The Mysterious Mourner

by Cindy Dye

It should come as no surprise that in my role of biographer to my friend Sherlock Holmes, I have often been approached by those too diffident to contact Holmes directly. I first noted the phenomenon after A Study in Scarlet appeared, and upon the publication of The Sign of Four the floodgates truly opened. Old schoolfellows wrote me, not to reminisce, but in hopes of an introduction to Holmes. My patients were quick to mention their conundrums, some of them coming to me for that sole purpose, and the fellows at my club made a regular habit out of pointing out little puzzles - two-thirds of which I could “solve” myself without any recourse to the art of detection. I even found myself being accosted at my favorite restaurants and my tobacconist by supplicants for my friend’s aid.

In fact, before Holmes’s confrontation with Professor Moriarty, only twice had I brought a mystery to his attention without being asked to do so. I took to carrying cards which listed Holmes’s consultation hours, which discouraged the merely curious and provided an acceptable alternative to the truly desperate. Holmes, as always, took on cases when they interested him or required his specialized skills, regardless of how they came before him. Although it appeared to me that he bent a trifle more when one of my genuine acquaintances appeared in our sitting room. The matters were often minor - mysteries Holmes could dispose of without ever leaving his chair - but he met them with unfailing courtesy. Which perhaps emboldened me, long after his miraculous return to London, when I found occasion to importune him on my own behalf once more.

It was late in the winter of 1898, and I was making the all-too-familiar railway journey to Brookwood Cemetery. Whilst I was still in practice, I had visited my wife Mary’s grave quite often, taking my chance to step away from the funerals of patients or colleagues to bring her flowers, or to sit a moment in contemplation of the simple stone which had been all I could afford to give her. But since Holmes’s return, those opportunities had dwindled. His services were in great demand, and I, as his biographer and companion, had few occasions to attend some acquaintance’s solemnities, and even fewer free days to set aside for solitary excursions.

I should explain, to those of my readers unfamiliar with London, that the great city had outgrown its burial grounds at the mid-century. One of the responses to that dilemma was the founding of the London Necropolis Railway, formed to bring funerals to Brookwood, some twenty-odd miles away, where there was still ample room for the deceased to be interred without first removing the bones of those who had gone before them. It is a sensible arrangement for the dead, who can rest undisturbed, but a burden to those who mourn them. The fare is reasonable enough, but the cost in time prevents impulsive visits to the cemetery, even for the wealthy. The funeral train runs but once a day in each direction, departing its own dedicated station near Waterloo late in the morning and returning at mid-afternoon. There are ordinary trains which share the line, of course, and which run at more convenient times of day, but they stop at the village station, which adds another mile of walking to each leg of the journey - no great burden in summer, but treacherous and unpleasant when the paths are mired in mud or ice.

And poor weather or no, this was the anniversary of my wife’s death, and a journey I could no longer defer.

The day was damp and cold, the station crowded. There had been an ice storm the morning before which had precluded the operation of the service, and while the company had added carriages to accommodate the accumulation of first- and second-class mourners, by the time I reached the ticket desk only third-class seats remained. I made no objection; the army had inured me to hardships, and travelling with Sherlock Holmes upon his adventures had more than once required perching amidst the milk churns of a morning. Still, I was careful to secure a window seat once aboard the third-class carriage, where I could attempt to distract myself from somber contemplations.

Holmes I had left tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle, a plate of dry toast, and strict orders to take his next dose of the infusion of gentian and ginger I had prepared for him as soon as he felt able to keep it down. He had recently completed an investigation which had required a variety of disguises, none of which had allowed for the fastidious hygiene which might have spared him from the ravages of the complaints which were endemic in the poorer sections of the city. Lestrade had hauled him home two days before, triumphant and miserable, and quite willing to be cosseted by Mrs. Hudson and myself until he had shaken off what his informants by the docks called “the three-day collywobbles”. That concession, and his relatively low fever, indicated that he was suffering no more than a minor gastroenteritis, else I would have had the excuse to remain at Baker Street. My friend was never a happy convalescent, and the days when he might choose to ameliorate his condition or stave off a black mood with cocaine were not all that far behind him. But I would have been disconsolate and out of temper, I knew, had I been home, and Holmes knew it too, for he had arranged for Billy to collect the bouquet of hothouse flowers I held in my hand.

