A Ghost from Christmas Past

By Thomas A. Turley

This story first appeared in The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, Part VII.

Thomas A. Turley has been “hooked on Holmes” since finishing The Hound of the Baskervilles at about the age of twelve. His first Sherlockian pastiche, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Tainted Canister, appeared as an MX e-book in 2014. He has two stories (A Scandal in Serbia and A Ghost from Christmas Past) in The MX Anthology of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, Parts VI and VII. Tom recently finished The Case of the Dying Emperor which will appear, along with “Serbia” and two new stories, in the forthcoming collection Sherlock Holmes and the Crowned Heads of Europe. Although he has a Ph.D. in British history, Tom spent most of his career as an archivist with the State of Alabama. He and his wife Paula are proud family members of two grown children, a beautiful new granddaughter, and a bossy little yellow dog. For more about Tom and his stories, see his Amazon author’s page www.amazon.com/Thomas-A.-Turley/e/B01FL645TO and his occasional blog on Goodreads www.goodreads.com/author/show/8135315.Thomas_A_Turley.

Nuné Asatryan has been a professional artist and designer for 35 years. Nune participated as a jury member for selection of nomination of the best artwork at the 7th Annual Student Exhibition, The Fine Arts Center, Englewood, NJ. Her paintings are in the museum of Modern Art of Armenia, in the collection of Government of Armenia, and in private collections in Armenia, Russia, USA, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Iran, Lithuania and Poland. Nune is also Art Educator at Armory art Center, West Palm Beach.

www.artnune.com

Artwork size: 18” × 24”

Medium: Oil on canvas

No doubt it is a sinful thing to rue the Christmas season. I do not mean the day itself, which remains for me—and all mankind—a day of joy, and hope, and spiritual renewal. I am no Ebenezer Scrooge; indeed, the tale of his redemption is my favourite of the many memorable works left to us by Mr. Dickens.

Yet, for the Watson family, the season surrounding Christmas Day has always been a time of sorrow. My mother’s early death, occurring on its very eve in 1858, haunted my father and my brother until their own lives ended, decades later, in misery and squalor. As a three-time widower, I have not escaped the curse. It was but eight years ago, just after Christmas, that my beautiful Priscilla was diagnosed with the cancer that would kill her within weeks. On December 22, 1891, I lost my beloved Mary with appalling suddenness. That remains a story, even now, that I am not prepared to tell.

But it is of my first wife, and an even earlier Christmas, that I shall write today. Hitherto, I have said little of Constance in my memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, so little that some readers, understandably, have confused her with Mary in cases that predate The Sign of Four. My reticence has not been due to a lack of regard for my poor angel, although our marriage was not, by its untimely end, a happy one. Rather, it was the uncanny manner of her death that led me to keep silent. Unlike Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, my friend and literary agent, I am not a believer in the supernatural. I remain quite sure that I myself have never seen a ghost. Yet, on the night that Constance died, I was moved to consider, for the first and only time in my long life, the possibility that ghosts exist.

To tell this story properly, I must begin by writing of my brother. I have done so only once before, and then misleadingly. The Sign of Four contains a passage in which Sherlock Holmes, after deducing Henry’s tragic history by examining his watch, defends himself against my anger by protesting that he never knew I had a brother. That account was fiction. In fact, my friend had been aware of Henry for some years, for Holmes’ substantial loan had financed my attempt to save him. Early in 1884, I left Baker Street to take up residence in San Francisco, California. There my brother and I spent our last days together, and there I met and fell in love with Constance Adams.

In many ways, my relationship with my elder brother helped to prepare me for my relationship with Holmes. Henry, like the great detective, possessed a far more agile mind than I do; he, too, had scant patience with slower-moving intellects. In his youth, my brother had seemed destined for a brilliant future, and it was our father’s final disappointment that he abandoned law to follow me into the army. For a brief time, we served together in Afghanistan. My role as regimental surgeon ended with a wound at Maiwand; Henry, after an unhappy love affair, drowned his promising intelligence career in alcohol. He never recovered, for my brother far exceeded Sherlock Holmes in his capacity for self-destruction. I arrived in San Francisco to find him sick and destitute, having in three years squandered his entire inheritance.

Oscar Wilde, who visited the bayside city shortly before I did, posited that “anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.” He concluded that it must be a delightful place, but that part of his bon mot failed my brother utterly. I found him settled in the most squalid corner of the city, known as the Barbary Coast. As a den of iniquity, it outstripped both Whitechapel and the worst haunts of Paris, but Henry had taken to his foul surroundings like an alligator to a swamp. He invested our father’s legacy in a waterfront saloon, was swindled by his partner, and quickly lost himself in debt and dissipation. To my further horror, he had also married a young girl from the streets. She, at least, proved to be a gentle-natured, pretty creature, who nursed Henry devotedly when he became too ill to work. Even then, there was little wrong with my brother that rest, a better diet, and abstinence from whiskey would not cure. His situation was by no means hopeless if his self-respect could be restored.

In order to support the three of us, I sought employment as a locum tenens at several local hospitals. The Sisters of Mercy, a group of Irish nuns resident in San Francisco since the 1850’s, put me to work at their clinic in Stockton Street. Here I ministered daily to the dregs of Barbary Coast society: drunken sailors, syphilitic prostitutes, and opium-addicted Chinamen. Unpleasant as it was, my experience later aided me in treating my poor friend Asa Whitney, although sadly he was one victim of the poppy whom I failed to cure.

I learned from the Sisters that San Francisco ran an Almshouse for its indigents, located on an old Mexican ranch outside the city. When I visited (expecting some Dickensian horror), I found eighty acres of arable, well-watered land, sheltered behind two prominent hills known as the Twin Peaks. The Almshouse operated as a communal farm, its inmates providing labour in return for lodging, food, and medical care. So successful were they that the farm produced a surplus for sale in San Francisco’s markets. In short, it seemed an ideal place for my brother to recover. I felt sure that a few months of fresh air, hard work, and—above all—clean living would make a man of him again. Henry was not easy to persuade, angrily declaring that manual labour was beneath his dignity as an ex-officer. Considering his recent degradation, I took this protest as a healthy sign. Fortunately, even a younger brother may assert his authority as a physician. By late summer, Henry and Alice had translated to Laguna Honda, where they settled into their new life very well.

