Mrs Hudson and the Malabar Rose Read online

  Mrs Hudson and The Malabar Rose

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter I - Snow Falls On Baker Street

  Chapter II - A Silver Case

  Chapter III - A Disappearance In Ealing

  Chapter IV - An Affair Of State

  Chapter V - An Ordinary Pair Of Gloves

  Chapter VI - The Invisible Worm

  Chapter VII - The Toy-Maker of Kimber Street

  Chapter VIII - The Night Before Christmas

  Chapter IX - The Spanish Dancer

  Chapter X - A Disappearing Trick

  Chapter XI - The Ace Of Spades

  Chapter XII - The Unexpected Arsonist

  Chapter XIII - Surprises At The Mermaid

  Chapter XIV - A Theatrical Family

  Chapter XV - Perch Revisited

  Chapter XVI - The Clockwork Thief

  Chapter XVII - Miss Del Fuego’s Last Dance

  Chapter XVIII - Midnight in Trafalgar Square

  Chapter XIX - An Unexpected Boy

  Chapter XX - The Icing On The Cake

  Read more

  Copyright

  It is five o’clock on a December evening, but I have not yet closed the curtains. On my desk, in front of me, warm in the lamplight, are the loose pages of the paper I have promised to review. A sensible piece of work, and good science. Well written too. The writer, a very promising young man, knows a great deal about measuring chromium impurities in crystalline aluminium oxide.

  In short, he knows why rubies are red.

  I no longer teach, no longer even give lectures, but I am not entirely forgotten. Old students visit me and tell me of their work, sometimes send me papers. To avoid disappointing them, I’m forced to keep myself up to date with the latest knowledge, the latest thinking. I am not ready yet to be thought a helpless old lady.

  But tonight, looking out over the park, I have no appetite for my subject. I too have some knowledge of the chemical composition of gemstones, but when someone talks to me of rubies it is not a scientific formula that leaps into my mind.

  Outside, the first snowflakes of winter are beginning to fall and tonight they remind me of a different evening, a lifetime ago, when the winters lasted forever and the streets below me rang to the clip of horses’ hooves…

  Chapter 1

  Snow Falls On Baker Street

  ‘News!’ the newsboy cried. ‘All the news! Famous gem arrives in London. Guard of honour for priceless stone!’

  When I heard his shout that night, the snow was already falling and the carriages had turned the cobbled streets to slush. It was hardly the night for a young girl to dream of adventure. At first I scarcely heard the cry over the clattering wheels and clinking bridles, and if I had any thoughts at all as I battled homewards that night, they were of dry clothes and dry feet and a warm fire. But then the boy’s shout reached me again, this time a little louder and a little clearer.

  ‘Indian jewel is gift to nation! Priceless stone in safe hands!’

  I knew nothing then of priceless stones, still less of the fierce and fiery passions they can inspire. But even on that ill-tempered December evening the words kindled a little spark inside me, and I paused in my progress to look around.

  Through the flurries of flailing snow, between the jousting hansoms and the lumbering victorias, I could distinguish dimly the figure of the newsboy, pale in the gaslight on the far side of the street. He was a thin boy, hunched with cold, and his boots when he tried to stamp them were so heavy with snow that he struggled to lift them clear of the pavement. Between us the cobbled street was thick with mud and I hesitated for a moment on the edge of the kerb, reaching into my coat pocket for the penny to buy a paper.

  It was then that I felt the hand. It brushed mine so softly and so unexpectedly that for a moment I thought it was no more than the fabric of my coat against my fingers. But that first touch was followed by a firm and jarring tug at my purse and in an instant the purse was gone, my fingertips left grasping at air. I let out a cry and grabbed wildly for the invading hand, knowing that in a fraction of a second it would be gone. But my reactions were fast that night, and so swift was my movement that I felt my fingers close on my assailant. At the same time my eyes met those of a tiny street urchin, frozen for an instant in utter surprise. I could see him clearly by the light of the lamps and saw at once that he was no more than ten or eleven years old, and skinny as a Thames eel.

