Trollheart

Chapter VII: Revelations, Reflections and Ruminations


Holmes would speak no more of the case, yet I felt there was something still troubling him, something he would not give voice to. I knew him better than to force him, though; if he wished to speak of it he would, in his own good time.

It was several days later when I chanced to call in at St. Margaret's. I had a mind to light a candle for the late Mr. Liebert, and the door banged behind me as I entered, the bright sunshine cut off abruptly as I plunged into the half-gloom of the chapel. There was one other person in the pews, up near the front, but he did not turn at the sound, though he seemed, unless I was imagining it, to be marking my footsteps as I advanced up the aisle. As I drew level, I nodded to him, only to find myself looking with astonishment into the eyes of my friend.

“Holmes!” I hissed, as one does not raise one's voice in church. “What the dev – ah, what the blazes are you doing here?”

He gave me a look I found a little too cold for my liking.

“Is not the house of God open to all men?” he asked, something bitter in his tone. I had the distinct impression he was less than pleased to see me.

“Well, yes, of course,” I blustered. “I didn't mean to – it's just that, well, I never saw you in church before.”

His eyes were even harder, the many winters which had pressed down upon him showing in their brittle gaze.

“You and I, Watson,” he snapped, “are not joined at the hip. I go where I will, and I defy any man to tell me I cannot. Just because you have not met me in church does not mean I have never stepped foot inside one.”

I wondered if I should walk on and take a pew on the other side. He did not seem to be in a very good mood, and my own, which had not been all that pleasant before I walked into the church, was turning black too.

“I meant no offence,” I snapped back. “I merely asked because -”

Suddenly, like the sun coming out from behind clouds, a thin smile played over his face and the cold look left his eyes, which now twinkled in a way which reminded me much more of my old friend.

“Do excuse me, Watson,” he apologised. “I was not expecting to meet you. I thought you had surgery today?”

“Wednesday, Holmes,” I reminded him. “Half day closing.”

He nodded.

“Ah yes, of course. I have been so intent on my own thoughts that I forgot. Well, now that you're here you may as well take a seat.” I did so. “Do forgive me, my good fellow,” he offered a second apology. “I did not mean to be so sharp with you. I just – well!” He stifled a laugh, out of respect for where we were. “I would not have you thinking your old friend had gone soft in his advancing age.”

I grinned back. “That is never something which would occur to me, Holmes,” I assured him. “But do you mean to say you are a frequent attendee?”

He shook his head.

“Hardly that, Watson. No, you are correct in your observation that I seldom have need of the church, but I find myself somewhat at a crossroads after our recent adventure, and so I turn to the highest power I can.”

“As you did before.”

Holmes looked at me in mild shock.

“Oh come now, old fellow!” I laughed. “There is no harm in seeking assistance from the Almighty when all other avenues have proven fruitless.”

Holmes frowned, then smiled in understanding.

“Of course. You saw me that morning, the day I went to see Mrs. Liebert in prison.” He stopped, covered his mouth for a moment, bowed his head. I realised with some small annoyance that he was laughing. “Oh my dear chap!” he chortled quietly. “The Good Lord gave me this incisive and analytical brain; it would be poor use of it indeed were I to seek his intercession the moment a case became difficult! A fine return that would be. Oh, do excuse me, Watson,” he gasped as the fit took him again, and he slapped the runner in front of him. “I do not mean to make fun of you, but you have quite misunderstood my reason for visiting here that day.”

I was not amused. “Then pray explain it to me,” I invited him, rather coldly. Hearing the tone in my voice, he gained control of his laughter, wiping his eyes.

“You remember the curate?” he asked. I looked blank, believing he was avoiding the question. “The newspaper article?” he pressed. “About Lord Bailey's accidental death?”

“I recall,” I said, still stiffly, “something about a priest giving him the last rites.” I could not see how this bore upon the matter.

“Oh my dear Watson!” Holmes wagged a finger at me in admonishment. “When will you learn to take notice of trifles? Have we not spent enough time together, have I not shown you enough times how important the smaller things may be?”

My ire was rising a little now. I really felt he was making fun of me.

“The curate's name was recorded in the article,” he went on. “As was his parish, this one. I therefore came here to speak to him.”

I was still mystified. “But why?”

“Watson, he took the man's last Confession. If a man believes, at the last, that he has sinned against the Church and against God, he can be expected to hedge his bets, even if he is not a believer. No man wishes to go into the Great Unknown with a black stain on his soul, whether he credits the existence of one or no. So he will attempt to gain absolution, which is why almost everyone wants a priest present before they pass on. His Lordship would surely have been no different. Knowing he had sinned, he would confess to the priest, in the hope the man would then intercede for him with his maker.”

