Disclaimers: See Part 1.
*****
::Still Emily Cartwright::
"You're a beautiful woman, Mrs Baker," the words oozed out of Timothy Fairfax's mouth, perverted into something grotesque in my ears, "You look so… pristine. Untouched. Virginal."
"It's no business of yours, Fairfax," I growled in the sort of tone that generally made even the dimmest of my would-be suitors pause. However, Fairfax was lost in his own musings.
"You remind me so much of Cordelia when we were first wed, just over eighteen years ago. The consummation spoiled her, though, even as it produced our son." He glanced vaguely at Alexander as though regarding a nearby stranger who has just passed gas. "Ever since then, I've been trying to find that purity again, like a man who sees the first snowfall of his life and then despairs to see it churned up and dirtied underfoot." He suddenly focused on me again, a frightening spark of madness in his eye. "A woman touched is a woman spoiled. Alexander knows that – so he tries to spoil as many women as he can before I can find them." The spark had become a hungry flame, and I backed away from him, even as he advanced on me like a predatory cat. "Clarissa," he purred as if he had any right to such familiarity, and then forced his mouth onto mine, as he pinned me to the wall.
My emotions fled. Fear, despair, revulsion, all gone, along with, for the moment, conscious thought. As I felt his hands on me, the thing that had chased them all out of my brain reared its head. To call it merely anger would have done it a severe disservice. History, legend, nature – all these are peppered with female warriors. Boadicea of the Celts. Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Artemis the Huntress, who sprang fully grown and fully armoured from the forehead of her father Zeus (how my own father would have appreciated the metaphor if he had any taste for Greek myths!). A she-cat defending her kittens from a bear. It seemed as though all these and more lent me a portion of themselves. No, I was not angry. I was furious – enraged! - and every fibre of my soul seemed to burn with a seething white-hot flame. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, so spake Shakespeare – and Timothy Fairfax was about to taste mine! I bit down hard on his lower lip, bit until I tasted blood, and kept biting until I was certain I'd nearly bitten his lip off. He howled in surprise and pain and tore himself away, not quite escaping as my balled left fist collided satisfyingly with his nose, followed shortly by the fingernails of my other hand clawing at his eyes.
Of the cousins who had shared my girlhood, the oldest – Benjamin to absolutely everyone else from the day he turned eighteen but always Benjy to me – had taught me how to fight, schooling me carefully in the fine art of hurting the other chap as much as possible before one was pulled off one's adversary and dragged home for supper and a good scolding. Of course, due to the voluminous petticoats required by feminine fashion, I could not with any great efficiency get my knee up into what Benjy delicately called a man's "anatomy". However, the same fashion laws that had cursed me with petticoats also blessed me with an alternate weapon.
While Fairfax tried to get his equilibrium after my barrage, I reached up to my hair, to the single pin with which Cordelia – poor Cordelia, if she had to deal with this man for eighteen years! – had artfully secured my coiffure, and drew it out. Of course, "pin" seems an overly dainty word for what generally amounted to a very thin ladies' dagger. The hatpins used by fashionable ladies tended to measure in the vicinity of six inches long, with the "social" end decorated with beads and jewels to go with one's outfit. It was a weapon that had served me well in the past, and now as Fairfax advanced upon me, intent upon his planned mayhem, I held it low and prepared to give him something to consider if in the future he wished to try anything like this again.
*****
::Sherlock Holmes::
I was halfway back to the house when I heard a ghastly scream. It was strangely distorted, quite unlike any scream I'd heard before, and it was oddly shrill. I cursed myself for another oversight and made haste through the snow, not even taking the time to remove my snow-covered boots as I followed the sounds of mayhem downstairs, reaching the corridor in time to hear another thin, strangled shriek, cut off by the sound of a piece of furniture breaking.
I burst through the door and saw Alexander Fairfax, face badly bruised as though beaten with a one-handed attack, holding half a chair, Timothy Fairfax curled insensible on the floor amid a scattering of wood fragments, and Emily Cartwright, her hair loose about her shoulders, the neckline and one sleeve of her dress torn, her face white but for two spots of colour on her cheeks, blood on her mouth, and bosom heaving as she tried to regain her breath. She clutched something in her left hand which I gathered to be the erstwhile fastening for her hair. As I watched, her face – which was initially distorted with outrage – relaxed into relief. Her mouth trembled as though she wished to say something and her eyes glistened with impending tears, but in the end she did neither. It appeared that the constrictions imposed by her corset were not conducive to sustained aerobics such as might be found in fighting off an attacker. It was likely a small miracle that I was able to catch her as her knees buckled, and – with a glance at Alexander and a nod in reply – lay her on the lad's bed.
