Chapter Three— What Bailey Knew
January 29, 1890
"17 Wiley Avenue, please," instructed the detective to the grimy looking hansom cabbie. The fellow was covered in dirt found particularly in the Lower London streets; he wore a navy cap and a muddy red scarf, and there was a single brow upon his brown, gritty face that twisted into a look of curiosity about Mr. Holmes' chosen location.
"Wiley?" repeated the man in a bit of disbelief, addressing Holmes and Dr. Watson in a term that may be described as "guvnas" though it is really hard to say just what he meant by this. "For gentlemen like yore selves?" he asked.
"Yes cabbie, we have business to attend there," said Holmes impatiently.
"Alrighty then, I s'pose that s'all right then," grinned the cabbie good naturedly, clicking his tongue softly to make the matted grey mare go.
"I say Holmes, the poor chap seems to have it in his mind that we shouldn't be going there at all," noticed Watson. He was accompanying his good friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes on his ongoing investigation of the disappearance of Miss Genevieve d'Emeraldé. But today Holmes seemed more interested in the case of the attempted poisoning of Miss Emma Galveston. Having been filled in on the details of this inquisition, Dr. Watson was coming with him not only to judge the character of their suspect but to assist Holmes should a dangerous situation arise.
"And he is absolutely right. Wiley Avenue is in no part of town that a good gentleman should ever venture into, even a doctor and his detective companion," responded Holmes. Watson noted that the younger man had a firm grip on the pistol in his inner coat pocket. Holmes too noted the apprehensive glance.
"Don't fret Watson, I'm sure that everything will go just as planned this afternoon," he said with a tinge of dry humour in his low voice.
"How dangerous is this place?" asked Watson before being seized with a fit of coughing. Holmes waited until this spell ended.
"The Wiley Broach? I frankly have no idea, Watson. Though if reputation truly proceeds, we are in for an interesting occurrence, to say the least."
"Are you sure that this Michael Bailey will be here, Holmes," asked the good doctor, unable to hide the hints of worry in his voice.
"I am most certain Watson. You see this?" Holmes drew from within the depths of his coat a neatly folded but dirty brown woollen scarf.
"Yes?"
"This piece belongs to our Mr. Bailey."
"How did you ever acquire it, Holmes?" exclaimed Dr. Watson.
"The slight-of-hand of one of my less scrupulous Irregulars," said Holmes briefly, returning the scarf to his pocket. "I was paying young Barty to follow Bailey, once I found that he was living on Wiley Avenue as well. The young fellow had the foresight to swipe Bailey's scarf from the table of the Wiley Broach, and I had the foresight of advertising my finding of it in the Times."
"Brilliant."
"I've done it before," noted Holmes with that familiar dryness. "I am surprised you don't recall."
"But of course! The Blue Carbuncle! Barely two months. You returned a hat and a rather special goose…"
"And I plan to follow the same with Mr. Bailey." At this moment the cabbie reined in the mare, and they were brought to a stop.
It was a seedy little pub right in the middle of Wiley Avenue; the sort of thing one pictures when one pictures a London pub. The windows were covered in yellow paper, so one could not see the inside, and the signpost waived a ragged Union Jack. The sign bore a peeling image of a green lady's dress pin; it was indeed the Wiley Broach.
"We're here," announced the cabbie, chipper despite the intense cold that numbed the two gentlemen down to their boots. His nose was cherry red from exposure, and his hands snatched up the fee with the same colour.
"So I see," said Watson with distain.
"Shall we enter?" offered Holmes, feeling the shock of the icy winter wind strike him as if his clothes were just paper, and knowing that Watson felt the same way.
"Let's," grunted Watson.
The public house was nearly deserted, save a young black boy sweeping nonchalantly a mouse's nest in the corner and a thin blonde man with his back to them at the bar. "Can I 'elp ye?" asked the man.
Michael Bailey was not a tall man, under five ten by a quick visual measurement, but he wore high leather boots that made him look taller. His eyes were close set and deep, with gaunt blue eyes that seemed to strike Holmes to the core. He returned the piercing glare with his own grey eyes, and for a split moment they locked daggering glimpses.
"I said, can I 'elp ye?" repeated the man. Though these words seemed to show low class English, Holmes knew better. The man's voice was reedy but strong; he knew it to be actor's training that brought him to this pitch. Bailey had longish blonde hair tied back with a snippet of some ladylove's rose ribbon; his vest was of a darker shade of the same colour and his white sleeves were immensely wrinkled underneath.
"Yes, I believe you can. I advertised for the owner of a brown scarf, found outside this business on the 26th. Has he arrived?"
"'E 'as," responded the barkeep in a barely audible voice. "I lost my scarf on that same day."
