Chapter 15: Irene

“What happened?” I asked, putting out a hand and lightly touching Edith’s shoulder. “She was at home earlier. I saw her in the carriage house, and then Lewis put her to bed.”

“I know,” she answered. “She got up and went to the chicken house, and she never came back. I sent the men scouring all over the property for her, but she was gone. There’s no chance she had enough time to get away under her own power.”

“Have you told the police?” Holmes asked.

She nodded. “They’re forming a search party, but I came straight to you from them.” I had observed that while Holmes did not admire the police’s methods when it came to more refined tasks, he had the sense to see when they were needed.

“Of course, we will do all we can,” said Holmes.

I could see that Edith was near tears, but she used powerful self-control to hold herself together for the moment. “Inspector Graves told me to go home and wait for developments,” she said. “I’m going to ask Julia to come with me.”

“Very wise,” said Holmes, and she walked away toward the Stevenson house, her shoulders bowed with dejection and fear.

“What do we do?” I asked my friend.

“We go home,” said Holmes.

“Whatever for?”

“To figure out what I’ve missed.”

***

The inside of the cottage was empty, and it didn’t take Holmes to deduce for me that Dr Watson and Mrs Turner had gone out together. My friend immediately made for the wing chair, and I sat opposite him so that he could talk through the details in his mind if he wished. He was beyond me then. I saw facts, and my brain refused to stop making surmises, but I had no idea which direction to proceed or what might be in my companion’s mind. After a long silence, I got up to make tea, but when I came back and pushed a cup into Holmes’s hand, he did not acknowledge my presence.

“Tobacco,” he said after what seemed like an age. I was almost asleep by this point, drowsy amidst the quiet of his thoughts, but the insistent tone of his voice woke me, even though he spoke quietly.

“What?” I asked.

Holmes leapt to his feet, colour rising in his cheeks. “We must leave at once. There is no time to lose.” I knew better than to argue, following him outside as quickly as I could.

“The tobacco, Irene. He tried to fool me, but the tobacco gave him away.”

“Who, Phillimore? Stevenson?” I breathed hard, trying to keep pace with Holmes’s long, quick strides.

“No,” he said, “Dr Clarke.”

“What?” I said again, walking along and staring at my friend with disbelief. “I thought we ruled out the possibility of Edith’s story.”

“We did,” said Holmes, “but nevertheless, it’s him. I saw traces of Phillimore’s tobacco in his study.”

“How do you know it was Phillimore’s and not someone else’s who uses the same sort?”

“Clarke doesn’t smoke, and he never allowed tobacco anywhere near him from notions of it being harmful to the health. The traces I saw were ground into the floor of his study, as if dropped by accident and not heeded. He would never have allowed the stuff if he could have helped it. The pattern of droppings suggests that the tobacco fell out of Phillimore’s pocket, perhaps during an altercation.” Holmes related these facts in a monotone that suggested he was agitated on the inside. I wondered why these signs had not been evident to him before, but I didn’t comment. There would be plenty of time for that.

I quickly ascertained that Holmes was leading me to Dr Clarke’s house at the edge of the village. A shouted greeting by Miss Rose as we passed the butcher’s shop was not returned, and I hoped in passing that I had not mortally offended her.

“We won’t find Clarke here,” said Holmes. “I only hope to find clues to where he might have taken the child.”

“Should I find the police?”

“No,” said Holmes. “They will be half way to the farm by now. There isn’t time.”

Clarke’s house was dark and quiet, with no sign of anyone to let us in. Holmes dexterously picked the lock on the front door and led me through the suite of rooms that the doctor used as a surgery. The light from the afternoon sun cast strange shadows, and I felt a strong sense of foreboding as I looked around at the coldly formal arrangements. Holmes quickly passed through, entering an unusually broad hallway.

“What are we seeking?” I asked.

“Any sign of the child and where he might have taken her,” said Holmes briefly. “Barring that, any sort of disturbance.”

My friend undoubtedly knew what he meant by this, but I was less sure. I found myself peeking into obviously-unused rooms and then coming out again into the passage, feeling as if I were Alice in Wonderland trying to make sense of a strange world. Holmes, meanwhile, went straight for a large room at the end. After a few minutes, I joined him, less than satisfied with my own efforts. He was searching Clarke’s dustbin.

I knew better than to say anything and proceeded to walk around the perimeter of the room with as little luck as I’d had previously. I was about to give up and search through the jumbled papers on Clarke’s vast desk, a task Holmes had already performed, when something caught my eye. There was a flash of white tucked between the cushion and the back of Clarke’s chair. It was the smallest of fibres, but it looked out of place.

“Holmes,” I said, “look.”

To his credit, the detective trusted me enough to stand to his feet and look at the wisps in my hand. “Charles the rabbit,” he said shortly. “Eliza was here.” As gratifying as the realisation was, it also chilled my blood. Until we had found evidence, the reality of Eliza’s kidnapping had seemed further off, almost as if it might not really be happening. Now, there was no mistaking the truth.

I stood back as Holmes made his way around the room again, looking at each surface. Finally, he glanced over to where I was, standing next to a small table on which the doctor had placed a decanter and a glass. The detective ran toward me and grabbed the glass, putting it to his lips and turning it slowly. His eyes grew alarmingly bright.

“They’re here!” he said

“What?” I asked dumbly, unable to process what he was saying.

“The lip of the glass is warmer than it should be,” he whispered. “Speak softly.”

“There’s no need for that,” said a voice in the doorway, and a woman with a ramrod-straight spine, a black dress, and a large gun met my gaze.

