A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes Read online

  The tone of his voice made me look up – there was a curious tentativeness in it, masked by the off-hand way in which he asked but discernible to me, who knew him so well. What on earth could I be busy with, having sold my practice? It was strange to hear him ask rather than demand or assume. Even when Holmes requested my company during my marriage, he had rarely gone so far as to enquire whether I was free, and then only when he showed up unannounced at the house where my late wife Mary and I lived. I never once refused in those years; I can’t imagine why he thought I might now.

  “Not in the least,” said I.

  “Might I ask for your company, then?” He still stood with his back to me, and the tentative note seemed to harden into formality.

  “Of course,” I replied with some confusion. “You have it.”

  “Very good,” Holmes said with a quick smile over his shoulder. “Get your hat; we’re meeting Lestrade at Marylebone in ten minutes.”

  The little official was already waiting for us on the platform, and although he looked glad enough to see us, his frustration was evident.

  “I’ll be grateful for your opinion on this, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade said once we were seated in a car. “I remember you telling me on numerous occasions that it’s the cases that look simplest that are actually the most complicated. This one seemed cut and dried at first, but the parents are giving me no help and the only obvious lead is taking me nowhere.”

  “You’ll have to follow the unobvious ones, then,” Holmes said, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Tell me about it.”

  “Early Monday morning,” Lestrade began, “Mr and Mrs George Braddon, of Clapham, discovered that their seventeen-year-old daughter Alice was missing from her bedroom. No one had seen her since teatime on Sunday, but as it’s habit for the family to spend the day reading scripture in their own rooms, nobody thought anything of it. They found the door locked but soon located a key and entered to find the window open, a glass from the washstand smashed on the floor, and no trace of the daughter.”

  “Just a moment,” Holmes interrupted. “It’s Wednesday. Why didn’t you come to me earlier? There will be little for me to find in the girl’s room now if Scotland Yard’s been tramping through it for three days.”

  “Because, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade said with a weary sigh, “the Braddons didn’t notify the police until this morning. I told you they’re not very cooperative, and I meant it.”

  “What reason did they give for this?” Holmes asked with an unimpressed edge to his voice.

  “Well, they were very circumspect about it, but they said they’d intended to gather the ransom money on their own, and they ran into some trouble procuring the funds. They grew desperate enough today to call us in.”

  “I cannot see how wanting to collect the money themselves required refraining from notifying in the police,” I said.

  “They seem desperate to avoid a scandal,” Lestrade answered. “Mr Braddon made some reference to being recently promoted at his firm, and indicated that any scandal could be disastrous to his position.” Beside me, Holmes gave a throaty snort of disapproval and motioned the inspector to go on. “Aside from the glass and the open window, the bed had been slept in, and there’s a stain on the rug beneath the sill that could be blood, but it’s hard to tell as the rug itself is red. Aside from all that the only real clue we’ve got is the ransom note.”

  “There’s a ransom note? That is indeed something.”

  “I can’t learn much from it, unfortunately, but perhaps you can.” Lestrade handed a torn piece of paper across to Holmes, who scrutinized it for a few moments before passing it to me. In a formal and deliberate hand, it ran thus:

  £20,000 will return your daughter to you. Further word will be sent as to time and place. If you refuse or involve the authorities, she will be done like Bill Chapman.

  “Who is Bill Chapman?” Holmes asked. Lestrade shrugged.

  “We haven’t been able to find anybody by that exact name, but there’s a young lad working under the stable master whose name is Bob Chapman. The Braddons suspect him strongly, since they say he’s been giving improper attentions to their daughter.”

  “Reciprocated?”

  “Certainly not,” Lestrade replied, with the air of a man quoting something he’d heard before. “Alice would never, et cetera et cetera.”

  When we reached Clapham, a constable met us at the door and Lestrade showed us up to the missing girl’s bedroom. We were told that Mr Braddon was out on business and would return by one o’clock; Mrs Braddon was taking care of her correspondence in the morning room and could be called if we desired to speak with her.