  My lucky grab had caught hold of his wrist, and so small was it that my fingers closed right round it. But it was something else that struck me about him: his eyes. They were unlike any I had seen before, a very pale blue, almost cornflower blue, and his cap was pulled down low over his brow as if to hide them from public scrutiny. Something about that peculiar colour caught me off guard for in the next moment, with his free hand, he seized the stolen purse and with all his strength thrust it back inside my coat.

  So surprised was I by this manoeuvre and by the force with which he pushed me that I stepped back and loosened my grip on his arm; and in that moment he broke free, darting into the road between the wheels of the hansoms and the coat-tails of pedestrians, until the crowds and the darkness closed around him and he was gone.

  He did not look back as he made his escape. I stood and watched him go, clutching my rescued purse against my chest and panting slightly from the shock.

  ‘News!’ the paper boy continued to cry. ‘News! World’s rarest ruby arrives in ! Read all the news!’

  *

  In the end I didn’t read the news until later, when I was warm and dry again. I arrived home flushed and still foolishly shaken by the attempt on my purse, and strangely unsettled by the youth and boldness of my assailant. And yet I was no stranger to the darker side of ’s streets, nor to the dangers that lurked there. It was little more than three years since those cold and unforgiving streets had been my only home, until hunger and despair had led me to attempt a theft of my own. But the strictness of the orphanage had left me an inexpert thief, and my capture by Scraggs, the grocer’s boy, had been the moment that changed my life. Marched by him into the stern and substantial presence of Mrs Hudson, a housekeeper respected by all who knew her for her common sense and her most uncommon perspicacity, I found myself adopted as her scullery maid. And three years on, that same imposing figure welcomed me now, her sleeves pushed up and her formidable forearms white with flour as she kneaded a mess of fruit-dough with the most punishing severity.

  ‘Why, Flotsam!’ she began when she looked up from her work and noticed the wateriness of my smile. But Mrs Hudson was not a woman to employ words when actions were required and saying nothing more she advanced and removed my coat with her strong, floury hands, then seated me close to the fire and chaffed some warmth into my fingers while I explained what had befallen me.

  ‘And it was the strangest thing, ma’am,’ I told her, ‘but when he shoved me backwards to get free, my purse fell straight into the pocket inside my coat. It was as though I’d placed it there myself.’

  Mrs Hudson nodded appreciatively and rose to her feet.

  ‘Then he was a boy who knew his trade, Flotsam. For if you’d managed to hold him fast and wrestle him into the arms of a policeman you’d have found there was no crime to report. Just an innocent child in front of you and a purse in your pocket, exactly as it should be.’

  I sat back and watched her as she returned to her baking. She had just begun to plait the dough into a delicate braid. I had watched her do the same thing many times before but I never failed to be fascinated by the speed and the dexterity of her fingers. It was a dexterity I had never been able to emulate, th
ough the art of baking was one of the many I had learned in my years as Mrs Hudson’s helper. For Mrs believed in education, and the things I had been required to learn from her were both varied and surprising. I had learned how to skin a hare and to scrub floors; how to polish silver and how to take tea in polite society. I had read every book in Baker Street, from Horace to On Housekeeping, and from Blood Stains to Belinda; and I could with equal confidence pluck a chicken or dress a lobster or announce correctly a visiting peer of the realm. By the age of fifteen it was impossible to recognise in me the ragged orphan of before, a change surely accelerated by our arrival in the service of Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, and by the excitements I had encountered there.

  ‘Well, Flotsam,’ Mrs Hudson continued, still shaping the dough, ‘since our gentlemen are to be away for a few days, this would be a good opportunity to sort out their study. So if you’ve told me everything, it wouldn’t do any harm to run round there with a duster.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Is there something else, Flotsam?’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘About the little incident this evening. It’s not like you to be so very thrown by such a thing.’

