The Affair of the Mother’s Return

It was in the first year of my marriage that I received one of those laconic messages from my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, requesting my presence at our old lodgings in the northern end of Baker Street. As my practice was never very engaging, especially that day, and my wife’s health was causing no concern that day, I decided to go. Shaking off my mid-morning drowsiness, and donning my coat against the autumn chill, I departed.

The walk from Paddington was unusually pleasant, and I had time to ponder our recent trip to Edinburgh, and that little matter of the Robert Burns Cameo at the recently opened Scottish National Portrait Gallery, wherein an innocent substitution of an obviously inferior copy had led to a suicide, a wedding, and a promise to the Lord Advocate that Holmes and I would never again return to the Gallery again without a specific invitation.

Letting myself into the entryway at No. 221, I paused for a moment to listen. The house was quiet, and I decided that Mrs. Hudson must be out, as she was normally quite alert as to the comings and goings through her front door.

I began to climb the steps, aware that if Holmes were upstairs, he would hear me and recognize who I was from my characteristic limp – although now much less noticeable than when I first mounted these steps years earlier. Pausing for a moment on the turn of the stairs, I looked out the landing window into the rear yard, and the plane tree growing there. It hadn’t ever been a very healthy fellow, even at the best of times, and it had never quite recovered from when Holmes had poured the end results of one of his chemical experiments into the dirt nearby, indicating that the contents, used to poison a banker, were far too foul for London’s sewers.

With a sigh, I shook my head and continued up the steps. Knocking on the closed sitting room door and then turning the knob without waiting for a response, I stepped inside to find Holmes curled into his chair, his head wreathed in pipe smoke. With a languid wave, he silently gestured toward my old armchair.

I settled into the well-worn cushions and glanced around the room. As usual, it was filled with relics of my friend’s cases, an ever-changing collection of the bizarre, the random, and the unexplained. Since my last visit, only a few days earlier, I observed the addition of some sort of tribal figurine, stalwartly but ineffectively anchoring a slumping pile of papers on the floor beside the dining table, and a bottle of reddish liquid, in which there’re floated what suspiciously resembled a severed human great toe. I wanted to ask about the significance of these new items before Holmes had the chance to progress to some new bit of business, thereby losing interest in them. Before I could clear my throat to speak, however, he was straightening in his chair and tossing me a letter.

Reaching for a pinch of tobacco, and without a word of greeting, he said, “I would value your insight on this little matter.”

I picked up the sheet that had landed perfectly in my lap. It consisted of a single leaf of thick and somewhat expensive stationary. Noting that it had been folded once, I asked, “Was there an envelope?”

“Good, Watson!” replied Holmes. “You are examining all aspects of the item before jumping to conclusions. Our friends at the Yard would have simply read the thing.”

“Not altogether unreasonable,” I said wryly. I glanced at the sheet. It was a short message, written only on one side, with a broad-tipped pen. Right handed, with a very calm and even line, showing no signs of hurry or emotional distress. I tilted the paper back and forth toward the fading afternoon light from the window behind Holmes. No watermark, and it was a true black ink, not something watered down that one might find at a bank, hotel, or other public location. I checked – there was no odor, such as tobacco or incense, to provide any information. The stiffness of the paper, as well as the apparent quality of the ink, indicated a person who was not necessarily of means, but comfortable.

“The envelope?” I repeated.

He picked it up from the small octagonal table by his chair. I had already seen it there, and suspected that it matched the missive in my hand.

This time he leaned forward to hand it to me, perhaps not trusting his ability to repeat the perfect toss of the letter, possibly due to the envelope’s flap disrupting its aerodynamic symmetry. I glanced at him as I took possession of it, and saw a slight smile on his face, and I knew that he knew what I was thinking.

The envelope resembled the stationary, and the address on the front was written by the same pen, and with the same hand. There was no return address or postage stamp, indicating that in some way the message had been hand delivered.

Finally I turned my attention to the contents of the letter.

Dear Mr. Holmes, (it read)

I am taking the liberty to request an appointment with you today at 10 a.m. (I glanced at the mantel clock – ten minutes until the hour.) to lay a matter before you concerning my parents. Perhaps you have heard of the unfortunate Leland and Sarah Cole. I had believed the affair to have been long settled, but recent events have served to arouse my curiosity.

Unless I receive word to the contrary, I shall plan upon laying this matter before you.

Very best regards,

Andrew Cole

“And how was this letter delivered?”

“A commissionaire. Mrs. Hudson didn’t recognize him. If it becomes important, we can certainly track him down. However, the fellow will be here in just a few moments, and the question will likely be answered in due course.”

I glanced toward the envelope. “How did he expect to receive word if he didn’t provide his address?”

“Quite right. He is young.”

“You know him, then?”

“Rather, I know of him by knowing of his parents.

