I hope that you enjoy this story.
My thanks, as always, to my dear friend and Beta, Ems, without whom this would have been much more of a struggle.
Miss Charlotte McAllister was the most winning woman that I had ever met. When she smiled, her face would light up with a warmth that could touch even my heart.
She was a nurse – the finest that I had met. When the little children in her care had fallen ill, one by one, she would only leave them if I insisted that she permit me to tend them while she rested and ate.
Normally, I would never have been so willing to play the part as nurse maid, but I was walking out with Miss McAllister and I was determined to love those children as my own. Besides, I soon learnt that they were so good and uncomplaining that I wanted to do all that I could for them – it was all too easy to love them.
When the first one – the youngest – passed, it came as a terrible shock to me, but Charlotte weathered it well and concentrated her efforts on the remaining two. We still lost the second the following morning. Now only the eldest child remained. There was less to do, with only the one child to tend, and Miss McAllister insisted that I went home to Montague Street for some well earned rest.
When I returned to Charlotte's house, I arrived with the undertaker. The remaining child had passed away and I had not been present to support my lady friend when she must have been sorely in need of it.
Once the undertaker had left us alone, I held Charlotte in my arms while her resolve broke and she wept, my own heart heavy and my mind full of self-reproach. How could I have left, when my presence was so needed?
As the days passed, however, my suspicious mind began to note little details. I could not look at my food, while Charlotte's appetite remained completely unaltered. I would often feel a terrible pang of loss at the memory of the children that had died in our care and I oft felt that, were I a man of medicine, I might have done more than the doctor that visited sporadically. I felt inadequate, useless; she seemed all too calm and self-assured. Had she not only lost three patients, but three children entrusted to her care? If I felt that I had been found wanting, should she not feel the same?
Of course, as time went on, my suspicions grew. And then the news arrived that made Charlotte terribly happy, while it caused my heart to sink.
Proof. She had murdered the three little children in her care for their inheritance money.
How could I have been so blinded that I did not – could not – see it? All the time that I was fretting that she might wear herself out, she had been slowly killing the children that I was so convinced that she wished to save – what a blind, incompetent imbecile I was!
Of course, she insisted that she did it all for us – now, we would have the funds to get married. I could move from the hated lodgings at Montague Street and begin the practice of my dreams.
How could I use the murders of three innocent children to fund a detective agency? How could I marry a murderess?
That was why she wanted me to know nothing about it, she told me.
Well, naturally, I handed her over to the police. Hers was the only hanging that I ever attended – they are not for the faint hearted and even I was not left unshaken (I am ashamed to admit that I still held some affection or regard – something, anyway – for her). I know that I could not bear to attend another execution, but hers gave me a sense of closure.
Upon my return to the miserable little dwelling, in which I seemed destined to spend the remainder of my wretched existence alone, I poured myself a brandy and attempted to put my thoughts into order.
My heart wept for the children whom I had failed to save – what a poor excuse for a detective I was, to have been blinded so. But I also pitied myself. Why had I not been able to make Charlotte see that we did not need money to be happy? It was true that we had not the money for a big wedding, but we had no need for one – I myself would only have invited one or two friends from college and my brother, Mycroft. Did she truly have enough friends and family to fill a church? There had certainly been none in existence during the time of her trial and execution.
Could it all have been my fault, I wondered – it was I that always liked to have nice things and complained about my lodgings. She never once said that she was not satisfied. How much blame could be laid at my door?
Watson has so often remarked that I should find myself a wife and that we all need love. How can I tell him that not every man is fortunate, when finding a wife? How can I make him understand that I know how treacherous a woman can be?
When the memories and pain and guilt resurface, as they have today, that even cocaine cannot silence my self-loathing, how can I tell my friend anything at all?
I can only hope that my dear Boswell will never be so unlucky in love.