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charleygirlTitle: The Weeping Waxwork 7/7
Author: charleygirl
Rating: G
Words: 1799
Characters involved: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson
Genre: General, mystery
Disclaimer: These characters, while out of copyright, were created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and do not belong to me.
Summary: As the wheels turn once more, one comes full circle...
Author's Note: Though Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum features heavily in this story, the members of the family featured are my own creation and bear no resemblance to any of the real Tussauds. I have used as much accuracy in my representation of the museum's history as possible, though I have stuck to Madame Tussaud's own slightly suspect version of her life story, as this would have been known to the public at the time.
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six
THE WEEPING WAXWORK
EPILOGUE
“It is a shame to see institutions change and fall before the march of time,” I remarked two days later over breakfast. As Holmes had predicted, an article appeared in The Morning Chronicle lamenting the theft of his wax likeness from Tussauds and wondering whether an associate of one of the ‘many nefarious criminals the great detective has brought to justice over the years’ was responsible. I was one of the few privy to the truth: that the bust from Grenoble was back in its trunk in our attic, and the newly repaired head of George IV had been reunited with my friend’s ‘body’. Another, more serious, piece was printed in several of the newspapers, announcing that, because of an administrative error which caused the story of the tears of Marie Antoinette to be given to the press, anyone retaining their entrance ticket from the 15th of October and who felt themselves to have been short-changed by their visit would be refunded in full.
“Such is the way of life,” Holmes replied, engrossed in the morning’s correspondence. True to my prediction, the wheels were beginning to turn once more and the table was already littered with discarded envelopes. This, coupled with the successful conclusion of a case, had swept away his black humour of the past few weeks as though it had never been. I will freely admit that I was filled with pleasure and relief, watching him root around amidst the letters and telegrams with a happy half-smile upon his face. The cure had again worked its magic, and Holmes was back with us once more. He seemed to be aware of my scrutiny, and after a moment he looked up, thoughtfully chewing the stem of his pipe. “It strikes me that Mr Micawber’s principle holds true even when applied to established businesses: ‘Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen ninety six, result: happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result: misery.’”
I looked at him in surprise over the rim of my coffee cup. “I thought you disliked Dickens because you find him too sentimental?”
“Watson, Watson,” said he with an exasperated roll of the eyes, “In order to pronounce it such surely I would have had to read some of the mawkish drivel first?”
I could not argue with that. Instead I said, “What will Tussauds do?”
“Accept one of the offers from the city. They can do nothing else. A fresh injection of capital and some new ideas is what such an institution needs when it has been in the hands of one family for so long.”
“You sound as though you have been talking to Mycroft.”
He exhaled a cloud of noxious smoke and I tried not to cough. “It was he who pointed me towards my city contact. Brother mine has feelers everywhere.”
“They will have to make changes.”
“That is no bad thing. Jettisoning the figures which have lost all public interest will be a start. I have also suggested to Miss Louise Tussaud that she obtain photographs of James Kettering before his trial next week. There will be a huge amount of public interest in the case, as well as press attention, and the man is so vain he will no doubt be overcome at the thought of being immortalised in wax,” Holmes remarked, unfolding The Times.
“But Kettering is a murderer thrice over!” I exclaimed, appalled. “He did away with his wife, their child and the youngster’s governess!”
“Horror sells, Watson. Why else would they publish so many of those penny-dreadfuls? The public has a macabre fascination with such things.”
“I have had quite enough of them lately to last me a lifetime,” I said with a shudder, recalling my time in the Chamber of Horrors. I could not, however, disagree with his pronouncement, and sighed. “It is a depressing thought all the same.”
“Then allow me to cheer you up, my dear fellow.” Holmes smiled around his pipe. “I have here - ”
A knock at the front door interrupted him, and barely two minutes later the sitting room was invaded not, as expected, by Mrs Hudson, but a small man with a waxed moustache, a pearl grey suit and immaculate spatterdashes. He tipped his hat to me as the boisterous white dog he held on a lead jumped upon the sofa and announced its presence with a high-pitched yapping.
“My apologies for disturbing your breakfast, Monsieur Holmes,” the little man said, and the dog barked again as if in agreement.
“What can I do for you, Monsieur Hergé?” Holmes enquired, eyeing the rather fluffy and ridiculously clipped animal with distaste as it attempted to lick his hand. “You would appear to have located your errant canine.”
“Mais oui,” Hergé replied, smiling beatifically. “I merely wished to thank you for directing me to Scotland Yard last week. They were most helpful in locating Sheba.”
“Really?” I cleared my throat tentatively. “Where was she in the end?”