“The letter is so calmly written. It’s curious he didn’t notice that error.”

“It is calm, but I suspect that the emotions related to the situation run deep.”

“And his parents?”

He reached toward one of his scrapbooks, standing against the mantel beneath his Persian slipper. I had noticed it there, but had credited it no importance in relation to this matter, as there were so many other haphazard items scattered hither and yon about the room. Handing it to me, he added, “The page is marked.”

Describing it as a “page” was charitable. Holmes’s scrapbooks were collections of news clippings, brochures, programs, labels, and photographs, mixed in with the occasional indiscriminate glassine envelope of ash, tissue, or a hundred, nay, a thousand other possibilities. Residing on a sagging shelf mounted to the wall between the fireplace and Holmes’s bedroom, these commonplace books were the primary annex to Holmes’s brain attic. He spent a great deal of time updating them, culling articles from newspapers, and making annotations throughout about this or that item, or an individual who had come to his attention and was marked down for greater things, in the sense that the person was putting his first steps on a path leading to the gallows.

After having a small packet fall to my lap containing what appeared to be a fine collection of mismatched small animal claws, I found the items to which my attention had been directed: Namely, a clipped and tidy stack of newspaper articles, now yellowed with age, relating to Leland Cole.

Taking them out, I closed the book, such as it was, and stood it on the floor beside my own chair. “You could have simply handed me the clippings,” I said, beginning to quickly read through them.

There were half-a-dozen, all from mid-1880, except for one dated early the following year, specifically February 1881. Although presenting different perspectives, the facts of the case were rather clear. Cole had been a rising constable with Scotland Yard when the Turf Fraud Scandal of ’77 led to the formation of the CID the next year. During the reorganization, he had been promoted to Detective Sergeant, a position held until he was forced to resign three years later. Apparently, he had been implicated in the theft of a great deal of gold coins from a group of bank robbers who were all found dead in a Bermondsey lodging house. The gold was never found, but it was suspected that Cole had been in league with the men, killed them, and then taken the loot. While no firm proof was ever found, his credibility within the Force was shattered, and he was released from his position.

The final article from 1881 simply indicated that no new clues had been found, either toward identifying and locating the killer or the stolen money, although there was the obligatory statement that “the police are following certain leads”.

“The evidence must have been quite strong against the man,” I said. “‘Innocent until proven guilty’ didn’t save his job.”

“I understand that the feeling was that his connection to the matter was well established, if not proven. As you know, I was out of England during that portion of 1880, so I had no opportunity to consult on the matter. When I arrived home later that autumn and set about catching up on all that I had missed, this came to my attention, and I mentioned it to Lestrade, but he was quite understandably reluctant to open old wounds.”

“Even if it meant resolving the question?”

“Your confidence in me is noted, Watson, but in those earlier days, the official force was much more inclined to see me as a useful amateur rather than a prized confidante.”

I tapped the letter from Cole with a finger. “You say that Cole is young?”

“Yes. He would have been about sixteen at the time of the murders, as I recall.”

“Making him about twenty-six or twenty-seven now. Not so young. I was nearly twenty-eight at Maiwand, and you were also already well established by that age.”

“True. Perhaps I did err in crediting his epistolary faux pas to simple youth and inexperience. Another question to ask him, as I hear the bell ringing. Excuse me, Watson, while I go let him in. Mrs. Hudson is visiting her sister, and I am left alone to pilot the domestic ship.”

And so saying, he made his way downstairs. I heard the usual business of the door opening and closing, removal of a coat, murmured conversation, and then the return of the detective with his client.

We were introduced, and I had a chance to observe Andrew Cole as he settled into the basket chair across from the fire. He acknowledged the lack of available tea or coffee, and waved away an offer of something stronger. He was in his mid-twenties, as expected, a big fellow with longish blonde hair, almost Byronic in its style. He was broad-shouldered, but seemed to have inherited it rather than developed it from hard work. His hands were well-manicured, and maintained for work with pen and paper, rather than tools. He had a frank open countenance, but it was marred by worry lines between his brows, and he sat forward on the chair instead of relaxing. He glanced at his note on the table beside my chair and, looking back and forth between us, began to apologize.

“I realized just moments after it left my hand that I had neglected to provide a return address, should this appointment be inconvenient.” He glanced toward me. “Mr. Holmes explained downstairs that this time is acceptable, but I never meant to foist myself upon you so impolitely.”

“We had noticed that you had neglected to tell us where to reach you,” replied Holmes, his fingers steepled before his eyes.

Andrew Cole nodded. “I wrote and rewrote what I would say before carefully copying the final missive, but I never thought about something so basic.”

“It is of no matter. You are correct that I recall the matter of your father, but I didn’t know of any related involvement by your mother, as mentioned in the letter.”