As the train left the grey stones of the city and the snow cover brightened in the absence of coal dust, I became aware that I was being observed. This was not an unfamiliar sensation, given my association with the world’s foremost observer, but in his absence it was an unwelcome one. I turned my attention from the fog-shrouded view of Richmond Park to study my fellow passengers. The third-class carriage is not designed for privacy: Although the arrangement of the paired benches and aisle mimics the compartments and corridor style of the other carriages, it can easily hold a hundred passengers. Three extended families and a half-a-dozen clusters of tradesmen had scattered themselves across its broad benches, and I could see the tops of hats all the way down to the door leading to the front of the train. Closer to hand, three people had joined me in the set of facing benches near the vestibule, two tradesmen and a woman.

One of those tradesmen, a small, pale, elderly man with a tonsure of grizzled grey and the mien of a wizened apple, was the one watching me. He wore a suit that had been altered and mended and patched so often that there was reason to doubt how much remained of the original cloth. When his gaze met mine he nodded, blinking and grimacing, as his work-scarred fingers fluttered in the direction of the lady who shared my bench seat.

She was stout and straight-backed, and not a scrap of skin showed beneath her veils. An older woman, I assumed, for the black dress she wore was a dozen years out of fashion, and much of its jet ornamentation had been lost to time and wear. My nose told me she was fond of gin, and despite the waft of camphor, I could see that her cloak was moth-eaten along one sleeve, so I thought perhaps that in her widowhood she had fallen on hard times. Her hat had certainly seen better days, although the lace suspended from it was for the most part intact. Her gloves, too, looked newer than the rest where she held them clasped before her, but gloves are easily knit if a ha’pence for wool can be spared from the rent.

I thought my scrutiny discreet, but she rose abruptly and walked away down the train. In a moment, she was through the door, and no sooner was she out of sight than my tatterdemalion observer transferred himself into her place. “You saw her, didn’t you?” he asked in an excited whisper.

“I did,” I said. “And you’ve taken her seat. I’m sure she’ll want it when she returns.”

“Oh, she won’t come back no more,” he vouchsafed to me. “She don’t never come back no more once she knows she’s been seen.” He nodded again, as if his head were too heavy for his neck.

“Is she that shy then?” I asked, thinking of the lady’s all-encompassing attire.

“She’s not shy,” he said, conspiratorially. “She’s dead.”

“Dead?” I echoed, falling into my companions secretive tone out of surprise.

“Dead!” he asserted. “She’s a ghost. She haunts the train.” He laid a finger alongside his nose. “You saw her, but you won’t see her no more. You’ll see. She’ll be gone, completely gone, by the time we gets where we’re going.”

I was momentarily dumbfounded. “She seemed very solid for a ghost,” I ventured.

“Well, she didn’t buy no ticket, I promise you,” my informant said. “I watched this time. She never did.”

“Just turned up on the train, like always,” the other tradesmen chimed in wearily. He was a fresh-faced youth, not much more than twenty, and had yet to grow into the black woolens he wore. “Please excuse my Uncle Ruben.” He stood up to gather his elderly relation back to his original seat and then took a moment to hand over a trinket that his uncle immediately began examining and adjusting. “I assure you, he is quite harmless.”

“And no harm done,” I replied. “Do you take this train often?”

“Every Monday, if the weather permits,” the boy said. He fumbled in his vest pocket and then leaned across the compartment to offer me a card. His hands, like his uncle’s, bore the nicks and scars of a craftsman, if not in the same quantity. “Jonathan Horner, at your service.”