"She fought like a right fury, Mr Baker," Alexander volunteered, still clutching the broken chair like a drowning man might clutch a piece of driftwood, "Father tried to do something awful to her but she wasn't having any of that." He looked apologetic. "I didn't think to do anything until just before she stabbed him in the… the… well, manly bits. With a bloody long hairpin. You married a real spitfire, sir. You better treat her right – if only for your own good." He offered me a wan smile, showing me the source of the tooth I'd found in the bedroom.
I was about to instruct Alexander to gather together the other players in this drama when Mrs Fairfax, apparently alerted by the same sounds that brought me, appeared in the doorway. He looked very small as she glanced down at her fallen husband, then over at the bed where lay Emily. From the look on her face, she had already figured out what had happened – which did little to make the scene any less shocking.
"Master Fairfax," I said levelly, "go and fetch the others in here at once. On your way, kindly bring back a small quantity of brandy for your mother to settle her nerves." He hared away. I turned to Mrs Fairfax. "Madam, this young lady has fainted." I did not need to mention the whys and wherefores. "Would you be kind enough to aid me in reviving her?"
She looked baffled for a moment. "You need to loosen her clothing, Mr Baker. Especially the corset, just a bit." Oh, God – not that again! "This happens sometimes, when a lady gets over… overexcited." She faltered momentarily, but recovered admirably. "Didn't you know that? You're her husband after all."
"A medical friend of mine has in the past advised me of such, but I possess neither the knowledge nor any right to do so." I forestalled her question with an upraised hand. "I shall explain all in a moment. In the meantime, would you please aid her? Ah – here comes young Master Fairfax and the rest. Madam, I suggest you take a few sips of that. Good." I turned to the rest of those assembled and cleared my throat.
"My name is Sherlock Holmes," I commenced, "I see some of you know the name. I was called in to investigate reports of a Ghost haunting this establishment, and as you can see, I – and my assistant on the bed yonder – have found him. Or, more to the point, we have discovered the Ghost and the reason for his haunting." I glanced in Emily's direction and saw her beginning to recover, her clothing, ahem, duly loosened to allow her to breathe, with Mrs Fairfax still at her side to ensure that she was okay and also, to some degree I expect, to preserve Emily's modesty from any other eyes. I turned back swiftly to my audience. "Miss Emily Cartwright's bravery ensured that the Ghost was unmasked, along with, I expect, the true danger lurking in this house." I glanced over again and saw Emily's dress now firmly buttoned up (though of course the problem with the neckline could not be helped. "I shall allow her to tell her tale." She glanced up at me, met my eyes, and smiled briefly at the honour I had conferred upon her.
*****
::Emily Cartwright::
What a sweet, arrogant git he could be! I couldn't help but smile all the same – he must have heard the commotion and leapt with the intent of aiding me, to judge by the fact that he hadn't even shed his snow-covered boots.
I stood, declining Cordelia's helping hands, and stood beside Holmes as I prepared to relate the extensive timeline I'd pieced together from my own observations and from conferring with Holmes(making sure my voice projected enough to reach even Mr Hammond's ears).
"I am about to relate a rather sordid tale in mixed company, covering some rather touchy topics. Some of it is merely conjecture – don't look at me like that, Holmes – but all of it is based upon what Holmes and I found, what Alexander Fairfax told me of what he knew, and Mr Fairfax's own words to me shortly before I had to defend my honour from him, with the results you see lying on the floor. This whole mess probably started not long after Alexander's conception. As Mrs Fairfax's condition grew obvious, Mr Fairfax lost any husbandly desire for her and apparently reached his conclusions about the innate beauty of 'untouched' women – that is to say, virgins." I saw Holmes' expression shift, very subtly, through a number of possible results, one of which may have been mild discomfort, before resuming its original state of studious neutrality.
"It is not unreasonable to assume that Mr Fairfax pursued his newfound 'hobby' at every opportunity. Clearly his desire for 'untouched' women is strong enough to override any checks imposed by social mores. His son Alexander related to me his own observations of his father flirting with likely-looking women in town – probably when he was purchasing his gardening supplies for his work here – while at the same time maintaining a façade of a happy marriage. It must have been quite a coup for him, then, when the Hammonds decided to rent out the spare room to guests… especially given that most of their guests were newly-wed couples. He had ready access to the women he so desired, without having to hunt for them.
