The worst of days – Part 10

Sherlock:

When I woke up the next morning, my muscles ached and my face felt swollen. Perhaps I was getting too old for this after all. Next, to me, Harriet stirred, opening her lovely eyes.

"In broad daylight, you look even worse..." she remarked while stretching herself.

"In broad daylight, you look even prettier..." I deadpanned. "I always liked beauty and the beast – I just never thought I would even like both characters combined in one and the same person."

"You should not make fun of me," she warned, a cheeky grin on her face, "as I know at this moment exactly where I have to touch you to have you flinch in pain, my dear."

"Oh-oh." I pulled her down to kiss her. "But it does prove my point."

My wife broke out laughing into her hearty and honest laugh, climbing out of bed. And damn what a sight!

"So, what now?" she asked while dressing herself.

"I need to think it over. I want this Joseph Lopscombe. If only I had a clue as to where to find him."

"How about the advertisement?"

"I have looked at it, but I cannot make sense of it yet. You are right though, it is the only lead we have currently. He seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth."

After I had managed to get out of bed likewise and had dressed, slipping on my dressing gown, to curl up in my armchair in front of the fire to ponder on the problem, I remembered something else.

"How is Watson?"

"Feeling better. I have to admit, that perhaps your timing has not been so bad after all."

"I am glad to hear it." And I was.

Lighting my pipe, I took Harriet's notes, reading through the second advertisement she had dug up.

To F. D.:

24th of June was a disaster, almost got caught. J threatens me. Will need to go under, found position already. Join me at 79 PM tonight, at the back door, keep silent while waiting.

J. L.

To F. D. - surely that could be Fanny Decker, - then J, could be Jennings, who did threaten Lopscombe, and J. L., of course, would be Joseph Lopscombe. That far all seemed rather simple. The 24th fit, as the day he almost got caught and which had ended in a disaster for his friends and his brother. And around two weeks later he had allegedly disappeared along with his bride. That also fits the message and had been confirmed by Parker as well as Jennings.

But what on earth could he mean with 79 PM? It could not have been a time, of course, as there was no hour like that. And where would they meet? What position had he found? It sounded as if he had made plans for an emergency escape, together with his sweetheart, long before it became necessary. At least in that respect, he seemed to be true.

Stuffing my pipe time and time again, I was only distantly aware of my wife, writing her letters, sitting at my desk. Once in a while, she refilled my cup of tea and once she opened the window, to get in some fresh air. It was already beginning to get dark outside, as it had begun drizzling around lunch time and a bout of London fog crept through the streets and alleyways.

Eventually, Harriet sat across from me, picking up the scrap of paper, which had slipped to the floor sometime during my hours of meditation.

Looking at her through hooded eyes, I saw she was making notes of her own, coming to the same conclusion about the initials, then I had and she as well ended up getting stuck at 79 PM. But different from me, she began scribbling down possible words that could have been abbreviated by the PM.

Post-Mortem was crossed out as soon as it had been written, the same happened to Paris - Montparnasse. Portsmouth, Plymouth and Pimlico, stayed on the list though as well as Pall Mall. I gaped at my wife, mouth open, before springing to my feet, pulling her up and kissing her.

"What has gotten into you?" she asked, confused, and clinging to my dressing gown being off balanced by my sudden action.

"You, my dear, have just solved the case!" I announced.

"I did?" she glanced from me to the paper and back again. "How?"

"Yes. By keeping it simple. My line of thought was far too complicated – yours is plain genius."

"I am afraid, despite having solved the case, you will need to explain it to me..." She still looked perplexed.

"79 PM – 79 Pall Mall. Joseph Lopscombe has hidden in plain sight. I might have even passed him, not knowing."

"You know the address then?"

"It's the Diogenes Club. - Lopscombe even told Fanny Decker to keep silent while waiting..." I all but ran into the bedroom, to change into more formal clothing.

"Would you care to come with me?" I almost shouted at Harriet now. "But you will have to get into a suit of mine, and I dare say, a broad-rimmed hat is in order – with that face of yours, you will never be mistaken for a man… and we will need to cover your hair."

"Do you want me to come with you?" she asked in surprise.