I scoffed at the idea, which really was not worthy of my friend.

“But Holmes,” I reminded him a little sharply, “you know as well as I do that the Confession is a sacred trust which no priest could or would break, any more than I could reveal the private details of one of my patients, or a lawyer the intimate contents of a client's case!”

“Of course not.” He looked affronted at the suggestion. “I would never expect a man of God to break the sacred seal. But you may recall, Watson, that on more than one occasion I have been, shall we say, able to follow your train of thought without you uttering a word. That time, for instance, when you sat thinking about the Civil War, just before we investigated the curious case of the severed ears. Or when you had decided not to invest in South African mines. A man's expressions, the movement of his eyes, his very breathing can speak in the loudest voice to the man who has the talent to be able to listen and understand the language.”

I remembered well Holmes' almost supernatural power of being able to work out what I was thinking without my so much as moving from my chair, and how it has astonished me. I believe I may have remarked at one point that, had he displayed such acuity a hundred years or more ago, he might very well have been burned at the stake for practicing black magic.

“And what did your powers of observation tell you about the curate?” I was still stinging from the merriment he had had at my expense, but I confess I was fascinated now.

“Not very much, really.” Holmes waved his hand. “Though of course he would not, could not tell me what Lord Bailey's final confession was, nor did I presume to ask, I was able to divine that it had shocked him to his core. The way he crossed himself when I mentioned Lord Bailey – it was more than a priest making the sign of his god. This was a man actively trying to ward off evil. I also noted his hands, red from scrubbing, as if he had desperately tried to wash away the contamination he felt he had picked up when touching the man. The whole episode had sorely tested his faith, and he saw it, I believe, as such a test. His eyes flicked as we spoke in the direction of the cross, and the look told me that he was wondering how our Saviour could have died for such men, too? Then those eyes moved down to the floor, where some stray confetti still adhered to the carpeting, left over from a rather too exuberant wedding in which someone obviously could not wait until the wedding party was outside to signal their favour. This told me that he was thinking of the sanctity of marriage.”

I shrugged, still reluctant to let my bad mood go. But I could feel it would be harder to hold on to the more Holmes explained himself.

“Everyone knows Lord Bailey was married.”

“Yes, but not everyone knows that the marriage was a sham,” Holmes pointed out. “I did not know. Well, I do not interest myself in such things. What are they to me, but useless clutter? What should I care whose marriage is happy and whose is not? Unless it impinges upon a case. In this instance, of course, it did. If Lord Bailey's marriage was not a happy one, why was that? Many reasons, certainly: the man was hardly a paragon. But chiefly, perhaps, the lack of children, as supported by Father Dwyer toying with a bracelet of daisies his youngest daughter had surely made for him.”

“How could you...?”

“Watson, when a father touches something his child has lovingly made for him, especially something he wears, it is a hard man indeed who does not smile. The curate's face was a picture of sadness, therefore he could only be thinking of Lady Bailey's misfortune, that she had no daughters, or sons, to comfort her in her old age.”

I had to admit this made perfect sense.

“So you had the idea Lord Bailey was not faithful to his wife?”

“Not quite. While Father Dwyer may be a priest, he has been so for many years and has been here at St. Margaret's for ten; he is well used to the ups and downs of the marriages of his parishioners, of all classes. He is not a naive man. He knows people stray, fall out of love, cheat. He does not of course endorse such behaviour, be he has become, shall we say, immune to it, to a certain degree. The idea of a peer of the realm seeking solace in the arms of another would not be so trying to him that he would raise his eyes to the Lord in such a pathetic plea. No, Watson. There was obviously far more going on there.”

“But still,” I insisted, perversely determined to pour cold water on his efforts, “none of that surely told you what you needed to know?”

Holmes shrugged. “It helped confirm my suspicions. I have heard, through certain contacts, about the Adonis Club for some time now, Watson, but never knew of its location. Through the auspices of the good Father Dwyer, who had no reason to protect its secret – and, from his face, every reason to assist in its exposure – I learned the name of the street the club is in. At least, he told me where the accident had occurred, a fact which had been redacted by the newspapers, no doubt on the instructions of the powers that be. Once I knew where to look, I was able to put my plan into action, and now my theory has been borne out.”

I considered carefully before asking the next question, but it seemed important.

