The Case of the Patriarch Read online

  The Case of the Patriarch

  A Sherlock Holmes & Elizabeth Bennet Mystery

  By Amelia Littlewood

  Also by Amelia Littlewood

  Death at the Netherfield Park Ball

  The Mystery of the Indian Diadem

  The Peculiar Doctor Barnabus

  The Apparition at Rosing's Park

  The Shadow of Moriarty

  The Adventure of the King’s Portrait

  The Case of the Patriarch

  The Final Equation

  Copyright © 2018 Amelia Littlewood

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Cyanide Publishing

  www.cyanidepublishing.com

  First edition

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter One: Homecoming

  Chapter Two: A Friend In Need

  Chapter Three: An Unhappy Family

  Chapter Four: On The Third Day

  Chapter Five: A Near Miss

  Chapter Six: The Wrong End

  Chapter Seven: A Person First

  Chapter Eight: First Class

  About the Author

  Chapter One:

  Homecoming

  There is nothing quite like the English countryside.

  While London had become my adoptive home and I had come to love it, I confess that nothing gives me quite the feeling of truly breathing as does the fresh air around Longbourn. I had grown up outside of a small town and I think that will always be where my body is most attuned, the most at peace.

  London was full of people of all walks of life, from the meanest and poorest to the highest and most mighty, and people came in from all corners of the British Empire. It was a wonderful place and I loved getting to know every part of it. But I was also excited to come home and pay a visit to the place where I had grown up.

  My visit was not entirely cheerful. Father had taken ill, and Mother was in her usual hysterics about him dying and her getting kicked out by Mr. Collins and my dear Charlotte. Personally, I thought that Father had been looking rather frail lately, but it wouldn’t do to say that to Mother. It would only cause her to grow even more agitated.

  It was decided between Jane, myself, and Charles, my brother-in-law, that I should take Mary and return home to Longbourn to check upon Father. I was Father’s favorite, although I myself hated to think of it that way. I have always believed that it is not so much that I am his favorite as it is that we think rather alike, and therefore he sees himself in me. After Lydia’s horrid experience with Mr. Wickham and her subsequent subdued behavior, I think that Father had grown fonder of her and Kitty. And I think, truly, that he and Mary would have much to speak of if I could lock them in a room together.

  But Kitty and Lydia were thriving in London, and I had confided to Jane that I saw many a young man drawing close to the point of asking for one of their hands in marriage. Georgiana Darcy had become a great friend of theirs and she, too, I had seen waited upon by many a gentleman. They all three made quite a picture, Georgiana with her fine, light blonde hair and sweet face, Lydia with her shock of dark hair and snapping eyes, and Kitty with her soft curls and bright smile.

  It would be unfair to them, we reasoned, to take them away from such festivities and suitors when we were not even sure how serious Father’s condition was.

  Mary, however, jumped at the chance to escape London. Mr. Holmes and I had been spending time with her and she had been assisting him on his Moriarty case, but I suspect that every day reminded her of what she could not have, and what she could not be. She watched the businessmen and lawyers go about their business every morning, and I could see the way that her hands clenched in her skirts.

  To think that once my sisters had been such annoyances to me, and that I had cared so little for their thoughts and feelings. Now I felt quite keenly for all of them.

  Jane was feeling quite well enough now, she insisted, that she could accompany the three young ladies to balls about town. I was still worried about her condition, but baby Tom, my nephew, was finally sleeping through the night, and Charles confessed that he was longing to spend more time with him. And so it was decided: Mary and I should return to Longbourn and report on Father’s condition.

  It was fortunate timing, for it was spring and Easter Sunday would be upon us. Always a family holiday, it would please both my parents, I knew, to have at least some of their children in the house.

  We took a carriage back to Longbourn, stopping in Meryton to pay our respects to my aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. Mrs. Phillips, my mother’s sister, was rather like Mother in temperament. That is to say, she gossiped. She did not have Mother’s hypochondria, at least, thank heavens.

  “Take a look around you,” I instructed Mary as we walked through Meryton. “Tell me, what do you see?”

  “The fishmonger is courting someone,” Mary replied, keeping her voice low. “He’s just shaven and his fingernails are neat and trimmed. Not easy for someone of his profession.”

  “Very good. And the lady over there?”

  Mary watched for a moment. “She’s put lifts in her shoes to make herself taller. You can tell by the way she doesn’t bend her knees as she walks. She’s also shoplifting. She’s looking around too much and the bracelet she has on doesn’t match the rest of her outfit in coloring or style. She must have slipped it on in the shop.”

  “You might want to warn her.” I had learned from experience that if you confront criminals on their actions and then let them off with a warning, they are apt to be frightened enough not to try again. Mr. Holmes had relayed a similar incident to me concerning a Christmas goose.

  I watched as Mary went over to speak to the woman. I saw the lady’s face register alarm, and then consternation and shame. After a moment she nodded, taking the bracelet off her wrist and handing it to Mary. Mary then took it into the jeweler’s.

