“I assume that, knowing your tenacity for acquiring every bit of evidence to be found, you discovered the chair upon which Mr. Fenwick was impaled,” Holmes replied calmly. Only an almost imperceptible quirk of the right corner of his mouth told me that Holmes was teasing the inspector.

Gregson looked slightly put out. “Yes, but Mister Holmes, it’s how we found it and where we found it.” He paused, then lowered his voice. “There are secret passages in this house, sir.”

“I do not doubt that,” my companion airily remarked. “This is an old house. Jacobean or late Elizabethan, I believe. There are bound to be priest’s holes …”

“But these are secret passages, Holmes! Not mere closets in the walls.” Gregson broke in. “Two of them run from the library. Another - or rather, the second passage - also communicates with the music room.” He tugged at our sleeves. “Come, gentlemen! See for yourselves.”

As he spoke, I thought I caught the scrape of a chair across parquet flooring, then the rustle of a woman’s skirt and a squeak, that of the hinges of the door to milady’s drawing room as it opened. I could see from the slight turn of Holmes’ head and the tightening of his lips that he too had perceived the slight sounds. Apparently we had roused a flutter of apprehension in the little dovecote.

We let ourselves be drawn away to the library by the excited police inspector, yet I for one kept my senses sharpened to catch any sound, sight or smell that indicated we were being stalked from behind.

“Here, gentlemen,” he said, indicating a opening in the wainscoting between the fireplace and the door. “This leads up a narrow flight of stairs to the master’s bedroom. And this one … .” He darted across the room to a bookcase set into the wall, slid his fingers into the space between two books and rapped the wall behind. To my astonishment, the bookcase closed in upon itself like the covers of a massive tome.

Gregson indicated the opening with a flourish of his hand. First I peered inside. Through the gloom, I could discern the outline of a door or panel opposite and steps, steep and narrow, descending into blackness. Then I gave way to my companion.

Holmes stooped and stepped through the aperture. “About six feet high,” he remarked. “The width is slightly broader than an average man’s shoulders. It would be very difficult to carry a corpse up these stairs, Gregson. Impossible to carry the body of a live man thrashing about in agony.”

“Not so impossible if he could still walk,” grunted the inspector.

Holmes stepped back into the room and carefully wiped his hands upon his handkerchief. He nodded behind him, his expression bland. “I take it that you’ve investigated both passages? Where does that one lead?”

“To an underground corridor.”

“Which leads?”

“To the wash-house. The laundry rooms.”

“Which contain all the furniture of a wash-house?”

“Umm hmm.” There was a gloat in Gregson’s twinkling eyes.

Holmes smiled his thin smile, “And also - what?”

The inspector rubbed the side of his thin red nose. Then, moving to the chair that the ridged corpse had occupied, he pointed to the right arm. “We saw the deceased’s right wrist had been pierced through, correct? Well, gentlemen, as you see, there is clearly no hole in this chair.

“So, to what was the wrist held? In the wash-house, we did discover a chair with a hole in its arm. Blood had seeped into the wood. Some of that blood had puddled into the hole made by the nail or spike and congealed there. He opened his handkerchief to reveal a smear of red on the cloth. “I got a sewing needle from one of the maids and dug some of it out myself. It‘s blood for sure, or I‘m a Dutchman.”

“Where is the chair now?” I asked.

“Still in the laundry,” Gregson replied. “Strange place for a chair with arms to be,” he mused, “but then it was a rocking chair. Maybe the laundress used it to rest herself while agitating the washer-barrel.”

“Strange place for a chair with blood to be,” Holmes said. “And you think the chair was used as a macabre inkwell?”

Gregson nodded emphatically. “The blood in the hole was used to write the note.”

Holmes grimaced. “Ah, yes. The note. How did it go again?”

“The garland. The garland.
A very pretty garland.
As ever you wish to see.
It’s fit for Queen Victoria.
So please remember me.”

I could not help heaving a sigh. “My late wife used to make garlands of flowers when we were courting. She would weave the stems into a circlet.”

“Yes.” Holmes lips curved reminiscently. “I recall you sporting a wreath of daisies around your top hat.”

“Your wife must’ve been a very fey lady,” Gregson chortled. “I couldn’t imagine anyone bemusing me into going about in public wearing a crown of blooms.” His laugh stopped short. “A crown! A crown fit for Queen Victoria! Holmes, do you think this death’s political? That there’s a bloody crime aimed at the Queen’s person?”

“Maybe … but I don’t see what it could be.” Holmes shook his head. “Let us not jump to hasty conjectures, gentlemen.”

He paced the room, his head bowed, brooding. “Stems interwoven. Many questions, many clues to find, woven into a ring.” He stopped and seemed to stare at the head of a moose that was fixed above the fireplace. “A ring … A garland … A wedding garland?” His eyes sought mine. “Watson, didn’t your wife wear a garland of flowers when she wed you?”

My mind and heart went back to that sacred day that had made Mary and I one. “She did wear a circlet of flowers. Orange-blossoms, I believe.”

Holmes nodded sagely. “As did Her Majesty at her espousal.”

“As do many brides in honour of her,” added Gregson with impatience.

“As many country brides did before her - and still do here.” Constable Harkness coughed and shifted his feet, embarrassed to have spoken his thoughts unasked in the presence of his superior.

“ ‘So please remember me.’ ,” I repeated. “Do you think there was a secret marriage between Peter Fenwick and … someone?” Molly’s gaunt, rouged, ravaged face hovered before my eyes.

Holmes broke the silence. “As I said, there are many interwoven stems to trace to their heads. Many questions to answer.”

“Which for Molly’s sake, I will not ask in the hearing of Gregson and Harkness,” his eyes said to mine.

He turned to the two police officers. “Was there anything missing that should’ve been there, or anything there that should not have been there?”

Gregson looked baffled. “Like what do you mean, Mr. Holmes?”

“Like the nail or spike that had impaled Fenwick’s wrist to that chair. And why just his right wrist? Why not both? Gregson, be a good chap and arrange for Watson and me to observe the autopsy on Peter Fenwick. I want to see by his bruises if he was bound or otherwise injured.”

The inspector frowned. “Very well, Mister Holmes, but why?”

“If his other limbs were free and the chair a rocker, why did Fenwick not attempt to rise? One strong kick or swing would have got him on his feet. Also, that punctured wrist showed bruising, yet there was no tearing of the deep fascia, was there Watson?

“None that I could seen from a superficial examination, Holmes.”

“And you found no bruising or concussion on his neck and head, did you, Watson?”

“None at all,” I replied. “But since he was poisoned …”

“Tut, Watson. You say that he died in the throes of a tectonic convulsion. Then why was there no other damage except for that puncture through one wrist?”

Holmes leaned toward me and tapped my chest. “I’ll bet you the price of a meal at Simpson’s, Doctor, that the blood on the chair came from a pig or a hen, and that we are skilfully being led up the garden … or should I say ‘garland‘?” … by at least one very clever murderer.”

“But by whom, Holmes?” Gregson spluttered. “Whom should I arrest?”

Holmes sighed, then smiled. “Perhaps all of them.”

Proceed to Part Seven