"What does it sound like?"

xxx

Harriet:

Despite the fact that I had studied medicine and had been one woman among about a hundred male students, I had only twice worn men's attire and this was to be my third time.

"We need to do something about your..." he pointed at my breasts. "Else it will look slightly suspicious."

"Oh, really?" I laughed, taking a thin scarf of mine, to wrap it tightly around my upper torso. "Better?"

"For the disguise, yes, apart from that, decidedly not."

After slipping into some underwear of his, and buttoning up his shirt, I stepped into the pair of grey trousers he had handed me, holding them up by a pair of braces.

"How fortunate you are quite tall," Sherlock remarked, as he bent down to roll up the pants legs on the inside to adjust them to my hight.

"It'll work with the trousers, but what about the coat?"

"We'll see. I doubt anyone will notice that the clothes are too big for you – well, apart from Mycroft of course."

"He is quite as bad as you are." I agreed, reaching for the collar. I had liked the man, he was an oddity, sure, but in a good sense.

"Actually, he is worse. - Let me help you, this might be a bit tricky..."

Fixing the collar and tying the cravat around my neck he handed me the waistcoat and stepping back he looked at me in a scrutinising manner.

"I doubt anyone will see through your disguise, as long as you keep your head low and the hair hidden..." he assessed.

"And my mouth shut, I presume," I added jokingly.

"Hm, yes, perhaps. But I will leave that to your own decision. Your voice is not so high pitched as to raise much suspicion. - And at any rate, the Diogenes has a strict no-talking policy, unless one is in the visitor's room - or in the kitchen. And since Mycroft, whom we are going to meet, will recognise you immediately anyway – and have my guts for it later on – you can actually talk as much as you like once we are in the visitor's room."

"Splendid."

I had begun to braid my hair around the crown of my head, to fit it underneath the bowler hat, we, at last, had settled on I should wear, while Sherlock had neatly placed a pair of glasses on my nose.

"You look more convincing than I had thought."

When we, at last, stepped out of the house, we almost ran into Doctor Watson, who was just about to come in.

"Oh, sorry!" the man mumbled, not recognising me.

"Watson! You are just in time for the grand finale. Care to join us?"

The doctor looked at his friend in almost something like awe.

"You have found him?" he mouthed, barely audible.

"Yes, we have found him," Sherlock told him, pointing from me to himself and back.

"Thank you, Mr... - Mrs Holmes?" he gaped at me with his mouth ajar in astonishment.

"Well, I cannot take Harriet to the Diogenes Club otherwise."

"You are going to the Diogenes? What will your brother say?"

"That is the practical thing about their self-inflicted vow of silence – he cannot say anything while others are around." my husband chuckled.

Doctor Watson first seemed perplexed, then began laughing till tears formed in his eyes – tears of laughter, fortunately. "The two of you are absolutely impossible. - If I may just drop my bag in the hallway?"

xxx

Entering the Club was almost surreal. No-one spoke a word and while all of us declined to hand over our outerwear, Sherlock scribbled our request onto a sheet of paper to be delivered to his brother. It was fortunate, that the younger Mr Holmes was, despite refusing to join the club himself, known well enough, to be led into the visitor's room without further ado. A moment later my brother in law joined us.

"I should have guessed it was your wife you have brought along when the footman stated there were three gentlemen wanting to see me – one being my brother." he greeted as soon as his eyes fell upon us, a sly grin on his sharp features. "Well, you are not the first woman that has been smuggled in here..."

My husband gaped at his brother in surprise. "Really?"

"Yes. Though the other lady did not manage to keep silent for very long… - Which might have had something to do with her trying to find her husband after he hid in here due to a private affair."

All four of us snickered.

"So, anyway, what brings you here?"

"Joseph Lopscombe."

"Who is he?"

"Brother to Randolph. - You remember, the men trying to..."

"Yes, yes, of course, I am not senile, Sherlock, even though I might be the older one."

Sherlock pulled out my notes and spread them on the table, explaining the situation.

"And so you see, I am pretty sure, the man has been hiding here ever since, posing as either a butler or footman."

"So I take it, you now would like to see each and every male servant that is currently on the premises?"

"Yes. I did not know there was female staff, too."

"Only a cook and a scullery maid. But they are not allowed out of the kitchen. And both of them are mute." Mycroft Holmes replied dryly, his eyes darting over to me in a conspiratory manner.