“Mrs Parkfield,” I said pointlessly.

“I’ve no idea what you hope to accomplish,” Holmes said coolly. “You can’t possibly keep us here.”

“I have no intention of keeping you after Dr Clarke gets what he wants.” She trained her gun on me. “This is quite simple, Mr Holmes,” she said, and the detective and I sat down in the chairs that stood before Clarke’s desk. I looked over at Holmes, trying to ascertain what work his brain might be doing, but his face was totally impassive. Mrs Parkfield sat in Clarke’s chair, not taking her eyes off either of us. I had never liked her when I’d met her in the village, and my ill feeling was finally justified.

My mind went back to the day I had been held prisoner in a tiny field office in south Florida. I had felt hopeless then, but the circumstances were hardly the same. Holmes had been with me then as well, but I had been unaware of his presence, ignorant of the fact that he was about to rescue me. Now, he was seated next to me, and his presence was comforting, though the irony was that he, too, was a prisoner.

After a few short moments that seemed much longer than they really were, I heard a noise in the hallway, and Clarke passed the doorway with the sleeping Eliza Phillimore in his arms. He stepped into his study, and I saw that the child was more than asleep; she had obviously been drugged.

“What is the meaning of this, Clarke?” asked Holmes, not as if he was addressing a criminal as much as an old and disappointing friend.

“It’s your fault, you know,” said Clarke. “I was getting away with it before you came. When you arrived and started nosing your way around the village, I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured out the truth one way or the other. After all, you learned some of your methods from me, though you’ve far eclipsed my modest achievements.”

“What do you want from me?” asked Holmes.

“You’re going to write to the police, assuring them of the guilt of Charles Stevenson for the death of James Phillimore, a murder motivated by the fact that the man had meddled with Stevenson’s daughter Julia. Miss Adler will deliver this letter, along with proof in the form of letters in the man’s own hand - or the hand of someone near enough for the ineptitude of Inspector Graves. Mrs Parkfield, my trusted assistant, will make sure this occurs. After that, I will personally escort both of you to the train station. You will leave Fulworth, never to return. After that, and only after that, I will return Eliza to her unfortunate mother. You must see, Holmes, that for all your cleverness, you have no option. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Very well,” said Holmes, sounding defeated. Mrs Parkfield smiled unpleasantly and handed him a piece of stationery and a pen, her gun still pointed firmly in my direction. The detective went to the side table and placed the paper upon it, beginning to write, his non-dominant hand fidgeting nervously in his pocket. Clarke watched him carefully. “It’s dull,” he said after a moment of wrestling with the pen.

“Mrs Parkfield, get him another,” said Clarke, his old shoulders slumping from the little girl’s weight.

At that moment, Holmes’s lazily fidgeting hand sprang to life, and I saw a blur of light that suddenly blazed up with heat and shooting sparks. At the same time, the decanter rolled toward me across the floor, and in a split second, Holmes had snatched Eliza from the dazed Clarke, and we ran for the door.

“Fire! Fire!” screamed my companion as we hurled ourselves outside, and one of the inevitabilities of village life began to work immediately in our favour. People came running from everywhere. Mothers streamed out of Cottonwood’s with babies in their arms. The butcher came running out of his shop with a leg of mutton in his hand, and Miss Rose, who didn’t appear offended after all, gamely took Eliza in her arms. The news spread from around us and seemed to bring out every able-bodied person in the village. Meanwhile, I was relieved to find that Holmes was now the one with the gun, and as my eyes scanned the mayhem, I saw the hapless Clarke and his assistant skulking away at the back of the crowd.

“Stop the doctor and Mrs Parkfield!” I screamed as loudly as I could, no longer caring how insane I might or might not seem. “They killed Phillimore!” As could be expected, this assertion produced a flurry of aimless noise and activity, but thankfully, a young man with strong arms and an equally strong mind laid hold of the man, and his action prompted the vicar, who was next to him, to take hold of Mrs Parkfield’s wrists. Edward Rayburn looked nothing like a knight in shining armor, but as he paraded Dr Clarke over to Holmes, he looked as heroic as any subject of a romantic painting that I had ever seen. Father Murphy seemed less comfortable with the task of dragging a substantial, angry woman in our direction, but he did so. At that moment, someone in the crowd screamed, “There’s a real fire!” and I realised that I had actually managed to forget the flames that Holmes had set on their merry way.

“The fire brigade must form immediately,” said Holmes, “and Miss Adler, Edward Rayburn, and the vicar will help me restrain these two until the police arrive.” The sound of my friend’s commanding voice worked wonders among the crowd, who almost magically broke apart to follow his instructions.

The detective led the group of captives and captors to the village green, where the Winking Tree greeted us with its usual green solemnity. “This will be best,” said Holmes. “Impossible to escape in plain sight with the whole village outside.” He sounded, I thought, quite pleased. “Now, we will send to the farm for the inspector and sergeant,” he continued.

“I could drive Miss Adler,” said an eager voice, and I looked behind me to find that Jimmy Simms, a young man possessed of dimples and oversized hands, had run over and was eagerly awaiting instructions like an energetic puppy.

“Very well,” said Holmes, “but first, fetch us some rope.” The boy was quick, and in a few minutes, the resolute Edward and tired vicar were relieved of the task of subduing Clarke and Mrs Parkfield.

***

“How did Mr Holmes get them?” asked Simms eagerly once we were on our way.

“He surprised them,” I answered, “by starting the fire.”

The boy’s eyes grew large with amazement. “He might have gotten burned himself.”

“That’s true,” I answered. I hadn’t thought of it until then.

Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward.

- The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle