Trollheart

Mrs. Liebert now took up the story.

“You have told me, Mr. Holmes, that he fell in with a circus crowd, and travelled with them for some years across America. It was with this circus that he then came here, to England.”

Holmes stroked his chin.

“Indeed. I have checked local police reports in nine of the states through which the circus travelled, and have come across a further twenty-four unexplained deaths, twenty-one of which are women, so I think we can take it that our friend Baudelaire was either unwilling or unable to restrain his murderous impulses. But because the circus only stayed a short while in each city, and nobody was familiar with his face in America, his crimes went unremarked and he was able to roam the States, free to kill at will. An interesting story in the Milwaukee Herald for October 1 1889 speaks of a Canadian man whose body was found in Lake Michigan, and though the death was treated as a drowning accident, I wonder if this might have been a tongue silenced, eyes which recognised the face of the infamous killer, and which had to be closed? I do apologise, Mrs. Liebert, I seem to be editorialising. Do go on.”

“You fill in much of the detail of which I was until today unaware, Mr. Holmes,” she told him, then continued. “All I know of the man is of course limited to his arrival in England, and indeed to his time in London as part of the circus. I know he met Peter in some club called the Adonis?”

“Ah, yes.” Holmes looked over at me with a strange expression on his face. “We have had some small experience of this most notorious venue, have we not, Watson?”

Before I could answer, our visitor was talking again, somewhat hurriedly, as if, did she not speak now and tell all, she might shrink from the task altogether.

“There the two men – well, that is to say – they became – close...” She trailed off. Holmes looked over at me again.

“They fell in love, Watson.”

I took a moment to digest this information, frowned, then spluttered my indignation.

“Holmes! For God's sake, man! The lady...”

“The lady,” Holmes said with what to me seemed cold unconcern, “is quite aware, I think you will find, of how things lay. Matters had not been cordial between you and your husband, Mrs. Liebert, is this not so?”

“Again, you are correct, Mr. Holmes.” The lady looked abashed, and a little concerned. “Though how you knew...”

“Elementary, my dear lady. When I visited you in prison I noticed you wore no ring on your finger. Now, that may have been due to its having been removed from you on entry, true; I believe this is standard procedure at all the major prisons, as otherwise jewellery can be stolen by other inmates, or sometimes used to barter for services, or even concessions. Not, I hasten to add,” he looked at her almost kindly, “that a woman of your breeding would stoop to such tactics. But even now, I see your finger remains bare. I also noted that there was a large picture on the wall of the room where your husband met his death. It had been turned around. On examination, this revealed itself to be a wedding portrait. Only someone who has fallen out of love with their spouse does such a thing.”

Mrs. Liebert sighed.

“I cannot deny it. We had not been a proper couple for several years. Peter's interests lay in... other directions. He had male friends call to the house at strange hours, and would not talk about them. I followed him one night when he went out and found he was visiting that club, which I knew nothing of but which you since have told me is called the Adonis Club.”

“Indeed. A club whose membership is highly exclusive, and whose secrets are jealously guarded by its members. A club where gentlemen of similar persuasions can meet discreetly and in safety.”

The import of what Holmes now revealed hit me like a thunderbolt.

“You mean... you mean.. good God, Holmes! Here, in London?”

“A club for homosexuals.” Holmes nodded, Mrs. Liebert buried her face in her hands.

“But surely Holmes!” I ejaculated. “This is against the law! We must inform Lestrade at once!”

Holmes held up a hand calmly.

“Think, Watson!” he snapped, as if irritated by the fact that I had not. “Recall, if you will, some of the names on that list you took down! The great and the good, the scions of noble families, powerful financiers.” His voice dropped to a murmur, his eyes sliding to his left to where the lady still sobbed into her lap. Speaking behind his hand and through gritted teeth he whispered “Members of the government? Do you not realise that to expose such an, um, specialised club would have serious consequences for the ruling class? Perhaps even...?” He made a downward motion with his finger, and raised his eyebrows at me.