"Then this must be yours," said Holmes with unlikely warmth. "What is your name, my good man?"
"Michael. Michael Bailey."
"Mr. Bailey then," smiled Holmes in a grimacing way that made it look pasted on. "An actor in previous training?" The man was sullen. "Don't worry, old chap, I'm one too. Or was one. Sherlock Holmes," he enunciated, sticking out his hand. "Oh, and this is Dr. John Watson, a colleague of mine."
Mr. Bailey showed signs of recognition. "The detective from Baker Street?" he said, with more annoyance than awe.
"That's the one!" Such a strange sight it was, to see Sherlock Holmes acting like the jolliest fellow in London. Bailey stared thoughtfully at him for a moment, as if deciding something.
"What's the real reason that yore 'ere?" growled the man. "I saw that lecherous urchin nick my scarf. 'E must be yore's."
"You speak the truth about a boy… he is my brother Mycroft's servant, the son of his footman. He's been soundly punished for it, Mr. Bailey, don't you worry about that." Dr. Watson nodded in honest collaboration; parts of these statements were true.
Barty, the grubby little fellow who was the most recent addition to the Irregulars, was the son of Mycroft Holmes' dead footman. Poor chap had never known his mother, and so without his father felt no obligation to sticking around the home of his father's master. It was short three weeks before the gangly Arab teen who led the gang of urchins presented proudly their newest member to their primary benefactor.
"And ye thought it would be the best for 'im of ye falsed me and kept 'im from the bobbies. Well, I can understand that. Mr. Holmes."
"Good," breathed Holmes, making the motion of heading towards the door.
"But that's not the only thing ye wanted to know about, is it, Mr. Holmes?" The flaxen haired gentleman gave a small grin of triumph when Holmes made a surprised halt. "Yore one of those lookin' for Emma."
Holmes turned around slowly, trying to smother the alarm that was slowly showing on his peaked face. "Do you mean Miss Galveston?" he said, drawing out his words as his mind searched for the logic behind Bailey's awkward knowledge.
"Yes, that's 'er. Yore with the redhead who came here on Sunday, aren't ye?"
Holmes recalled something deep inside his memory. "A redhead? One with shifty eyes and solid build?"
"Yes?"
"I do not know him." The blond looked confused. "But I have seen him before." Watson was utterly baffled, and gave a slight frown. Who was he talking about?
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked the boy with the broom. Watson gave a little start; he had forgotten that the child was even there.
"I am afraid I agree with the boy, Holmes. Who is this fellow?"
"I can answer that," supplied Bailey. "'E said 'is name was Victor 'Umphreys."
"Victor Humphreys?" repeated the detective. "Yes, yes, that would be right. What did Mr. Humphreys ask you?"
"'E wanted to know how long I 'ad known Emma, and when we first met, and all sorts of things. I thought 'e was a bobby so I told 'im what 'e wanted to know." The young man looked crestfallen as he recalled this.
"You would not mind supplying those same answers to me, now would you, Mr. Bailey? I am afraid that Victor Humphreys may be the man who has been trying to harm Miss Galveston."
"Someone's been trying to 'arm her? That redheaded fellow?" His deep-sunk blue eyes went round as the moon. "Sure, I will tell ye if it will help Emma."
Bailey, Holmes, and Watson all took seats in a musty little booth near the yellow-papered window. Bailey began his story in a wavering voice, all the courage sapped from him.
"I met Emma in late summer of '84. She was just twenty-one, and the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. I was the son of the gardener at Reuben Manor, only seventeen, and nose-deep in the Shakespearian playbooks that Lady Roberta gave me. What a nice soul, that woman… It didn't take much, to convince 'er to love me back. She found it an amusing adventure… one that 'er acting friends would approve of and 'er old friend, Lady Genevieve, would disapprove of. They 'ad 'ad some sort of spat, and Emma did everything she could to break ties with the d'Emeraldé sisters."
Holmes cast a quick glance in the direction of Watson, who nodded in agreement. So the d'Emeraldés and Miss Galveston were not on the best of terms after all, thought Holmes. "Please continue, Mr Bailey…"
February 3, 1890
Holmes tightened his woollen scarf against his body as a fierce wind threatened to simply blow him away. It was a mild enough Monday morning for February, with tops of green-brown grass peaking through the melting sooty snow, but the weather threatened to turn harsh yet again, much to the detective's dismay.
He had promised to meet a woman by the name of Mrs. Hawthorne concerning a jewellery theft from her townhouse not three days past, but it looked as though the woman would not show after all. Eileen Wingover Hawthorne was the wife of the late Mr. Edward Hawthorne, a merchant in the fishing industry. Hawthorne and Son made a fairly decent profit, making the highly excitable lady an easy target for an aspirant thief.
