A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes Read online

  He arrived at last to Gerard’s door and knocked upon it. There was no answer. He knocked again. Nothing.

  He was turning to go when he found Gerard in front of him. in frofGerard. There you are, man. You almost gave me a fright. I was just in the neighbourhood and thought I would stop by, see if you were in the mood for a drink.”

  Gerard, who now seemed weary himself, nodded. “That sounds like a capital idea,” he said. “Please, come in.”

  They sat and drank, and talked and smoked. And Lestrade was glad to feel some of the weight of the last few days leave him. That was the great thing about Gerard – he always seemed to understand, though the truth be unspoken.

  “This is wonderful tobacco,” Lestrade said, puffing on the pipe in his mouth. “Where do you get it?”

  “It’s a special blend I have made for me.”

  “I’ll have to visit your tobacconist,” Lestrade said. He raised his glass. “One last drink?”

  Gerard nodded. “To remaining what we are,” he said, by way of a toast.

  “What do you mean?” Lestrade said.

  “What with people like Holmes in the world,” Gerard said. “People look to him to solve things, discounting us. But Holmes is little more than a machine. He’s inhuman. He doesn’t feel the passions of the common people. He can’t understand them.”

  Lestrade inclined his head. “I agree with you. But some find him, find that lack of emotion, to be a desirable thing. To not be saddled with such failings. Such weakness. To be somehow…pure.”

  “It’s the purity of a diamond,” Gerard said. “Cold, hard. Sometimes brilliant, and worth much to some. But a diamond cannot keep you warm. A diamond may symbolize love, but it is not love.”

  “Yet people lust after them, just the same.”

  Gerard raised his glass. “To misplaced lust.”

  Lestrade drank deeply.

  Lestrade arrived home to a message from Scotland Yard. Samuels had been found dead.

  After his release, Samuels had apparently headed home whereupon he had written a suicide note detailing his murder of Briers. Then he’d hung himself from the rafters.

  Lestrade entered the room where the body still hung. Samuels’s sister sat in a straight-backed wooden chair, tear tracks lining her face. She looked up at Lestrade. “He didn’t do it, I swear,” she said. “He didn’t have it in him. And I was with him the night of the murder. He can’t have done it.”

  Lestrade examined the note. It said that Samuels had faked his stupor, that he had sneaked out of the house and killed Briers because of unrequited love for the man. It also claimed that Briers’s clothes were hidden in a barrel in the cellar. Lestrade turned to the constable in charge. “The clothes?”

  The constable nodded. “Right where it said they were. We sent them ahead to Scotland Yard.”

  Lestrade nodded. He turned to Samue ls’s sister. “Is this his handwriting?” he said, holding out the note.

  “It’s shaky, but it looks like his,” she said, then started sobbing. “But he couldn’t have done this.”

  Lestrade walked away from her, disturbed by her grief.

  “You’ll be happy to have this wrapped up, I’d wager,” the constable said.

  Lestrade didn’t answer. He returned to the room where Samuels hung. What he would have wagered on, if Samuels had indeed been driven to suicide, was the man shooting himself. Or poison. Samuels hadn’t seemed the type to hang himself. It was too violent. On the other hand, Lestrade hadn’t judged him the type to kill Briers, either.

  Lestrade scanned the room. Samuels was shoeless. Unimportant, really, but seemingly out of place. Again, Lestrade would have expected the man, in line with his impeccable appearance, to have worn his shoes.

  “Is that your brother’s rope?” Lestrade asked the sister.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t see why he would have had rope for any reason, but it’s easy enough to find, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps,” Lestrade said.

  Here, then, was the answer. Briers’s murderer had been found, and dealt with. The investigation would close with Lestrade’s personal affairs still private.

  What, then, was gnawing at Lestrade’s mind?

  “How did you discover him?” Lestrade asked the constable.

  “Inspector Gerard asked us to look in on him. Said the man looked unstable. Told us to contact you if there was anything out of the ordinary.”

  Lestrade nodded. “Continue on here,” he said. “I’m going to speak with Gerard.”

  Lestrade ran out into the London fog, dodging broughams and horses, and hired a hansom cab to take him to Gerard’s place. Once there, Lestrade knocked loudly on the door, and when it opened, he walked in without waiting for the invitation.

  “Lestrade,” Gerard said, surprised.

  “I came from Samuels’s flat,” Lestrade said. “He’s dead. Suicide. The note said he killed Briers.”

  “Wonderful,” Gerard said. “Then the whole matter is tied up and put to rest.”

  “That’s just the thing,” Lestrade said, pacing. “It doesn’t feel right. I still don’t think Samuels did it.”

  “But you said yourself that he admitted to it. Before killing himself.”

  “I know. But something doesn’t add up.” Gerard shook his head. Lestrade continued, “I know I don’t have Holmes’s mind, or even Gregson’s insight, but I spend my days, and sometimes nights, trying to solve London’s crimes, tracking down the thieves and the murderers. Especially the murderers. Trying to find a measure of justice for their victims. That I can do that is why I spend so much time on the job. It’s why I love what I do and would defend it to the end.”

  “That’s a pretty speech,” Gerard said. “But what does it have to do with anything?”

  “Because I don’t think Samuels killed Briers and that means his murderer is still out there, free. Briers deserves better than that.”

  “So what do you propose to do about it?” Gerard asked.

  “Continue to look. Investigate,” Lestrade said.

  “You have a confession in the murderer’s hand,” Gerard said. “His clothes were in the flat, for God’s sake. What more do you need?”

  “Certainty,” Lestrade said. Then, “How did you know about the clothes?”

  Gerard ran a hand over his face, then shook his head. “You fool,” he said. “I wrapped everything up nicely for you, a neat and tidy parcel. And you still couldn’t accept it. I suppose my answers are not quite so sweet as Holmes’s.”

  “What did you do, Gerard?” Lestrade said. “Why?”

  Gerard withdrew a revolver from his coat pocket and held it on Lestrade.

  “I know what went on between you and Briers,” Gerard said. “I know it all.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lestrade said. “Briers was a colleague.”

  “Poppycock,” Gerard said. “You were sleeping with him. I know because so was I.”

  Lestrade’s jaw dropped.

  “The Metropolitan Police Force is quite large,” Gerard said. “I’d reckon there’s a few more of us, all told.”

  “You killed him,” Lestrade said.

  “Yes. To save us. Both of us. He was going to expose us all.”

  “What?”

  “He’d been marking it all down in his book. I’d seen him. He came to me a few months ago. I could tell he was like me. Just as I could tell you were. I was charmed by his youth and looks, to be honest. I was a dalliance for him, I think. Not much more. I think he loved you. Then when you pulled him back to you, he left me for a while. I didn’t mind. But then lately he’d been coming back. Saying that you were in love with someone else.”

  “Tell me about this book,” Lestrade said.

  “I noticed he had it lately. He would write in it in the morning, before leaving. I thought at first it was something to do with the job. But then he started asking questions about being exposed. Questions about being fit for duty. Talking about wh
at he would do if he had to leave the force. I put it together then. Don’t you see? I was protecting you as well. We both know what exposure would do for our careers.”

  “So you killed him to keep him quiet?”

  “I did,” Gerard said. “He came to my flat the way he sometimes did, after leaving you. He claimed he needed some warmth. Only I was prepared. I made him a drink, drugged of course. I took him to the alley. Shot him, and left him.”

  “And the book?”

  “I burned it. It was in a kind of code – times and letters next to them. But I didn’t want anyone getting their hands on it.”

  Lestrade hung his head. He didn’t believe it. He might not have known Briers very well, but he knew the man wasn’t going to expose them. He cared too much about being on the police force.

  “And now you’re going to kill me,” Lestrade said.

  “I hadn’t intended to,” Gerard said, “but now it’s a matter of self-preservation. I’ll find some way to sell it. Perhaps I’ll expose your connection to Briers. Or else I’ll frame you for Samuels’s death and say I discovered the truth and you tried to kill me. I’ll line up the ducks, never you mind about that.”

  Lestrade thought about the Detective, wondered if he would be involved in the investigation. Would he see through to the truth, and if so, how far?

  “Praying?” Gerard said, and Lestrade realized his eyes were closed.

  “It’s no use,” Lestrade said. “I’ve told the Detective.”

  “Holmes? The clockwork man? Wind him up and watch his brain tick.”

  Lestrade nodded. “It won’t take much for him to put the pieces together.”

  “You’ll be dead by then. The case will be closed.”

  “You expect that to stop him?” Lestrade said. “I don’t expect that he’ll care about me, not any more than as a piece of the puzzle, but he is dogged and determined and that clockwork brain of his will examine every minute detail, and all the inconsistencies will blaze at him like a gaslight in London fog.”

  Gerard frowned as if he’d eaten something distasteful “To hear you talk, I’d think you were sweet on him.”

  “You’re better off running now,” Lestrade said. “Killing me will only make it worse for you.”

  Gerard snarled. “You didn’t tell him. You wouldn’t want him involved.”

  Lestrade kept his face even. “Not at first. But then I realized I needed an answer. Look. He gave me this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the broken magnifying glass.

  Then grabbed for the gun.

  Gerard was larger, stronger, but Lestrade had caught him off guard and he twisted as hard as he could on the pistol.

  Both men fell to the ground. They wrestled, and Lestrade threw his weight behind the gun. The pistol exploded and a hot poker of pain stabbed through Lestrade’s left leg.

  Lestrade screamed and his eyes fell on a piece of the broken magnifying glass, now free of the frame. He grabbed for it, jabbing in Gerard’s direction.

  The shard cut skin, catching, tearing. Hot blood sprayed across Lestrade’s face.

  He came up to see Gerard clutching at his neck, vainly trying to staunch the considerable blood flow. Then Gerard’s eyes flickered and he fell back.

  Lestrade grabbed for the pistol and tucked it in his pocket. Then he dragged himself to Gerard’s door and slowly, cursing every bump, lowered himself down the stairs.

  Through the pain and sweat and the pounding of his heart he managed to stumble out into the foggy street, his left leg already numb. His vision wavered and he collapsed into the arms of someone on the street. “Quick, get this man a doctor!” a male voice yelled.

  “Not Dr John Watson,” Lestrade said, then gave in to the darkness.

  The bandage chafed Lestrade’s leg as he sat in Sir Felix Childing’s office. “So Gerard and Briers were lovers. After Samuels and Briers.”

  “That’s the long and short of it,” Lestrade said. “Gerard thought that Briers was about to expose his predilections. Instead, Briers was merely noting some arrhythmias of the heart he’d been having. It was that he was worried about exposing to the force. Gerard killed him for nothing.”

  “Ghastly business,” Sir Felix said. “We’ll have to cover up the immoral behaviour, of course. Won’t do to put a stain on Scotland Yard’s reputation.”

  “Sir,” Lestrade said.

  “I’m very proud of you,” Sir Felix said. “You managed to solve this case without the help of that blasted Holmes. Keep up this work and you’ll soon earn a promotion.”

  “Sir,” Lestrade said.

  “It will be good to have a rising star to offset the damage by these officers.”

  “Sir,” Lestrade said. “If I may. I didn’t know Constable Briers very well. But what I did know of him was that he was a decent officer and that he loved the force. Loved being a constable. In fact, he was deathly worried about being cut loose for his health problems. He just had the bad fortune of choosing poorly in his personal life and he paid with his life. Cover up his personal life if you must, but don’t disgrace the memory of his service. Whatever else he may have been, he was a good officer.”