My eyes widened. “Bring down the government?” I hissed back, but I could see all at once that he was right. If such news were to leak out, the opposition would have a field day – although my list bore more than one of their members, too! - while many noble families would go under, dragged down by the inexorable weight of a public scandal the likes of which had not been seen since the almost ruin of King Louis XIV and the Affair of the Poisons in Paris in the seventeenth century. For the good of the kingdom, the very existence of that place must not come to the attention of the police, let alone its membership list.

Mrs. Liebert had pulled herself together, and resumed her story, dabbing at her eyes with a white silk handkerchief.

“I believe it was at that damnable place my Peter was reacquainted with that man, would to God he had died in Canada!” The moist eyes were suddenly hard, full of fire, and I considered Baudelaire somewhat fortunate, despite his grisly death, not to have had to face the anger of this most remarkable woman. “He tried to renew the, ah, relationship between the two, and for a time Peter, in many ways a weak man, agreed. But when Deschamps – you will forgive me referring to him as such, but it was the only name, up till yesterday, under which I knew the man – found he was married he flew into a rage. He made Peter swear to divorce me, and Peter, seeing the madness in his eyes, agreed. They met me in the room that morning, ostensibly to break the news and go off together, but Peter, though he no longer loved me, had no wish to involve me in a scandal. He also, I am forced to admit, feared for his business if the truth were to come out. Besides, he told Deschamps he no longer loved him, that what they had had in Canada, though it had been special (she almost spat the word) was over, and that there was no room for him in his life.”

“To say nothing of the laws of the land,” remarked Holmes. She nodded.

“Deschamps assured him he had friends in high places,” she said, and Holmes raised his eyebrows in my direction. “He could smooth it all over, make sure nobody ever found out why he had left his wife. Then did he fall on his knees before Peter, professing his undying love and producing a letter he had written to him. Strange,” she mused, “how a man so cold-hearted and ruthless, who would, according to you, strike down those who got in his way without a thought, could be reduced to the state of a lovesick girl.”

“Love makes fools of us all,” quoth Holmes, rolling his eyes at me, “and softens the hardest heart,”

Mrs. Liebert sniffed contemptuously. “I would say to characterise what Deschamps felt for my Peter as love was stretching the definition to its breaking point, Mr. Holmes. As to the letter, he handed it to him, but Peter laughed at it. Deschamps snatched it back angrily, but it tore, leaving one fragment in my husband's possession. I watched all this with, I do confess, the air of one who is above such things, as someone who watches a play. But then the play became a tragedy.”

She shook as she recalled the events. Holmes rose and placed a steadying hand on her shoulder.

“Deschamps raged at Peter, told him he would regret treating him so badly, and produced a knife, which he plunged again and again into my husband's chest. Peter staggered, I screamed and fainted, and that was the last I knew until I was being revived and my husband was dead at my feet. I had no idea how it had happened, and was about to accuse Deschamps when I thought of Harold.”

“Your son. Of course.”

“I asked myself what it would do to him, having his father revealed as a homosexual, a deviant, a criminal? Would not the mud stick? Would the old adage, 'like father, like son' be seen to apply, and would it not destroy his young life? Surely such news would lose Peter's companies most if not all of his business clients, and we should be plunged into penury? Besides, even had I decided to speak up, everyone swore there had been, could have been, no third person. How had he escaped? How could I prove Deschamps had been in the room, and if somehow I could, how would that help us? Better to go to my fate with the family name intact, and allow my son to believe his mother had murdered his father. A black stain, certainly, but it would reflect only on the distaff side, and most likely I would be pronounced mad. Such things have happened before, and the result is not condemnation but sympathy for the son of such a woman. This was my only hope; to remain silent, though it allowed a killer to go free and unpunished, yet save my son from the horrible hand of public scandal and ruin.”

Holmes nodded. “And this is why you would not tell your sister the truth.”

“I could not.” She hung her head. “If Mary had known, she could not have kept silent and seen her only sister die to protect her dead husband and her child.”