  Holmes surveyed the room from its centre for a few moments before pulling out his lens and moving over to the windowsill to examine it. Alice’s bedroom was furnished modestly. A bed at one end with its rumpled clothes thrown aside, a writing desk and chair of old-fashioned heavy dark wood, and a plain washstand made up the entirety of its furniture. The washstand stood near to the window, and on the floor in front of it was the shattered glass Lestrade had described. The washstand itself held various articles of toiletry, among which was a bowl of water. Holmes bent over the bowl and dipped his fingers in, scooping up some of the soap shavings that floated on the surface. He sniffed them, made a small noise of interest, and flicked them back into the water. Wiping his fingers on his handkerchief, Holmes moved to the writing desk. A small stack of books, topped by the Bible, sat on the corner beside one open volume. Holmes briefly flipped through each and spent a longer while studying a slim leather-bound journal that lay by itself on the other side. All the while, Lestrade watched him with a mixture of scepticism and hope.

  “Well, Mr Holmes?” he asked. Holmes was now crouched down on the rug near the window, peering at the place where the wall met the floor.

  “This does not seem quite as obscure as you would have us believe,” he said absently, “but some points are still unclear to me. Is this the stain you spoke about?”

  “That’s it,” the inspector said. “You can understand the difficulty we’ve had in identifying it.” Indeed, the stain was small – a series of spatters the size of coins – and was of a deeper colour than the rug.

  “How closely have you examined this stain?” Holmes asked.

  “Closely enough,” Lestrade said, sounding a trifle defensive.

  “I fear not. If you had taken the liberty of smelling it, my dear Lestrade, the question of whether or not it is blood would have been settled.” He stood up suddenly, causing Lestrade to step back looking like a ruffled cat. “I would like to speak with Mrs Braddon now, if I may,” Holmes said.

  Lestrade sent the constable down, and he returned some minutes later with the mistress of the house. Mrs Braddon was a tall, stately, brown-haired lady with the graceful bearing of a woman who is used to complete control over her domain. Worry over her daughter’s welfare was not evident in her face; instead, the strongest impression I received from her was one of indignation at the inconvenience of having intruders in her home, mixed with a suppressed impatience. Her manner of dress matched Alice’s room more than it did the rest of the house, which I had glimpsed on our way upstairs. While the furnishings downstairs had been tastefully matched to the station of a family such as the Braddons, Mrs Braddon wore clothing that was, while made of the best materials, plain almost to the point of prudishness.

  “This is Mr Sherlock Holmes and his colleague, Dr Watson,” Lestrade said. “I have great hopes that they will quickly discover the whereabouts of your daughter.”

  She removed her glove and we shook hands. “I hope the inspector underestimates neither your talent nor your swiftness,” she said to Holmes.

  “It would help my investigation greatly, Madam,” said he, “if you would be so good as to answer a few questions.” Mrs Braddon inclined her head. “First of all, does your family buy much imported fruit?”

  I heard a stifled snort from Lestrade, and Mrs Braddon drew herself up with
an offended intake of breath. “Most certainly not, Mr Holmes. Mr Braddon and I do not allow such frivolities as unwholesome food.”

  “Of course not,” Holmes responded smoothly.

  I must admit that I could not follow his reasoning for asking such a question, but I had long ago learned that he always had reasoning, no matter how abstruse it seemed to me.

  “I suppose, if foreign fruit is too frivolous for your household, so too would be poetry?”

  Mrs Braddon frowned as if Holmes had just suggested that her home might be infested with bedbugs. “What makes you ask me these things, Mr Holmes?”

  “Only because there is a book of classical Greek poetry open on your daughter’s desk.”

  The lady made a small sound of frustration. “Miss Henderson.” She moved toward the desk, but Lestrade blocked her with an apologetic smile.

  “I’m afraid we cannot allow you to move anything, Mrs Braddon.” The look she gave him could have put a skim of ice over the water on the washstand.