  I hesitated, not sure at first if it really was something. But she was right. Something else that evening had unsettled me. I had been given a glimpse of another place, a winter’s day in another lifetime. But I wasn’t sure it was a place I wanted to revisit.

  ‘It’s nothing really, ma’am. It’s just that there was a boy once. A long time ago, back in the orphanage. I suppose I must have been about six or seven. He was little more than a baby, really. They brought him in one night. His parents had just died, both of them together. There’d been some scandal, I think, and there was no one to look after him.’

  Mrs Hudson nodded and said nothing. I told the tale hesitantly, struggling to remember. So much had happened since then, so many things both good and bad, that it was hard to take myself back to that other time, a time when everything hurt. All of us at the orphanage were used to that – used to the cold and the hunger, the knocks and the curses. But this boy was different. He’d known nothing but kindness until that day. He must have been about two years’ old – too young to understand his loss, but old enough to feel the terrible change that had come upon him.

  For no reason I ever understood, the boy adopted me. Perhaps because I had once lost a brother he sensed in me some sympathy that was absent from our companions. He would come to me at the end of the day, when we met for prayers, and would press close to me, silently, afraid to speak for fear of being punished. He was only tiny; he barely came up to my waist. I remember there was one possession that he had been able to keep, a portrait of his mother in a locket around his neck. She had seemed to me little more than a girl herself, and so pretty that, although I have no memory of my own mother’s eyes, for some reason I can still remember hers, smiling out from that little golden frame as if happiness was all that could ever happen.

  Mrs Hudson had been listening to my tale, her fruit dough temporarily laid to one side.

  ‘But, Flotsam, why did you remember him tonight?’

  ‘It was those blue eyes, ma’am. That boy had in the orphanage had blue eyes too. It just made me wonder what happened to him…’

  I shrugged, not sure why the question filled me with such sadness. But Mrs Hudson seemed to understand, and for a moment or two she said nothing. However, when she spoke again it was in a brisk, business-like tone.

  ‘Now, young lady…’ She startled me out of my reverie by clapping her hands together so firmly that a light mist of flour rose into the air above her. ‘I’m not saying that this evening hasn’t given you a bit of a shock, young Flottie, but there’s still work to be done, and if the gentlemen’s study hasn’t been dusted by the time supper’s ready I daresay you’ll be getting another one. So if you would seize that duster and some old newspapers for the grate…’

  I rose obediently and was about to go about my tasks when the sight of the newspapers reminded me of the paper I had gone to such pains to bring home.

  ‘Oh, ma’am, there was something else. I was that shaken by everything I almost forgot it. It’s tonight’s evening paper. I just thought it sounded exciting, ma’am.’

  I passed Mrs Hudson the newspaper and she moved towards the fire to study the front page. For a moment she stood still, her eyes intent on it, and then, to my surprise, I noticed a tiny smile on the corner of her lips.

  ‘Well, well, well!’ she chuckled. ‘A fine kettle of fish and no mistake. Have you read this yet, Flotsam?’

  ‘No, ma’am, I only heard what the newsboy was shouting.’

  ‘Then get back over here by the fire, girl, and take a look. I’ll spread it out so we can both see.’

  So I dropped another coal on the fire while Mrs Hudson rose to adjust the lamp, and to pour herself a small glass of our finest pale sherry. Then we settled down with the newspaper in front of us to examine together the leading item.

  I can’t deny that the words we read were plain enough but as I read them I felt again something of the quickening excitement that had come to me in the street when I heard the newsboy’s cry. It was as if, behind the lines of plain newsprint, there lurked a story deeper and richer and more complex.