With my brother in an improved financial and physical condition, I began to seek a more advantageous personal arrangement that would allow me to pay off Henry’s debts, as well as my own considerable arrears to Sherlock Holmes. In the spring of 1885, I was able to obtain custody of a small practice in Post Street, whose incumbent had (in the parlance of the day) “gone to Texas” to escape his own pecuniary troubles. Debt seemed to be a common theme in San Francisco! My office was close to the city’s financial district and only a short cable-car ride from its hospitals, where I was by now well known. After hanging out my shingle, I looked forward to a better class of clientèle than I had met so far.

“A young lady to see you, Doctor.”

The speaker was my nurse Miss Bivins, a relic (in every sense) left by my predecessor. Tall, elderly, and dour, she nonetheless was fully competent, and admirable as a chaperone when examining young ladies. In this case, no chaperone was needed; for the patient she admitted was accompanied by another incarnation of Miss Bivins, dressed in the regalia of a Spanish dueña. The young lady introduced her companion as Teresa. Her name was Miss Constance Adams.

“I’ve come for my spring tonic.”

Her voice was light and clear, with traces of the graceful drawl found only in the southern states. I judged her to be no more than one-and-twenty: short of stature, but with a pleasingly full figure and a rounded, dimpled face. The hair beneath her bonnet was dark auburn, and her prominent eyes a striking shade of blue. Although Miss Adams looked to be in perfect health, I noticed that she dressed severely, almost as though she was in mourning. Otherwise, her attire exhibited both wealth and taste.

“Are you in need of a tonic?” I enquired. “You don’t appear to be.”

“I have catarrh,” she insisted, with a charming pout.

“Dr. Richards prescribes Peruna for Miss Adams every spring,” Teresa interjected.

“Dr. Richards has ‘gone to Texas,’ and Peruna is little more than alcohol.”

My comments evoked a frown from the dueña, but a smile from my new patient. “What would you recommend, then, Dr. Watson?” she asked impishly.

“Fresh air and exercise, primarily. Do you walk?”

“I walk each morning in our garden, and in Golden Gate Park some afternoons. In fine weather, we often make excursions to San Francisco Bay.”

“Sea air is normally healthy, but fogs from the bay can be uncomfortably cold, even in mid-summer. Not the best thing for catarrh. Have you ever visited Laguna Honda? The ground is higher there, and fog dissipates quickly in the morning sun. Most of the area is open farmland, with a spring-fed lagoon that’s quite delightful. My brother is a patient there. Perhaps,” I found myself proposing, “I could accompany you one day.”

“That,” proclaimed Teresa sternly, “would not be acceptable to Colonel Adams.”

“I had not thought of inviting Colonel Adams. But he would be more than welcome, if Miss Adams feels she needs a chaperone.”

“That role is mine, Señor.” The dueña rose. “Come, Miss Constance. It appears that the only suggestions this new doctor has to offer are improper ones.”

“Your pardon, ladies,” I said quickly. “Let me assure you that I meant no impropriety. I shall be more than happy to prescribe a tonic for Miss Adams. Though not one,” I added firmly, “containing alcohol.” I wrote out a prescription for a harmless nostrum and handed it to her.

“Thank you, Dr. Watson.” Placing the prescription in her reticule, Constance also rose. “I must not detain you further. I am volunteering at St. Mary’s Hospital this afternoon.”

“As it happens, I go there later for my evening rounds.” My association with a Catholic institution earned a nod from the dueña. At the door, Constance suddenly turned back to me.

“You’re from Scotland, Doctor, are you not?”

“Yes, I was born in Stranraer. However, I lived most of my life below the Tweed before coming here from London.”

“My mother is English.” She seemed to muse on that fact momentarily. “It’s been many years since I have seen her.”

“Come, Miss Constance.” Teresa took her charge’s arm and positively hustled her from my consulting room.

After they departed, I pondered my unseemly conduct with dismay. I realised that I had, of late, enjoyed little social contact with young ladies, passing my days with the “soiled doves” I treated at St. Mary’s Hospital. Had I, like Henry, lost the manners of a gentleman by associating with such company? Resolving to behave correctly towards her in the future, I was nonetheless determined to see more of Constance Adams.

In pursuit of that objective, I revised the schedule of my daily rounds to coincide with my fair patient’s hours as a volunteer. Her dueña did not join in these public duties, so it was easy to arrange “fortuitous” encounters on the cable car that took Constance to the hospital. Soon this became our regular routine. Over the weeks, we progressed to less defensible excursions: joint attendance at receptions for St. Mary’s volunteers, post-luncheon strolls through the park in Stockton Street, even late-afternoon visits to the zoological gardens. Once—daring greatly—Constance persuaded an old schoolmate to invite us both to tea.

In the course of these adventures, I learned more about her. She had come from a region of Alabama known as the Black Belt—so called for the richness of the soil, not the hands that tilled it. Her father, a wealthy cotton planter, had married a young English lady while on a European tour. When the South seceded, he—like most of his class—joined the Rebel army, rising to the rank of colonel. Constance was conceived during her father’s convalescence from a wound in 1863. From the moment of her birth (as she mournfully expressed it), “everything went downhill” for the family. Union raiders cut a swath of destruction through the Black Belt, freeing the slaves on whom its affluence depended. Constance’s older brother died of fever. Following Lee’s surrender, Colonel Adams returned to find a grieving wife, a ruined plantation, and a daughter he had never seen. His wife left for England two years later. In 1869, Constance and her father removed to San Francisco. She could scarcely remember any other home.

With each passing day, our liking for each other deepened, and by early summer I had begun to think of Constance Adams as a potential wife. However, when I proposed making the acquaintance of her father, she at once demurred.

“Oh, no, John. Papa’s health would not permit it.”

“Then could I not call upon him in my medical capacity?”

She shook her head decidedly. “Papa has his own physician: Dr. Victor. He wouldn’t like it if I brought in another doctor—especially anyone who was interested in me!”