  “Did you say something about a Miss Henderson?” Holmes asked.

  “We have been most unfortunate that one of Alice’s teachers at school in Chelmsford has introduced her to poetry,” Mrs Braddon said. “We have repeatedly told Alice that she is not to give credence to any of this woman’s suggestions, but she is…too diligent a student to put aside anything her teacher believes to be of value. Alice has even invited the woman to visit several times, in spite of our protestations, but what can one say?”

  “I think that will be all,” Holmes said. “Thank you.”

  Mrs Braddon looked as if she wanted to say something else, but then there was a tread on the stair and a quietly dressed middle-aged man appeared in the doorway. Mr Braddon, as I understood him to be from the brightening of the lady’s face when she saw him, looked the pattern of a respectable solicitor.

  “Ah, Mr Braddon,” Lestrade said from behind Holmes. “Our specialist is here to examine the crime scene. Mr Braddon, Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson.”

  Mr Braddon greeted us graciously, with somewhat more warmth than his wife. “I trust you will be able to offer us some hope, gentlemen?”

  “I think it is very probable that we can locate your daughter,” Holmes said. “At this time I cannot guess at how quickly, however.”

  “Well, we are at your disposal if there is anything we can do.”

  “I do have one or two questions for you, Mr Braddon,” Holmes said. “Is there anything going on in your daughter’s life at the moment that might have caused upset?”

  “Why do you ask that?” Mrs Braddon put in.

  “I simply want to cover all of the possibilities for her disappearance.”

  “I hope you aren’t suggesting that our daughter left of her own volition, Mr Holmes,” Mrs Braddon continued. “We have the ransom note to attest to that. And the idea that she might leave willingly with some person who hoped to extort money from us is preposterous.”

  “I wouldn’t dare suggest anything yet,” Holmes said affably, and turned his eyes to Mr Braddon.

  “It is true that she has been a little upset of late. She has not yet warmed to her fiancé, Mr Blake Woodard. Mr Woodard is a Manchester man of very admirable means, and Alice is nervous about meeting his friends. The society she will enter upon their marriage will be quite different from that with which she has lately been acquainted.”

  “She is afraid she will see little of her own friends, you mean.”

  Mr Braddon smiled thinly. “Yes, Mr Holmes, you could put it that way. I understand that you must gather this information, but why do you not focus more on possible suspects? You have questioned Robert Chapman, I assume?”

  “We still have Chapman in custody and Mr Holmes may question him if he likes,” said Lestrade, “but I’ll remind you that both his mother and father attest to his presence at home all Sunday night.”

  “Well, of course they would say so,” Mrs Braddon said. “They are field workers. They have no interest in seeing justice done for us.”

  “I would like to speak with the servants if I may,” Holmes said, moving past the Braddons and down the stairs. Lestrade and I followed him. “And then I must return to Baker Street to follow a lead or two, Lestrade, but I shall send word to you the moment I find anything conclusive.”

  We interviewed the Braddons’ small staff – a cook, a maid, and a groom – but they were as little help as the young lady’s parents. They had seen nothing and heard nothing, but the groom slept above the mews, so he could hardly have heard anything taking place in the house late at night. The maid was as offended as her mistress at the suggestion that Alice Braddon had not been taken against her will, and the cook protested to know nothing whatever of the matter. She was a singular person: she had a burn that disfigured one eyebrow and cheek, and she was partially without sight in that eye. She protested, and I saw no reason to disbelieve her, that she slept downstairs in the kitchen and could not see well in the dark anyway.

  We left Lestrade behind us at Clapham and took a cab back to the train station. As soon as we entered our car, Holmes seated himself and leaned back with his steepled hands pressed to his lips, his eyes fixed somewhere on the wall over my shoulder. The gesture was jarring in its familiarity – it was something I associated so strongly with him and I had not seen him do it in more than three years. As accustomed as I had become to his all-excluding focus when on a case, I was surprised that he did not ask my opinion as he usually did immediately after we viewed evidence. Had he not told me that listening to my theories, as inaccurate as they might be, helped him form his own? But as he said, he had been long without a roommate.

