14 A damsel in distress
"There, there, my dear. There, there" Mrs Hudson patted the younger woman affectionately as she and Watson helped her to a chair. "Yours was an awful fright."
Miss Throgmorton's unfocussed gaze wandered through the room with some anxiousness. "Where is everybody?"
"Mr Holmes will be back in no time" John said in his best soothing bed-side manner. "And Mr Peabody thought it best to retire to his hotel for the time being." No use in telling the hapless little creature that her so called husband had hollered on and on about "being present when you put that harlot into her shoes!" before Sherlock had finally bullied him into leaving. Mr Peabody's collection of documents and letters now made up one more 'heap of rubbish' (Mrs Hudson's words) in a corner.
Miss Throgmorton laid a hand on her chest, stopped short, looked down her body – and paled again in another nervous fright.
"I am a doctor" John made haste to explain. "You fainted, and needed air. Mrs Hudson was present all the time…."
"I am going to make the poor little lamb a nice hot cup of tea" the landlady in question announced.
"Yes, Mrs Hudson, please do" John answered.
A bedroom door clapped, and in walked Sherlock Holmes, at last fully dressed in a suit, shirt and shoes. One look at the lady's outfit and he beamed from one ear to the other. "See, John? I said so! Hysteria stemming from her lacing pulled too tight. All this steel and fishbone pressing into naked skin…."
John's face was forbidding enough for even Sherlock Holmes to understand the message.
The detective therefore did his best to force a friendly expression to his face and speak more gently. "Well, now Miss Throgmorton…."
"I am Mrs Alexander Peabody" she claimed with remarkable firmness. "Mr Peabody honoured me with his proposal last year in Baltimore and I accepted. Though why he denounces me now is a mystery to ….." and her weary eyes overflowed again, with all the trimmings, including lace-in-lavender, smelling salt and shaking shoulders.
"There goes my first theory" Sherlock muttered under his breath. John saw with astonishment that his friend, usually not at all sympathetic when it came to fretting females, made a real effort to control himself. "Forgive me, Madam, but for that you sure do have proof, beyond a copy of a U. S. marriage certificate."
"Yes, I do" she snivelled, fumbled with her rather bulky reticule and produced – more papers.
John sighed inwardly.
Yet, Holmes still performed an admirable self-restraint. "May I see those?"
"Please" she managed to say. She had pretty hands, John noticed only now. Her crocheted gloves revealed rosy fingers, and fine wrists. Small feet with slender ankles, too. A pity that her waist was a trifle too thick to match.
"Mr and Mrs Farthham…." Sherlock said with a cocked brow after a moment.
"My employers in Baltimore" Alice explained. "I was governess to their two little girls, Maisie and Catherine."
"They would vouch for you being who you claim you are, were they asked to do so?"
"Yes, Mr Holmes, I'm proud to say they would. I've got the children's letters here for a start, they always write to me so very kindly…..."
If Sherlock thought that a bunch of letters from some children in Baltimore to some woman in England proved nothing, he kept it to himself. "In a court of law, you would need a sworn statement, sworn on proof of identity" he merely said, not unkindly.
"Would I need a court of law to prove to the world that this … man, this man who swore he loved me, who told me that I'm …. special…." (Handkerchief, smelling-salt, snivelling) "to whom I gave my hand in marriage and felt honoured and exalted in doing so…. " (handkerchief, snivelling) "– shall I really go into court with him to prove that I'm not mad?"
Again, she rummaged through her reticule. "There, Mr Holmes. Is that madness?"
"John" Sherlock said, and Watson took the photograph from his hand, all too happy for an excuse to distance himself from the overwhelming lavender smell.
A picture like a thousand others, a man and a girl arm in arm, he sombre, she happy and proud, under a faked tree of some kind. She in a hat with a veil. He in a black jacket of somewhat coarse material, visible even in the black-and-white photo, and of a decisively yet quite outdated American cut.
The pants matched the jacket this time. But John knew for a fact that he had seen the man and the jacket today. The woman in the grey costume, probably her finest, he was beholding even now. There was no doubt that this picture showed their client and his bride.
The imprinted dedication on the back said Mr and Mrs Alexander Peabody, 20th October 1883, with compliments of Mayer and Sons, Photographers, 402 High Street, Baltimore.
"Nice suit" John observed, and Alice nodded. "His best. He was so very angry when he spoilt his pants only minutes after we had the picture taken. Hot candle-wax… the material was beyond repair."
John sighed. "A fake?" he said as he handed the picture back to Holmes.
"No" Sherlock stated. "We will have it tested, of course, but I'm sure it's real."
"I gave him the second picture together with most of my money" Alice now added, a trifle more courageous. "You see, when I first met him, he was sitting all alone in a café. It was my day off, and for the very first time I spent it not in the house. No, I wanted to be brave, I thought, if others have a look at the city, why shouldn't I? And there he was, and he asked me for the sugar, he was ever so kind….a bit rough, like men are, but kind…"
"You've no other acquaintances or relatives in Baltimore?" Sherlock said, as John abruptly stood and marched to the window. This time it had nothing to do with the smell.