Holmes, finding his patience worn to the breaking point, rose from the park bench and prepared to hail his usual mode of transport. It was at this moment that a full figured gentlewoman in a navy coat came rushing down the sidewalk, to collide with the man.
"Oh, oh dear me," squeaked the middle aged housewife as she discovered Mr. Sherlock Holmes laying rather humbling-like in the gutter.
"Mrs. Hawthorne, I assume," he grunted, rather peeved as he mourned his soaking wet lapels.
"Oh, yes, yes, I'm Eileen Hawthorne. You're Mr. Holmes? I expected someone…"
"Less wet?" said Holmes sarcastically. The woman blushed profusely. "My apologies, Mrs. Hawthorne, for standing in your pathway." With one final "harrumph" he straightened his coat and tried to ignore the blatant dark splash across his backside.
"Mrs. Hawthorne, you mentioned in your telegram that this is not the first time someone has taken one of your possessions? Something besides the pearl earrings you telegraphed about?"
"Yes, yes," squeaked the woman. Holmes studied her, as he often did to his clients and suspects alike: wide hipped, rather squat, but a thin, bony face that one did not often find on a woman of her proportions, as well as mousy brown hair with streaks of vibrant grey which placed her age somewhere in her middle fifties. "I had a mishap with one of my maids, Else, who took a sapphire hatpin from my jewellery box several months ago."
"And it was returned to you?"
"Yes, my butler, Armistead, caught her walking into a consignment shop with it when he was out purchasing shoe polish for Eddie."
"By 'Eddie' you mean your son?"
"Yes, Edward Junior is my only son."
"He worked with your husband, Edward Senior, in the fishing business, no?"
"That is correct."
"Of what age is your son?"
"Three and twenty years, Mr. Holmes," answered Mrs. Hawthorne pensively, as if wondering what her son's age had to do with the disappearance of herpearl earrings.
"Twenty-three then," murmured Holmes, filing this fact away. "Mrs. Hawthorne, have you thoroughly checked to see that you have not misplaced your earbobs?" he said. All during this discourse they had been walking at a leisurely pace towards 32 Grimond Street, the Hawthorne's redbrick townhouse. And at this point, they had reached the gate.
At Holmes' accusation of simply losing the 'earbobs,' Eileen Hawthorne's breathing sharply quickened. "Well, you are the detective, aren't you?" she said sardonically, her squinty hazel eyes radiating conceited, ignorant displeasure.
"Mrs. Hawthorne, do you wish my assistance or not?" he glared in reproach. "Because if I came all this way for naught then I wish to be informed of this." It was just that he had been kept waiting for over an hour, knocked into the gutter, and now… insulted?
"My apologies," muttered Mrs. Hawthorne, not meaning it, of course. Holmes sniffed. They were greeted by a robust but completely grey valet whom Holmes knew to be called "Armistead."
"Good morning, Missus Hawthorne. You have brought Mister Holmes to investigate the theft?" he said in a high, narrow voice of one who spent too much time indoors.
"That is correct, Armistead," said Mrs. Hawthorne rather timidly. "Tell Amanda to have tea ready in the morning room. I shall take Mr. Holmes up to my bedchamber." The butler nodded stiffly.
"He was your husband's servant," commented Holmes in his offhand way.
"How did you know?" she said, turning sideways on the narrow and rickety staircase to face him.
"You are scared of him," said Holmes dryly. "If he was your servant you would not be this way."
"Yes," admitted Mrs. Hawthorne. "When I was a young girl, barely seventeen, my family, the Wingovers, decided that we, meaning Edward and I, would be a suitable match. Just to say they had it, of course. I have lived my whole married life on Grimond Street, but this is not to say that I have ever been able to manage longest working servant."
"And that would be Armistead."
"Exactly, Mr. Holmes." Mrs. Hawthorne opened the last door in the hall and directed the consulting detective inside. It was a plain, small room with one window, fastened tight and framed by starch white curtains. The spread was a black and white Dutch pattern, supported by an iron bedpost. One thin dressing gown lay limp over the wicker chair, the only chair in the room. The bureau was maple and brass, standing as high as Holmes' shoulder and littered with empty cologne bottles and a large purple box.
"This is the box which held the earrings, Mrs. Hawthorne?"
"Correct, sir."
"It's a hatbox."
"It belonged to my grandmother, Mr. Holmes. It was beaver from America but manufactured in Paris."
"Le chapeau castor d'États Unis," read Holmes quietly to himself. "Yes, Mrs. Hawthorne, you are quite right. An insignificant detail to some, but it matters greatly to me."
