The following morning Holmes suggested that we take the tube to Hampstead, saying that public transport would offer a better chance to spot anyone on our tail. Now I realised why he had omitted to share his suspicions with me the day before. It was all I could do not to glance furtively over my shoulder at every turn.
As it was, I was convinced that I spotted the same car pass us on three occasions.
“Head forward,” Holmes instructed as we descended to the platform. “Eyes ahead. You let me worry about our friends on the streets.”
“So we’re being followed again?”
“A bearded gentleman with a bowler and umbrella, a woman walking her dog and a fellow with a cloth cap.”
“A cloth cap?” My mind immediately threw up an image of the sadistic visitors to my surgery two days previously.
“Do not concern yourself, Watson. There wasn’t a bushy moustache in sight, and neither did he match the description of your bowtie-wearing assailant, Mr Burns.”
“Are any on the station now?”
Holmes made a show of consulting the train timetable.
“On the platform opposite. The lady’s canine companion seems to have slipped its leash. I do hope she is not too upset, although the way she is reading the latest edition of The Gentlewoman would indicate that she has not even noticed.”
Knowing full well that I shouldn’t, I turned to examine the opposite platform as nonchalantly as I could. There was the woman Holmes described, studying her periodical on a bench with an intensity I am sure I would have failed to notice had not my senses been heightened.
“I’m assuming she’s not alone,” I asked, careful not to turn as soon as I spotted her.
“No. Our friend in the bowler hat is at the end of the platform, although this time I suggest you trust me in the matter and avoid looking yourself.”
Casually swinging his umbrella, Holmes led me down the platform towards the exit, and I thought we were going to leave when a sudden rush of air from the tunnel’s entrance told me that a train was approaching. The train came to a halt and we stepped on board, Holmes whispering to me not to make myself comfortable. I knew immediately what he had planned. Checking that the individual wearing the bowler hat had also boarded a carriage, Holmes waited for the last moment before he grabbed the door and jumped from the already moving train. I followed suit, nearly losing my footing before chasing after him as he charged back up the stairs to the station entrance. I dared not glance back to see if bowler hat had followed us back out onto the platform, but spotted the woman who had been reading the magazine already outside the station. Holmes did not hesitate, even as a taxi rolled up beside us without being hailed and my friend opened the door.
“Holmes, this could be—”
“Get in, Watson.”
I did as he insisted and soon we were being whisked away down the street.
“Good morning, Doctor,” said the driver, touching a finger to his cap.
“Good Lord. Geller, is that you?”
The former Irregular, with the same squirrel-like cheeks and flattened nose I remembered from when he was a child, smiled back at me in the rear-view mirror.
“The very same. Good to see that you two are in as much strife as ever.”
“I hope you don’t mind, Watson, but I made use of your telephone before you awoke this morning to contact Geller.”
“It was you who shadowed us on the way to the station?”
“Just following Mr Holmes’s instructions, same as always.”
“So you planned the whole thing?”
Holmes allowed himself a smile. “I have no doubt that agents will be awaiting us at our destination, just as they already know where we are going.”
“Then why all that tomfoolery at the station? We could have broken our necks jumping off that train.”
“He wanted to send a message, didn’t you, Mr Holmes?”
“Quite right, Geller. If my brother knows that I am on to his cloak and dagger antics, it may force his hand. If he wants to stop us in our enquiries, then let him arrest us.”
“I would rather he didn’t,” I insisted.
“And I would like to know what crime we would be charged with. Fleeing a hospital bed? Visiting an innocent family in their home?”
“If they’re still there,” I suggested, thinking of everyone else who had already disappeared.
However, as we drove up to the Sellmans’ impressive house on East Heath Road, there was a light on in an upstairs bedroom.
“At least someone is at home,” Holmes commented, thrusting some coins into Geller’s hand.
“Shall I wait for you, Mr Holmes?” the cabbie said.
“If it’s no trouble.”
“None at all. I’ll park on Well Walk. Just whistle and I’ll come running. Well, driving anyway.”
With a friendly wave, Geller drove off, leaving us alone. At least I thought we were alone. The street was deserted in both directions.
“Mycroft must be slipping,” Holmes said, starting up the path to the Sellmans’ front door.
“Or he has agents waiting for us inside,” said I.
“You have a suspicious mind, Watson.”
“Can you blame me?”
The Sellmans’ house dated from the 1700s if my layman’s eye could be trusted. Ivy clung around the bay windows, a small balcony having been added above the front door in recent years. While their home was less grand than either of its redbrick neighbours, the Sellmans must have been no strangers to money to reside in the village, especially these days. Since the turn of the century, the Heath had been highly favoured as a place to live. Even my wife, before settling on Chelsea, had toyed with the idea of relocating to these leafy avenues.
Reaching the threshold, Holmes rang the bell. Before long the door was opened by a woman with an austere expression and greying hair swept up in a monumental bun that was perched on her head as if gravity were a mere inconvenience. She wore a long black dress, buttoned to the neck; a pair of pince-nez gripped the bridge of her straight-edged nose, the safety chain attached to a discreet loop around her left ear.