This seemed an odd criterion for rejecting a physician. I was intrigued by Constance’s continued reticence about the Colonel, whom she seldom mentioned of her own accord. On my next visit to Laguna Honda, I decided to ask Henry (who, after all, had run a public house) if he knew anything about the man.

After a year residing in the Almshouse, my brother had improved considerably from the shattered wreck I met on my arrival. The doctors had managed to cure his opium addiction, and he had recently forsaken alcohol. By day, Henry laboured almost frantically in the ranch’s fields and orchards, having long since abandoned his objection to hard work. His nights were quietly occupied with Alice in their rooms in the communal dormitory. I was pleased to see that he had resumed his study of law books. Not unnaturally, my query about Adams—bringing with it a reminder of his old life—seemed to disturb him, but he answered readily enough.

“Old Adams? Yes, I remember him. They say he came here nearly twenty years ago; took up the shipping business and made a modest fortune. Unhealthy-looking ogre. I’ve been told he fought with Bedford Forrest’s cavalry, but if he was anything like his present weight in those days, I pity the horse that had to carry him! Used to rent our spare room at the Parrot: eighty-two or -three, it must have been. Sometimes I’d go in to take them whiskey. God, I wish I had some now!”

“Steady on, old man,” I murmured, as Alice smiled consolingly from her seat beside the hearth. Brushing back the hair from his perspiring forehead, Henry laughed ruefully and continued his account.

“Anyhow, Adams would meet back there with a handful of other wicked-looking fellows: Southerners as well; I got to know the accent. Sailors from a vessel called the Lone Star. Pretty little bark; got a look at her once down at the harbour. They’d spend hours discussing some dark business, sitting around a pile of ledgers and a strongbox. One night they were arguing over timetables and plotting courses on a map. Got the idea they must be after someone; maybe there was money missing. Never asked them anything about it, naturally. That was one group of fellows, John, you didn’t want to cross.”

As a depiction of my future father-in-law, I found my brother’s tale disturbing. Even so, I thought little about it in the coming days, for my attention was more closely focused on the Colonel’s daughter. On an afternoon in late July, as we idled through the zoo in Woodward’s Gardens, I asked Constance whether I might call upon her father formally to request her hand. She blushed furiously, but quickly nodded her assent. Raising her chin, I kissed away the tears that sprang into her eyes, feeling certain that they must be tears of joy.

We arranged for Constance to call at my office the next morning to convey the Colonel’s answer. At the appointed hour, after cheerfully replying to Miss Bivins’ knock, I rose to greet my fiancée but found instead her dueña. Teresa offered me a pitying smile.

“Do you think I am a fool, Señor? How do you suppose Miss Constance so often escaped her father’s vigilance over these past months? Remember, I myself was young once, long ago. I have been on your side almost from the first.”

“But why?” I asked in stupefaction.

Teresa sighed, accepting the chair I offered her. “I have spoken of you to the Sisters, Doctor. They acknowledge that you are a good man, for a Protestant. They even pray your soul may be consigned to Purgatory, after only a few aeons in Hell. I have done as much for you and my poor girl as I am able. But you must be careful now.”

“Where is Constance?” I demanded. “Why has she not come herself?”

“She was not permitted. Nor would she have wished to meet you, bearing the bruised cheek her father gave her.”

“The blackguard! I shall have it out with him at once!” I leapt to my feet and started for the door, then realised that I did not know precisely where the Adams lived. Teresa seized my wrist in order to detain me.

“That would only make more trouble for Miss Constance, so long as she remains within his power. Be patient, child; you shall be with her in due time. Even the Devil cannot preserve the life of that foul man much longer.

“And now I must go, Doctor,” she concluded, patting my face gently as she stood. “You will have another visitor this morning, and I should not care for him to find me here.”

The dueña was not lacking in clairvoyance, for scarcely an hour passed before a thunderous pounding sounded on my door. The intruder pushed roughly past Miss Bivins before she could announce him, but I had no doubt of his identity.

I was never privileged to meet Professor Moriarty, the arch-enemy of Sherlock Holmes, but I did encounter two other lurid villains: Dr. Grimesby Roylott and Colonel Sebastian Moran. Wicked as they were, neither gave me the impression of unmitigated evil that I saw in the eyes of Colonel Alexander Adams. Between their drooping lids and leaden pouches, they were as cruel and lifeless as a cobra’s eyes. Yet, his dropsically gross body, the bluish pallor of his fleshy cheeks, even the phlegm that choked his rasping breath—all unmistakably announced his coming death from heart failure. I knew at a glance that soon my Constance would be free of him.

Colonel Adams glared at me with evident dislike, panting raggedly behind his walrus mustache. “I hear from my daughter, Doctor, that you want to marry her,” he growled.

My bow of assent seemed only to enrage the Colonel further. “Well, now,” he snarled, removing his top hat to mop the moisture from his balding pate. “What makes you think I’d let my only child wed some penniless Scots sawbones, the brother of a drunken bankrupt? Hey?

“No, sir!” he continued, lifting a hand to forestall my response. “She’ll not give herself to any blasted Britisher while I’m alive! Where was your country, Doctor, when Yankee cavalry was burning Alabama cotton destined for your mills? When the scions of your oldest families lay dying on the field at Gettysburg or Shiloh? You shall never have my consent to marry Constance! I warn you: better men than ‘Dr. John H. Watson’ have learned the danger of defying me. Damn you, sir! Keep away from my daughter, or I’ll—horsewhip—”

Adams’ tirade ended in a choking gasp, followed by a prolonged bout of coughing. Offering the man no aid, I waited for him to recover before making my reply.

“As a physician, Colonel, I should advise against such violent exercise in your condition. However, I can promise you that if you ever again lay a hand upon Miss Constance, you will find yourself on the wrong end of that horsewhip!”

The Colonel’s rage was awful. He raised his stick to strike at me, but I held my ground and stared him down. With a scowl befitting a stage villain, Adams turned ponderously upon his heel, snorting and wheezing as he lurched from my consulting room. The next day, Teresa sent a note advising me that Constance’s father had suffered an apoplectic fit upon returning home. He had taken to his bed and, according to his doctor, might never rise from it again.