  Sir Felix nodded. “You may be right,” he said. “Two good officers to balance the one bad. Smart thinking.”

  Moments later, Lestrade limped down the hallway of Scotland Yard, leaning on his cane, out onto the street.

  Outside 221B Baker Street, he stared up at the lean, dark silhouette in the window. For a moment, he thought about entering the Detective’s residence, telling him everything – the man was as cold as a confessor anyway. Lestrade felt sick of lies and deceptions both those he shared with others and those he saved for himself. Holmes’s questing gaze would scour him of his secrets. Lay him bare for all to see.

  In that moment, he understood the Detective’s addiction. To swim in the arms of Morpheus’ embrace until needed. To escape the injustices of the world…

  But such was not for Lestrade. Instead, he hailed a cab and headed home. He would have to live with the ghosts for a while longer.

  Watson, newly reinstalled as a roommate on Baker Street, accompanies Holmes on a case of the disappearance of a young woman. A possible kidnapping or worse, this case finds Holmes at his deductive best and delivers an unexpected side to his ideas about crime and justice. Raynes subtly shows the depth of the connection between Holmes and Watson in this tale. Interesting revelations are not only to be found in the details of the case in this adventure

  The Kidnapping of Alice Braddon

  by Katie Raynes

  The first thing I noticed upon entering our sitting room, some weeks after I had moved back into Baker Street, was that my arm-chair was on fire.

  I immediately went for the carafe of water on our sideboard but before I reached it, Holmes, who had been sitting unnoticed on the floor in front of the chair, called out for me to stop.

  “I am conducting a very delicate experiment, Watson,” he said. “Pray do nothing to compromise it.” I approached the chair, upon the seat of which was a patch of smouldering ashes surrounded by some slimy wet substance. The ashes smoked quite strongly, but the embers themselves were feeble.

  “What on earth are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m testing a flame-retardant chemical compound I’ve been developing.”

  “It doesn’t look particularly flame-retardant to me,” I said. Holmes fixed me with a long-suffering stare.

  “You will observe that the upholstery has not yet caught.” He returned his attention to the miniature fire as if some question of dire importance rested upon it. I looked from his earnest, focused face to the small pile of ashes and back again.

  “You really are terrifically bored, aren’t you?”

  “You have a positive gift for understatement, my dear Watson.”

  “But why my chair? I do use it sometimes, you know.”

  “The compound is meant for furniture, where fires from pipe or cigar ash are most likely to start. As to wh
y I chose yours…I suppose I have been without a roommate so long that it simply didn’t occur to me.” I could not tell whether the barb was intended or I only imagined the brittleness in his voice.

  “I don’t recall that you were particularly observant of such boundaries when you did have one,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “Anyway, I met a commissionaire on the front steps. There’s a telegram for you from Scotland Yard.”

  Holmes perked up and held out his hand. “Why did you not say so immediately?”

  “Coming home and discovering one’s furniture ablaze is a bit distracting.”

  “I’d hardly say that, considering the efficacy of my compound. Give it here.”

  I passed him the telegram and he ripped it open.

  “I wonder what sort of trouble the official force has got itself into now. It’s from Lestrade,” he said, and handed the slip back to me. “He requests my assistance in the investigation of a kidnapping.”

  “Will you go?” I asked.

  “Can you imagine I would refuse, after seeing what my boredom has wrought?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  Holmes reached behind him for the ash pan and swept the still-smoking cinders off my armchair’s seat. “There, all tidied up,” he said. “Mrs Hudson did suggest that I might strive to keep things a bit more manageable these days, and I suppose I owe her that much.” He stood up and dusted off his hands while I stared dismally at the still sticky and now ash-smudged seat of my chair. He was turned away from me, getting his coat from the stand, when he asked: “Are you busy this afternoon, Watson?”