"But then how to make sure that he was not caught? Holmes found a book in the study on various medicinal plants and herbs – including a particular plant from which can be made a rather effective soporific and muscle relaxant. He would slip some of this drug into the coffee in the evening and everyone would sleep like the dead, unable to fight him off."
Holmes broke into my narrative at this point. "He kept the tools of his 'hobby' as Miss Cartwright called it in the hothouse, where I found them while I went for my walk. Clearly nobody else ever went in there; otherwise he would have concealed the evidence better."
"But Mr Fairfax is not, strictly speaking, your Ghost," I said, gently regaining control, "You see, Alexander followed his father on one of Fairfax's nocturnal visits and saw what he was doing. Alexander told me that when he discovered how far his father had sunk, he had to do something to defend future guests from future attacks. He couldn't be certain if anyone would believe him if he told them what he'd witnessed. The Ghost was born. His aim in this was hopefully to wake the women before his father arrived, or at least to make them seem 'spoiled' in his father's eyes. His intentions were pure, at least, even if the means were frightening. In the end, however, Holmes and I have concluded that Mr Fairfax is the man who should be arrested in this whole plot, not Alexander. The beating I gave Alexander last night when he visited will be penance enough, in my opinion."
In the end, of course, the police were called (and arrived while faithful Cordelia was patching up her mongrel of a husband) to take Mr Fairfax away. Holmes put in a good word for Alexander, whose only crime was to be the son of someone like Fairfax, and the lad was questioned about his role and ultimately released with a severe warning. To expect any less would have been a pipe dream. Holmes and I gave our statements to the police, of course (though I had to give the officer a brief lesson in manners before he would listen to me), and turned over the evidence we'd uncovered (including the means of Alexander's ingress to the room). Afterwards there was nothing left for us but to pack up and go home. Holmes declined payment for his services in this instance, which didn't go over terribly well with the Hammonds, who felt obligated to give us *something*. They finally convinced him to take away a plant from the hothouse. He chose the valerian flower as a keepsake – how droll.
*****
End of Part 12.
To be concluded…
*****
::Still Emily Cartwright::
"You're a beautiful woman, Mrs Baker," the words oozed out of Timothy Fairfax's mouth, perverted into something grotesque in my ears, "You look so… pristine. Untouched. Virginal."
"It's no business of yours, Fairfax," I growled in the sort of tone that generally made even the dimmest of my would-be suitors pause. However, Fairfax was lost in his own musings.
"You remind me so much of Cordelia when we were first wed, just over eighteen years ago. The consummation spoiled her, though, even as it produced our son." He glanced vaguely at Alexander as though regarding a nearby stranger who has just passed gas. "Ever since then, I've been trying to find that purity again, like a man who sees the first snowfall of his life and then despairs to see it churned up and dirtied underfoot." He suddenly focused on me again, a frightening spark of madness in his eye. "A woman touched is a woman spoiled. Alexander knows that – so he tries to spoil as many women as he can before I can find them." The spark had become a hungry flame, and I backed away from him, even as he advanced on me like a predatory cat. "Clarissa," he purred as if he had any right to such familiarity, and then forced his mouth onto mine, as he pinned me to the wall.
My emotions fled. Fear, despair, revulsion, all gone, along with, for the moment, conscious thought. As I felt his hands on me, the thing that had chased them all out of my brain reared its head. To call it merely anger would have done it a severe disservice. History, legend, nature – all these are peppered with female warriors. Boadicea of the Celts. Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Artemis the Huntress, who sprang fully grown and fully armoured from the forehead of her father Zeus (how my own father would have appreciated the metaphor if he had any taste for Greek myths!). A she-cat defending her kittens from a bear. It seemed as though all these and more lent me a portion of themselves. No, I was not angry. I was furious – enraged! - and every fibre of my soul seemed to burn with a seething white-hot flame. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, so spake Shakespeare – and Timothy Fairfax was about to taste mine! I bit down hard on his lower lip, bit until I tasted blood, and kept biting until I was certain I'd nearly bitten his lip off. He howled in surprise and pain and tore himself away, not quite escaping as my balled left fist collided satisfyingly with his nose, followed shortly by the fingernails of my other hand clawing at his eyes.