“Can I help?” she asked, her Irish accent considerably softer than her countenance.
“Mr Holmes and Dr Watson to see Mr Sellman,” my companion announced, drawing a nod from the household’s sentinel.
“Ah yes, the gentlemen who telephoned.” The flare in her nostrils when she uttered that last word betrayed her evident belief that no man of honour would ever use such a device. “Please, come in.”
She held the door open and we entered a bright, airy hallway, the walls positively plastered with watercolours.
“If you will wait in the drawing room,” she said, showing us to another room filled with paintings, “I shall inform Mr Sellman that you have arrived.”
“A housekeeper?” I asked as she left the room.
“Governess,” Holmes replied, “if the smudges of chalk on her dress are anything to go by. And there was a book with similar marks on the hall table. Ray’s New Primary Arithmetic for Young Learners. Obviously, the lady placed it there before opening the door to us. The housekeeper must be unwell. A governess does not expect her duties to include the answering of doors.”
Whatever her station, the woman returned with a tall, handsome man in his mid-thirties. His hair was smartly parted and he wore a waxed moustache, every inch the modern man about town.
“These are the gentlemen,” the governess said curtly. “Shall I have the maid bring tea?”
“Gentlemen?” our host enquired, turning the question to us.
“That would be perfect,” replied Holmes. “Anything but lapsang souchong. I’m afraid I cannot abide the stuff.”
The look on the woman’s face told me that he would get what he was given.
“Mr Holmes and Dr Watson,” the man said, crossing and shaking our hands when the governess had vacated the room. “It is good to meet you. We were so grateful to hear that you wanted to visit. Please, please take a seat.”
“Mr Sellman?” I enquired.
“Yes, yes, of course. Forgive me. I’m afraid I have had quite a trying morning. My wife hoped to be here to greet you, but she has been staying with her mother for a few days. We are expecting her any minute, and so I stayed home from work in her absence and have been fielding phone calls for the last few hours.”
“Trouble at the bank?” Holmes asked.
Sellman looked at him in astonishment. “Why, yes, but how on earth did you know that I am a banker? Does it show?”
“Only by the cut of your suit. I have read how the next generation of financiers have taken to wearing a narrow pinstripe, rather than the more traditional black attire of their forebears. Then there are your cufflinks, with their rather striking representation of a unicorn surrounded by coins. The symbol of the Gilmour and Buchanan Bank, is it not?”
Sellman chuckled, fingering his cufflinks. “A gift from my former manager when he retired.”
“And you took his place, judging by their age. Passing the torch, as it were.”
“Your reputation is well deserved, it seems,” Sellman said, as a maid brought in a tea tray. Sellman thanked her and waited for our cups to be filled. “So, Dr Gapton said you are interested in our son, or at least in his condition.”
Holmes nodded. “We are trying to understand the disease, in order to help us with a case.”
A shadow passed over our host’s pleasant features. “He has already suffered greatly, my poor child. Sometimes I wonder whether it would be better if we did not know what was to come, and yet the prognosis hangs over this house like a shroud.”
A squeak in the hallway stopped Sellman before he could explain further. I looked up, to see a young boy of no more than eleven being pushed into the drawing room by the governess. The lad was confined to a wheelchair, his body twisted where he sat. His right shoulder jutted forward at an extreme angle, the left was permanently tucked behind his back. A lump the size of an apple projected from his thin neck, stretching against the skin, and his head was cocked to the side; he was presumably unable to move it. Despite the ravages visited upon his body, the boy gave us such a winning smile as he was trundled into the room that my heart broke in an instant. Gapton had talked of bravery, and here it was, personified in this unfortunate young fellow.
“Ah, that damned squeak,” Sellman said, rising to greet his son. “It drives poor Frederick to distraction, doesn’t it, no matter how much oil we apply.”
“Yes, father,” the lad replied, laughing. I saw something glint in his hand, something metal.
“That will be all, thank you, Miss Wilkins,” Sellman said to the governess, who took her leave. Our host pushed Frederick nearer and introduced us.
“I have read your stories,” the boy said. “I have some upstairs.”
“Then we shall be sure to have Watson sign them for you,” Holmes promised.
“And you too, sir?”
Holmes smiled warmly. “With pleasure.” His eyes fell upon Frederick’s hands. “What have you there?”
The boy beamed, revealing a small golden cube, no bigger than a matchbox. “It’s clockwork,” he said. “Shall I show you?”
“Please,” Holmes urged.
Holding the cube in one hand, Frederick turned a tiny key with the other. It was impossible not to notice how gnarled his knuckles were, like those of an old man.
The key wound to its limit, Frederick worked a tiny lever and a sweet tune played out, a sea shanty that I half-remembered from my youth.
“It’s a music box,” I exclaimed, enchanted by the delicate melody.
“And that’s not all,” said the lad. “Look.”
As we watched, a miniature sailing ship appeared through a slit in the top of the box, rolling and pitching in time with the music.
Mr Sellman smiled. “Clockwork automata are something of a passion of Freddie’s,” he explained. “You should see his room, full to the brim with drumming monkeys, flying angels and goodness knows what else.”
