LITMIR.BIZ

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how he could have known it. Please, Lady Morris, you must understand that I was simply trying to protect Lord Morris.”

      “At great risk to the health of Lady Morris,” chided Holmes.

      “Holmes, how did you know it was a suicide?” asked the inspector.

      “As Dr Watson said, the posture of the body and the wound were all consistent with suicide. Why would a killer want to make a crime scene which looks exactly like a suicide look like that of a murder? Also, there was no sign of an intruder. As I said before, how could the butler come into the room within one minute of the shot’s being fired and not have discovered the killer going through the appointment book or the cabinets? There really weren’t terribly many papers lying about on the floor, but to a butler it would seem like this degree of dishevelment was consistent with a robbery of some sort.

      “No, Nicholson, only the body seemed to be undisturbed. All else seemed rearranged, and there was only one person we knew of who would have had the opportunity to alter the room’s appearance. Given all this, all I had to do was discover the reason for the suicide. This proved more time-consuming than I had anticipated.”

      “What about the man in the broad-brimmed hat?”

      “That, Nicholson, was Lord Morris’s physician, Dr Edmund Samuels. According to this telegram I received today, he had come here on Wednesday to examine Lord Morris. He has promised to contact you, as well, Lady Morris, tomorrow.”

      “Well, I suppose I must now decide how to proceed in the matter.”

      “Inspector Nicholson, as you and several of your colleagues have already learned, your career can only benefit from working with me from time to time and by placing the utmost trust in my conclusions. However, just because I, who am in no way connected with the official police, have come to this particular conclusion does not mean that you, Inspector, are in any way officially obliged to accept or act upon it.”

      “Thank you, Mr Holmes. I shall take that under consideration.”

      Privileging honour over self-advancement, Nicholson never did officially solve the murder of Lord Morris, a momentary setback in a career which would soon be redeemed by many successes.

      At that moment, however, Holmes and I were still unsure of the outcome. It was already growing dark as we made our way home, and outside our cab, a wind had begun to blow from the east, and the snow had finally begun to fall.

      THE ADVENTURE OF THE MIDNIGHT SÉANCE, by Michael Mallory

      “More tea, ma’am?” our maid Missy asked, shattering the light doze that had fallen over me. “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am, were you nodding?”

      “Only slightly,” I responded, with a yawn. Ever since John and I had returned from our brief sojourn in America I had slept poorly, which made for sluggish, tiring days.

      Not so my husband, who had returned energized, leaping back into his medical practise with a vengeance after having abandoned it to take on the role of public speaker, touring and lecturing about his great and good (and now absent) friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes.

      Making a mental note to speak to John about this beastly fatigue, I settled on the chaise and began pursuing a new book, shutting out the rest of the wet afternoon. My reading was interrupted only once, by the delivery of a letter for my husband, and I found myself halfway through the tome when John arrived home, sprinkling bits of rain onto the rug from his hat and greatcoat.

      “A letter came for you, darling,” I informed him, and while he tore open the envelope I resumed reading. But my concentration was shattered a moment later at his exclamation of:

      “Great Scott! Rupert Mandeville! I haven’t thought of him in years. He and I were in the Afghanistan together. What could he want with me now?” He read further and I noticed his face darkening. “He appears to be in trouble,” he went on. “He is asking for my assistance. Says I’m the only one he can trust!”

      “A man he has not seen in twenty-five years is the only one he can trust?”

      “He says it is a matter of life and death and only I can help,” John declared. “I will go to him at once.”

      “John, please, we have only arrived back home. Must you go running off so soon?”

      “A former comrade of mine requires my help, Amelia,” he replied, simply. “You cannot imagine what it is like to be in the midst of battle, forging bonds with the other soldiers that last a lifetime. Bonds such as those cannot be broken by something so transitory as time. They are as strong as—”

      “As the bonds of marriage?” I interjected.

      “Yes, precisely,” he answered, his hair once more ruffling from the force of the irony that just went soaring over his head. Oh, whatever was I going to do with this man?

      “I can rearrange my schedule,” he said, “and I should only be gone for a few days. Besides, I’ve always wanted to see the Lizard.”

      “Your friend lives at Lizard?” I wailed, remembering a childhood visit to that prehistoric, rocky peninsula at the island’s southernmost point and further remembering having loathed every second spent there. “Wasn’t visiting America bad enough?”

      “Really, Amelia, where is your spirit of adventure?”

      “In this chair, where it belongs,” I replied, holding up my book. “However, I suppose there is no way that I, merely your wife, can prevent you from going, so I shall begin packing in the morning.”

      “There is no need for you to accompany me,” he said, and as I glanced at his handsome face, taking in the sudden flush of excitement that belied his fifty-two years, I could not help but smile.

      “Of course there is,” I responded. “Who else will keep you safe?”

      The next day we found ourselves being jostled through crowded Waterloo Station, ready to begin the journey that would take us to the village of Helmouth, which was tucked among the rocks somewhere in Cornwall. John’s youthful glow had since faded somewhat, though his excitement remained high.

      “Do you really think this is a matter of life and death?” I asked as we steamed and rattled our way out of station.

      John sat back against the seat in the compartment and lit his first pipe of the journey. “The fact that he used those very words is what is so disturbing about this matter,” he said. “The Mandeville I knew was not one given to exaggeration.”

      I glanced out at the cold, wet day. “I trust someone is meeting us at the station in Helmouth.”

      John’s face fell. “Oh, dear,” he uttered.

      “John, you did send notification to your friend that we were coming, didn’t you?”

      “I fear I forgot. In the past, it was Holmes who had always taken care of such details.”

      “Well,” I sighed, “ready or not, Mr Mandeville, here we come.” John took the opportunity to retreat, rather sheepishly, into his newspaper while I contented myself with staring out the window at the countryside, which was verdant under the veil of rain.

      Getting to the village of Helmouth, however, proved even more tiring and time-consuming than I had imagined. By the time we actually set foot on the train platform I felt as though we had been travelling for days. While I supervised the collection of our few bags, John went into the stationmaster’s office to engage a carriage to take us to Rupert Mandeville’s home.

      It turned out to be an open carriage, and by the time we had arrived at the bleak-looking, multi-gabled house that was perched over the cliffs at a point that appeared to be the end of the world, my face had been so stung by the cold that it was completely numb. I had become so frozen, in fact, that I barely had enough movement in my limbs to step down from the carriage in front of the stark edifice belonging to Rupert Mandeville.

      John knocked on the great front door, which was soon opened by an elderly, prim-looking

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