The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [227]
“Did he tell you where he was bound?”
Dowling shook his head. “He has rooms above the tailor in Lamb’s Conduit Street, but I suspect that his first recourse may be to a den of infamy. I dread the thought that he might take some precipitate action at a time when he is clearly very disturbed.”
He took a deep breath and made a visible effort to collect his thoughts. “Thank you for your time, Mr Holmes. This unfortunate outcome is not your fault. You will, of course, let me have a note of your fees in early course.”
“You regard my investigation as concluded?”
“With respect, I do not see what else you can do.”
“Does it not intrigue you that, for no obvious reason, your partner’s behaviour should have changed so suddenly and in such a deleterious fashion?”
“It dismays me, but I do not know what else I can do. I cannot see rhyme or reason in it.”
“Precisely. I still have the distinct impression that in this case, all the cards are yet to be put on the table. I would like to speak to the court usher you mentioned and also to your partner’s brother, Hugh. Would you be willing to write me a note of introduction to the man Stewart?”
Dowling readily agreed to Holmes’s request, although he was plainly unconvinced that any good would come of further enquiries. We walked directly to the Law Courts in the Strand and were able after a short wait to see Stewart and hear about his encounter with Abergavenny at Blackfriars Bridge.
“Do you believe he meant to kill himself?” Holmes asked bluntly.
“I hesitate to say as much,” said Stewart with care. He was a desiccated fellow, as dry and dusty as a tome of Blackstone’s law reports. “I can add nothing more to the conversation I had with Mr Dowling, save to make the obvious point that I would not have troubled him with an account of the incident had I not thought it a matter which needed to be drawn to his attention as senior partner of an eminently respectable firm.”
We could glean nothing more from him and made our way at once to the Temple. Holmes had expressed surprise when Dowling said we might be likeliest to find Hugh Abergavenny at his old chambers in King’s Bench Walk. “I understood that he had long since ceased to practise at the Bar?”
“That is correct, but he told me he has continued to haunt the place where he first made his reputation. ‘The legal world is a source of the best stories in the world,’ he said, ‘If one knows where to look. I found many of my neatest plots within the four walls of my old pupil master’s room’.”
The clerk’s office was awash with papers and pink ribbon and I wondered how many of the briefs to counsel spread casually upon the floor contained material suitable for adaptation into tales of villainy and derring-do. Dowling’s guess proved to be accurate and within a couple of minutes a boy was directing us in to a small room at the back of the building.
Hugh Abergavenny had the same beaky nose and build as his brother, but his hair was darker and thinning. I estimated that he was perhaps ten years older than John. He stood up behind a small roll-top desk on which lay a manuscript and came forward to greet us. It was clear from his expression that he was startled by our arrival, but there was no denying the handsomeness of his greeting as he stretched out his hand in welcome. I noticed that his cuffs were frayed, confirmation if it were needed that these days he regarded himself as a writer rather than an advocate.
“Mr Sherlock Holmes! This is a rare honour. I have long devoured your exploits and admired the facility with which Dr Watson here writes them up for publication.”
“With some embellishment, I should make clear,” Holmes said amiably. “I cannot deny