Thereafter, the difficulties of our position were substantially reduced, for Constance and I could see each other openly. During that autumn, we enjoyed the most carefree times together we would ever know. I took her to concerts, receptions, even a masked ball. We boated on the San Francisco Bay and climbed one of the Twin Peaks. From its summit, I showed Constance the rolling pastures of Laguna Honda. We later visited to help its inmates with the harvest, and I introduced my fiancée to my brother. To my delight, they warmed to each other instantly. Nor did Constance show constraint towards Henry’s wife, for both possessed an innate goodness that overcame disparities of background. The four of us were soon fast friends, and it gladdened my heart to see the ones I loved escape their woes and move towards happiness.

Yet, all was not sunlight and roses, for planning our future together was another matter. Constance, torn by guilt, steadfastly refused to leave San Francisco while her father was alive. For his part, the Colonel stubbornly declined to die. He had grown mortally afraid (Teresa said) of the hellfire that awaited him, and was now utterly dependent on his daughter. Consequently, our engagement languished unresolved into the spring of 1886. By May, I had paid the last of Henry’s debts, as well as mine to Sherlock Holmes, and even accumulated a small profit. I decided to return to London in advance of Constance, intending to purchase a new practice that could support a wife.

When I think back upon that time today, my mind lingers on our final meeting at the docks in Market Street. There I took leave of my tearful bride-to-be and bade farewell to my brother. I still cherish my last sight of Henry: tanned and healthy, full of cheerful confidence in his plan to qualify as an attorney, loving toward his pregnant wife, and for once treating “little brother” as an equal. Indeed, he was touchingly grateful for my help and seemed as reluctant as Constance to see me depart for England.

“Why not leave that Holmes fellow to his London fogs,” entreated Henry, “and come back to us in San Francisco permanently? We can always use another doctor at Laguna Honda. I feel free here, brother—as free as when we were boys back in Australia. As for your future bride,” he added, giving her a hug, “we’ll take good care of her till you return. I know you’ll not forget her!” An anguished smile from Constance told me that she felt less sure.

And why (I ask myself, with forty years of hindsight) did I never consider remaining in America before that final afternoon? After two years in San Francisco, I had everything a man should need to make him happy. My only remaining family member was at hand, our relationship restored. A beautiful and charming woman had agreed to be my wife. My medical career was as successful as it could ever be in London. Was not a brother’s love more to be valued than the sincere but unemotional regard (so I thought then) of my one real friend in England? As for my beloved, why risk her health and happiness by transplanting her from a temperate California bay into the foul and chilly fogs of London?

Had I known then what was to come, or could I have viewed my life as a Victorian from my vantage point today, I might have made a different choice. But at the time, neither my fiancée’s wishes nor my brother’s were paramount in my decision. Constance was to be my wife; she would follow where I led. Henry, having come at last to a safe harbour, was well content to become an American. I could never be anything other than a subject of our Queen; and I felt it my calling to be the friend, colleague, and biographer of the world’s first private consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. So I returned to London, purchased a small Kensington practice, and waited for my bride to join me. Late in September, after Colonel Adams had finally given up his wretched life, she came. We were married on the first day of November, with Holmes as my best man.

In our early weeks as man and wife, Constance and I seemed to make a good beginning. Our part of Kensington, near the palace and Hyde Park, was not unlike the area in San Francisco where she had resided. Though it was a costly neighbourhood, I had been able to acquire the house and practice of a retiring colleague on favourable terms. My wife, with Teresa’s guidance, had previously overseen her father’s household; so I was able to leave domestic arrangements in her hands. While she turned the building’s upper storeys into a pleasant refuge, I installed my office and consulting room on the ground floor. Whenever we were free from medical duties or domestic chores, I showed my bride the sights of London. We walked daily in Hyde Park and often ventured on more distant forays, as we had done in San Francisco.

Initially, Constance was of much assistance in my practice, acting as receptionist and bookkeeper. Although I hired a nurse, my wife’s skills in this arena were considerable. Until her own health failed, she remained a bright and cheerful consolation to my patients, possessing both a sympathetic nature and an appreciation of their suffering through years of caring for her father. Had she chosen this vocation, Constance would have been a credit to Miss Nightingale.

Yet, there were also problems in the marriage from its outset. For all her joy at our reunion, my wife seemed ill at ease in her new country. British middle-class reserve conflicted with her Southern upbringing. Our neighbours, in my view, appeared to welcome the “young couple” in their midst; she found them “stand-offish.” Disconcerted by London’s size and dismal weather, Constance soon grew homesick for California. She also missed Teresa greatly. That formidable lady (by now dear to both of us) had declined to accompany her charge across the water, rightly declaring that “a married woman does not need a dueña, child.”

This last word was in truth the essence of the trouble. Having abducted my bride from the cloistered life in which I found her, I now realised that she was child-like in many ways. As Holmes remarked soon after meeting Constance: “She is extremely young, Watson, for a woman of nearly three-and-twenty.” Annoying as I found this ruthless honesty, I could not dispute the justice of his verdict.

I have often pondered whether my wife’s immaturity would have posed a long-term problem in our marriage. It undoubtedly postponed my hope of Constance bearing children of our own. Time, of course, cures many ills; but time was not a blessing to be granted us. All other questions were soon cast aside by the steady decline of my wife’s health, almost from the day that she reached England. For those whose lungs are delicate, the mild and cleanly fogs of San Francisco are no preparation for a London winter’s filthy smog and eternally foul weather. Henceforth, Constance’s “catarrh” would no longer be a joke between us. In the first months of 1887, she was laid low by a series of bronchial infections—each worse than the last—that undermined her health and, even more, her happiness. Spring brought no improvement, only a mild case of pneumonia. While Constance carried on bravely between bouts, the vivacity and sweetness that had so attracted me gradually diminished. My poor young wife became morose and irritable, red-eyed from weeping, as much from sheer misery as from her respiratory symptoms. Before long, I could read the unspoken accusation in her eyes: “You brought me here.”

As her physician, it became obvious to me that unless Constance removed at once to a more forgiving climate, her lungs would be damaged irreversibly. How that imperative could be reconciled with establishing my practice became a vexing question. Fortunately for my wife’s health—if not necessarily for our marriage—a solution soon appeared.

