“I told you that my brother disappeared and that I have not seen him in several years!”
“Nevertheless, that is in direct contradiction with the photograph in your drawing room.”
“I do not understand...”
“You claim that your brother has been abroad for three years. Indeed, he travels a great deal. I myself have had the privilege of receiving a souvenir from one of his exotic journeys: he tried to poison me with Indian tobacco.”
Holmes paused and then revealed the first of his trump cards.
“But that photograph of the two of you must have been taken last year in the autumn! Judging by the weather I would say in late November or early December. That particular type of automobile with which you are photographed, the Silver Ghost, only began to be manufactured last spring. He could not have purchased it earlier!”
“I do not understand such things,” she said waving her hand. “I repeat that I do not see my brother. And if he is guilty of any of the things that you claim, it is none of my affair. Is there anything else?”
“There certainly is,” said the detective, smiling. “Your protégées.”
“My protégées?”
“Grace Pankhurst, for instance, and your other friends from the feminist league.”
“What is wrong with being a feminist? Are you one of these chauvinists who think that women ought to stay at home and forsake all participation in public life or governance over their own existence?”
“Not at all, I can assure you,” said Holmes. “I have nothing against feminism. But you, my dear lady, are not merely a feminist; you are a suffragette, and of the most radical and militant sort!”
“And how did you figure that out?” she barked.
Their conversation was becoming louder and more aggressive.
“For the last two days, during which my friend was alternately floating on a romantic cloud or wallowing in deep depression, I studied your past.”
Even under her make-up Alice’s beautiful complexion grew slightly pale.
“You know nothing about me!”
“Enough to make a picture of you,” the detective retorted. “According to the police records, when you were twenty years old you took part in the Bloody Sunday demonstration. Was it there that you met Mrs Pankhurst, a left-wing activist and suffragette, whose niece you are so fond of?”
“I was a child then, confused by the times. The fact that I know somebody does not mean that I share their opinions!”
“Indubitably. But by all accounts, in addition to the Pankhursts you are friendly with a number of other much more ambiguous sorts, people suspected of radicalism.”
Alice Darringford again stood up erect. Her pride had been injured.
“Mr Parker, I am a noblewoman from an old and wealthy family. Why in heaven’s name would I take up leftist ideas and opinions that deny my very position in society?”
He shrugged.
“I admit that your motivation is not yet entirely obvious. Logic, deduction and the information from my sources nevertheless speak clearly. There are many clues in this case and they all lead to you. You pull the strings in the secret militant wing of the suffragettes, which carried out this devilish plan!”
“You flatter me and overestimate my abilities,” said Alice, laughing. “You are just clutching at straws.”
“A plan,” Holmes continued, “which aims to concentrate the power of arms manufacturers across Europe into your hands!”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Money,” said the detective, “but mainly to gain influence for the suffragettes and their political goals. You intend to take England hostage. In our turbulent times, politicians will listen to an organisation that wields the reins of a vital industry more than they would a few bitter women.”
“Bah! If it was not so laughable I would be insulted,” said Alice.
Indeed she resisted the detective’s attacks very stout-heartedly. I myself, who had boundless trust in Holmes, was suddenly in doubt about whether perhaps he was mistaken. But I preferred to remain silent.
“You and your brother started inconspicuously enough. You obtained the military secrets of Vito Minutti, except that was not enough; you wanted to control the whole factory. When he did not sell it to you, you killed him. Not with your own hands, mind you, but those of members of the movement. Those zealots would stop at nothing, not even murder!”
“Yes, and we also caused the famine in the sixteenth century,” she snapped angrily.
“Do you have any idea how unnecessary that murder was? In time the factory would have fallen into your hands anyway. I learned about your brother by a cheque that he left at Pastor Barlow’s.”
“Nonsense!”
“As soon as you discovered that the suspicious industrialist had managed to ask Sherlock Holmes for help you decided to get rid of him as well. There is no longer any need to keep up this charade. You of course realised long ago that Mr Parker’s beard conceals the face that you wanted to see six feet under.”
The Lady rolled her eyes.
“Did I say that your deductions were entertaining? In fact they are boring me.”
“Of course you did not carry out the murder yourself; your noble hands are without stain,” the detective persisted. “For that you have your comrades. And as soon as you had Minutti’s company under your control it was Lord Bollinger’s turn.”
“I will not listen to any more of this!”
Alice rose to leave, but Holmes blocked her way.
“He was introduced to you by his own sister, your good friend, who is sympathetic to your movement,” he shouted. “The poor woman doubtless had no idea that she was sending him to his grave. You seduced him just as you tried to seduce me and Watson! And during one of his visits, when you already had all of his company’s secrets in your pocket, you had him killed! Now you control the unsuspecting Emily Bollinger just as you do Minutti’s factory through Luigi Pascuale. There is no need to deny it. Confess!”
I felt like one of the mute characters in a moving picture.
Lady Darringford angrily tried to push Holmes aside, and when she failed she hit his chest with her tiny fists. He caught her by the wrist and easily kept her at bay. She howled with rage, but in a moment her sounds turned into muffled laughter. Then she fell around Holmes’s neck and laughed uproariously.
“Gentlemen, well done,” she said through tears of laughter. “You almost had me. For a moment I thought you were serious. Is this your revenge, doctor?”
“You killed them,” said Holmes flatly, releasing her from his grasp. “Either with your own hands or by order. The game is up, Lady Darringford.”
She stopped laughing, slowly wiped her eyes and fixed her hair.
“Very well then,” she said. “You wanted to keep me at bay with your phantasmagoria, but you have only driven yourself into a corner. Everything you say is nonsense.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. Perhaps you have something on my brother, and I do hope you find him. But as for me and your little theory about the death of Albert Bollinger, who you say I murdered in this very house, you are missing the most important thing.”
“Which is?”
“Proof!” she cried triumphantly. “As far as I know Albert is missing, which does not mean dead. And if his body is not found, you will have no proof. No judge or police officer will believe any of your lies.”
Holmes considered and nodded his head.
“Indeed, without a body my theory is just a weak scaffolding built on clues.”
The Lady smiled victoriously and I felt embarrassed. If this was meant to be the end and my friend hoped that she would confess under the burden of his bold accusations, he had come off rather badly. We had only succeeded in embarrassing ourselves, revealing Holmes’s disguise, and discrediting our whole investigation. I felt even worse than I had yesterday.