"How so?"
"An ordinary thief does not go to the trouble of stealing a beaver hat from an upper-class home, Mrs. Hawthorne. Our thief must have known that you stored your precious items in such a container."
"You mean it was an 'inside job,' Mr. Holmes?"
"You've read too much of what Dr. Watson spews to the public, Mrs. Hawthorne," said Holmes with a smile. "I've never used such terminology myself." The buxom woman frowned and wrinkled her forehead.
"Well, was it?" she said impatiently.
"In a manner of speaking. I--" Holmes was suddenly cut off by the playful shrieks of a young girl.
"Auntie Eileen! Auntie Eileen!" shouted the child as she scampered up the stairs in a series of thuds.
"Yes, child. In my bedchamber!" returned Mrs. Hawthorne with a big smile. The girl, Mrs. Hawthorne's niece, was a strawberry blonde, eleven year old with a peppery smile and a blue sailor's dress.
"Mr. Holmes, my brother's child, Rosie Wingover," introduced Mrs. Hawthorne quickly.
"Pleased to meet you, Rosie," said Holmes with a smirk. She reminded him of a young tomboy that he had grown up with in Montpellier.
"Pleased to meet you, too, Mr. Holmes," said Rose with a stiff curtsy.
"Rosie, why don't you go find Mrs. Drew and see if you can help with the gingersnaps she's baking," encouraged Mrs. Hawthorne. The girl took the suggestion and exited the room without questioning her.
"What a lovely niece you have, ma'am."
"Thank you Mr. Holmes. Rose has always been my favourite of Freddy's children. Seven boys, would you believe? She has always been quite pleasure to have with me, unlike those rough older ones."
"And a great admirer of you?"
"Much so, I would like to think," responded Mrs. Hawthorne warmly.
"Does Miss Rose like the outdoors much. Mrs. Hawthorne?"
"Yes, all Wingover children do, Mr. Holmes," she said proudly.
"Was she here… the day the jewellery was detected as missing?"
"No, but she was here the day before," answered Mrs. Hawthorne cautiously.
Holmes took an idle look out the window, found the pane to lift quite lightly and smoothly, and then marched outside with a confused and very much toddling Eileen Hawthorne trailing behind.
Ignoring the snow, Holmes tramped through the yard until he was directly under the bedroom window. He looked up, looked down, and stuck his hand straight into the melting snow with a shiver and retrieved something.
"Mrs. Hawthorne, your missing pearls," he said with a satisfied smile.
"Why, Mr. Holmes, how on earth did you ever find them?" gasped Mrs. Hawthorne, her face changing to a colour near violet.
"Elementary, ma'am," he began, suddenly wishing for the companionship of Dr. Watson. Watson was unfortunately far up north in Lincolnshire, attending to the estate of a deceased cousin, and would no doubt be delayed by the heavy snow for the rest of the week. "I knew at once they had not been stolen by an outside miscreant; it was unlikely that they would enter through the window without waking you, as your bed is quite near enough to be chilled by a breeze, and that they would only take one pair of earrings from a large purple hatbox, which is not at all suited for storing such things.
"Therefore, there had to be someone within the household with a desire for such objects. The likely maid previously eliminated, I had no suspects until the delightful Miss Rosie entered the scene. Did you notice the crestfallen look on her face once you introduced me by name? And that she did not protest to leave the company of her favourite aunt? I judged correctly that young Rosie had taken your earbobs.
"But where had she taken them? She did not seem poor off, for despite the number of children in her family I judged that both her father and you had grown up rich."
"How so, Mr. Holmes?" questioned Mrs. Hawthorne, white lipped, as they returned inside.
"Your mannerisms, for one thing, and your well educated accent. You were taught by a private tutor, not French for you don't speak a word of it, but nonetheless taught well."
"This is true."
"So Rosie had taken the earrings, probably just to look at them because she certainly didn't intend to steal them. It was warm on the day in question, unusually warm for the weather we've had lately, and in her game of pretend she opened the window, which opened quite easily for her. At this point in time you began to climb the stairs and in a panic she slammed the window down on her own fingers," he lifted the window to show a small drop of blood, "and dropped your pearls into the snow below."
"Amazing!"
"Not really. A simple case, but rather satisfying. My fee, ma'am?"
"Of course," she said, flustered, and drew her cheque book from the pocket of her matronly apron.
Authoress' Note:
My apologies for the delay on this chapter, but as you can see it is a bit longer than the previous ones. Holmes gets a bit sidetracked in this chapter, but he does make some progress towards the murderer. I'd like to thank those who have reviewed thus far for assisting me in making this story better.
Next Chapter: The Servant
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