Even during our days in San Francisco, Constance had talked eagerly of reuniting with her mother when she arrived in England. She had no idea of where to find the woman, who had departed Alabama when her daughter was but three years old. Colonel Adams would never speak of the wife who had deserted him. Although Constance did not even know her mother’s name, she had a vague idea that her family had lived along the coast. “Mama used to tell me stories of the sea,” she recollected.

I decided to enlist Sherlock Holmes to aid us in our search. In mid-December, before my wife’s first serious illness but after we had settled in sufficiently to welcome guests, I dropped by Baker Street to invite my friend to Christmas dinner. As usual, it was an invitation he declined.

“Thank you, Watson—and please thank your charming bride—but it is quite impossible. I leave tomorrow for Odessa to investigate the Trepoff murder. It promises to be a most intriguing case. Are you sure you do not wish to accompany me?”

“That is quite impossible as well,” I laughed. “Have you no suggestion that might help my wife to find her mother?”

“You have tried Somerset House?”

“Assuredly, Holmes. But Constance is not even certain of the year her parents married, and ‘Alexander Adams’ is an absurdly common name.”

“Does her birth certificate not identify the mother?”

“It was lost after the war, when the courthouse in her county burned.”

“Humph!” he chortled, refilling his pipe from the Persian slipper as I stirred the fire. “Well, it is a pretty little problem. You know, Watson,” Holmes pondered, puffing contentedly, “I have a certain friend with contacts in the Home Office. I’ll ask him to have those lazy fellows dig up what they can.”

The “friend” was, of course, his brother Mycroft, whom I would not meet for two more years. A response was slow in coming, but early in March I received a letter from the Home Office that supplied the information we desired. Constance’s mother, Margaret Burke Adams, lived with her parents on the Sussex coast, just outside of Brighton. At the time, my wife was suffering from a heavy cold that would turn into pneumonia. Rather than arouse her hopes in vain, I wrote to Mrs. Adams and enquired whether she was willing to renew relations with her daughter. Her reply surprised me: she asked that I visit her before informing Constance that she had been found. Once my invalid improved, I concocted an excuse to undertake the journey, which involved a day trip from Victoria on the Brighton line. The route would become all too familiar to me over the succeeding months.

I arrived at the Burkes’ large, ramshackle cottage prepared to dislike Margaret Adams thoroughly. The woman who met me in its vestibule bore but slight resemblance to my Constance. Once beautiful, perhaps, she was now gaunt and faded, looking older than the fifty years I knew to be her age. We endured an awkward dinner with her ancient parents, who found little to say in my presence and retired with evident relief. Mrs. Adams then escorted me into the parlour, took a decanter of whiskey from a hidden cabinet, and poured us both a brimming glass. Without further preamble, she began to tell the story of her marriage.

Margaret Burke had met her husband at the seaside, during his visit to Brighton in 1856. “Alex was a handsome devil then,” she sighed, “with charming manners and every evidence of wealth.” In view of her limited prospects (“Father being a Nonconformist cleric during a Catholic revival”), it seemed a better match than she was likely to achieve in England. “I’ve never fathomed why such a man as Alex desired to marry me. Satan must have sent him to make my life a living hell.”

Once arrived at Glenburn, his Black Belt plantation—“acres upon acres of pine woods and cotton fields”—Margaret met the brute behind the mask of Southern gentleman. As a clergyman’s daughter, she was horrified by the reality of human bondage. Her husband beat his slaves and bedded them, equally without compunction. “Can you imagine, John, that he left my bridal bed to spend nights in the quarters? I saw a dozen children on the place who were his progeny.” Nevertheless, after a son was born to them in 1858, she abandoned any thought of going home to England.

“When the war came, and he joined a regiment, I prayed to God he would be killed. But, no, so ravenous a beast was bound to make a gallant soldier! He was wounded once, in Tennessee, and came home long enough to beget little Constance. After that, my hero went back to defend his glorious ‘Cause,’ leaving me to preserve his wretched domain from the Yankees.”

As I had already learned from Constance, the rest was a saga of disaster. Union cavalry wrecked Adams’s plantation and removed his slaves (“save for his concubines, who stayed behind to sneer at me”). Their son (“dear little Charlie, the epitome of everything his father should have been”) died of fever late in 1864. Embittered by defeat and destitution, the Colonel ignored his baby daughter and treated his wife more brutally than ever. When Reconstruction brought Federal occupation and Negro suffrage to the Black Belt, he, along with other ruined planters and ex-soldiers, took up what Margaret called “night riding.”

“I can’t say where they went or what they did on those excursions. After my first question was answered with a blow, I never dared to ask. But for the next two years, there were burnings and murders all across our region. Negro politicians lynched; freed slaves driven from their farms; Northern sympathisers vanished. Even women were not safe. An acquaintance of mine in Greensboro, a young teacher, had her hair shorn off for instructing Negro children. I knew my husband and his cronies well enough to believe that no crime was beyond them.

“At last, I could bear my life no longer.” Mrs. Adams, who was now inebriated, set down her glass unsteadily upon the table. “I told Alex that I was taking our baby and going back to Brighton. You cannot imagine the man’s fury. He swore that he would hunt us down and kill us both unless Constance was allowed to stay with him in Alabama. It was pure hate and selfishness; he’d hardly looked at her before that night. But never in our marriage had my lord and master made an idle threat. So, God forgive me, John, I left my daughter there and fled alone.”

In early April, after Constance had recovered fully, we journeyed back to Brighton; and Margaret Adams’ daughter was restored to her. From that afternoon, a balance shifted in our lives, and my young wife began to drift away from me.

There is no doubt that her condition was improved by the salubrious climate and mineral waters of the Sussex coast, nor that she regressed immediately whenever she returned to London. Accordingly, Constance spent much time in Brighton as the months advanced, interspersed with forays in her mother’s company to Bath, Cornwall, and other seaside resorts upon the Continent. I, meanwhile, stayed behind in Kensington, establishing the practice on which these costly trips depended. My wife had no resources of her own, for Colonel Adams left his fortune to found a Confederate soldiers’ home in Alabama. In fairness, I should add that the Burkes provided every financial assistance in their power. It was no sacrifice to those of us who loved poor Constance, for the benefits to her health—however transient—were undeniable.