“John Watson, at yours,” I said, reciprocating with my own card. I looked at his. It was very new, still smelling of the printers’ ink, and it revealed that the Horners dealt in fine ornamentations made at a reasonable price, funerary decorations a specialty.

“Funerary decorations?” I asked.

“A new venture,” he explained. “Basketry for flowers and insets - cartouches and memento mori made of horn, that sort of thing.” He extended an arm so that I could see the elaborate horn cufflink at his wrist - a carven hand grasping a sheaf of flowers, black as jet, but with a different quality in the light. “People still do buy buttons and small things, but there’s less call for them than there was.”

“And you come on the train to sell your work?” I asked, curiously, nodding to the small basket which rested on the seat beside Uncle Ruben.

“Oh no. We sell things in town, usually. But much of what people can afford is wickerwork, so we check to make sure it hasn’t been blown over, and mend anything that might need mending,” young Horner explained diffidently.

“Ah,” I said, realizing that I had seen the company’s offerings or something similar, now and again, scattered amongst the headstones. “It’s kind of you to set the things you’ve sold to rights.”

Jonathan Horner flushed at my words. “It’s a practical sort of kindness,” he confessed. “Nothing shows to best advantage if it’s face down in the mud. But at least it gives Uncle Ruben the chance to tell my father tall tales.” He smiled at his uncle fondly,

“Your father is..?” I enquired.

“Dead these two years gone. It was the cartouche we made for his stone that got people to asking if we could do the same for them.” Horner said. For a moment he looked out the window at the telegraph poles appearing and vanishing in the mist. But he composed himself and turned once more to me, nodding to the clutch of hothouse flowers I held. “And you? Who are you visiting?”

“My wife,” I said, simply, and took my own turn looking out into the grey. We were well along now, and the train was slowing to make the switch onto the cemetery siding. “Today is the anniversary of when I lost her.”

“My condolences,” Horner said, and we might have slipped each into awkward reminiscence but that his uncle spoke up.

“Those won’t last, you know,” the old man said, pointing to my bouquet. “They might not even make it through the night.”

“I do know,” I said, with all the patience his age and simplicity demanded. “But I didn’t want to visit empty handed.”

“Leave them for the ghost; take this instead,” he said, offering me his handiwork. I took it out of sheer surprise and discovered it to be a rose made of ivorine and gold wire. “That’ll last your lady a long time. And the ghost likes flowers. I’ve seen her take one when no one is looking.” He cocked his head and frowned. “No one but me, that is. I was looking. But no one else was. I was going to give her this one. But I expect she’d like yours just as well.”

“It’s a beautiful rose,” I said, for it was. The craftsmanship was exquisite. And by the dismay on Jonathan Horner’s face it wasn’t meant to be handed off to a chance stranger, however polite, on the train, nor yet left behind for a ghost that didn’t exist. “But isn’t it promised to someone already?”

Uncle Ruben considered the question. “Jacky? Is it? I thought it was for the ghost.”

“Is that what..?” Young Horner bit back an exclamation and took a deep breath before answering. “We told Mr. Hendrickson we’d show him a sample of our work. Remember, Uncle? In case he wants to offer them in his shop.”

“Then what can we leave her?” Uncle Ruben asked, his expression crumpling. “It’s best to be kind to the dead, you know.”

“Yes,” the younger man said. “But not with six shillings worth of gold wire and two days’ work.”

“I’ll leave her one of my flowers,” I said, for it seemed best to soothe the old man before our discussion disrupted the fresher grief of the other mourners in our carriage, and I was touched by his determination to be kind. “I’m sure that will be sufficient. Ghosts have difficulty carrying things, you know.” I extracted a gardenia from the knot and offered it and the crafted rose to the old man as the train slowed to a stop and began to reverse down the spur line into the cemetery.