  At any rate, he did not seem to remember my presence and I didn’t dare interrupt him. Finally he blew out a breath and dropped his hands in a gesture I felt gave me permission to intrude on his thoughts.

  “Do you have any idea who could possibly have done this?” I ventured.

  “I have a strong indication,” Holmes said, “but unfortunately little conclusive data.”

  “The leads you mentioned to Lestrade will surely turn up something,” I said, trying – rather lamely, I felt – to sound encouraging. “We must act swiftly, in any case, before further violence is done to this girl.”

  “I’m not convinced violence has been done to her at all,” said Holmes. He smiled at my astonishment.

  “But the stain beneath the window, Holmes!” said I. “Surely that was blood?”

  “Not unless Alice Braddon bleeds pomegranate juice.”

  I stared in unabashed confusion for a split second, and then Holmes’s question to Mrs Braddon about the family’s fruit consumption fell into place. “How on earth do you know it was pomegranate?” I asked.

  “You observed the basin of water on the washstand?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “There were pieces of pomegranate rind floating in it,” he said. “The easiest method of extracting seeds from a pomegranate is to score the skin and pull it apart underwater. The seeds sink, and the rind floats.”

  “But Mrs Braddon was adamant that they do not eat fruit.”

  “Exactly, and imported fruit in particular,” Holmes said. “Our climate is not conducive to growing pomegranate fruit – though I understand they can do well ornamentally – so they would likely have been purchased from a green-grocer who imports them. This is one of the leads I mentioned to Lestrade.”

  When we arrived at Baker Street, Holmes wasted no time in changing into a seedy frock coat and setting off for the markets. I’m ashamed to say I felt too timid to ask if there was anything I could do to help, so I settled down to organize my never-ending collection of papers while he was gone. He returned sometime after dark, humming and looking flushed. His searches had been a success, then.

  “Did you know, Watson,” he said as he re-entered the sitting room in his dressing gown, “that there are dozens of stalls at which one can buy pomegranates now?” I confessed I did not. “But,” Holmes continue
d, collecting his pipe from the mantel, “there is only one stall that receives a very peculiar visitor three times a year – a woman with half her face scarred who buys one pomegranate and wraps it in a silk scarf instead of carrying it with her other purchases.”

  “The Braddons’ cook! But why three times a year?”

  “Excellent, Watson! I’ve been asking myself that very question ever since the grocer mentioned it. I had to throw my mind back quite a way to remember why the three dates were significant, but I can tell you that every schoolboy awaits them eagerly. This cook has bought a pomegranate at the end of every term for the past two years. And what’s more, the last person to buy a pomegranate for the Braddon household was not our singular cook. The vendor came to recognize the scarf she wrapped the fruit in, and he reported to me that he had not seen the cook recently and a light-haired lady bought a pomegranate from him last week and used the same scarf to wrap it.”

  “It could not have been a coincidence?”

  “I do not think so. Additionally, I made enquiries into this fiancé – Mr Blake Woodard has a reputation for harshness as well as riches. And now,” Holmes said, going from the fireplace over to our bookshelves, “there is one more lead I need to follow before we take ourselves off to Chelmsford.” He busied himself pulling down several years of dusty periodicals.

  “Chelmsford?” I asked. “Where Alice Braddon goes to school?nate

  Holmes merely gave a knowing shrug of the eyebrows and sat down on the carpet to leaf through the bound volumes. I remained in my chair, trying to imagine what on earth pomegranates bought at the end of each school term could suggest to my friend. He had made a connection between the kidnapping and her school, that much was clear, but he seemed far more cheerful than I would be, considering such a tenuous link. Some time and several stacks of perused volumes later, Holmes uttered a little satisfied “ha!” and tapped definitively on the page open in his lap.