Mrs Hudson Investigates by Susan Knight

Author:Susan Knight [Knight, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Lady detectives, cosy crime, Sherlock Holmes spin-offs, Mrs Hudson pastiche, Victorian women, fallen women, disguises, charmers, fake spiritualism, foundlings, poisons, masks, trains, Africa, Eastbourne, Edinburgh, short story collection
ISBN: 9781787054851
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2019-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

Mrs Hudson and the Gentleman in the Next Room

Along with the whole world, but from a much more personal perspective, I had been shocked beyond words to learn of the death in Switzerland of Mr. H. The good doctor apprised the tragic news to me by telegraph so that I would not first hear of it through the newspapers or by word of mouth from idle gossipers. I was indeed touched at his consideration for me, at a time when he himself must have been in no fit state to think clearly, the friendship between the two gentlemen being of such a deep and abiding nature; and that despite Mr. H’s occasional sharp tongue and, I am sorry to say, often sneering tone. It was the great man’s way, nonetheless, and we all put up with it.

By now, of course, everyone is aware that Mr. H somehow miraculously survived the plunge into the watery abyss of the Falls, but that he decided to keep this a secret for three long years, for his own, I am sure, very good reasons. How and ever, I still cannot think but that it was a cruel trick to play on his good friend even though the doctor has assured me since that it was for all our sakes and safety.

I say it was a secret, but there was one whose discretion he trusted implicitly, his brother Mr. Mycroft Holmes. In the days after the supposed fatality, when we were all still in a state of high confusion, a missive arrived addressed to me from that gentleman. It informed me how his brother had left instructions, that, in the event of his passing, all his worldly goods as found in the Baker Street apartment were to be maintained there and not sold or distributed, and that arrangements had been made through a solicitor for the rental on the rooms to be paid as usual. At the time I thought it a strange and even shocking requirement, but, well-acquainted as I was with Mr. H’s unaccountable ways, I felt there must be some purpose behind it without for a moment guessing what this might be.

I still do not know, and have never asked, if the solicitor too was aware that the news of Mr. H’s death had been greatly exaggerated, as the supposed late detective himself recently quipped to me in a rare moment of levity, but I suspect that it must be so. In any case, the matter has only a sideways pertinence to this my next narrative, in that the distressful mourning for my lodger caused me to long for an immediate change of air and it just so happened that an old school friend, with whom I had kept in touch over the years, had sent me a timely invitation to visit. This Dolly, Miss Eames that was, Mrs Butler as she was now, kept a boarding house on the southern coast of England, and indeed, over the years had frequently urged me to come and see her, most particularly following the death of my poor Henry.

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