Colonel Wilmshaw looked about him. Holmes saw the look and stepped to the sideboard, offering our guest a brandy. When we all had a drink the old soldier resumed his tale.
‘I suppose it was about halfway through the evening. I was in the buffet and Johnny came in, going to fetch something for Agatha, I suppose. He came up alongside me and we were chatting when we both heard this fellow standing near make an astoundingly coarse remark. It would have been wretchedly bad form in any case - that sort of nonsense belongs to the barrack room if it has a place - but it was worse than that. The comment was plainly about Agatha. Now, he said it in French, of course, but the very reason Johnny and I had been attached to the embassy was because we were both dab hands at the lingo.’
The colonel sipped his brandy and shook his head. ‘I’d heard the fellow, Johnny had heard him. I thought, “Here’s trouble!” but Johnny was ice-cold. He laid down his plate and napkin and stepped up to the fellow who’d said it and tapped him on the shoulder. He swung round and I could see he was a Russian colonel, though young for the rank. He said, “You interrupt me, Captain,” in French. Johnny said, “Colonel, you have just passed a damnably filthy observation about the lady who I intend to marry. I require you to withdraw your vile comment and apologize.” He said it loudly, in English, and you could hear the whole room go quiet.’
‘The Russian smiled at Johnny, and he says - in English too - “Captain, I shall make whatever observations I choose to my friends, without your permission. If they offend you, you know the remedy. You are at liberty to call me out. I shall be pleased to respond.”’
‘But Captain Parkes could not challenge the Russian,’ I said.
‘Certainly not,’ agreed the colonel, ‘and I was about to remind him of that, but I didn’t have to. I’ve never seen Johnny so angry. He was burning with rage and as white as paper, but he had absolute control of himself. He said, “You must know very well, Colonel, that I am not permitted by the laws of this or my own country, or by the regulations of my service, to call you out. Were it not so, I should welcome the opportunity of killing you.” The Russian laughed aloud. He said, “It is easy to make bold claims when you also claim the protection of the law, Captain. In Russia if we believe that we have been dishonoured we attempt to kill the man who did it. You, it seems, do not.”
‘Johnny took a step forward and I grasped his arm. “You, Colonel, are a filthy-mouthed scoundrel and I demand your apology and withdrawal.” The Russian laughed again. “And you shall not have it. I have offered you satisfaction of a kind which is, it seems, too strong for you. That is all you shall have. If the British Army chooses not to fight, I shall certainly not surrender.” Johnny said, “The British Army exists to kill the enemies of Britain, not to play personal games, but this matter will not end here.” “Oh, I think it will,” said the Russian, and he walked off with his friends, all laughing.
‘I pulled Johnny back, in case he intended to follow. The whole thing had been bad enough as it was. It was going to be the talk of all the embassies in Paris in the morning, and I wanted to make sure that Johnny didn’t suffer for it. So far he’d carried himself very well, but you never know how far a fellow can be pushed. I took him out on the balcony and got him a drink and calmed him down before he went back to Agatha. She, of course, had heard some of it from ladies who had been in the buffet, but we made light of it. The Russian seemed to have made himself scarce, and by the end of the evening it all seemed to have been forgotten, except by Johnny. He was taking Agatha and her mother back to their hotel, and I remember that, as he left me, he said, “I’ll make that filthy scoundrel smart for that, you see if I don’t.”’
Colonel Wilmshaw paused and stared into the past he had awakened. ‘That was the last thing old Johnny ever said to me, you know. I never saw him again. He didn’t come back to our digs that night.
Well, I didn’t worry much about that. I admit I thought he might have found a way of slipping past Agatha’s mother and be enjoying himself at their hotel, but when he didn’t show up the next day I got worried. Then I saw Agatha and she said that they’d said goodnight at the hotel and Johnny was going to stroll back to our place. That’s when I got bothered and reported him missing. It was five days later that the French police took me to a mortuary to identify his body.’
He paused again. ‘I’ve seen a deal of dead men,’ he went on at last. ‘Some of them fellows I’ve messed with and fought alongside. You’ve been in Afghanistan, Doctor. You know the kind of things that happen to a fellow there. Nothing has ever made me feel as bad as seeing poor Johnny’s body, laid out on a table.’
‘He had been beaten and stabbed, I understand,’ said Holmes.
Colonel Wilmshaw nodded. ‘There must have been at least three of them,’ he said, ‘and Johnny had fought like a tiger from the injuries he took.’
‘The French police put it down to boulevard assassins, garrotters. Do you agree?’
Wilmshaw snorted. ‘Garrotters! Rubbish! I grant you Paris is full of street bandits, but they’re not stupid. Why would they take on a young man in uniform, who looked like he could give an account of himself? There are always plenty of old men about late at night to make prey for them.’
‘Would he have been armed in any way?’ Holmes asked.
Wilmshaw smiled. ‘He’d been to a ball, not on manoeuvres, Mr Holmes. You try waltzing with a
sword. No, he was in evening kit with decorations. But there was something else, Mr Holmes.’
‘What was that?’
‘They said it was garrotters, but I remember when I went to the mortuary, the inspector said to me, “We have his watch and his pocketbook. There is very little doubt that it is Captain Parkes, but we require a formal identification.” What do you make of that?’
Holmes’ eyes blazed. ‘They had not robbed him!’ he exclaimed. ‘They attacked a man on the street at night, beat him, stabbed him to death and did not rob him. Then it was not street thieves.’
‘I’m glad to hear you agree, Mr Holmes. I never thought it was, and I tried to make a fuss about the way the French were treating it all. So did Agatha’s father, but it never got anywhere. I got told off by the Ambassador for being a nuisance and a hindrance to diplomacy, and then I got shot off to the East.’
‘If you did not believe the Paris police, Colonel, what theory had you as to Captain Parkes’ death?’
asked Holmes.
Wilmshaw looked at my friend without answering for a moment. Then he took a swallow of brandy.
‘You may tell me that I’m wrong, Mr Holmes - you wouldn’t be the first - but I couldn’t help feeling then and I can’t help feeling now that it had to do with that damned Russian colonel. I poked about a bit when I realized that the police weren’t doing much. It seems the fellow was a member of the Tzar’s family. He had a filthy reputation in Paris. Seems he had pots of money and spent it mainly on women, but his habits were so bad that even the French houses wouldn’t do business with him. There were some very unsavoury tales about him.’
Holmes nodded. ‘Do you, by any chance, recall the Russian officer’s name, Colonel?’
‘Now, there you’ve got me. Never was much good at names and he had one of those complicated
Russian names.’
‘Was it,’ said Holmes, ‘by any chance, Count Stepan Skovinski-Rimkoff?’