Of the cousins who had shared my girlhood, the oldest – Benjamin to absolutely everyone else from the day he turned eighteen but always Benjy to me – had taught me how to fight, schooling me carefully in the fine art of hurting the other chap as much as possible before one was pulled off one's adversary and dragged home for supper and a good scolding. Of course, due to the voluminous petticoats required by feminine fashion, I could not with any great efficiency get my knee up into what Benjy delicately called a man's "anatomy". However, the same fashion laws that had cursed me with petticoats also blessed me with an alternate weapon.
While Fairfax tried to get his equilibrium after my barrage, I reached up to my hair, to the single pin with which Cordelia – poor Cordelia, if she had to deal with this man for eighteen years! – had artfully secured my coiffure, and drew it out. Of course, "pin" seems an overly dainty word for what generally amounted to a very thin ladies' dagger. The hatpins used by fashionable ladies tended to measure in the vicinity of six inches long, with the "social" end decorated with beads and jewels to go with one's outfit. It was a weapon that had served me well in the past, and now as Fairfax advanced upon me, intent upon his planned mayhem, I held it low and prepared to give him something to consider if in the future he wished to try anything like this again.
*****
::Sherlock Holmes::
I was halfway back to the house when I heard a ghastly scream. It was strangely distorted, quite unlike any scream I'd heard before, and it was oddly shrill. I cursed myself for another oversight and made haste through the snow, not even taking the time to remove my snow-covered boots as I followed the sounds of mayhem downstairs, reaching the corridor in time to hear another thin, strangled shriek, cut off by the sound of a piece of furniture breaking.
I burst through the door and saw Alexander Fairfax, face badly bruised as though beaten with a one-handed attack, holding half a chair, Timothy Fairfax curled insensible on the floor amid a scattering of wood fragments, and Emily Cartwright, her hair loose about her shoulders, the neckline and one sleeve of her dress torn, her face white but for two spots of colour on her cheeks, blood on her mouth, and bosom heaving as she tried to regain her breath. She clutched something in her left hand which I gathered to be the erstwhile fastening for her hair. As I watched, her face – which was initially distorted with outrage – relaxed into relief. Her mouth trembled as though she wished to say something and her eyes glistened with impending tears, but in the end she did neither. It appeared that the constrictions imposed by her corset were not conducive to sustained aerobics such as might be found in fighting off an attacker. It was likely a small miracle that I was able to catch her as her knees buckled, and – with a glance at Alexander and a nod in reply – lay her on the lad's bed.
"She fought like a right fury, Mr Baker," Alexander volunteered, still clutching the broken chair like a drowning man might clutch a piece of driftwood, "Father tried to do something awful to her but she wasn't having any of that." He looked apologetic. "I didn't think to do anything until just before she stabbed him in the… the… well, manly bits. With a bloody long hairpin. You married a real spitfire, sir. You better treat her right – if only for your own good." He offered me a wan smile, showing me the source of the tooth I'd found in the bedroom.
I was about to instruct Alexander to gather together the other players in this drama when Mrs Fairfax, apparently alerted by the same sounds that brought me, appeared in the doorway. He looked very small as she glanced down at her fallen husband, then over at the bed where lay Emily. From the look on her face, she had already figured out what had happened – which did little to make the scene any less shocking.
"Master Fairfax," I said levelly, "go and fetch the others in here at once. On your way, kindly bring back a small quantity of brandy for your mother to settle her nerves." He hared away. I turned to Mrs Fairfax. "Madam, this young lady has fainted." I did not need to mention the whys and wherefores. "Would you be kind enough to aid me in reviving her?"
She looked baffled for a moment. "You need to loosen her clothing, Mr Baker. Especially the corset, just a bit." Oh, God – not that again! "This happens sometimes, when a lady gets over… overexcited." She faltered momentarily, but recovered admirably. "Didn't you know that? You're her husband after all."
"A medical friend of mine has in the past advised me of such, but I possess neither the knowledge nor any right to do so." I forestalled her question with an upraised hand. "I shall explain all in a moment. In the meantime, would you please aid her? Ah – here comes young Master Fairfax and the rest. Madam, I suggest you take a few sips of that. Good." I turned to the rest of those assembled and cleared my throat.