“I’m afraid that there is more to the affair than was ever made public, and my mother’s reputation must have been as compromised as my father’s, if only by association.”

Holmes gestured at Cole to continue.

“As you may remember, my father was a Detective Sergeant in 1877, and those were good times for us. We had a small home, and while there was never much to spare, to be sure, we were warm and well-fed, and I felt safe. Then came the troubles.

“I’ll admit that I was ignorant at the time of much that occurred. I was aware of a tension that hadn’t existed before, and my mother and father, who had previously been much devoted to one another, now shared harsh words, often in whispers as they tried to protect me from knowing exactly what was happening. Only later was I able to force my father to tell me the story – at least, his version of it, as I’m sure to this day that he held back many important facts.

“According to him, on the night of the incident he had finished his duties and was returning home. It was quite late, and as he passed by a building, one of many in a row of darkened structures, his instincts as a former constable were aroused when he saw an unlocked door, standing partly open. (Much was made at the time that the building where this occurred was nowhere near the direct route between the police station where he worked and our home, and he never adequately explained exactly why he was actually in that area.)

“He knocked and received no answer. Entering the building, he perceived a single light coming from a back room, when the rest of the building was in darkness. Proceeding cautiously down the hallway, he entered a kitchen, lit by a single gas-lamp. He told me that the harsh light horrifyingly highlighted the three bodies lying on the floor, each of them dead and with their throats cut.

“As you’ll recall, it was later determined that all of them had apparently been made unconscious by an opiate that was found in the stew that all three had eaten. The pot was still on the stove, and it contained more than enough of the narcotic to have put a dozen men to sleep. Apparently whoever had done so had then taken the opportunity to kill them unhindered.

“My father instantly recognized the three men as members of the Oak Ridge Gang, as all of them had been sought for the past couple of weeks following the robbery of the funds being accumulated by the Close Brothers for the formation of their bank.”

Holmes nodded. “I recall that the theft wasn’t widely reported, as the victims didn’t want to undermine confidence in their upcoming financial endeavor.”

“So I understand. In any case, the gold was never recovered.”

“And your father,” added Holmes, “was accused of taking advantage of the situation at best, and possibly of being involved in the theft.”

“Yes. The official theory, although he was never charged, was that he was somehow in league with the Wards, the father and two sons, and that he had gone to meet them at that out-of-the-way house at the end of his working day. As you probably know, by the time he sounded the alarm, it was several hours after the end of his shift, and he was unable to account for either his time in between or his reasons for being in that area.”

“And it was thought,” I said, catching up, “that he went there for the meeting, put the men to sleep, killed them, moved the gold, only to then return and sound the alarm.”

“Exactly, Doctor.”

“But that makes no sense!” I exclaimed. “If he had no known connections to these men, he could have killed them and gotten away with the money without ever returning and sounding the alarm, thus trapping himself in that gyre.”

“The reasoning power of the Yard,” said Holmes wryly, “especially in those days, left a great deal to be desired. You’ve seen it a hundred times yourself, Watson. How often do they seek the simplest solution, bending facts to fit their theories?”

“Sometimes the simplest solution is the best,” I said. “You’ve referred to Occam’s Razor yourself, Holmes. And I’ve found in medicine that rare is rare and common is common.”

“And stupid is stupid. However, in this case, it would have been uncommonly stupid indeed for Mr. Cole to have allowed himself to become more involved than he already had to be, even assuming that he was guilty.” Holmes turned to our visitor. “Do you have any more information? Such as what happened after your father was drummed out of the Force without more substantial evidence of his guilt?”

“Nothing for certain, Mr. Holmes. As I said, at first I wasn’t even aware of a problem. I have no recollection of the specific day when this would have happened. Back then, I slept quite soundly through the nights and hadn’t many cares in the world. It was only over the course of the next days and weeks that I became aware of the increasing tension. My father and mother began to argue, although trying to hide it from me. It escalated to the point that finally, after a few weeks, my mother declared that she was leaving. Only then, when she was gone, did my father explain, in a very simplified way, what had happened and what was suspected of him. He was a broken man, and the fact that his own wife apparently believed the accusations against him only served as the final nail.

“And your mother left you there with him?” I asked, somewhat shocked.

“Exactly, Watson!” cried Holmes. “Quite unusual. Unheard of, as a matter of fact. That alone raises this matter to a different level.” Turning back toward young Andrew Cole, he asked. “Why, now? What has happened that you’ve decided to consult me, after all this time? Has some new development occurred?”

“It has, Mr. Holmes. I have seen my mother!”

“And that is unusual because…”

“Because I hadn’t seen her since she left, back in 1880.”

“What?” I asked. “You’ve had no contact with her whatsoever since that time?”