  “Nicely done,” I said when she returned to me.

  “I don’t see why we couldn’t just turn her in.”

  “And what good would that have done? She won’t try something like that again and now her poor family has been spared a scandal. A crime affects more than just the victim and the criminal, remember that.” What had been done, or almost done, to Lydia had affected all of us, for example.

  Longbourn was much the same as I remembered it. Stepping inside was like putting on a pair of comfortable house slippers.

  “My darling girls!” Mother said, hurrying to embrace us. I wisely held my tongue about the fact that she had never called us such when Kitty and Lydia and Jane were around. Kitty and Lydia had always been her favorites, and Jane’s beauty earned her a special place in Mother’s heart.

  “Where is Father?” I asked as Mary went to make sure the pianoforte was still in tune. Only she ever played it.

  “Upstairs, lying down. Oh, he is near to his death bed, Lizzy, I feel it grow closer every day.” Mother shook her head, her hands twisting around and around one another. “And I shall be thrown out of the home I have lived in for almost three decades. And where shall I go? I shall only be a nuisance to Jane, I just know it. She shall grow tired of me.”

  “You are fine, Mother,” I said. “And Father will be as well. Nobody shall be a burden to anybody. Why
don’t you go check on dinner with the servants, and I shall see to Father.”

  “Oh, yes, I invited a dear friend for dinner,” Mother said. For a moment my heart sank. It must be another suitor, I thought. It had to be. While she had resigned herself to my detecting work with Mr. Holmes, I doubted that she had given up on seeing me married soon.

  But to my surprise, Mother then said, “She is a dear girl. Older than you are, Lizzy, but much younger than myself. Her elder sister and I were the greatest of friends growing up. She married into that Lawton family, you know the one, they live quite on the other side of the county.”

  “I vaguely recall the name, yes.”

  “Good. See to your Father, now, and do remember your manners when you meet her. She is a dear woman.”

  “I always remember my manners,” I muttered childishly.

  Mother gave me a disbelieving look. “I am certain that you think you do. Now run along!”

  Father was upstairs in bed, as Mother had said. He smiled when I entered, and I quickly crossed the room to take his hand.

  “My dear Lizzy,” he said. “How good it is of you to come and see me, and over such a trifle. It is nothing but a cold.”

  “It was enough to send Mother into fits. For her sake, at least, we had to stop by.” I squeezed his hand. “I do worry about you, Papa,” I admitted.

  “You shouldn’t,” Father replied. “Worry about yourself instead, my dear. You are up to many a dangerous game lately. And without a husband to back you up.”

  I didn’t want to get into an argument about it, and besides, I knew Father wasn’t disappointed in me. He just wanted to look out for me, as a father should. “Are you quite well enough to come down to dinner?” I asked.

  “Have it sent up,” Father replied. “Your mother is having a friend over in any case and I am certain I want to miss that.”

  I laughed. He did seem frailer than usual, but his spirits were not diminished—and spirit, in my experience, counted for more than people gave it credit for in the case of one’s health. “Very well then. I shall have the maids send dinner up to you. And I shall read to you before bed, if you like. Just like old times.”

  “I should like that.” Father smiled up at me. “I do miss you, my dear Lizzy. Every day.”

  I felt a pang of guilt. Technically, I should be home at Longbourn, not gallivanting about London, but London was where my heart and ambitions lay. I just wished I could do both at the same time—be the woman that I wanted to be while also being the daughter that my family needed.

  “I’ll see you tonight, Father.”

  I left him happy, resting.

  Chapter Two:

  A Friend In Need

  When I came back downstairs, I found that Mother’s guest had already arrived and the two were talking up quite the storm.

  “Well you know that Easter Sunday is almost upon us,” Mother was saying. “All the local families are coming home to spend time with one another. I’m seeing people that you don’t see any other time of year, back to stay with their parents.”

  “Yes, that’s just the thing,” the other woman replied. She was pretty in a pale sort of way, like the color had been leeched out of her. “That is, none of us have strayed far except for Peter, he’s the third of my brothers-in-law, but we’re having an official sort of dinner and all of that. The son of a dear friend of Mr. Lawton will be there. Mr. Lawton, my father-in-law, I mean, not my own Charles Jr.”

  “I’m afraid I know little of the Lawtons,” I said.

  “I hope that you shall get to know more of them,” Mrs. Lawton replied, for that must be her name. “But oh, I’ve failed to introduce myself, I’m terribly sorry.”

  “This is Louisa Lawton,” my mother said. “Her elder sister, Maria, and I were quite the girlhood friends. Poor thing died in childbirth years ago. She was, what, seven years older than you are, Louisa?”

  “Oh, yes, seven.” Mrs. Lawton had managed to preserve her youth quite well, I thought, for she was clearly older than I was but still looked a good deal younger than Mother. She reminded me of Mrs. Gardiner, my aunt who lived in London and who often accompanied me in chaperoning my sisters and Miss Georgiana.