  Priceless Jewel Arrives in London

  Malabar Rose is to be Gift to Crown

  A guard of honour led by Major General Sir John Plaskett was on duty at the Pool of London today to greet the return of HMS Imperious and to receive its unique cargo, the famous ruby known as The Malabar Rose. The great stone, among the largest of its kind ever found, is believed to have been mined on the Malabar Coast of India in the course of the last century and has long been the property of the Maharajahs of Majoudh. Now the current Maharajah has made it known that he wishes to present the stone to the Crown in recognition of the great services rendered to his people by Her Majesty over many years.

  The Malabar Rose is famed not only for its unprecedented size, but also for the spectacular flame that appears to burn at its heart, a fire so exquisite that jewellers have declared the stone beyond value.

  At the Maharajah’s request, the stone is to be displayed to a select audience later this month before being presented to the Crown as part of the New Year celebrations. The audience for the private viewing will include the Dowager Duchess of Marne, Princess Alicia Karageorgevich and many other notable dignitaries and will take place in the Satin Rooms of the Blenheim Hotel on Thursday 26th December.

  When Mrs Hudson had finished reading, she raised an eyebrow in my direction. ‘So, Flotsam, just what do you make of that?’

  I looked down at the paper again, uncertain of what I did make of it.

  ‘Well, ma’am, it seems very generous of the Maharajah.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure the Maharajah has his reasons, Flottie,’ she assured me, waving away a whole world of diplomatic machinations with a sweep of her hand. Her face in the firelight was set in firm lines as if she was thinking something through very carefully. I waited quietly until she spoke again.

  ‘Did you notice what that ruby was said to be worth, Flotsam?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be priceless, ma’am.’

  At this Mrs Hudson sat back with a sigh and held her sherry at eye level, then rolled the glass gently between her fingers so that the golden liquid caught the firelight. Its motion sent little fragments of light spinning around the darkened room.

  ‘Priceless things are all very well, Flottie, but one thing you can be sure of: there’s never any shortage of people willing to put a price on them.’ She stood up purposefully and placed her glass on the stool in front of her. ‘Now, Flotsam, I believe you have some dusting to do. And, if we want any supper, I have some vegetables to chop. You’ve got twenty minutes until I’m finished, so jump to it…’

  I went about the work happily. Mr Holmes and Dr Watson were away in the West Country investigating a matter that, judging from their telegrams, was as baffling as it was remote. In their a
bsence, Mrs Hudson and I had brought some order to their rooms, returning stray items of clutter to their allocated places in the filing system. Thus a collection of exotic dried beetles that had been scattered over the hearth were returned to a drawer labelled ‘Infestations – Unexplained’ and the mess of cigar ash that had been smeared carelessly across a side table was most carefully scraped into an envelope that Mrs Hudson marked ‘Counterfeit Trinchinopoly – Christmas gift of Lord Fieldborough – possibly toxic’. It was always a pleasure for me to dust Mr Holmes’ various cabinets and to wonder at their contents and for a while I quite forgot about pickpockets, rubies and even the smell of supper wafting invitingly up the stairs.

  When the last speck of dust had been banished and I felt myself safe to return downstairs, I was surprised to hear voices coming from the kitchen. As well as Mrs Hudson’s low rumble there was male laughter too, and when I opened the door it was to see a boy of sixteen with riotous hair and an unruly smile munching happily on a carrot pinched from Mrs Hudson’s chopping board.

  ‘Hello, Flot,’ he chirruped happily. ‘You’re just in time to see Mrs H set about me with that ladle of hers.’

  ‘I shall be doing no such thing, Scraggs,’ Mrs Hudson growled. ‘That carrot will be coming off your bill at the end of the month, young man. Now if you want to eat with us, I’ll see some proper manners and some soap on your hands before we go any further.’

  Scraggs, the grocer’s boy, had been supplying Mrs Hudson with news, information and general comestibles since he’d been old enough to stack blocks of soap and I knew that underneath her gruff manner she trusted him more than any newspaper to tell her what was passing in the streets outside.

  ‘So, Scraggs,’ she asked when the three of us were sitting down to supper, ‘what’s new today?’