“Thank you,” Horner said as he rose and took possession of the shell rose. “If you’ll excuse us, the first places we must visit are nearest the north station.”

Uncle Ruben, who was content to take the gardenia and tuck it into position at the corner where the back of the seat met the wall, nodded to me. “She won’t take it while you’re here,” he said. “But it will be gone all the same when we go home.”

The train came to a stop, and as my companions gathered their things to go, my curiosity got the better of me and I rose hastily, to see if I could spot the “ghost” once more. But there was no sign of her, neither in the carriage nor on the platform. I even went to the vestibule and looked out the of the other side of the train as it started to move on to the southern station, but the plantation of cedars there and the steep drop from the train steps made it unlikely that anyone encumbered with skirts would attempt to leave that way. That left the other carriages, which a brief reconnoiter proved clear of ghosts, if not elderly ladies in black with disapproving glares. I turned to go collect my hat and found myself under the equally critical eye of the conductor.

I did consider, briefly, whether I should ask him if he had observed the ghost, but in the face of universal disapproval, I chose discretion and merely nodded as I passed him on my way back to my seat. There my hat was waiting but, I noted with surprise, the gardenia was gone.

During the return to London, I did not immediately return to my seat. A gentleman had slipped on an icy path whilst we were still at Brookwood, and I had been called upon to bind his ankle and assure his wife and children that no serious damage had been done otherwise. They invited me to stay, but it occurred to me that I had a fresh opportunity to walk the train, and I demurred. By the time I reached the third class carriage, my search as fruitless as before, I found that the Horners had been absorbed into the periphery of two of the families. I found a place nearby and listened as the adults discussed the ceremonies with grim satisfaction, and the older children interrogated each other in order to determine whether they should be friends or rivals once back in London. Uncle Ruben was amusing the smallest children with paper birds folded after the Japanese fashion, and a story about Bartholomew Fair, but his nephew looked up from and nodded a greeting.

When we reached Woking, where the train stopped for water, I went to join the other men on the platform for a cigarette. Rather to my surprise, Jonathan Horner followed me. I waited for him to gather his nerve to speak. “Dr. Watson,” he began, “do you... I mean...” I expected him to ask me whether I was the Dr. Watson who knew Sherlock Holmes. But for once it was my own expertise which was wanted. “Do you make house calls? Uncle Ruben isn’t fond of most of the medical profession, but he likes you.”

“I’m not really taking on patients at the moment,” I said, and Horner’s face fell so quickly I relented. “But I can certainly take a look at your uncle. Have you reason to be concerned?”

Horner brightened, but he ducked his head. “I’m afraid we might be asking too much of him. He’s closer to eighty than seventy, you see, and this whole business of the ghost has me worried.”

“‘Well, he’s not hallucinating,” I said, thoughtfully. “We both saw the lady too. And she certainly isn’t upon the train now.”

“But there has to be a reasonable explanation for that.”

“And I share rooms with a man who might have one,” said I. “Can you bring your uncle by for a consultation once we reach the City?”

“My sister will be waiting tea on us,” Horner said. “Could we come in the evening?”

“Certainly,” I agreed, and I shook hands with him on it, already thinking about what Holmes would think of my visitors.

By the time I walked in the door at Baker Street, the falling temperatures had transformed the fogs of the morning into a fresh snow. Mrs. Hudson pounced on me with the brush the moment I came through the door and kept me on the mat until she was satisfied that I wouldn’t trail flakes through the house. “It’s time you were home,” she said, giving my shoulders a final sweep. “He’s been up and down, calling for this and that and complaining of ennui.”

“That’s excellent news,” I said. “A bored patient is halfway to recovery.”

“He’ll be investigating the mystery of why your tea is burnt in a moment,” she replied tartly, shooing me up the stairs. “But do tell him that Alice has gone to the booksellers at Charing Cross to find the titles he asked for.”