"My name is Sherlock Holmes," I commenced, "I see some of you know the name. I was called in to investigate reports of a Ghost haunting this establishment, and as you can see, I – and my assistant on the bed yonder – have found him. Or, more to the point, we have discovered the Ghost and the reason for his haunting." I glanced in Emily's direction and saw her beginning to recover, her clothing, ahem, duly loosened to allow her to breathe, with Mrs Fairfax still at her side to ensure that she was okay and also, to some degree I expect, to preserve Emily's modesty from any other eyes. I turned back swiftly to my audience. "Miss Emily Cartwright's bravery ensured that the Ghost was unmasked, along with, I expect, the true danger lurking in this house." I glanced over again and saw Emily's dress now firmly buttoned up (though of course the problem with the neckline could not be helped. "I shall allow her to tell her tale." She glanced up at me, met my eyes, and smiled briefly at the honour I had conferred upon her.
*****
::Emily Cartwright::
What a sweet, arrogant git he could be! I couldn't help but smile all the same – he must have heard the commotion and leapt with the intent of aiding me, to judge by the fact that he hadn't even shed his snow-covered boots.
I stood, declining Cordelia's helping hands, and stood beside Holmes as I prepared to relate the extensive timeline I'd pieced together from my own observations and from conferring with Holmes(making sure my voice projected enough to reach even Mr Hammond's ears).
"I am about to relate a rather sordid tale in mixed company, covering some rather touchy topics. Some of it is merely conjecture – don't look at me like that, Holmes – but all of it is based upon what Holmes and I found, what Alexander Fairfax told me of what he knew, and Mr Fairfax's own words to me shortly before I had to defend my honour from him, with the results you see lying on the floor. This whole mess probably started not long after Alexander's conception. As Mrs Fairfax's condition grew obvious, Mr Fairfax lost any husbandly desire for her and apparently reached his conclusions about the innate beauty of 'untouched' women – that is to say, virgins." I saw Holmes' expression shift, very subtly, through a number of possible results, one of which may have been mild discomfort, before resuming its original state of studious neutrality.
"It is not unreasonable to assume that Mr Fairfax pursued his newfound 'hobby' at every opportunity. Clearly his desire for 'untouched' women is strong enough to override any checks imposed by social mores. His son Alexander related to me his own observations of his father flirting with likely-looking women in town – probably when he was purchasing his gardening supplies for his work here – while at the same time maintaining a façade of a happy marriage. It must have been quite a coup for him, then, when the Hammonds decided to rent out the spare room to guests… especially given that most of their guests were newly-wed couples. He had ready access to the women he so desired, without having to hunt for them.
"But then how to make sure that he was not caught? Holmes found a book in the study on various medicinal plants and herbs – including a particular plant from which can be made a rather effective soporific and muscle relaxant. He would slip some of this drug into the coffee in the evening and everyone would sleep like the dead, unable to fight him off."
Holmes broke into my narrative at this point. "He kept the tools of his 'hobby' as Miss Cartwright called it in the hothouse, where I found them while I went for my walk. Clearly nobody else ever went in there; otherwise he would have concealed the evidence better."
"But Mr Fairfax is not, strictly speaking, your Ghost," I said, gently regaining control, "You see, Alexander followed his father on one of Fairfax's nocturnal visits and saw what he was doing. Alexander told me that when he discovered how far his father had sunk, he had to do something to defend future guests from future attacks. He couldn't be certain if anyone would believe him if he told them what he'd witnessed. The Ghost was born. His aim in this was hopefully to wake the women before his father arrived, or at least to make them seem 'spoiled' in his father's eyes. His intentions were pure, at least, even if the means were frightening. In the end, however, Holmes and I have concluded that Mr Fairfax is the man who should be arrested in this whole plot, not Alexander. The beating I gave Alexander last night when he visited will be penance enough, in my opinion."
In the end, of course, the police were called (and arrived while faithful Cordelia was patching up her mongrel of a husband) to take Mr Fairfax away. Holmes put in a good word for Alexander, whose only crime was to be the son of someone like Fairfax, and the lad was questioned about his role and ultimately released with a severe warning. To expect any less would have been a pipe dream. Holmes and I gave our statements to the police, of course (though I had to give the officer a brief lesson in manners before he would listen to me), and turned over the evidence we'd uncovered (including the means of Alexander's ingress to the room). Afterwards there was nothing left for us but to pack up and go home. Holmes declined payment for his services in this instance, which didn't go over terribly well with the Hammonds, who felt obligated to give us *something*. They finally convinced him to take away a plant from the hothouse. He chose the valerian flower as a keepsake – how droll.
*****
End of Part 12.
To be concluded…