“No, Doctor. Following her departure, my father lost his job with the Force. He was able to obtain work as a groom at the estate of Lord Belving, in Surrey. My father had once done him a good turn, and it hadn’t been forgotten. I spent the rest of my childhood, what little there was of it, there on the estate. Lord Belving, having no children of his own, took an interest in me and saw to my education. Upon reaching adulthood, I was able to obtain a scholarship to university, and upon completion, I entered a position in the City – again through Lord Belvin’s influence. It was there, yesterday, that I happened to see my mother, in the most unusual manner imaginable.

“I was part of a group of three young men accompanying my supervisor into a meeting. We were standing in the hallway, waiting for our client, when a door to a nearby room opened. As the group inside exited, one of my companions nudged me and nodded toward a woman in black. ‘That’s the Countess of Houghton,’ he said. ‘Her husband just died. Worth millions, she is.’

“As this woman stepped into the hallway, speaking to one of our representatives, she glanced my way. The recognition between us was immediate and certain. She was literally rocked back on her heels, and I believe that I was as well. She said something to the men around her, quickly lowered her veil over her face, and set off quickly down the hallway, her companion hurrying to keep up.

“I hurriedly excused myself from my puzzled associates and went after her. I caught up with them in the great hall near the door, calling for her to stop. She turned to me, for just a moment, and I couldn’t read her face, although I could see the sparkle of her eyes under the veil. There was so much that I wanted to ask, but I found that my throat was closed. Before I could find the words, she murmured, almost angrily it seemed, ‘Leave me be!’ and turned away. Her companion, whom I now realize was likely a solicitor, took her elbow and hurriedly directed her toward the door. Before I had sense to follow, she was gone.”

“And did you relay this story to your father?” I asked.

Andrew Cole shook his head. “Sadly, he passed two years ago. He had always been a broken man, and gradually he simply seemed to lose interest in the business of living. It was almost a blessing.”

“And you never,” asked Holmes, “found out any other details about the stolen gold?”

“I did not. I’m convinced of my father’s innocence, but he was quite reticent on the matter, and as I said, I always felt that there was more to the story.”

“What do you wish from us?” asked Holmes, gesturing in my direction. “Although it might bring you some piece of mind, finding the gold now wouldn’t bring your father any comfort, although it might clear his reputation. However, the facts of the matter could end up being as damning as it has always been assumed.”

“I want to know the truth. I always have, and this meeting with my mother, however brief, has sharpened that to an urgent degree. I could not sleep last night. But as you say, dredging things up now might make matters worse for all concerned. My mother has apparently made a new and successful life for herself, although I know not how. What if my own clumsy and amateur investigation were to spoil that for her somehow? I thought of you, Mr. Holmes, and realized that you could apply your talents with the skill of a surgeon. Will you look into the matter?”

Holmes was quiet for a moment, his gaze far away, and then he seemed to pull himself back to the present. “I will, Mr. Cole, on the condition that you leave matters in my hands entirely. As you say, there is the possibility that this old business could have fresh implications and most unsatisfactory results.”

“Then I shall be satisfied. I’ll return to my place of business – here is my card – and will await your report.”

With that, hands were shaken, and our young visitor departed. Turning to me, Holmes asked, “Do you have a few hours free, Watson?” I suspect he already knew the answer, and when I replied affirmatively, he responded, “Excellent!” Rubbing his hands, he set about getting ready, and in just a few moments, he was locking the front door behind us while I whistled for the third empty cab to pass by. Soon we were heading toward Whitehall and New Scotland Yard.

The streets weren’t crowded, and it wasn’t long at all before we were seated in front of our old friend, Inspector Lestrade, explaining our mission. A pained look crossed his face, and he stood up, looking from his window toward the Westminster Pier down below, a location which I shall ever associate as being the initial point of departure for what ended up being a dangerous river chase down the Thames, ending near the Plumstead Marshes.

“Leland Cole,” muttered Lestrade, “is a blot upon the Yard’s copy-book.”

“Would you care to elaborate?” asked Holmes.

The inspector shook his head. “It’s distasteful, Holmes. We were just a few years past the scandals, and all of us were working to build respect for our profession. And then Cole goes and murders a pack of robbers and steals the gold.”

“Which has yet to be found,” I added.

“That’s right,” said Lestrade. “Which only makes it worse. The entire case is still on the books as unsolved.”

“I believe we understand the basic facts – the men were put to sleep, and then killed when they couldn’t resist. They had obviously been hiding in that house ever since the theft. Were there any other facts that were not related in the press at the time? Something that the police held back, as you often do?”

Lestrade ran a hand over the lower part of his face, glancing again out of the window. “No, Mr. Holmes, it was very straightforward. The food was analyzed, especially when someone asked how three men would have sat there patiently at table and allowed their throats to be cut. We know that they had the gold – they were identified, as you may recall, by an eyewitness during the theft – and there was no coin found with them. Obviously whoever went to the trouble to kill them, silence them, took it, and it hasn’t been found since.”