“I shall,” I promised, before heading up to my room to change into my dressing gown.

Holmes wasn’t in his bedroom, although a neglected cup of tea on the stand and a drift of newspaper scraps on the coverlet were evidence of his day’s occupation. Instead, I found him in the settee, propped up with pillows, more newspapers strewn on the floor beside him, and his commonplace book open on his knees. His face was still flushed, and his eyes were brighter than was his wont, but his smile assured me that he was indeed feeling much more himself. “Ah, there you are, Watson,” he said, setting aside his scissors and glue pot. He had dressed in trousers and shirt and dressing gown, though his feet were only in thick socks and slippers.

“Here I am,” I said, pulling the stethoscope and thermometer free from the bag I fetched from my desk. “Did you rest at all while I was gone?”

“When I had to.” He grimaced. “Which is far more often than I prefer. I am afraid I make a very impatient patient.”

“It isn’t worth the practice to become a good one,” I said, and took a few moments to assure myself of his symptoms. His condition was improving steadily, without question, and I blessed his iron constitution. I chided him for depending on it, all the same, as I set my bag back in order. “We are neither of us as young as we once were.”

He nodded, but his eyes were on my hands. “You’ve taken on a patient, I see.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “I would ask how you know,” I said. “But I’m sure it will have something to do with a smudge of dust on my left elbow.”

He laughed. “Watson, you know that if you smudge an elbow it will generally be on your right,” he said, but couldn’t resist going on. “This morning you put away your tools by merely dropping them into your bag. Now you are being much more careful. Are you going out again tonight?”

“No. My patient is coming to me, as soon as he’s had his tea,” I said, for his words had a wistful note. “But we shan’t disturb you if you would rather read or work on your files. I can take him up to my room.”

“Nonsense, Watson. I’ve used our sitting room for consultations often enough. It’s your turn tonight. I can retreat to my room and read.”

“Mrs. Hudson said you’ve sent Alice for books.”

“Reference works,” Holmes said, the corners of his mouth downturned. He waved a languid hand at the newspaper debris. “The papers are devoid of interest, but when I examined our bookshelves in hopes of diversion, I saw that we need a new almanac, a gazetteer of the North American continent, and the latest Bradshaw.”

“That will hardly amuse you,” I observed. I knew from my own experience how welcome any diversion would be from his ailment. And I wanted, very much, to present him with the mysterious events of my morning. “But I doubt my patient will mind if you were to stay whilst I examine him.”

Holmes canted his head at me, his expression stern but his eyes a-twinkle. “You’re up to something, Watson.”

“Perhaps,” I conceded. “How do you feel about ghost stories?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I think they are pernicious twaddle,” he said, “even though you do tell them well. Why?”

“Because I have a new one.”

My recitation was interrupted - once by the arrival of Mrs. Hudson with my tea - and far more frequently by Holmes, who, once engaged in the tale, kept pestering me for details. The lamps were lit and casting a halo of light into the falling snow by the time I recounted the return to London. I had just begun to recount the return trip when the bell rang below.

“That will be the Horners,” I said, finishing off the last bite of cake before hastily bundling away the newspapers and mess. “Will you stay, Holmes?”

“I think I shall, if your visitors make no objection.” Holmes moved to ensconce himself in his usual chair by the fire. He no doubt looked well enough to anyone who did not know his usual vigour, but he only nodded, instead of rising, when Mrs. Hudson announced our visitors and ushered them in.

I made introductions, and Jonathan flushed, twisting his hat in his hands as he looked to me.

“I didn’t realize you were that Dr. Watson, sir. I’ve read your tales in The Strand. It’s an honor to meet you.” He bowed to Holmes. “And an honor to meet you, as well, Mr. Holmes.”

Holmes inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Watson showed me your card. Are you by chance related to Josiah Horner, of that unusual construction in Hosier Lane then? You know the place, Watson, the narrow Elizabethan house with all of the patterned horn buttons pressed into its wattle and daub to form the name.”