  The next hour or so was filled with dinner and Mother and Mrs. Lawton reliving their girlhood years. Mary and I mostly listened, politely asking questions now and again. I could feel that Mary was itching to escape and play the pianoforte or do some reading.

  I did not find the conversation to be all that stimulating myself, but I nodded politely and asked questions. There was a part of me that was genuinely curious about what my mother was like as a younger woman.

  Once, my father had confided in me his first impressions of her. It had been years ago after a particularly trying day dealing with my mother and I had hidden myself in my father’s study to, I confess, avoid her. Father had asked me why I was hiding, and I in turn had asked him why he had married such a trying woman.

  My impertinence should probably have gotten me in trouble, but instead, Father just laughed a little and said that Mother had been very pretty, and also very lively of spirit. He had appreciated that, being of a much sterner and more introverted disposition himself.

  It had surprised me, for the woman I knew was certainly full of more energy than she liked to admit—and had to be in order to raise five daughters—but liveliness also suggested fun and gaiety in one’s manner. My mother had neither. Now I listened attentively, trying to reconcile the woman that I knew growing up with the girlish, fun, lighthearted person that Mrs. Lawton was describing.

  After dinner was finished and the food had been cleared, we retired to the sitting room. Mary happily escaped with a book somewhere, while the rest of us were served tea. I inquired about Mrs. Lawton’s own family, of which she had not told us much. She and Mother had spoken mainly of their own childhoods and Mrs. Lawton’s family from before she had married. But I was curious as to the Lawton family. I had heard somewhat of them, but for neighbors that should have been seen often at Meryton, precious little was known about them and they were seldom seen about.

  Mrs. Lawton grew quiet for a moment. I did not need to see her biting her lip to know that she was nervous. The feeling radiated off of her like rays from the sun.

  “I must confess that I am not only here to relive old times, although I am always glad to do so,” she said, looking over at my mother for a moment before turning her attention back to me.

  “Miss Bennet, my father-in-law, Charles Lawton, is…well, may I speak plainly?”

  I nodded. I had heard many things in my time with Mr. Holmes and I doubted whatever this genteel lady was about to say to me could shock me.

  Mrs. Lawton took a deep breath. “My father-in-law is a horrid man, Miss Bennet. He is, I dare say, tyrannical. Oh, it gives me such pain to speak of him this way. You know how important family is. But I simply cannot go on! And I feel I must warn you if you take up the job I am offering you.”

  “Job?”

  Mrs. Lawton nodded. “Mr. Lawton, you see, my father-in-law, owns a great deal of property overseas in the territories of the Empire, including Antigua. Recently he received a small parcel from that country. He would not at first tell us what it was. He likes his little mind games, you see, he teases his sons most awfully.

  “Eventually, however, he told us what the parcel was. Apparently, they are pearls. You should have seen the household’s reaction. And he made quite a fuss, talking about what he should do with them, and to whom he should give them. He always talks about how he is not long for this world, Miss Bennet, and it is true that he is rather ill and frail now. They say he was very handsome in his time of course and you can see it in my own husband, Charles Jr. And so, he tells us all about these pearls and his plans—and then not two days later, they go missing.”

  So this was the job that Mrs. Lawton meant. I had to smother a smile. Other people’s misfortunes were not something to express joy over, but I confe
ss that the idea of a case to solve filled me with excitement.

  “I had heard of your work with Mr. Holmes from your mother,” Mrs. Lawton said. “She spoke so highly of your detecting work in London. When I heard that you were coming down for the Easter holiday, I knew that I must prevail upon you to help me.

  “We would prefer the police not be involved, you see, for only the immediate family knew of the pearls. The servants are quite unaware, and the man who delivered the parcel did not know what was in it. Mr. Lawton kept it all quite hush-hush.”

  “And you’re hoping, I’m sure, that if the perpetrator is caught, that it can be sorted out amongst yourselves?” I asked.

  This made sense to me. After all, we were not dealing with a hardened criminal, at least as far as I knew. A member of the gentry committing what was probably their first crime would, I was sure, be easily contrite.

  “Precisely,” Mrs. Lawton said, nodding enthusiastically. “My father-in-law is really being quite, well, beastly about it. But he won’t hear a word of anyone being brought in. I think he supposes he can terrorize everyone until somebody confesses to the theft. And then I remembered what your mother said about your work with Mr. Holmes and—well, he’s quite celebrated, isn’t he, in London—and thought that if I invited you down for Easter Sunday, as the daughter of my dear friend…”

  “Then I could investigate for you without raising any suspicions.” It was a clever idea. “I would be happy to help you out—but, Mother, won’t you miss me at Easter dinner?”

  “We shall manage quite well,” Mother said. “We shall miss you, of course, but we are obliged to miss you all the time, what with your living in London nowadays. Perhaps you could then extend your visit to us by a day or two by way of making up for it.”

  It was more generous than I’d thought she’d be about the whole thing, so I acquiesced quickly to her suggestion. “It’s quite settled then,” I said, turning to Mrs. Lawton. “I shall accompany you to your home, and we shall get to the bottom of this matter.”