I felt I had to interject.

“I think it would be a good idea to let her know as much of the truth now as you wish her to know, Mrs. Liebert,” I advised her gently. “She was – probably still is, even with your exoneration and release – very concerned about you.”

She looked up at me. “I will, Doctor Watson. You are right. I have put her through so much, the least I owe her is an explanation for my behaviour.”

Holmes now took up the narrative, reseating himself and leaning back in his chair.

“The scrap of the letter found in the dead hand of Mr. Liebert was taken, quite erroneously, of course, by the police as having been signed Frances. It was therefore believed to be a love letter, or part of one. This was true: it was. But not from a man to a woman, rather from a man to a man. The signature looks like Frances, but the killer had not closed his letters properly, you see?” He produced the fragment again and presented it to me, pointing at the name which was written at the bottom. “Not Frances, with an "e", but Francis, with an "i". The male, not female version of the name. Francis. Francis Deschamps.”

“Extraordinary!” I breathed, handing the paper back.

“For once, I absolve both you and the police, Watson. I would normally declare such an oversight as poor observation, but not this time. Indeed, I had no clue myself – other than that the letter was, if it purported to be from Mrs. Liebert, a clear forgery, as you never sign your name thus, madam?”

She shook her head. “I detest that contraction,” she muttered. “It always sounds to me like the name of a scullery-maid.”

“Quite.” Holmes smiled tightly. “The true importance of the letter only became clear when our good and brave friend Miss Penny went above and beyond the call of duty that night. She had been asked merely to speak to the men coming out of the club, to try to ascertain its nature. In this she failed, as men who are not interested in women are not to be beguiled by one. She even received a blow from the tough-handed Yukon Terror for her pains, for which I mean to ensure she is adequately compensated. When I consider, in the light of our knowledge now of the true identity of that man, what might have happened...”

He was silent for a moment, reflecting, his eyes narrow, his hand trembling just a touch. It balled into a fist, relaxed.

“But our intrepid lady of the night was in fact more successful in helping me crack the case than I could have ever imagined,” he went on, the dark mood lifting and a triumphant smile coming to his lips. “She relieved him of a paper which she perceived protruding from his pocket and – my word! I had not realised! But of course!” He sat like a man thunderstruck, and there was open admiration in his eyes. “She goaded the man! Watson! She saw the paper, reasoned it might be something important, something I would value – a list of members, perhaps, or some itinerary, or secret communication – and pushed him into striking her so as to get close enough to thieve the thing from him. Well! It appears I have greatly underestimated the courage and guile of that young lady!”

He sat for a moment, shaking his head and chuckling, while both Mrs. Liebert and I watched him in some astonishment. At length, his mirth subsided, and he reached into his coat.

“This is the full letter,” he declared, waving it in the air. “It speaks of the love Baudelaire, in his guise as Deschamps, professed for Peter Liebert. Its language is flowery, but one must expect that I suppose of our transatlantic cousins, to say nothing of his French origins. Reading it, I could see how things lay, and that both Lestrade and I had been on completely the wrong track. Once I knew that it had been a lovers' quarrel between two men, and with Mrs. Liebert still alive, the only possible reason for her not being also murdered had to be to throw off suspicion from the killer and thrust it upon the lady. It was almost a perfect crime. Who, after all, would even think to look in the dirty, musty corners of male love to uncover the real story behind this crime? Who would anticipate such a thing, and who would be brave enough to investigate it? ”

He sighed, his eyes darting to his pipe, as if eager for the lady to leave that he might indulge himself without endangering her. He rose.

“And now the tale is told, Mrs. Liebert. The police have their story, which exonerates you completely without any chance of scandal, and we have ours, the truth, which will, as I have sworn to you, go no further than this room. I think we can, in the main, consider the case closed.”

“Thank you again, Mr. Holmes.” She rose, almost a stately figure now, if one did not look too closely into those haunted eyes. “You have paid me a great service. If ever I can be of assistance to you, please do not hesitate to contact me.”

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018