“Indeed I do,” I said. “I passed it quite often on my way to find my luncheon after a morning of lectures when I was a student at Barts, although I had no idea the family had continued. Why, the house appears quite old enough to have survived the Great Fire.”

“And so it did, sir, although the first Josiah was long gone by then. According to our family tradition, it was his grandson who stood upon the roof and stamped out each falling ember or spark. We’ve been in Smithfield at least as long as the animal market there, turning horn and bone, and liverymen in the Company of Horners from its inception. Both the name, and the craft, have been passed down through the years, though the hornwork itself was banished from the City because of the smell before I was born, so now we must work with other materials or lose our home,” Jonathan Horner’s eyes fell, and he fidgeted with his hat for a moment longer before blurting out, “And I’m very sorry, Mr. Holmes, but I’m afraid that we have no problems worthy of your attention, nor the funds to ask you to solve the ones we do.”

Uncle Ruben had wandered over to the mantelpiece, and now he looked up from his examination of the curious inlaid box where Holmes kept his watch, fob, and cufflinks when they were not upon his person. “We have problems?” he asked his nephew, ingenuously.

“Two that I can see,” Holmes said. He held up one long finger. “You seem to be meeting a ghost on a regular basis.” He held up a second finger, “And that ghost appears to be more avaricious than the usual spectre.” He smiled at the elderly man. “I was hoping you could tell me how you came to meet her.”

Uncle Ruben brightened and perched on the end of the settee nearest Holmes. “Do you like ghosts, Mr. Holmes? I saw one when I was a boy, and I waited a good long while to see another.” Behind him, I signalled to his nephew, who was quite astonished by the direction of the conversation, to keep his peace until things came clear.

“I’m interested in anything unusual,” Holmes said, deploying all the charm of which he was capable. “And your ghost seems quite unusual. Dr. Watson tells me that he couldn’t tell she was a ghost at all.”

“Nor could I at first. But ordinary folk don’t disappear, now do they?” Uncle Ruben lay a finger alongside his nose. “That’s when I knew.”

“She disappeared?” Holmes exclaimed. He snapped his fingers. “Like that?”

“No, no,” Uncle Ruben chortled. “She gets up and goes along the passage through the door. But she doesn’t come back. And if you go to find her, she’s not there. Not a scrap of her.”

“And do you see her every time you ride the train?”

“Not always. But often enough. You can come along and try to see her too, next Monday.”

“Why Monday?” I asked.

“Well, I ain’t never seen her on a Tuesday,” said Uncle Ruben. He hitched around to get a better view of his nephew. “Have you seen her on a Tuesday, Jack?”

“I don’t know,” Horner said, sinking onto the other end of the settee. “I never really look for her. And we don’t often go any day but Monday.”

Uncle Ruben patted him on the knee. “Jack’s always fretting about something when we take the train. Keeps him busy, worrying does, though he’d be better to be working with his hands. And he don’t believe in ghosts, none. Never saw one the way I did, so he don’t believe. He got believing educated out of him.”

“But you’ve seen the one on the train,” Holmes said, directing his gaze to Jonathan Horner.

“Of course I’ve seen her,” Horner said tiredly. “But she’s just an old woman.”

“Have you seen her face?” Holmes asked. “Or her shoes? Watson was singularly uninformative about either.”

I sighed and took my own seat. “I told you, Holmes. Her hems were too long, and her veils too thick.”

“And yet I’ve seldom seen a woman whose veils were so opaque that even her profile was imperceptible.” Holmes turned to the Horners. “You were sitting opposite her. Could you see her face?”

Jonathan Horner frowned and bit his lip. “Not that I recall.”

“She hasn’t no face,” Uncle Ruben said cheerfully. “Just eyes, now and again. But she has boots, right enough. Even a ghost needs feet.”

“Pointed toes or round?” Holmes asked.