“What do you think about the whole thing, Holmes?”

He looked at me, his expression unreadable, almost blank.

“For myself,” he said, “I favour neither man nor woman, as you know. My mind is too highly-trained that I should allow it to be distracted by the, ah, pleasures of the flesh. But it seems to me, Watson,” and here he turned serious, his face pensive, “that no man should be able to tell another man whom he can love, and certainly, when the authorities get involved, when such behaviour deemed deviant or aberrant is criminalised, I fear for our poor world. There are places, of course, as you no doubt know, where the relationship between two men is not only allowed but smiled upon, and others where it is barely remarked upon. England has,” he sighed, “a long way to go.”

His remarks had, I had to admit, somewhat surprised me.

“So you would not expose this – this – den of homosexuals? Even though it is illegal?”

Holmes gave me a level look, which seemed to be equal parts scorn and pity.

“Many things are legal, Watson,” said he, “which I think you'd agree should not be. For instance, would have a man hanged over a theft of a few shillings? Of course not. But then you would have a man imprisoned for daring to choose who he gives his affection to? How can that be fair?”

“But the case...”

“The Adonis Club played no part in the case,” Holmes insisted rather severely, “other than as a hunting ground for Baudelaire. Here he no doubt met, or at any rate saw, Lord Bailey, and heard of the man's history with the Lieberts, choosing him as a far better bet to sentence Mrs. Liebert to death. Here, too, he more than likely poisoned Sir Robert, ensuring that Lord Bailey would take his place on the bench. It's possible – though I would doubt it – that he received some shelter from the, ah, homosexual community at that club, but I could not see any of them, especially the more eminent members, shielding a murderer.”

I thought about this.

“Maybe,” I suggested, “he was blackmailing them. Surely none of the higher class members would wish their connection with the Adonis Club to become generally known?”

Holmes considered this. “It is possible,” he allowed. “Lord Bailey may even have been induced to replace Sir Robert as the judge on the Liebert Case, under the threat of his secrets being revealed, perhaps sold to the highest bidder? Having heard how Baudelaire maintained a reign of terror over the circus, it is perhaps not unreasonable to think that he might have similarly cowed the members of the Adonis Club, forced them to do as he said. Of course, many of them are powerful men, and surely his removal could have been arranged. So perhaps we are on the wrong track there. We will, of course, never know. Even getting one of them to admit to the existence of the club, let alone being a member, would take more guile and determination than even I possess.”

“So we just leave it?”

“What harm has been done?” Holmes looked surprised at my question. “If we take away Baudelaire's involvement with the club, would you still desire it closed? Or exposed?”

“Well...” I was determined to stick to my guns, even if it seemed a little bloody-minded to do so. “If it is against the law, then surely we have a duty to report it?”

Holmes sighed, shook his head.

“Watson, who a man loves should be between him and God. No man has the right, in my view, to question that, and certainly not to forbid it. However, prejudice is a terrible evil in our society, the worse when supported by law. I fear that even when homosexuality is decriminalised, as it surely must some day be, if some of the names of the members of the Adonis Club are indicative of those who support it, there will still be those who will take the law into their own hands, threatening, harassing and even hurting those who are different. There has been prejudice practiced for most of man's history against his brother – the Jew, the negro, the Irishman, the Chinaman. Can you imagine a world where state-sanctioned violence against, say, Jews existed? What horror would be unleashed then? It does not bear thinking on.”

I nodded, both my hands on the knob of my cane, my chin resting on them.

“We have already seen,” I pointed out morosely, “how that has worked out for the black man across the water.”

“Precisely.” Holmes was looking straight ahead now, up at the altar, as if appealing to the crucified Christ, or perhaps, like his curate friend, asking was this what our Lord died for, to allow such hatred and inequality? “Men have fought a bloody war over the right to keep others of their race as slaves, for the right to treat them as less than human. Thank God the side of right prevailed in that conflict. But who is to say what waits in the future?”

I shook my head. “You paint a gloomy picture of our prospects, my friend.”

A smile suddenly broke out upon his face and he clapped me on the shoulder.

“As I say, Watson, who knows what awaits us in the future? For myself, I retain the hope that some day, long in the future likely, all men – and women - will stand equal, shoulder to shoulder, as brothers and sisters, and nobody will care one jot who loves who. Everyone will be free to follow his own heart, without fear of reprisal from the law, or indeed outside forces. Sadly though, I think you and I will both long be dust ere such a day dawns.”

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018