A Study in Sherlock

Next morning, I was up and out at daybreak, yet I managed to be seated by my niece’s side when Dr Watson and Sir Ernest Fowler, the noted physician, arrived at ten o’clock.

After a thorough examination, the two left the bedroom to confer.

“What is it?” William asked anxiously when they returned.

“Will she recover?”

“Thanks to Dr Watson,” Sir Ernest said. “Mrs Breckenridge, I’m told you suspect someone is trying to poison you?”

William looked thunderstruck when she nodded. “Poison?”

“Without Dr Watson’s help, sir, your wife would surely have died by the end of the month.”

“But how?” she cried.

“And who?” William demanded. “Why?”

“The how and the who I can tell you,” said Dr Watson. “The why will have to come from the poisoner’s own lips.”

He drew the Schubert score from his bag, along with a small glass vial. The score was sadly the worse for wear. The upper corners had been clipped off.

“Last night, I soaked the corners in water, then added iron sulfate to the fusion.” He held the glass vial up to the light. The liquid inside was a rich, dark blue. “Prussian blue,” he said.

“A positive test for cyanide,” Sir Ernest said approvingly. “Well done, Dr Watson!”

Elizabeth and William both seemed stunned. “Cyanide on the corners of the music?”

“You did not become ill from any food you ate,” Dr Watson told her. “It came from the music, carried to your mouth on your own fingers. Each time you rose to turn a page for your husband, I observed that you touched your thumb and index finger to your tongue to moisten your fingers. The corners of the score had been painted with a thin film of cyanide. The bitterness you might have noticed was masked by the strong peppermint drops you habitually use before and during a concert.”

“Mrs Manning!” William exclaimed. “Why?”

“That is something you can ask her yourself when the police have arrested her,” said Dr Watson.

“She will not be there,” I said quietly. “She has fled the country.”

My niece was bewildered. “Aunt?”

“I did not think you and William would welcome the scandal of an arrest and a sensational trial, so I went to Mrs Manning this morning and found her just as she was leaving for Victoria Station. When Dr Watson insisted on taking the Schubert score, she realised that all was over and she sails for Canada this very evening,” I said. “Mrs Manning confessed to me that she was much attracted to you when you first met her, William. You were kind to her and she felt the attraction was mutual. When you returned with a bride, she thought that if Elizabeth should sicken and die, you might turn your attention to her.”

“Never!” he said sturdily.

“She realises now the hopelessness of that dream,” I told them, “and she begged me to beseech your forgiveness.”

The April day was unusually mild and after leaving my niece in the arms of her husband, Dr Watson and I decided to walk a few blocks before hailing a cab. He expostulated on my impulsive act, but I would not admit that I had been wrong to allow Mrs Manning to flee. Scandal had been averted, William’s reputation would continue to grow, and Elizabeth was no longer in danger. What was to be gained by prosecuting that unhappy woman?

As we crossed the street to a cab stand near Piccadilly Circus, a newsboy was shouting the latest headlines of a mysterious death in Park Lane. After an evening of cards at the Bagatelle Club, a young nobleman had been shot dead inside a locked room.

“The very sort of puzzle that would have intrigued Holmes,” Dr Watson sighed wistfully as he handed me into the hackney.

With a heart that was equally sad, I reminded him of his promise to speak to Mr Mycroft Holmes and he agreed to go that very day.

We parted at my doorstep and I fumbled in my handbag for my house key while a thousand bittersweet memories whirled through my head as I admitted to myself the true reason I had gone to warn Mrs Manning. I had seen the flash in her eye when Lady Anne spoke so boldly to Elizabeth and I had felt a certain kinship. As a young widow, I too had once yearned for what I could not attain.

For what now could never be attained.

Alice met me in the vestibule. “A rather strange old gentleman has been waiting ever so long to see you,” she whispered.

Through the open doorway, I saw an elderly deformed man with a curved back and old-fashioned white side-whiskers. Upon seeing me, he rose to his feet with unexpected ease, straightened his back, and gave a familiar smile.

And then I fainted.