“Square!” Uncle Ruben crowed. “Waste not, want not, even for a ghost!”

Jonathan put his head in his hands. “Uncle...”

“Those are men’s boots, Jacky. Might have been her husband’s once, if he was a soldier.” Uncle Ruben lifted his own foot, to display a boot which had been mended nearly as often as his suit. “They last a good long time, do soldier’s boots, if you keep the polish bright.”

Holmes laughed and got to his feet, reaching for his pipe upon the mantel, too engrossed in the mystery to pander to his convalescence. “Here’s a man after our own hearts, Watson! Tell us, Mr. Horner. What else have you observed about the lady? Does she appear every time you take the train?”

“Nay. I’ve not seen her more than a dozen times. But she’s never once missed my gifts to her.” He cast a raised eyebrow at his nephew and crossed his arms with an air of distinct satisfaction.

Jonathan groaned. “Uncle, if you’d only said you were taking the things for her, I wouldn’t mind so much. You’ve made most of them, after all. But does she really need them? Especially the shell roses?”

Before Uncle Ruben could come to his own defense, Holmes intervened. “What’s this about?”

Jonathan sighed. “Doctor Watson told you that we make ornaments and things? Well, for the past few months, some of them have been disappearing. I never thought that Uncle Ruben might be behind the pilferage, because he keeps everything he thinks he might have a use for, but now I’ve discovered that he’s leaving gifts for a ghost.”

“And have you ever seen her collect these gifts?” Holmes asked Uncle Ruben. “Does she pick them up and put them in her pocket?”

Uncle Ruben frowned, thoughtfully. “No. No, not in her pocket. And I’ve never seen her pick one up, nor even touch one, not since the first time.”

I was not the only one who blinked. Holmes looked, for a moment, like he’d bumped his nose into a wall. “The first time?” He settled back into his chair, his pipe still unlit and his eyebrow flying. “What happened the first time?”

“I thought that I heard her crying.” Uncle Ruben turned to his nephew. “It was last spring, when we were seeing what could be done with the Parkesine we had on hand. You remember, Jack? And we couldn’t find a glue that would hold, so I was mending the pieces with wire?”

“Parkesine?” Holmes asked, and I was glad of it, for the name was unfamiliar.

“An early type of synthetic ivory,” Jonathan explained. “The original manufactory went out of business, but somehow Uncle Ruben acquired all of the leftover stock.”

“Waste not, want not,” Uncle Ruben agreed. “And your father was the one who knew Parkes, Jacky-boy. In any case, I could see that the lady was unhappy, and you were off talking to the Waterstones about their standpiece, so I began to talk to her, explaining what I was doing. She grew very still, but when I offered the rose, she took it. You came back a moment later, and when I was done talking to you, she was gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Disappeared.”

Holmes set aside his pipe and steepled his fingers. “Watson said that this morning she got up and walked away.”

“Aye, she does that. Goes through the door towards the baggage, but if you follow, you’ll not find her. And she might have slipped away that first time, I grant you, but even then, where should she go? There’s nothing at the back of the train but the coffin carriage, and that’s locked.”

“He did try following her once,” Jonathan Horner confirmed. “But there still has to be a logical explanation.”

“I can think of three,” Holmes said. “The most likely is that the lady is not a lady at all, but someone in disguise. A young, energetic man who wears the all-encompassing dress and veils to prevent being discovered. He cannot hide in the coffin carriage at the beginning of the journey, but he can gain access to it - perhaps with a copied key - during the journey, where he removes the feminine garb and conceals it before taking a position where he can jump off of the train as it stops to reverse course down into the cemetery.”

“But why?” I asked. “The fares for the Necropolis Railway are low, but not that low.”

Holmes smiled. “Granted. But think, Watson. The funerary train does not leave from Waterloo station. If you needed to travel to - say, Aldershot, or one of the barracks nearby - and you wished to avoid detection by the military authorities, the game might be worth the candle.”