“In a crate in Rotherhithe. She had been snatched by an international gang of dog smugglers. It happened that Inspector…Lestrade, is it? That the inspector had broken the smuggling ring and recovered the stolen animals. There among them was my Sheba – she was waiting for me at the police station.”
Holmes arched an eyebrow. “No doubt she had much to tell you of her experiences. Perhaps she could dictate them to Watson here – The Strand is always on the lookout for sensational literature.”
Hergé looked at him in consternation for several moments before the smile spread over his face once more. “Ah, bon. You are teasing me, monsieur. No matter. I just wish to thank you for directing me to the one man in London who knew Sheba’s whereabouts. I am most grateful to you, most grateful.” He caught hold of my friend’s hand just as Sheba was trying to run her rough pink tongue over it once more, and shook it enthusiastically. I am not sure which contact made Holmes look more uncomfortable, that of man or dog.
“You are quite welcome,” he said, trying to free his hand and giving me a pleading glance which I, amused, ignored.
“I will tell everyone that you are quite the magician, non? In thanks here are two free tickets to our next performance – Sheba will sing for you. What would be your choice of song?”
I sniggered at this, and was forced to turn it into a cough as Holmes fixed me with a glare and said, “Watson is the fount of knowledge when it comes to the popular classics. I am afraid my tastes extend merely to a little German violin music.”
Hergé looked at me expectantly, and I found myself having to quickly think of something. Sheba sat up, her paws on the back of the sofa and her tongue lolling from her mouth, indicating an imminent switch in her attentions from Holmes to me.
“I…oh. Er…The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery?” I suggested rather lamely trying and failing to think of a popular song appropriately connected with dogs. Now it was Holmes’s turn to snigger.
Hergé clapped his dainty hands together. “Ah, an excellent choice, and one of Sheba’s favourites. We will see you tonight, n’est ca pas?”
“Of course,” I said, trying to keep a straight face at the image of a poodle howling Marie Lloyd’s signature tune. Holmes made a strangled noise and buried his face in the newspaper.
I was showing Monsieur Hergé and Sheba to the front door when the little Frenchman slapped his forehead and pulled a crumpled envelope from his inside jacket pocket.
“I almost forgot. Inspector Lestrade, he send this note to Monsieur Holmes. Will you make sure he gets it?”
I promised that I would, and watched the bizarre couple make their way down the street before returning to the sitting room and sliding the envelope onto Holmes’s empty plate. This done, I took my own seat once more and reapplied myself to my breakfast, watching him from the corner of my eye. It was quite five minutes before he finished the criminal news, folded the paper and reached a hand for the letter opener. The envelope contained a single sheet, which he read in silence before throwing his head back with a great shout of laughter and pushing the note across the table to me.
It contained a few sparse lines in Lestrade’s familiar handwriting.
Mr Holmes, it read without preamble, this note is merely to warn you that if you send one more distressed pet owner in my direction I will give Doctor Watson the full particulars of the case involving the gondolier, the philatelist and the stuffed gnu to do with as he will.
“The gondolier, the philatelist and the snuffed gnu?” I repeated incredulously.
“It is an idle threat,” Holmes said, airily waving a hand. “That case would show him in an equally poor light.”
“Ah,” I responded, waving the note at him, “but now I know about it I may not stop asking for the particulars. You might have to tell me eventually, just to keep me quiet.”
He stopped smirking and stared at me. “You would not.”
“Possibly. What is my silence worth?”
In my other hand were the tickets for Hergé’s performance, and I waved them at him. His face became even paler than usual. “Watson, you would not dare…”
“Oh, come along, Holmes, it is surely the least you can do for the poor man after treating him in such a manner.”
“I would rather - ”
“Rather what, old fellow?” I enquired, raising an eyebrow of my own. “Rather tell me about the - ”
He sighed. “What time is the performance?”
I checked the tickets. “Half past seven at the old Imperial Theatre.”
“Very well.” Holmes got up from the table and drifted over to the mantelpiece, where he busied himself refilling his pipe from the Persian slipper. “I wonder,” he said after a few moments, “whether it is customary in these situations to throw flowers or dog biscuits?”
We looked at each other for a long moment, each daring the other to crack first. I admit that it was I who broke, collapsing into howls of laughter, with Holmes not far behind me.
Mrs Hudson chose that moment to enter the room with the announcement that a new client was below requesting an interview, and I am certain that she believed us both to be either ill or run mad, which only served to increase our mirth. Thankfully we managed to compose ourselves by the time the Honourable Audrey Normington entered the room to tell us of her concerns for her missing sister, but that is another tale entirely…
FIN
Author: charleygirl
Rating: G
Words: 1799
Characters involved: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson
Genre: General, mystery
Disclaimer: These characters, while out of copyright, were created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and do not belong to me.