“Was there anything that would have made the loot identifiable?” I asked. “Were the coins unusual, for instance?”

“No, Doctor, nothing about them stood out. And there wasn’t a flood of them suddenly appearing to indicate that they were being spent. They simply vanished, and have remained that way for nearly a decade.”

Holmes frowned. “If there was nothing unusual about the murders – if one can say that the poisoning was normal – then what about the robbery of the gold itself?”

“It occurred two weeks before. It was being loaded into wagons, carried in chests from the basement of Drummonds to be moved to Close Brothers. The transfer was carried out in the evening, in order to minimize interest, in the mistaken belief that not attracting attention to it would make the move more successful. Only later was it determined that the Close Brother’s receiving carriage was not manned by their employees, as planned, but rather by the Wards, who had tied up the actual bank employees some hours earlier and left them in an empty room in Cheapside. It was only by accident that a passer-by identified Marcus Ward as one of the men loading the carriage and was able to put us onto their identity. We wasted a lot of time looking for them around their home in Oak Ridge, near Woking. That’s how the press named them the Oak Ridge Gang. However, we had no signs of them until we were notified – by Leland Cole – of the discovery of their bodies a couple of weeks later.”

“And there was no other clue? Nothing else about the robbery itself?”

“Nothing, except that we decided that it had to have been planned with inside information, someone at one of the banks, so that the Wards would know how to arrange to take the place of the actual guards in order to receive the money.”

“And were there any clues as to who this inside person was?”

“None. All of the employees at each bank passed muster.” He frowned, and after a moment added, “Except…”

“Hmm?”

“It’s nothing, I’m sure, but there was a cleaning woman at the time, at the Close Brothers building, who was unaccounted for after the fact. Simply stopped coming to work in the evenings, and we couldn’t trace her. But that probably meant nothing. After all, people like that leave and change jobs all the time.”

“No doubt,” said Holmes, rising. “Thank you, Inspector. You’ve provided us with a great deal of help.”

Lestrade gave him a canny look. “I trust that you’ll let me know where this leads.”

“I am always on the side of justice, as you know,” replied Holmes. I believe that Lestrade understood the unspoken implications of that statement as well as I.

Outside, Holmes led us west toward Parliament. “I must send a few wires, and then, while we wait for replies, what do you say to a restoration of the inner man?”

I agreed, and we strolled toward a nearby telegraph office, where Holmes composed his messages, and then informed the clerk that we would return in an hour for replies. Then, as if by mutual agreement, we made our way round and about to Northumberland Street, and so into a fine pub of our acquaintance, where we passed the time with a late lunch.

About two o’clock found us back at the telegraph office, where Holmes’s replies were waiting. One was from Andrew Cole, stating simply that, during the months leading up to the incident, his father has worked a shift spread over the afternoon and into the late evening, and that his mother hadn’t worked at all. The second was from Langdale Pike, that cesspool of societal gossip, indicating that the Countess of Houghton was currently residing in her Mayfair home. There were various other facts about the lady’s background in the lengthy message. I confess that as I read through her vitae, I couldn’t understand how such a woman could have once been Cole’s humble mother. Holmes waved Pike’s wire in the air. “I think I see a bold venture in our futures, Watson. And as they say, ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’” Hailing a cab, we set out for Bruton Place.

Fifteen minutes later, we stood before a well-kept but discreet multi-story house. A ring of the bell resulted in the appearance of a man in his fifties, opening the door with a quizzical expression. We presented our cards and were invited inside, to wait and see if the lady of the house was at home.

I knew but little about the Countess, having never heard of her until a few weeks earlier, when it was reported in the press that her much older husband had died of a coronary thrombosis while traveling with her upon the Continent. I knew that we were treading dangerously on bad form by visiting a recent widow in such a manner, but I had long ago learned to swallow discomfort in such situations when in the presence of Sherlock Holmes. He had no patience for such societal contrivances, and as had often proven to be the case, he was correct in his beliefs.

The butler who had initially greeted us showed us into a formal sitting room, and in just a moment, the lady herself entered, accompanied by a silky man in his thirties. Like the Countess, he was dressed in black, and he hovered near her, his hand darting toward her often – not quite touching her, but almost. I wondered if this was the man that Andrew Cole had thought to be her solicitor.

“Gentlemen?” he asked. “What is the meaning of this intrusion? Surely you are aware of the Countess’s recent loss. There are better times and ways to pay your respects.”

“And you are – ?” asked Holmes.

“I am Milton Crane, a close friend and advisor to the Countess.”

“I see,” said Holmes. Turning to the lady, Holmes said, “Madam, do you think it wise to discuss your personal business in front of this gentleman?”

