LITMIR.BIZ

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at work, but—’

      ‘Continue. An attractive servant disappeared briefly but has returned. What is the mystery?’

      ‘She did not simply return. She arrived in a basket, bound, drugged, and with her beautiful hair cut off down to the scalp.’

      This had at last piqued Holmes’s interest.

      ‘Start from the beginning. Tell me of the girl, and the dates of these events.’

      ‘Fiona disappeared last Friday. She returned two days later, three days ago.’

      ‘Why did you wait to consult me?’

      ‘Allow me to tell you this in my own way, Mr Holmes.’

      Holmes sighed, and waved her to continue.

      ‘Fiona was flirtatious and forward, quite charming in her way. She had many admirers. Every man in the estate remarked upon her. We thought at first she had run off with someone until the servants appealed to the laird en masse, insisting that she had been kidnapped.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘No one else was missing. She would not have run off alone. And then her shoe was found near the garden behind the kitchen. A search party was sent out, but discovered nothing else.’

      ‘But she has returned. What was her story? Did she not see her attacker?’

      ‘No. She could offer no clues.’

      Holmes sighed and rose to find another cigarette on the mantle. He lit the cigarette casually. ‘Very well. Every man in the estate noticed her. Might your husband have done so?’

      ‘“Every” means “every”.’

      ‘Then you suspect an affair? Perhaps retribution? Is it possible that you or another woman in the house felt threatened by the girl?’

      ‘Why would I have come to you if I were the perpetrator?’

      ‘Mrs McLaren, believe me, it has been tried. Let us be frank. There is a certain degree of conceit in your self-presentation.’

      ‘I would describe it as confidence, not conceit. Will you hear me out, or is your need to put me in my place so much greater than your professional courtesy? Or, perhaps more apropos to you, your curiosity?’

      To his credit, my friend received the reprimand with grace. ‘Forgive me. Pray continue, Mrs McLaren. The shoe that was found near the garden. Was there no sign of a struggle, nothing beyond the one object?’

      ‘None. I made enquiries and undertook a physical search of my own, but her room yielded nothing and the area where the shoe was found was by then so trampled that it was impossible to learn anything.’

      ‘Do you mean you played at detective work yourself, Mrs McLaren? Would not a call to the police have been in order?’

      ‘I think not, Mr Holmes. Dr Watson has made clear in his narrative your opinion of most police detective work. Our local constable is derelict in his duty. He is, quite frankly, a drunk. The laird refused to call him in.’

      ‘Yet I hardly think an untrained amateur such as yourself would be—’

      I shot a warning glance at my friend. He was, I felt being unduly harsh. This woman had set something off in him I did not understand.

      Isla McLaren was unfazed. ‘It is Fiona’s own story that concerns me. She was frightened beyond words. She was taken at night and there was a heavy mist. She saw nothing.’

      ‘Yes, well, what then?’

      ‘She awoke in a cold damp place, on what felt like a stone floor with some straw laid atop, apparently for meagre comfort. She was bound tightly but with padded ropes, and with her eyes covered. She had a terrible headache.’

      Holmes had returned to his chair, and was now listening eagerly. ‘Chloroform, then. Easily obtained. Effective, if crude. Next?’

      ‘Someone who never spoke a word to her stole in and proceeded to cut off her hair with what felt like a very sharp knife. It was done carefully and she had the impression that the person was arranging the locks of hair beside her in some way. Possibly to keep it.’

      Holmes exhaled and leaned back. ‘But not harmed otherwise?’

      ‘Not a bruise upon her. However, for a woman, her hair—’

      ‘Yes, yes, of course. It does grow back. Who discovered the basket?’

      ‘The second footman who was leaving to post some letters.’

      ‘Is that all? Where is the girl now?’

      ‘At home, but unable to work. She is beside herself. Fiona was superstitious before, and her friends have tried to convince her the kidnapping was the work of something supernatural.’

      ‘Why on earth?’

      ‘The attack was so silent. She neither saw nor heard anyone approach.’

      Holmes leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He did not move for several seconds.

      ‘Mrs McLaren, tell me more of the girl, her character, her reputation.’

      ‘Fiona has, or had before her abduction, a sparkling demeanour, flirtatious and flighty. She is no scholar, though canny. She has been unable to learn to read, but enjoys attention and is straightforward about it. I really do not dislike the girl at all, in fact I quite like her. She is, without the slightest effort, a magnet for male attention. I have not bothered to track her own affections or actions, but I wager that there could be any number of men or women who might be jealous of the attention she receives.’

      ‘You imply much, but can you confirm any specific affairs? A husband’s attraction to a pretty servant would certainly trouble most women, Mrs McLaren. Even you.’

      ‘I am not most women, Mr Holmes. But I think Fiona’s attractions may be beside the point. I think her desecration is the beginning of a larger threat, as described in the note.’

      ‘You have a note? Why withhold it? Let me see it!’ Holmes was irritated.

      She withdrew a crumpled piece of paper from her handbag. He squinted at it, then thrust it at me. ‘Here, read this, Watson.’

      I did so, aloud.

      ‘The crowning glory sever’d from the rest.

      But only hair and n’er a foot nor toe

      The victim or her kin ha’e fouled the nest

      And ’tis likely best that she should go

      If you heed not this warning and persist

      In bedding sichan beauties as yon lass

      You may lose something which will be more miss’d

      And what you feart the most will come to pass

      So at your peril gae about your lives

      But notice what and whom you haud most dear

      And mind your interests, no less your wives

      For if unguarded, may soon disappear

      You hae been warned and this should not deny

      If tragedies befall you, blame not I.

      —A true friend to the McLarens’

      ‘Hmmm’ said Holmes. ‘This ghost is an amateur poet. A schoolboy Shakespearean sonnet, if not a particularly brilliant one. Scots dialect. Paper common in Scotland and all through the north, calligraphic nib on the pen. Letters formed precisely as if copied from a manual, therefore the writer – who is energetic, note the upstrokes – was disguising his or her handwriting, which is only prudent. While this is marginally interesting, Mrs McLaren, I still believe this to be a domestic issue. Look to whoever was ‘bedding’ the lass, and whoever may be discomfited by

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