“Aunt Elsbeth buys them for me,” Frederick informed us. “Wherever she goes, she always brings one back for me. I got a unicorn last time. It gallops.”
“I should like to see that,” said Holmes.
“I can show you,” said Frederick, eagerly.
“Perhaps later. First, I should like to ask you a few questions about your condition, if that is all right with you?”
The light went out of the boy’s eyes, but he nodded politely, and Holmes began a gentle interrogation, discovering more about the onset of Frederick’s disorder. It was a similar tale to that we had heard in Dr Gapton’s consulting room. Frederick had fallen down the stairs as an infant, only to have his leg freeze as the damaged knee fused. Now, the boy’s life was one of near constant pain, although one would never have known it from the young chap’s demeanour. He was polite and courteous, which only made his plight all the more distressing.
However, I was unsure how the interview was going to help our investigation. Holmes questioned the father, asking him if anyone else had approached them, perhaps someone studying the condition.
Sellman shook his head. “Not that I am aware of, although I must say that unfortunately my work has kept me away from home. I’m trying to make amends for that, aren’t I, Freddie?” He smiled sadly at his son, and I gained the impression that the man would have loved to reach out and ruffle the boy’s hair, but was worried what the touch would do to the lad, how much pain it would bring. What a curse it must be to be afraid to embrace your own child. Even I, a childless man, could appreciate the torment that would bring.
All at once, there was a flurry of activity from the hallway. The front door had been flung open and a woman entered, wearing a navy-blue jacket and long gored skirt. She quickly removed a wide-brimmed hat, dropping a hairpin in her haste, and rushed into the drawing room, her face flushed. It was obvious that the lady had been running.
We all rose, Sellman smiling broadly at the new arrival. “Ah, you made it, my dear. Gentlemen, may I introduce my wife, Camille.”
“Mr Holmes,” Camille Sellman said, heading straight for my friend. “Thank you so much for coming. The good Lord has answered my prayers. I knew he would.”
Even Holmes looked taken aback. “Madam, I thank you for making every effort to return from Reading this morning, but I am uncertain why you would think I am an answer to prayer.”
“An answer to prayer or serendipity, I do not care which, as long as you say you will help us.”
“In what way?” I asked. Surely this eager creature didn’t believe that Holmes could unlock the mystery of young Frederick’s condition, no matter how remarkable my friend’s abilities were. With all due respect to Holmes, this was work for a doctor, not a detective.
“My sister, Elsbeth.”
“Frederick’s aunt?”
“Yes. She went missing, a year ago. Completely vanished, without a word.”
Holmes urged Mrs Sellman to take a seat, his interest immediately aroused. “And you have informed the police?”
“Of course we have.” The lady caught herself. “I do not mean to be rude, Mr Holmes, but I have been beside myself these last twelve months. To be honest, I had given up all hope. The police were next to useless.”
“Camille,” her husband warned.
“Oh, they were sympathetic, of course, and tried their best, I’m sure.”
“But they found nothing,” Holmes remarked. It was not a question.
“I was told that Elsbeth might never be found, that I should prepare myself for the worst.”
Holmes looked grave. “My dear Mrs Sellman, while I sympathise, I’m afraid I am not taking on any new cases at present. My current investigation—”
She interrupted, talking over him in her agitated state. “No, no, you don’t understand. I saw her, Mr Holmes. Just last week, in town. I was out shopping, and there she was, walking down Oxford Street.”
“If that is the case,” said I, “why would you need our help?”
“She is in trouble, Dr Watson. I know she is.”
Her voice cracked, and Sellman took up his wife’s story. “Camille confronted Elsbeth, on the street, asking her where she had been.”
“And what was her response?” Holmes asked, unable to resist.
“She would tell me nothing,” Mrs Sellman said. “I have never seen her like it, so drawn and distant. I took her for tea, tried to persuade her to speak openly, but still she remained unforthcoming. Then, just as I thought we were making some progress, when Elsbeth seemed to have relaxed a little, she shot up, staring out of the window of the tea room in horror. Before I could stop her, she ran out into the street, knocking the crockery from the table in her flight. There was a terrible fuss and when I myself got outside she was gone.”
“Whatever had she seen?” I asked, captivated by the tale.
“A giant of man,” came the reply. “Standing on the pavement outside, positively glaring through the window.”
“A giant?” repeated Holmes. “Can you describe him?”
“Mr Holmes, I shall remember that face for as long as I live. Long, dark hair covered most of his aspect, and yet the scars were clear.”
“Scars?”
“They crossed his face like roads on a map; deep, deep scars, and his skin, so pale. Like a corpse.”
“My dear,” Sellman said, leaning across to touch his wife’s hand. “Please, think of Freddie.”
Mrs Sellman ignored her husband, pulling her hand away.
I gained the impression that this was a conversation that had played out many times in the last week. “I can only explain what I saw, George.”
“And tell me, Mrs Sellman,” Holmes said, his voice level, although I would wager that his heart was racing within his chest.
“Tell me of this giant’s eyes.”
The lady looked at my friend with fresh intensity. “They weren’t human, Mr Holmes. They burned yellow, like the sun.”