“Despite that background, your hands bear evidence of light manual work. At first I thought a writer — there is evidence of ink on your index finger. But the principal signs point to the regular use of a needle — no, Watson …” He smiled, sensing my instinctive reaction — “not the needle. Hence I deduce a seamstress. That same right index finger indicates use of a thimble and the way your hands smooth the lace at your cuffs suggests you are pleased with your own handiwork. And since there are few alternatives for a young lady of a good family, a governess seemed the likely occupation.”
“You’re quite right, Mr. Holmes,” she shook her head as I have seen so often when someone is exposed to Holmes’ mental powers for the first time. “I do keep a journal religiously and I did earn my living as a governess after I left Madame Solange and before my guardian …” The mention of Moxton was clearly upsetting to her, so Holmes rapidly continued.
“The recent worry I detect from the bitten finger nails but it is equally clear that this is a recent and not a long-established habit. And as for the dog … it is plain that you are used to nursing a brown and white short haired terrier on your knee — probably a jack Russell — something few ladies would permit in their finery unless they happened to be a genuine dog lover.”
“Ah, yes, little Sonny, the housekeeper’s dog. He has seen me through many a difficult hour, Mr. Holmes. It all seems so obvious when you explain it like that.”
“Indeed it is obvious, if one trains oneself to look in the right direction. Watson will tell you that it has long been an axiom of mine that …”
“… the little things are infinitely the most important,” I completed for him.
Holmes caught my eye for half a beat. Then his smile encompassed us both.
“There will come a day, Alicia, when, if you have your Watson, you will no longer need your Holmes. And if I continue to indulge myself with explanations, my little bubble of reputation …”
“But that day will be a long time coming,” I hastened to add — and meant it most sincerely.
Alicia leaned forward in her chair. “In all of this I had almost forgotten that you already knew the very thing I had come to tell you. My ‘guardian’ …”
Holmes raised a hand to stop her. “I suggest you tell us about the events of the last few weeks in your own words, Alicia. Leave out no detail, no matter how small or apparently irrelevant.”
“I’m afraid most of it comes down to what so many of my sex like to hide behind — a woman’s feelings and much of it sounds so commonplace …”
“Ah, the good old ‘commonplace’! Take my word for it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace, eh, Watson? And as for feminine intuition, over the years I have come to the reluctant conclusion that a woman’s ‘impression’ can often cut to the quick of a problem with greater precision that the mental scalpel of the analytical mind. Pray continue.” And to encourage her to do so, he settled back with languid ease, his finger tips together and his eyes apparently fascinated by the ceiling.
Seemingly reassured by Holmes’s words, our guest also settled back in her chair for the first time. Then she began to speak.
“You have to comprehend, Mr. Holmes — and you, too, Doctor …” the magnificent eyes flashed all too briefly in my direction — “although he was my mother’s only brother, I never knew John Moxton well. I was a small child when my father died and my mother took me to Europe to start a new life. Oh, my uncle would write regularly and I have no doubt — even though my mother never referred to it — that he would send her small sums of money when he sensed things were difficult for us. In fact, I am virtually certain that it was he who somehow found the money to pay for my time with your friend, Madame Solange.”
In anyone but Holmes I would have sworn I saw the suspicion of a blush. Alicia continued …
“Then one day the money stopped — or so I assumed. Certainly, I had to find myself a paid occupation as a governess in Paris. That was no problem for me but my mother’s health was. I think she felt she should have been able to do more and that made matters worse. Then one day, through some friends from home who were passing through, we heard that the reason for all of this was that Uncle John had somehow been taken ill. Although she had not seen him for some time, my mother had always felt close to her brother and, frankly, Mr. Holmes, I think the news was the final straw. A few weeks later she was taken ill and died. The French doctors said it was pneumonia but the real reason I believe was that life had worn her out.
“For me life went on in the same old way. Naturally, I was lonely. The reason for being there was gone and really, I belonged nowhere and to nobody. When the lawyers told me that Uncle John was now recovered and was to be my guardian by my mother’s wish, I was overjoyed. Three months ago I came to London to join him.”
“And …?”
“And he wasn’t the same man. Oh, he looked the same as I remembered from all those years ago and from all the pictures — but something was very wrong. At first I put it down to the fact that I was very young when I’d last seen him but, then I began to notice that he got things wrong — family details, things like that.”
Holmes looked at me reflectively. “The last thing our friend had expected was to have to deal at close quarters with a member of the immediate family. The best laid plans, eh, Watson? But pray continue. I shall not interrupt you further.”
“Oh, he was clever, I must grant him that. He explained that his breakdown had affected his memory but that it would come back in time and he asked for my understanding. With anyone else I would have felt immediate sympathy but there was something about him that made me feel …” And here she shuddered at the memory, wrapping her arms around her shoulders as if a sudden chill had passed through the room. “For weeks I tried to reason with myself, then one day a week or so ago — I don’t know what made me do it — I asked him if he recalled a particular incident involving him and my mother. I painted it in glowing detail and, anxious to please me — and, as I now see it, to reassure me — he claimed to remember it all. The only thing was — I’d invented the whole story there and then.
“There must have been something in my expression that gave me away, for he ended the conversation soon after and began to keep his distance from then on. He made sure there were other people around, so that we had no need to be alone — which suited my purpose, too, for I was now beginning to be deathly afraid of … I knew not what.”
“Who were these ‘other people’ you spoke of?” Holmes asked quietly.
“Oh, there were a whole series of them who came and went and spent their time closeted with my guardian in his study. A few seemed to be regulars, almost like members of his staff — particularly that Professor James, a loathsome, oleaginous man, always toadying to him.”
Holmes and I exchanged a covert glance at the name.
“Several of them were European. Sometimes when the study door opened and closed, I would hear snatches of French or German. I think to begin with he forgot that my French was fluent but he must have recalled the fact, because recently the conversation stops completely when someone enters or leaves.”
“What did you hear them say?”
“There was talk of une affaire incroyable … it was trop dangereuse. Someone was arguing about une détente globale, une guerre totale. Some seemed to be excited by whatever they were planning but others were extremely frightened by it.” She relaxed a little and her hands returned to their normal position in her lap. “I didn’t know what to do, Mr. Holmes. I had no one to turn to. Sometimes I thought I was imagining it all but my ‘feminine intuition’, as you call it, told me I was not. That was how things stood when the three of us first met up at Loch Ness.”