Summary: As the wheels turn once more, one comes full circle...
Author's Note: Though Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum features heavily in this story, the members of the family featured are my own creation and bear no resemblance to any of the real Tussauds. I have used as much accuracy in my representation of the museum's history as possible, though I have stuck to Madame Tussaud's own slightly suspect version of her life story, as this would have been known to the public at the time.
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six
THE WEEPING WAXWORK
EPILOGUE
“It is a shame to see institutions change and fall before the march of time,” I remarked two days later over breakfast. As Holmes had predicted, an article appeared in The Morning Chronicle lamenting the theft of his wax likeness from Tussauds and wondering whether an associate of one of the ‘many nefarious criminals the great detective has brought to justice over the years’ was responsible. I was one of the few privy to the truth: that the bust from Grenoble was back in its trunk in our attic, and the newly repaired head of George IV had been reunited with my friend’s ‘body’. Another, more serious, piece was printed in several of the newspapers, announcing that, because of an administrative error which caused the story of the tears of Marie Antoinette to be given to the press, anyone retaining their entrance ticket from the 15th of October and who felt themselves to have been short-changed by their visit would be refunded in full.
“Such is the way of life,” Holmes replied, engrossed in the morning’s correspondence. True to my prediction, the wheels were beginning to turn once more and the table was already littered with discarded envelopes. This, coupled with the successful conclusion of a case, had swept away his black humour of the past few weeks as though it had never been. I will freely admit that I was filled with pleasure and relief, watching him root around amidst the letters and telegrams with a happy half-smile upon his face. The cure had again worked its magic, and Holmes was back with us once more. He seemed to be aware of my scrutiny, and after a moment he looked up, thoughtfully chewing the stem of his pipe. “It strikes me that Mr Micawber’s principle holds true even when applied to established businesses: ‘Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen ninety six, result: happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result: misery.’”
I looked at him in surprise over the rim of my coffee cup. “I thought you disliked Dickens because you find him too sentimental?”
“Watson, Watson,” said he with an exasperated roll of the eyes, “In order to pronounce it such surely I would have had to read some of the mawkish drivel first?”
I could not argue with that. Instead I said, “What will Tussauds do?”
“Accept one of the offers from the city. They can do nothing else. A fresh injection of capital and some new ideas is what such an institution needs when it has been in the hands of one family for so long.”
“You sound as though you have been talking to Mycroft.”
He exhaled a cloud of noxious smoke and I tried not to cough. “It was he who pointed me towards my city contact. Brother mine has feelers everywhere.”
“They will have to make changes.”
“That is no bad thing. Jettisoning the figures which have lost all public interest will be a start. I have also suggested to Miss Louise Tussaud that she obtain photographs of James Kettering before his trial next week. There will be a huge amount of public interest in the case, as well as press attention, and the man is so vain he will no doubt be overcome at the thought of being immortalised in wax,” Holmes remarked, unfolding The Times.
“But Kettering is a murderer thrice over!” I exclaimed, appalled. “He did away with his wife, their child and the youngster’s governess!”
“Horror sells, Watson. Why else would they publish so many of those penny-dreadfuls? The public has a macabre fascination with such things.”
“I have had quite enough of them lately to last me a lifetime,” I said with a shudder, recalling my time in the Chamber of Horrors. I could not, however, disagree with his pronouncement, and sighed. “It is a depressing thought all the same.”
“Then allow me to cheer you up, my dear fellow.” Holmes smiled around his pipe. “I have here - ”
A knock at the front door interrupted him, and barely two minutes later the sitting room was invaded not, as expected, by Mrs Hudson, but a small man with a waxed moustache, a pearl grey suit and immaculate spatterdashes. He tipped his hat to me as the boisterous white dog he held on a lead jumped upon the sofa and announced its presence with a high-pitched yapping.
“My apologies for disturbing your breakfast, Monsieur Holmes,” the little man said, and the dog barked again as if in agreement.
“What can I do for you, Monsieur Hergé?” Holmes enquired, eyeing the rather fluffy and ridiculously clipped animal with distaste as it attempted to lick his hand. “You would appear to have located your errant canine.”
“Mais oui,” Hergé replied, smiling beatifically. “I merely wished to thank you for directing me to Scotland Yard last week. They were most helpful in locating Sheba.”
“Really?” I cleared my throat tentatively. “Where was she in the end?”
