"I presume that you are not in a position to enlighten me as to the purpose of Mr Holmes's visit."
"Not precisely," I replied lamely. "But I am sure he will not be many minutes."
Her ladyship sighed heavily and I sat in embarrassed silence, awaiting Holmes's return. Thankfully, he was as good as his word and in less than five minutes he was sitting opposite our client's wife once more.
"Now, Mr Holmes, as you have already wasted some of my time, I beg you to be brief."
"My business here will take but a short time, but I thought it would be best if I consulted you first before I told your husband the truth behind the disappearing and reappearing painting and the roles that you and your son played in the mystery."
Lady Darlington gave a startled gasp. "I don't know what you mean."
"Oh yes you do," asserted my friend coldly. "The time for pretence and dissembling is over. You cannot go on protecting your son any longer."
"Mr Holmes, I will not tolerate any more of your nonsense. Would you please be kind enough to leave."
"I will leave, certainly, taking the key with me."
"The key?"
"I am afraid that I played a little trick on you just now. On leaving the room I did not go to instruct our waiting cabman as I intimated. Instead, I slipped upstairs to your son's room where it did not take me very long to discover the hiding place where he secreted the key." Holmes reached into his waistcoat pocket as though to retieve some small object. "The duplicate key that gains him access to your husband's gallery."
Lady Darlington's face turned white. "That is impossible," she cried in some agitation, snapping open her reticule.
"I agree," said Holmes, stepping forward and extracting a small golden key from her ladyship's bag. "I told you a tissue of lies in order for you to reveal the real hiding place of the duplicate key. It was a simple subterfuge engineered to reveal the truth."
At this, Lady Darlington broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. I was moved by her obvious distress and watched helplessly as her body shook with sorrow but Holmes remained stony-faced and waited until the lady had controlled herself enough to speak to him. "How much do you know," she asked at last, dabbing her watery eyes with her handkerchief.
"I know all. I know your son has built up a series of very large gambling debts at the Pandora Club. In an endeavour to keep these from your husband you helped pay for them at first, but when the amounts became too great for you to contend with, you aided and abetted your son in his scheme of replacing the paintings in Lord Darlington's gallery with fakes while your son's crony Lord Arthur Beacham sold the originals."
"The situation as you portray it is more damning than the real circumstances," said Lady Darlington, regaining some of her composure. "Rupert is the son of my first marriage and has never been accepted by Hector. He even denied him the common courtesies. Certainly Rupert was never shown any love by his step-father. I suppose in a reaction to this I lavished love upon him. I gave him liberties and freedoms that were perhaps inappropriate for such a headstrong youth. He lacked a father's controlling guidance. When he formed a friendship with Lord Arthur Beacham I was pleased at first. I believed that the influence of this older man would be good for him. Alas, I did not know what a scoundrel the fellow was. The truth only emerged when it was too late and Rupert was completely under his evil spell. Beacham led my son into reckless habits.Yes, there were the gambling debts which, despite my pleas to Rupert to abandon the game, grew and grew. I knew that if Hector found out he would disinherit him and cast him out of the house. What would become of the boy then? How could I let that happen?"
Lady Darlington paused for a moment as though she was waiting for an answer to her questions, although she avoided our glances. Holmes remained silent.
"When the amounts became too great to deal with out of my allowance, Rupert presented me with the plan regarding the paintings. It had been suggested by Beacham of course. He
knew of a skilled painter who could copy the pictures so that only an expert could tell the difference and he also had contacts who could provide eager customers for the original canvases. Beacham, of course, demanded a large fee for his 'services'. To my eternal shame, I agreed, believing it would be only the one painting. One night when my husband was asleep, I took the gallery key from his chain and made a wax impression of it so that a copy could be made.
"The substitution of the first painting could not have been smoother. The exchange was carried out while my husband was away for two days on government business. Rupert took the picture early in the evening and returned the following morning with the forgery. My husband never suspected a thing. The apparent ease with which the plan had been carried out made Beacham bolder and greedier. He led my son into greater debt so that the substitution of another painting was needed. And so it became a regular process, every two months or so."
"Until the de Granville fiasco when your husband's trip to France was postponed and he returned earlier than expected."
"It was Beacham's idea to take the de Granville. He said it would bring the greatest fee yet, but the copier required more time since it was an unknown painting. As you know, my husband discovered the masterpiece missing…" Lady Darlington's eyes watered afresh and she dabbed them with her handkerchief.
"Both your son and Beacham knew it would be foolish to place the forgery where the original had hung now that its absence had been discovered. They were aware that your husband would, as a matter of course, call in an expert to verify that it was the original."
Lady Darlington nodded mutely.
"You have been a foolish woman, Lady Darlington. Although you may have acted with the best of intentions towards your son, you have allowed a situation to develop that cannot fail but to bring pain and disgrace to those two men whom you hold dear."
"I beg you not to tell my husband."
"Your husband is my client. He must be told. Besides, we are not dealing with a family squabble here. This matter concerns the theft of a series of master paintings. Two of the culprits are the son and wife of the owner, who is a minister of the crown. A scandal now is inevitable."
"I appreciate that the truth has now to come out. But I want to be the one to tell Hector. It is the least I can do to atone for my sins. Give me a day – twenty-four hours – to do this and also to try and persuade my son to give himself up to the authorities."
Holmes hesitated. He was somewhat moved by the woman's plight.
"Please be merciful," she begged.
My companion consulted his watch. "It is now approaching four o'clock. I will send a telegram to reach Lord Darlington in the morning, indicating that I shall call on him at four in the afternoon to convey information of the greatest moment."
"Bless you, Mr Holmes."
As events turned out, Holmes was never to make that visit. The following morning I was late down to breakfast and I found my friend slumped in his armchair perusing the paper. His face bore a grim expression.
"Violent delights have violent ends," he said, more to himself than me.
"Bad news?"
He shrugged. "Fate has entered the lists and we have effectively been relegated, old fellow." He waved the paper in my direction. "I refer to a report in here. Two bodies were washed up on the shingle below Tower Bridge late last night. They were bound and gagged and their brains had been blown out. They have been identified as Lord Arthur Beacham and Rupert Darlington, the son of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lord Hector Darlington."
"Great heavens what a tragedy. What happened?"
"It was no doubt the work of Alfredo Fellini and his cronies. Obviously Beacham, in his frustration regarding the de Granville painting, tried, foolishly, to pass the fake off as the original to the American. His treachery received the usual rough justice of the gangland courts. Rupert Darlington was seen as part of the conspiracy – which he may well have been. Ah, Watson, Scott had it aright: 'Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practise to deceive.' "