"Of course." his brother laughed. "But yes, you are right, I would indeed like to see all male staff."

The first five, we could dismiss immediately, being either too young or too old to be the man in question, but the sixth man who came in, looked exactly like Randolph Lopscombe had done – though more healthy, of course.

He was almost unrecognisable at first behind his massive moustache and the bushy side whiskers that would better suit a much older man than him. But his forehead, brows and eyes were unmistakably the same than his brothers, making it not hard to imagine, that without the hair in his face, he would be the spitting image of his older brother. Being handsome and attentive in an offhand manner, he still had a recalcitrant attitude, that might have been offensive had it not been for his disarming smile.

Joseph Lopscombe – or rather Peter Smithers as he called himself now, bowed deeply, looking expectantly from one to the other.

"You wanted to see me?" he, at last, answered without the slightest appearance of suspicion on his features.

"Yes, I did," Sherlock answered. "Or rather this man did." he pointed at Doctor Watson.

"And how may I help you?" he asked, still certain that he had not been found out. From the corner of my eyes, I could see the Holmes brothers stepping towards the two doors that led into the room, blocking them with their bodies, trapping the man inside the chamber.

Unable to speak, the doctor gestured for his friend to carry on talking, the anger welling up, his eyes staring in contempt at the man that had killed his son.

"By owning up to what you have done one and half years ago."

Lopscombe paled visibly.

"I fail to understand, Sir."

"That I doubt. I think you rather wonder if it was the attempted murder I am referring to or the committed manslaughter."

Now the man tensed and I was sure he would lunge at my husband at any moment.

"Sir, I still think you might be mistaken." he voiced carefully, glancing about for an escape route. Sherlock positioned himself even more prominently in front of the door and with his black eye and the other bruises, he looked quite the rogue. "And I am sure I am not, Mr Joseph Lopscombe esquire."

"I have never killed a man!" All of us were acutely aware, that he had not denounced his identity.

"No, you have killed a small baby. What kind of man does that make you?" I spat, livid. "A man at least would have stood a chance, but while you were pissing your pants, you drove so fast, that in your haste you knocked down a mother and her six months old son."

He wheeled around to face me, astonished only for a moment at realising I was not male, then stammering: "I…-I thought they would get up again, soon."

"You thought so?" Doctor Watson, at last, yelled from the top of his lungs, making everybody wince. "You did not even stop to see to them you pathetic coward of a man – if I can even call you a man, you bastard!"

He stepped forward, getting threateningly close to the man who had killed his child and paralysed his wife and with all the might his anger afforded, he kneed Lopscombe in the groin. Incapacitated the man sank to the floor, where he lay in a sorry heap.

The yelling had brought the other servants and several deeply annoyed club members to the scene, one yelling with equal audibility: "Holmes, what in Gods name is going on here? If you and your guests don't stop this blubbering, I am going to call the police for breach of domestic peace!"

"Calling the police is an excellent idea, Prescott – just that I beg you, to let my friends be and instead have this fellow arrested." Mycroft Holmes pointed at the still whimpering man.

"Smithers?"

"Yes, Smithers."

"Whatever for?"

"Manslaughter – and thinking of it add criminal assault and treason as well."

A.N.: I know, what is lacking in the solution to this story is the reason why Joseph Lopscombe was hiding at the Diogenes Club. Reason for not explaining it in the story itself, is simply that it is of no further interest for Watson or the others. Their interest lay in finding the one responsible for Henry and Mary's accident and to supply a reason for the accident and that they have done

But for those who would like to know, the reason is quite simple: Lopscombe thought, quite accurately, that hiding in plain sight was a much more clever move than hiding somewhere in the country for example. It's basically the same theory with the needle in a haystack. - The best way to hide a needle is amongst other needles, not in a pile of hay. At any rate, his choice of hiding place also afforded him to keep an eye on the ongoings around him. There might not be much gossip among the members of the Diogenes Club, but in the back of the house, that would in all likeliness be different.

I know it is quite ironic, that after everything he now is acting as one of those people he has previously shown little regard for – the plebs. Then again, I doubt any of the group would have hesitated to recruit 'normal folk' if it would have suited their purpose.