Yet, as often as I returned to the Burkes’ cottage, I saw that the benefits were not all upon one side. In their grandchild’s presence, life returned to the old couple, while the careworn Mrs. Adams bloomed anew. My own jealousy was perhaps at fault, but each time we met it seemed that they were more possessive of our angel. For her part, my wife had regained the object of her childhood love and loyalty. Constance believed she had come home, and that home lay in Brighton, not in Kensington. I, if not yet an intruder, was now no more than a welcomed guest. By late summer, my visits to Sussex had become infrequent, while hers to London had ceased altogether. After little more than half a year of marriage, my wife and I were leading separate lives.

Therefore, when not actively engaged in my medical practice, I had much time upon my hands. Our house in Kensington seemed sad and lonely without Constance, so occasionally I would visit Mrs. Hudson and spend a few days in my old quarters. Sherlock Holmes was often absent from Baker Street in the early months of 1887, involved in several cases of international importance that I have noted elsewhere. By mid-April, when over-exertion led to a breakdown of his health, I was called upon to retrieve him from Lyons. Thereafter, Holmes and I were able to resume our friendship and detective partnership, almost as they had been before my time in San Francisco. A series of new investigations followed, the most consequential being the affair of Irene Adler and the King of Serbia.

In truth, my participation in these cases provided a welcome relief from the uncertainties of my domestic situation. Holmes obviously could not fail to notice my wife’s lengthy absences, nor the element of guilt in my enjoyment of our renewed association. To the extent that we discussed such matters, my friend offered a more sympathetic ear than his emotional reticence would have led me to expect. Insofar as possible, however, I tried to keep my work with Holmes entirely separate from the issues of my marriage.

It was at the end of September that my two lives finally intersected, in a case I have recorded as “The Five Orange Pips.” For the great detective, it was a brief and inconclusive tragedy, a rare professional failure soon overcome by his next triumph. Its effect upon my marriage was far more lasting and severe.

Having progressed thus far in the present tale, readers who recall “The Five Orange Pips” may wonder why my knowledge of the Lone Star, and night-riding ex-Confederates, was not enlisted in the aid of poor John Openshaw. It was quite true, as stated in the story, that the strange words “Ku Klux Klan” meant nothing to me, for Mrs. Adams had not linked her husband’s band of ruffians to any such society. I did apprise Holmes of the probable connexion between Colonels Openshaw and Adams, based on the latter’s association with the Lone Star. By then, unhappily, young Openshaw had met his doom; and my father-in-law was long past earthly retribution. The remaining culprits, though identified by Holmes, were lost at sea before they could be apprehended. When I later came to write “The Five Orange Pips,” my wife Mary was still living. I decided, for her sake, to omit any reference to my first wife’s past, as those facts ultimately had little impact on the solution of the case.

Would that I had employed such discretion with poor Constance! Unexpectedly, my wife returned to me early in October, soon after the Lone Star sailed from London. September’s equinoctial gales had damaged the Burkes’ cottage, leaving her room there uninhabitable. After a week in Kensington, Constance again developed chest congestion and a hacking cough. One evening as we sat together, desultorily reading and warming ourselves before the fire, my mind returned to the mysterious bark that was carrying John Openshaw’s murderers away from British justice.

“Constance, did your father ever mention a sailing vessel called the Lone Star?”

“I don’t believe so,” my wife answered, with a puzzled frown. Since arriving in England, she seemed more averse than ever to discussions of the Colonel. “Papa never talked to me about his business, John. Why should you want to know?”

“Oh, just an odd coincidence. Calhoun, her captain, figures in a case that Holmes and I have been investigating. I remember Henry saying, back in San Francisco, that your father had had some connexion with the ship.”

“Oh, you and Mr. Holmes,” sniffed Constance peevishly. I had overheard more than one disparaging remark in Brighton about the time my “hobby” took from serious pursuits. Evidently, my wife had paid more attention to her mother than I realised.

“Well, I don’t know anything about it,” she insisted, “or—for that matter—why Papa’s shipping connexions should be any of your brother’s business. I’m sure one hears all kinds of rumours in a waterfront saloon!”

This remark was so unlike the woman I had married that I stared at her in consternation. Constance seemed caught between defiance and apology, a flush colouring her pallid face. As I saw the misery in those red-rimmed eyes, I felt a surge of anger and compassion that had become familiar over the preceding months. Now, for the first time, anger won.

“As it happens, my dear, these connexions of your Papa hounded our client and two other people to their deaths. They appear to be part of a society of murderers—something called the Ku Klux Klan—to which he himself belonged, from what your mother told me.”

“That’s ridiculous! How dare you?” Constance stifled a cough and rose unsteadily, her forgotten novel falling to the floor. “I’m going to bed now, John, and I hope that you’ll continue to sleep here so I can rest. Please send a telegram to Mama after breakfast. I want to know how soon I can go home.”

Sometime in the early-morning hours, I was awakened by a scream from my wife’s room. I rushed in to find Constance cowering against her pillows as she sobbed hysterically. Lighting the bedside lamp, I took her in my arms and tried to comfort her, as one would a frightened child. It was a long while before she calmed enough to tell me of her dream.

“It was as though I was a little girl again, alone in my room at Glenburn, and it was darkest night. I woke up to the sound of hammering, and lights were flickering in the yard below my window. Oh, John, when I looked out, there were demons on the lawn! Robed and hooded demons, carrying torches that made shadows all around. The biggest one—dressed all in red—had stolen Shiloh, Papa’s horse. He sat there bossing all the other demons, who were hammering big wooden crosses in the ground. Then two of the demons dragged out Cassie from the smokehouse. She was my nurse, John, after Mama left. Most nights, she slept in my room, but some nights she slept in Papa’s. Cassie had been gone for days, so at first I was glad to see her. I wanted to call out to her, but she was screaming, and I was afraid. The demons brought out another darkie, too, a man I didn’t know. They tied them to the crosses, John, and then they burned them both alive! I couldn’t stand to watch it, so I hid in my bed. But I could still hear Cassie screaming, and smell that awful smoke!