“In a crate in Rotherhithe. She had been snatched by an international gang of dog smugglers. It happened that Inspector…Lestrade, is it? That the inspector had broken the smuggling ring and recovered the stolen animals. There among them was my Sheba – she was waiting for me at the police station.”
Holmes arched an eyebrow. “No doubt she had much to tell you of her experiences. Perhaps she could dictate them to Watson here – The Strand is always on the lookout for sensational literature.”
Hergé looked at him in consternation for several moments before the smile spread over his face once more. “Ah, bon. You are teasing me, monsieur. No matter. I just wish to thank you for directing me to the one man in London who knew Sheba’s whereabouts. I am most grateful to you, most grateful.” He caught hold of my friend’s hand just as Sheba was trying to run her rough pink tongue over it once more, and shook it enthusiastically. I am not sure which contact made Holmes look more uncomfortable, that of man or dog.
“You are quite welcome,” he said, trying to free his hand and giving me a pleading glance which I, amused, ignored.
“I will tell everyone that you are quite the magician, non? In thanks here are two free tickets to our next performance – Sheba will sing for you. What would be your choice of song?”
I sniggered at this, and was forced to turn it into a cough as Holmes fixed me with a glare and said, “Watson is the fount of knowledge when it comes to the popular classics. I am afraid my tastes extend merely to a little German violin music.”
Hergé looked at me expectantly, and I found myself having to quickly think of something. Sheba sat up, her paws on the back of the sofa and her tongue lolling from her mouth, indicating an imminent switch in her attentions from Holmes to me.
“I…oh. Er…The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery?” I suggested rather lamely trying and failing to think of a popular song appropriately connected with dogs. Now it was Holmes’s turn to snigger.
Hergé clapped his dainty hands together. “Ah, an excellent choice, and one of Sheba’s favourites. We will see you tonight, n’est ca pas?”
“Of course,” I said, trying to keep a straight face at the image of a poodle howling Marie Lloyd’s signature tune. Holmes made a strangled noise and buried his face in the newspaper.
I was showing Monsieur Hergé and Sheba to the front door when the little Frenchman slapped his forehead and pulled a crumpled envelope from his inside jacket pocket.
“I almost forgot. Inspector Lestrade, he send this note to Monsieur Holmes. Will you make sure he gets it?”
I promised that I would, and watched the bizarre couple make their way down the street before returning to the sitting room and sliding the envelope onto Holmes’s empty plate. This done, I took my own seat once more and reapplied myself to my breakfast, watching him from the corner of my eye. It was quite five minutes before he finished the criminal news, folded the paper and reached a hand for the letter opener. The envelope contained a single sheet, which he read in silence before throwing his head back with a great shout of laughter and pushing the note across the table to me.
It contained a few sparse lines in Lestrade’s familiar handwriting.
Mr Holmes, it read without preamble, this note is merely to warn you that if you send one more distressed pet owner in my direction I will give Doctor Watson the full particulars of the case involving the gondolier, the philatelist and the stuffed gnu to do with as he will.
“The gondolier, the philatelist and the snuffed gnu?” I repeated incredulously.
“It is an idle threat,” Holmes said, airily waving a hand. “That case would show him in an equally poor light.”
“Ah,” I responded, waving the note at him, “but now I know about it I may not stop asking for the particulars. You might have to tell me eventually, just to keep me quiet.”
He stopped smirking and stared at me. “You would not.”
“Possibly. What is my silence worth?”
In my other hand were the tickets for Hergé’s performance, and I waved them at him. His face became even paler than usual. “Watson, you would not dare…”
“Oh, come along, Holmes, it is surely the least you can do for the poor man after treating him in such a manner.”
“I would rather - ”
“Rather what, old fellow?” I enquired, raising an eyebrow of my own. “Rather tell me about the - ”
He sighed. “What time is the performance?”
I checked the tickets. “Half past seven at the old Imperial Theatre.”
“Very well.” Holmes got up from the table and drifted over to the mantelpiece, where he busied himself refilling his pipe from the Persian slipper. “I wonder,” he said after a few moments, “whether it is customary in these situations to throw flowers or dog biscuits?”
We looked at each other for a long moment, each daring the other to crack first. I admit that it was I who broke, collapsing into howls of laughter, with Holmes not far behind me.
Mrs Hudson chose that moment to enter the room with the announcement that a new client was below requesting an interview, and I am certain that she believed us both to be either ill or run mad, which only served to increase our mirth. Thankfully we managed to compose ourselves by the time the Honourable Audrey Normington entered the room to tell us of her concerns for her missing sister, but that is another tale entirely…
FIN