It was all of seven miles from Brookwood to Aldershot proper, I knew, but that was no barrier to a soldier, especially if he could travel cross country. “You’re thinking that he might have a reason to overstay his weekend leave.”

“A family, perhaps, whom he is reluctant to leave.” Holmes made a moue of dissatisfaction. “Which, unfortunately, does not explain the disappearance of your flower this morning.”

“There were children in the carriage,” Jonathan Horner offered. “One of them might have collected it.”

“Or the guard,” I said. “He would have walked past whilst I was searching the train.”

“The guard would explain the disappearance of Mr. Horner’s other offerings,” Holmes agreed. He looked to our guests. “Have you never checked with the company for lost items?”

“I’ve asked the guard,” young Horner said, “But if your theory about the lady is correct, then the guard must be helping her. Him. Complicit.”

“Or she could be a ghost,” Uncle Ruben said, grinning. “Who likes flowers.”

Holmes smiled back. “And is perfectly satisfied with them, no matter what they’re made of. Perhaps you should construct hers out of paper? Waste not, want not, after all.”

Uncle Ruben slapped his knee. “Fair enough!” he cried. “Fair enough! Will that do for you, Jack?”

Young Horner laughed. “I’ll even help you make them, if you’ll teach me,” he said. He stood and offered a hand to Holmes. “Thank you, sir. It’s been an honor to meet you. And you too, Doctor,” he added turning to me.

I watched out the window as Jonathan Horner took his uncle’s arm and escorted him off to the Underground station. With the question of the ghost resolved, I had taken a few minutes to examine the old man and found him remarkably sturdy for his age. But it was my friend who had truly allayed the younger man’s fears. “That was a grand compromise, Holmes,” I said.

“A problem solved, if not a mystery,” he granted. “And don’t think I am unaware of why you brought it to my attention.”

I turned to find him curled up in his chair, contemplating the fire. He looked tired. “I have long since abandoned any hope of disguising my thoughts from you, Holmes,” I said. “And you must admit that Ruben Horner is a worthy addition to your collection of unique acquaintances.”

Holmes’s lips twitched. “He is that!”

I took my chair and reached for my notebook, so as to record the conversation before the details grew dim. “What made you think of a disguise?” I asked.

“The lady’s lack of a face suggests that beneath the heavy veils there must be a black mask, obscuring details - a mustache, perhaps - which would ruin the illusion. And why else the gloves and the long concealing skirt? The deterioration of the jet decorations suggest that the person within the dress is unacquainted with needle and thread, even while the new gloves seem to indicate that the lady is an accomplished knitter. So someone associated with the ‘ghost’ cannot easily get to the dress for repairs, but can deal with gloves, which might be carried home in a pocket. A wife, presumably. And why hide a marriage? Insufficient rank, yes? You’re the military man, Watson.”

“‘Captains may marry, Majors should marry, and Colonels must marry’,” I quoted. “And you’re right: For privates and corporals, matrimony is very much frowned upon.” I found my own gaze drifting to the flames as I considered our theoretical young soldier and the wife for whom he would risk the stockade to gain a single more night together. “Would you mind terribly if we never confirmed your hypothesis?”

“You know I could be wrong,” Holmes said, gently, “The only love involved might be love of the bottle.”

“I know,” I said. “But I should hate to shatter Uncle Ruben’s illusions.” Nor my own, come to that.

Holmes studied my face for a moment before nodding. “There’s no need,” he conceded. “It’s hardly as if it is worth smuggling illicit goods from London to the suburbs by such elaborate means. Our soldier may collect paper flowers for his wife, if she exists, for all I care, and no harm done. The Horners are content, and I have been saved from boredom. But now I am tired.” He pushed himself to his feet and started for the bedroom, pausing only for a moment to touch my shoulder. “Goodnight, Watson.”

“Good night, Holmes.”