“I hid from the demons for the longest time. The next morning, Papa came to find me. He held me in his arms and told me it was all a dream—only a bad dream—and when we looked out my window, there weren’t really any crosses in the yard. Papa promised we would go away from Glenburn and live someplace else. It was after that night that we left for San Francisco. But when Papa was hugging me that morning, I could smell the wood smoke on his shirt! It must have been real, John. It must have been real!”

She burst into a fresh torrent of weeping, and there was little I could say to reassure her. Knowing what I did, it seemed certain that Constance had indeed witnessed the Klan’s execution of her father’s escaped concubine. The wonder was that her childish mind had managed to suppress such memories, until my angry accusation of the Colonel brought back the “demons” of that evil night.

To my dismay, however, my wife’s fears were no longer buried in her childhood. She was irrationally convinced that the murderers of Cassie and the Openshaws would mark her as a quarry. (“Those men—the ones who killed your client—they’ll come for me now. They know what I’ve done!”) I could fathom neither this strange reference nor the reason for her fear. In vain, I assured Constance that the men aboard the Lone Star had sailed far away, that soon they would be brought to justice. My words gave her no comfort. From that October morning, the demons who had haunted Colonel Adams’s little daughter would be with her always, even unto death.

The last months of our marriage are soon told. Despite her shock and illness, Constance insisted upon an immediate return to Brighton. We lodged at a nearby seaside inn until her room at the Burkes’ cottage was repaired. Naturally, my wife’s mother and grandparents were distressed by her mental state, and I received much blame for “upsetting” her. Had it been legally possible, I would have been banished by my in-laws. As matters stood, I visited twice more during the autumn, only to find that Constance had recovered neither her physical health nor her equilibrium. I urged her to see a specialist in Harley Street, or at least to spend the winter in San Remo with her mother. Although sweetly patient with my pleas (for she was always loving while in Brighton), my wife refused both courses. “I’m safe,” she told me with a child-like faith, “as long as I stay here.”

So there I was compelled to leave her, while I remained in London with my patients, my writing, and my detective work with Sherlock Holmes. Fortuitously, the last months of 1887 provided us with a succession of interesting cases. I also oversaw the publication of A Study in Scarlet, which Doyle and I had completed earlier that year. Thus, although I greatly missed my wife, I was usually kept busy during the hours my medical duties left me free.

On December twenty-second, I received a letter in which my mother-in-law discouraged me from joining the family for Christmas. Constance, she said, had lately been less well than usual; so they planned a quiet observance of the holiday. In compensation, I was invited to come to Brighton for the New Year. Having learned that the Burkes’ wishes were likely to prevail in any contest, and knowing their local physician to be thoroughly competent, I sadly acquiesced.

Instead, I accepted a belated invitation from my old commander, Colonel Hayter, to keep Christmas at his house in Surrey. Returning to London on the morning of the twenty-seventh, I stopped in Kensington to retrieve a copy of my memoir, then called at my old lodgings to wish Sherlock Holmes the greetings of the season. My friend was less pleased to receive A Study in Scarlet than I might have wished. He did, however, inveigle me into his latest case, which involved a Christmas goose, a stolen carbuncle, and—in the end—an act of mercy proper to that season of forgiveness. It was late when the reprieved James Ryder fled our sitting-room, so I spent the remainder of the night in Baker Street. Only at mid-morning did I return to Kensington, to find the telegram left at my home the day before: “Constance dangerously ill with diphtheria. Come at once.”

By late afternoon, I arrived at the Burkes’ cottage, where a heavy snow had fallen. My wife was in a serious, but not yet critical, condition. According to the family physician, Dr. Hargrove, Constance had been sick for nearly a fortnight. Her complaints—sore throat, cough, and a low fever—were by now so chronic that at first they caused no real alarm. The classic symptoms of diphtheria had been slow to manifest themselves, but they were unmistakable by the time that I examined her. My wife was very breathless; her throat and neck were swollen; and a grey membrane of dead tissue had settled on her tonsils. The heart rate was more elevated than the level of her fever justified. Hargrove and I discussed tracheotomy should her breathing become more obstructed, but so dangerous a procedure was at best a last resort.

This bald and clinical account is written from my perspective as a doctor. As a husband, it was a time of agony. My delayed arrival had been met with outrage by my in-laws, which I recriminated for their neglect to notify me sooner when Constance became ill. Naturally, we did not air these grievances before our invalid. Mrs. Adams, to her credit, maintained a brave face and an outwardly cheerful disposition, while I employed my best “bed-side manner” in an effort to keep Constance from despair. Poor child. She had been ill so long that she seemed to have accepted illness as her lot in life. There was no longer any censure from that quarter; instead, my wife responded to my care with all the sweetness that had been her hallmark when in health.

Constance’s condition remained stable through the night. On the morning of the twenty-ninth, she seemed improved, and I cautiously allowed myself to hope. However, in the afternoon her fever rose and she became delirious, thrashing about restlessly and calling for her Papa. Mrs. Adams and I exchanged a startled glance, but the paroxysm soon ended. Our patient sank rapidly thereafter, for no compelling reason that Hargrove and I could discern.

By nightfall, Constance was very weak but quietly sleeping. My colleague departed, and the elder Burkes soon went to bed. Only her mother and I kept vigil in that dark-beamed, dreary bedroom. Near half past ten, Mrs. Adams slumped wearily upon the window seat, gazing out on the still-virgin snow. I sat staring at the dying fire, reflected in a standing mirror slanted towards the open door into the hall. When I turned back to my wife’s bed, I saw that Constance was awake and watching me. I took her hand, and she smiled with gentle wistfulness.

“Oh, John,” she whispered, “why did you leave San Francisco? We could have been so happy there.” At last the censure I deserved had come, but more in sorrow than in anger. “Papa was so sick . . . he couldn’t have stopped us. We wouldn’t have . . . needed his consent to marry. We could have lived . . . just as we liked.” Each clause emerged as a breathless gasp; I had to lean close to understand her.

