation at Holmes's manners dissipated completely at the prospect of a client and I voiced my hope aloud. "There seems to be a client heading for our door, Holmes."
He carefully set the Stradivarius in its case before joining me at the window. "A woman in black in mourning for a close family member, her father I'd wager."
"I wonder what brings her to our door."
"We shall find out soon enough, I fancy." Sure enough, a knock sounded on the door, followed by the sound of voices and feet ascending the stairs. In less than five minutes, Mrs. Hudson had ushered in our visitor and left to make tea. I offered the lady a chair near the fire, which she took wordlessly as Holmes and I took our places on either side of her.
It was some moments until we were all settled comfortably before the fire with cups of tea, and I took the opportunity to make some of my own deductions about our visitor. Any fool could infer that she was in mourning from the modest black dress she wore, though how Holmes had deduced that the departed was her father was beyond me. For my own part, I was surprised at her flawless poise. She sat with an ease and comfort in the unfamiliar surroundings that gave lie to the distress the death of her father must have caused her. I marveled at the strength of this woman, who could enter the home of an eccentric detective as easily as the home of a friend. I could, however, detect a slight flaw in her composure. Her eyes betrayed her, beautiful blue eyes the color of the sea, which seemed to exude sadness and something more hidden, desperation perhaps.
"My condolences on the death of your father," Holmes said in greeting, "The holiday season is a difficult time to lose a loved one."
The lady gasped slightly at Holmes's inferences. Although I have long been accustomed to Holmes pulling intimate facts concerning one's past out of seemingly thin air, his deductions never cease to impress me.
"I had been warned of your penchant for producing facts out of nothing, Mr. Holmes, but I had not expected such remarkable accuracy." Our visitor stated quietly once she had recovered her composure. "If I did not know better, I should say you are a magician and not a detective at all."
"My good lady, my deductions are based on pure logic, not magic. Your mourning dress is relatively new and is of a style that is not inexpensive. Obviously you have come into some money recently, thus I deduce that you are an only child and the loved one for whom you mourn was your father. However, despite the newness of your dress, the hem shows some small signs of wear. See, Watson, the small threads fraying ever so slightly around the edge? From these I deduced the death of your father to have happened sometime within the last month, and asked that you accept my somewhat belated condolences."
"Thank you. Yes, you are quite correct. He died on Christmas Eve, in fact. No doubt you also know that I live in a flat in London now."
"I had deduced as much, yes." Holmes replied easily.
"I wonder if there is anything I can tell you that you do not already know. Perhaps you have already deduced the nature of my problem and by some miracle have the solution for me and I may go home a happy and contented woman." Her words were spoken with an easy humor, but colored with the vaguest hint of desperation. I marveled again at her poise which nearly effectively disguised the need for help that had brought her to our door.
"I am afraid, Ms. Violet Shields…" It took the lady a minute to register Holmes's use of her proper name, which had not before been mentioned, but when she did, her reaction surprised me. Instead of the gasp that had been her response to Holmes's earlier deduction, she greeted this with a low, musical laugh.
"Mr. Holmes, you are truly a wonder, but is this not rather forward of you considering that we have not been introduced?"
"I do beg your pardon, but if you did not wish us to know your name, then you should have taken better care not to display it on your handkerchief."
"I assure you I take no offense, you are very observant, Mr. Holmes," she said appreciatively.
"So I have been told. As I was saying, I am afraid that you overestimate my powers of deduction. Perhaps the solution to your case will be readily apparent and I shall be able to solve it from my armchair, perhaps not. But I must have the facts of the case if I am to be of any use to you."
"Of course you must, I was only striving, in vain obviously, for a little bit of humor on this bleak morning. I sincerely doubt, however, that even the great Sherlock Holmes will be able to solve my case from the comfort of his armchair. The police have all but laughed me out of their offices at Scotland Yard."
"The police, in my experience, often laugh off cases they mistakenly deem unimportant. They can be foolish, it is of no consequence to me. Please recount the facts of your case in as much detail as you can. The conclusion of a case often depends on the smallest of details." As Holmes spoke these words he slouched down into his chair, half closing his eyes in the manner I so frequently saw him take when preparing to listen to a case.
"Very well, as you may have perceived, it relates to the death of my father not too long ago. The doctors say he died of heart failure. I know, however, that my father was a healthy, active man, who never suffered from a weak heart, and though the doctors claim his death was a natural one, I am disinclined to believe them. I have no proof, however, that my father was murdered, no suspicions as to who might have killed him, or even why."
"Why then, do you suspect foul play?"
"Because, Mr. Holmes, healthy men do not drop dead of heart attacks so suddenly. My father…" here her voice faltered slightly, and seemed to catch in her throat. I rose and wordlessly poured her a brandy at the sideboard, handing it to her with a reassuring smile. She took a small sip before continuing. "My father was not well liked. He was…he could be called a miser, I suppose. He tended to shut off the world. Even I felt distanced from him. You see, my mother died when I was quite young and as soon as I grew old enough, he sent me away to boarding school. I believe he was very much in love with my mother and never really the same after she died."
"Tell me about the household. What servants did he employ?"
"My father kept a very small house, a housekeeper to do the cooking and the cleaning, her daughter, who works as a maid, and his manservant, who served him longer than I can remember. The housekeeper and her daughter are good people, honest country folk who have never had an evil thought in their lives, and Bentworth is the perfect English butler. He was absolutely devoted to my father."
"You have, of course, been home since his death."
"Yes, briefly, for the funeral." She spoke this quietly, like a confession.
"And how did you find the house?"
"Was there anything amiss, do you mean? I spent very little time in the house itself, but from what I remember, I saw nothing amiss at all, nothing out of place. Of course it wasn't as clean as it usually is, and Bentworth was in less than his perfect form, but that is to be expected when the lord of the manor dies, is it not?"
"Indeed." Holmes rose and paced to the fire, collecting his battered clay pipe and packing it with tobacco thoughtfully.
Miss Shields spoke to his back in despair, "It seems there isn't much basis for a murder at all, is there. Perhaps I am merely being paranoid." She rose to go, but Holmes stopped her.
"It is indeed a very singular situation," He replied, "But I have found in my experience that a woman's intuition is not a thing to be brushed aside lightly. They have an annoying propensity for being vaguely accurate."
"Then you will take the case?" Her whole manner had changed suddenly, the desperation I had sensed seemed to fade slightly, replaced with a small glow of hope.
"I will look into it, yes. I believe the best course of action would be to return to the scene of the crime. You will arrange a return home to the estate?"
"Yes, I am sure Mary will be able to prepare the rooms quickly, we could leave as soon as tomorrow." Something changed again in her manner, and she spoke with an emotion I could not identify; reticence, perhaps? "There is a train tomorrow morning at nine-thirty; we could be at the house by mid afternoon, perhaps."
"That will be quite satisfactory. We shall see you tomorrow then." And with the conclusion of this last item of business, Holmes moved towards the door to signal the end of her visit. Ms. Shields followed him, bidding us both goodbye with a smile. Despite her air of relief, however, she left a strange sense of anxiety in her wake that puzzled and worried me.