"None whatsoever, Mr Holmes. Alexander….. Mr Peabody wanted to meet me again, naturally I refused…. but then…. oh, Mr Holmes, he told me everything, about his Emy, and his little boy, and how very much he was looking forward to going back to England, to Essex. He had already half sold his farm in America, and he had come to Baltimore to finish the deal. If only he hadn't to make the journey alone. He was so very lonely, so utterly forlorn…."
"So you saw him again" Sherlock said.
"Yes." She looked down on the table. "My…. Mrs Farthham encouraged me when I had to tell her why I wanted to go out again. She would love to see me well settled when she and her husband would go to Australia next year…..she promised to buy my wedding dress …. and she did."
"After a few ….. meetings, Mr Peabody proposed to you?"
"He did, Mr Holmes. And I accepted."
"You got married, and spent your honeymoon in a hotel…"
"Yes. The White Swan, in the older part of Baltimore. I kept the bill and receipt, for the album I wanted to make, with my wedding photo and…. all. Until Alexander got this cable, from his British lawyers…."
"A big hotel?"
"No, quite small, eight rooms and one for newly-weds… it was ever so much more expensive….but Alexander said…. oh, he was so very gentle and generous and kind…."
"Do you think the manager there would remember you, if asked?"
"I do not know…. I hope she would, she was ever so kind….."
"Madam" Sherlock said, audibly angry "for a woman surrounded by a world of kind people, you seem to be in an awful lot of trouble."
John darted round to reprimand his friend, the more so as Miss Throgmorton had become ghostly pale once more.
But Sherlock was too fast for him. "A boy or a girl, Madam?"
"Wha…. what?"
"Dear woman, you're oversensitive, you're too timid for your own good, but you're not stupid. When your husband neither wrote nor came to you, you must have realized that you'd been most woefully betrayed. You're brave, but you're not a fighter. Under normal circumstances you would have bit back your pain, and applied for another position as a governess. But you couldn't, could you. You wrote to his New Yorker lawyer, whom your new husband had doubtlessly referred you to, 'just in case', to find him out, and the money he owed to you."
"I never….."
"Madam, the marriage was consummated in October, your letter reached the States five months ago, in February. Four months gone then, you could no longer doubt your predicament. You must have given birth to the child very recently, with no money, no husband and no chance for another employ, which explains your feeble health as well as your present state of nerves. So I ask you again, a boy or a girl?"
John closed his eyes. A lacing too tight, not at the waist so oddly round for such a fragile creature, but at the breasts. A fine doctor you are, Captain Watson.
"A girl" she said, defeated. "Martha. Martha Throgmorton. The Church officials in Colchester refused to acknowledge her by her father's name. I thought I'd die."
Sherlock rolled his eyes and looked heavenwards. "I believe you" he then stated.
She stared, wide-eyed. "You do?"
"I know that nobody else has done, so far. But I believe every word you said."
"Then you're going to help me? Oh, please Mr Holmes, if I could at least get the money back…..250 £, Mr Holmes…. it was all I had….when he suddenly showed up last night, denying all knowledge of me…. but the man you saw here today is my husband…"
Sherlock's face fell, and he shifted from one foot to the other, as if in the grip of a sudden, not altogether pleasant idea. "We shall see" he retorted. "Heavens" he then said "I must dash", turned his back on her as if she no longer existed, and made ready to leave.
"Sherlock" John said punishingly. "Remember? Not good!"
"Well, whatever you say, John. But I really must be off to start my investigations!"
"But Sherlock, what….."
"There's a damsel in distress, John. Clearly that's your specialty, not mine! Tell Malcolm I'll contact him whenever I feel like it."
"But he's sent word he needs you."
"I'm not in the mood for him or his Professor."
"You haven't seen or heard of them in almost four months."
"Thank God. Give my regards to Arthur Conan when he comes. About the hat, too. Mrs Peabody – I leave you in Dr Watson's most capable hands."
In a swirl of coat and scarf and curls, Sherlock Holmes dashed out.
"Here, love, sorry it took so long" Mrs Hudson said on her entry, the tea-tray still trembling from the whirlwind that had just passed it by.
The very same whirlwind darted back in when the tray was only just out of danger. "Tell Malcolm I need 300 £."
"He won't give me that kind of money, Sherlock." Just a few weeks ago, John had been shocked to hear that, in the best of houses, a scullery-maid, usually a mere child, up at five, to bed at midnight, employed to do the hardest work, was paid 10 £ a year, and a Christmas present. 30 years of slave's work, and Sherlock spoke of it as a mere trifle.
"He will, or I'll tell the Professor that the rubies were of much higher value than the emeralds" Holmes added light-heartedly, unaware of John's deliberations.
"What?"
"Malcolm will know what it means. Farewell, John. Don't get carried away."
"He's quick of the mark" Alice said timidly, once the detective had left for good.
"He is that" John agreed, still angry. "Too quick for anyone's good sometimes."
"What will….. what is going to happen now?" The handkerchief suffered considerably from her hand-wringing.
John wished he knew. "Well" he said with a serenity and good-humour completely faked for lack of any more suitable idea: "Shall we have tea?"