“We can go back,” I told Constance brokenly. “You must get well, my darling, and we will go back.” It was a hopeless promise to make then, knowing I would never be required to keep it. Already my wife had travelled far from me, reliving the long months of our separation.

“But then you left me, and I was so lonely, John. The time went by . . . day after day. . . . He just lay there . . . and he wouldn’t die! . . . John, I missed you so. I knew that you were never coming back to San Francisco. . . . Finally, I just had to, don’t you see? He was never going to let me go, John . . . so I had to—”

“Hush, child!” Rushing to the bedside, her mother placed a trembling hand on my wife’s lips. “Hush, now, and rest. You mustn’t speak of this.”

“No, Mama, I must confess my sins . . . or go to Hell. That’s what Teresa says. . . . I’m dying, Mama, and I—”

Suddenly Constance sat bolt upright, her face stricken with terror as she pointed to the standing mirror. “Oh, PAPA!” she screamed hoarsely, and fell back against her pillows, silent. One look into those shocked blue eyes informed me that the light in them had fled.

There was no one in the hallway. In a kind of daze, I turned back to reassure my wife, when I felt my wrist clasped in a frenzied grip. Ashen-faced, Mrs. Adams stared into the mirror that had been her daughter’s final sight on Earth.

“John,” she uttered, in a quiet but deadly monotone, “I saw him, too.”

Was it a ghost, or only a final, shared delusion by two victims of a mortal demon? Even now—despite my long relationship with the most rational of men—I cannot answer that question in my mind with certainty. Yet, I never doubted that believing she had seen her father’s ghost caused Constance’s demise, not “heart failure due to diphtheria” as I wrote upon her death certificate. Whether by supernatural intervention or her own guilt-ridden conscience, Colonel Alexander Adams had reclaimed his daughter in the end.

I did not oppose the Burkes’ request to have Constance buried in the family churchyard. She was interred there on the first day of 1888, a fortnight past her twenty-fourth birthday. After the funeral, I returned to Kensington and—with no desire to linger where fond hopes had turned to bitter memories—put my house and practice up for sale.

Holmes at once invited me to rejoin him in our old quarters, where he and Mrs. Hudson showed much devotion in their efforts to restore me. In truth, I found my grief, however sharp, less oppressive than my role in driving my poor darling to madness and despair. It had been with a degree of malice that I told Constance of the Ku Klux Klan, and reliving the horrors of her childhood had unbalanced her. A fresher source of guilt was my relief at settling back into my old routines. Inside our rooms in Baker Street, or with “the game afoot,” it was possible to forget for hours that my wife had ever lived.

As for Sherlock Holmes, in those weeks he revealed the caring heart that lay behind his formidable intellect. Our friendship took on a new dimension, for long, personal discussions had never been our habit in the past. With his usual relentless logic, my friend sought to assure me that much of my guilt over Constance’s death stemmed from the loneliness and frustration I had felt throughout the marriage. I could not concur with this conclusion, but his genuine concern was comforting in coping with my loss. Holmes also pooh-poohed my assertion (after repelling the advances of an importune young lady) that I had no interest whatever in remarriage.

“No, my friend, it will not do.” Lounging at our window on a foggy February morning, he had endured my long complaint in silence, save for a few muttered musings as he watched the passers-by. Now Holmes set down his coffee cup and reclined on the settee. “Not for you the bachelor’s life,” he proclaimed loudly. Recognising this remark to be preamble, I prepared to suffer a lecture in my turn.

“You appear to believe, Watson,” he unexpectedly began, “that I myself am immune to feminine attractions. I can assure you, however, that such is not the case.”

“Indeed,” I replied to this astonishing digression, “I could not help noticing your obvious admiration for Miss Irene Adler, during our service to the King of Serbia last May. It struck me then as rather more than a purely intellectual attraction.”

“Ah, Doctor, that woman eclipses the whole of her sex in my experience, limited though I admit that it has been. You see, after disappointing a most worthy young lady in my youth, I made a conscious decision to lay aside that troubling aspect of my life, in order to devote myself—utterly and without distraction—to what your Study in Scarlet called ‘the science of deduction.’ (Yes, Watson, I did read it!) Even for a man of my peculiar disposition, it has not been an easy vow to keep. Certainly, it is not one that you should ever make or even contemplate. I have seen the way your eyes light up when a pretty client glides across our threshold. That has not changed in recent days, despite your grief. Your regrettable encounter with Miss Withers—whom you were right to spurn—proves that you still possess attractions of your own. So, my dear fellow, mourn your lost Constance in her season. But when the time is right, you will remarry.”

In an odd way, these were the most comforting words that Sherlock Holmes had ever said to me, perhaps because he had descended from Olympus to take note of the concerns of common men. Yet, it was hardly his only contribution to my recovery from my wife’s death. The early months of 1888 saw us engaged in some of our most fascinating cases: the theft of the Eye of Heka; the Norbury affair; and of course the Birlstone murder, which I chronicled as The Valley of Fear. My friend even arranged for my participation in the first of his many diplomatic missions against Imperial Germany, which would occupy him intermittently until the war began.

Some weeks after our return from Charlottenburg, I received a letter from Laguna Honda. The hospital’s director regretfully informed me that my brother Henry had taken his own life, a week after losing his wife and son to typhoid fever. Despite my shock and crushing sorrow, the letter’s conclusion filled my heart with pride:

Your brother is much lamented at Laguna Honda. His brilliant mind and legal training were of great assistance to us here. Until this sudden tragedy unhinged him, Henry Watson was becoming one of the finest men I’ve ever known.

Late in the summer, I received a package that contained our father’s watch, which Henry had left to me as a last remembrance. That part of The Sign of Four was true.

On the very day I showed the watch to Sherlock Holmes, there came a knock upon the door into our sitting room, and a card upon a salver announced the arrival of Miss Mary Morstan in my life. For three brief, blessed years, we were allowed to share the kind of happiness that Constance and I had been denied. My later, longer marriage to Priscilla was a happy one as well.

Yet, even now I still return upon occasion to that small churchyard in Brighton, where my young wife lies beside her mother. I offer a prayer for the first of my lost angels, in the hope we will be reunited in whatever lies beyond.