She lifted her veil then and gave a tight smile. She was a handsome woman in her mid-forties, well kept, and still quite lovely. In her younger days, she would have certainly been a beauty indeed. “I have no secrets from Milton,” she said. “Won’t you be seated?” She gestured toward a grouping of chairs, and – under Milton Crane’s disapproving gaze – we all found our places.

“As you wish,” said Holmes, “Mrs. Cole.”

The lady’s eyes widened, clearly surprised, as I was myself. Holmes had apparently decided to cut through the politeness and subterfuge and proceed to the heart of the matter. Milton Crane started to make some sort of squawk, but her raised hand was enough to instantly silence him.

The Countess smiled tightly. “I see that Andrew didn’t wait long at all before setting you upon my trail.”

Holmes nodded. “Your son – ”

“Son!” exclaimed Crane. “The Countess has no son!”

“Do be quiet, Milton,” she said, without vexation, or really without any emotion whatsoever. “You surely knew that I had a life before I married Eustace.”

“But a son. Why, I never had any idea. Why wasn’t I told – ?” Another wave of the hand, and he sank and subsided back into a chair, a puzzled look filling his smooth face.

“I was glad to see Andrew looking so well,” she said. “I had quite lost track of him. Although to be honest, it was intentional. Once, soon after I had married Eustace, we were invited to Lord Belving’s house in Surrey. I knew that Leland and Andrew were living there by then, and I had to feign an illness in order to avoid attending.”

Holmes leaned back and crossed his legs. “Your son,” he said with a disarming smile, “mentioned that he slept quite deeply, back around the time of your first husband’s tribulations.”

“First husband?” said Crane.

Her eyes narrowed, her expression wary. “What of it?”

“Oh, nothing, I suppose. Perhaps it’s simply a coincidence that he was sleeping so well, at around the same time the three men were drugged with opiates.”

“You really aren’t making any sense, Mr. Holmes.”

“I suppose not,” he agreed. “I wonder if anyone at Close Brothers remembers the cleaning woman who suddenly abandoned her post, all those years ago. She worked in the evenings, I believe.”

Except for a flaring of her thin nostrils, there was no reaction. Crane was looking back and forth between he lady at his side and Holmes, uncertain as to what was happening. “Nothing ventured,” I thought to myself, having almost caught up. However, having caught the ship, I was now struggling to stay on board, in spite of having had the benefit of seeing Langdale Pike’s wire.

Turning his head, Holmes asked, “Mr. Crane, when did you meet the Countess?”

“What? Oh, three or four years ago, at Ascot. Since then, our circles have intersected more and more often, and we became… better acquainted. Then, when the Count passed several weeks ago, I was able to, you know, make myself useful.”

“Indeed. Fortunately, the Countess, nee Mrs. Cole, has indicated that she has no secrets from you, so we can discuss matters in a frank and forthright manner. Do you agree, madam?”

He had pivoted his hawk-like gaze back toward the black-clad lady, who was watching him as a small animal ponders a snake – afraid to move, and afraid to run.

“I really don’t know why you’re here, Mr. Holmes. What you refer to happened ten years ago.” Turning to Crane, she explained, “I was once in much less fortunate circumstances than when you first encountered me, Martin. I was rather common, you see, and married to a policeman.” She said it the same as if she’d said leper. “He got himself mixed up in a crime – probably not for the first time, since that was in the days of the various police corruption scandals – and I really had no choice but to get away from him.”

Crane nodded, apparently looking for any way to excuse her past actions. I interjected, “But your son, madam! Your own child! How could you abandon him as you did, leaving him with a man that you believed to be a criminal?”

She frowned, and her cold façade seemed to crack in the very slightest way. “You don’t understand. You cannot. To be trapped in that life – that slattern that I was forced to be was not the person that I truly am. I had always known that I belonged in better circumstances – that I could do so much more with my life. Marrying… marrying Leland was a mistake. I didn’t think so at the time. I thought that it would make things better, more complete. That it would be a step up. They were always telling me to settle, to accept my place. As if it were my fate!”

She became more agitated as she spoke, and I asked again, “But your child?”

“Child!” she snapped. “I never wanted a child! Being a mother was simply another part of the role that I had to play, being the wife of a common policeman. I suppose at the time that I believed that it might help. I saw all the other women finding purpose and meaning with their children. It seemed to be a way for them to escape from their lives by having such distractions. But I never understood. I tried, for years and years I tried, but I just couldn’t. Andrew only reminded me every day of how the coils of that life were slipping tighter and tighter around my throat!”

Crane was looking at her now with something like the way that one sees a complete stranger. The sudden change in her had shocked him. His fluttering motions toward her, constant up to this point, had ceased as he folded his hands tightly in his lap, as if he were protecting himself.

“And so you went off to the Continent,” prompted Holmes.

She nodded. “When Leland had his… troubles, it seemed like a heaven-sent opportunity. I tried to stay with him, to reason with him, after the killings, but he wouldn’t have any of it. He could have come with me. We could have even taken Andrew. We could have started over together. But instead, he kept clinging to the idea that we could go on as we had.”

“You left them then, and made your way to the Continent. Did you never wonder about them? About the husband and son that you had abandoned?”

“I did. At first.” She was trying to give the appearance that none of it had mattered, but emotion was altering her voice, roughening it as she spoke more urgently. “God help me, I wanted to cut the cords, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. But as time passed – ”

“As time passed,” interrupted Holmes, “you accustomed yourself to your new lifestyle, and you met and married the Count, and discovered that you had finally found the life that you’d been missing for all those years.”

“Yes!” she hissed. “Yes. I was finally happy!”

“Did you know that your first husband, Leland, died two years ago?”

Her eyes widened. “No – No, I didn’t. I – I stopped keeping track of them at some point.”

“Did you ever actually divorce him?”

Crane was, by this time, leaning forward intently on the edge of his chair.

“I – no, I – that is to say, not officially.”

“So your marriage to the Count was bigamous.”

No answer.

“Mr. Crane,” snapped Holmes.

Surprised. “Um, yes?”

“How much was the Count’s fortune?”

“Well, it was – that is to say, it is five million pounds.”

“Who are his heirs?”

“Why, the Countess.”

“No one else?”

“No.”

“She was named in the will?”

“I believe so.”

“And now that we know that she is not his wife, who are the other heirs?”

“Well, there are some estranged children, from a previous marriage.”

“Estranged? How so?”

Crane glanced at the Countess – that is to say, Mrs. Cole – with a sour look. “They were close to the Count, until he married the Countess. Um, until he thought that he was marrying his current wife.” He turned back to Holmes. “Until he married this woman.” He swallowed and continued. “Mr. Holmes, I have some association with the legalities of the Estate. Can you prove any of this?”

Holmes fished out Pike’s telegram. “Yes.” Without handing it to Crane, he turned back to Mrs. Cole, who was now hunched forward, looking decidedly less attractive than she had before, her eyes fixed on the slip of paper. “What would an autopsy reveal, madam, regarding the Count’s death?” Glancing my way, he said, “A coronary thrombosis can be caused, can it not, Doctor?”

“Yes.”

“If such an act were deliberately induced, would it be noticed in an elderly patient?”

“Not necessarily.”

Holmes nodded. Turning back to Mrs. Cole and holding up the telegram, he asked, “Was it difficult to establish yourself when you first arrived in Nice, ten years ago?”

“What?” she asked, clearly off balance and trying to change directions from her thoughts about the Count’s death. “What?”

“Ten years ago. When you arrived in Nice with the stolen gold. Your history is well established afterwards, but nothing before. You appeared out of nowhere, it seems, wealthy, but with a certain, shall we say, crudity unbefitting a lady accustomed to old money. However, you were a quick study, and apparently spent your funds wisely in terms of both clothing and choosing where to appear. It wasn’t long before you had made the Count’s acquaintance, was it?”

She shook her head, as if something were buzzing around her ears. “Mr. Crane,” asked Holmes. “How did the Count’s first wife die?”

“Why, she fell from one of the cliffs during a nighttime walk.”

Glancing at the wire, Holmes said, “And that would have been in the spring of 1881, I believe.”

A look of enlightenment and shock passed across Crane’s face. “I think that’s right.”

Back to Mrs. Cole: “Just a few months after your arrival in Nice, and just a few months before your quick marriage to the Count.”

She shook her head. It was appalling to see how fast the lady had fallen from the confident creature that had first walked into the room.

“I doubt if you’ve changed all that much in ten years – you’ve likely worked to preserve yourself. So I have to ask,” said Holmes, “isn’t it likely that the staff at Close Brothers will recall when you worked there as a cleaning lady, while your husband was at work, and when your poor son was at home, drugged and sleeping deeply from the same opiates that you would later use in the Wards’ food?”

I had seen Holmes do this before – battering someone with facts from so many different directions, the same way that he kept a bare-knuckle opponent off balance by gracefully dancing from side-to-side, throwing punches from one direction and then the other, seemingly at random, but in fact scientifically calculated to crumble any resistance.

“No,” said the lady. “No, they wouldn’t know me. I changed my appearance.”

“Good,” said Holmes. “No need to follow that up, then.” She looked up, almost happy that he was agreeing with her, too confused now to realize what was happening. “We progress. And the Wards? How did you become involved with their scheme?”

“I knew Marcus, when I was a girl. We grew up together. There was some understanding that we would marry, but I couldn’t – I just couldn’t do that. I settled for Leland, thinking that path would be a better way. I didn’t see Marcus for years, but then I ran into him one day in the street. We began to talk, and we kept meeting. It wasn’t anything to me, just a way to avoid the terrible monotony, but he believed it was becoming something more.

“He told me about the gold. He had heard of it from one of his friends. He and his two sons from his earlier marriage were prepared to try and steal it, but they needed to know when it would be moved. He helped me get a job with the Close Brothers. I would slip some of the powder into Andrew’s food – Marcus gave it to me for just that reason – after Leland went to work, and while the boy… while my son slept, I would clean the offices and read their papers. They never worried about putting them away or covering them up – they never paid any attention to us at all.”

“And then the Wards stole the gold.”

“That’s right. And Marcus wanted me to run away with him. But that would have been trading just one kind of despair for another.”

“And what happened the night of the murder?”

Apparently, she couldn’t stop herself now. Perhaps the secrets had cried out too long for confession. “I had decided what I needed to do. To get the money. But I didn’t know that Leland was scheduled to get off from work early that night. He arrived in our street and saw me leaving. Without telling me, he followed. I went to where Marcus and the others were hiding and… and poisoned their food. I started to just take the gold then and disappear, but I realized that I would never be able to stop looking over my shoulder. So… so I did it. I killed them.”

Crane stood up then and took a step back, knocking into his chair. Mrs. Cole didn’t notice.

“I took the gold and left. It was heavy, but I could just carry it in two leather cases. I took it home and buried it in an abandoned shed near where we lived, so it wouldn’t be found. Leland, who had seen me go into the hiding place, let me go without revealing himself, and then went inside to see why I had been there. I had shut the door behind me when I left – he only said that he had found it open as a reason for him to enter. He discovered the bodies inside. He recognized the Wards, and he told me later that he put together the fact that I was the missing cleaning lady. Being a good policeman, he couldn’t just walk away. He sounded the alarm, not realizing that he was implicating himself, as he couldn’t satisfactorily explain why he was in that neighborhood.

“After several days of not speaking about it, his will broke. He confronted me, and I confessed. I tried to get him to go away with me – I really did. I was willing to include him and the child in my new life, but he wouldn’t have any of it. As the days went on, he fell more and more under suspicion, but of course he couldn’t give me up. The anger between us grew, and finally I couldn’t stand it any longer. I retrieved the coins and left them. And he… he kept my secret all these years. And now… now you tell me that he’s dead?”

Finally, at this point she seemed to run down, and a single tear tracked along her cheek. “Watson,” said Holmes softly. “Summon Lestrade.”

Later, we were back in Baker Street, and I asked to see Langdale Pike’s telegram once again. It was all there – the raw facts that had allowed Holmes to see the invisible threads that connected them. “She had appeared out of nowhere in France at about the same that Mrs. Cole had disappeared. This only confirmed that the woman Andrew Cole saw yesterday, a Countess, as in fact his humble mother. When this woman arrived in Nice ten years ago, she was clearly wealthy. Where had the money come from to finance this life? Pike, though curious, of course had no knowledge about that aspect, but the connection is obvious to us, who can see both sides. We know that the woman who surfaced in France was also married to a policeman who was accused of stealing a fortune in gold which had never been recovered. Lestrade’s fortuitous mention of a missing cleaning woman, along with Andrew’s offhand reference to sleeping deeply at around the same time that men died because they were given opiates, was enough to cause the idea to coalesce in my mind. The only real challenge was to pick at different threads throughout her whole construct until enough of them weakened and it all came apart, letting her fall through.”

At that moment, the bell rang, and Holmes went downstairs to let in Andrew Cole, recently summoned. After Holmes brought him up, the young man resumed the seat that had held him that morning. Trying to sound jovial, he asked, “News already? That was fast, gentlemen.” Then, seeing our rather grim expressions, his wan smile dropped, and he said flatly, “Tell me.”

And Holmes did, laying it out linearly and simply. When he was done, the young man thought for a moment and then stood. “Thank you, Mr. Holmes. Dr. Watson,” he said simply. “I don’t know what to think, really. She ceased to be my mother a long time ago, but I am glad to know the truth about my poor father, who kept her secret to the end. He must have loved her all the way.”

“Yes,” I murmured.

“Inspector Lestrade will be in touch,” said Holmes. “Your father did have knowledge that he held back about a crime, but there were… extenuating and understandable circumstances. I believe that he would like to discuss it with you.”

“Certainly. You can tell him where to find me. And please send your bill to the same location. I believe that I gave you my card?”

Holmes nodded and stood. I followed. We each shook Andrew Cole’s hand, and the young man passed out of our lives and back into that throng of four millions all jostling each other within the space of a few miles. We were destined to meet him again, but that is another tale.

Smoking quietly, we passed a solemn hour until it was time for me to arise and walk back to Paddington. Holmes, deep in his own meditations, looked up and gave a nod, which I returned. Then, letting myself out, I returned to my wife, very fortunate indeed in knowing that I had the truest treasure of them all.