that someone of your cunning would have seized upon. Am I not correct?”
The woman said nothing.
“Your silence will change nothing. An autopsy will reveal slivers of rock imbedded in Mr. Wolkner’s face. For he was rendered unconscious with a savage blow before being dispatched by a shotgun blast. The force of the pellets tearing through his face would have pushed the rock fragments deep into the bone and pulp. But any good pathologist with a knowledge of war wounds would have found them. My colleague, Dr. Watson, for example.”
“So Dr. Sedgecombe killed Mr. Wolkner?”
“Not at all, dear fellow. Nor did the other accomplice, the slow-witted gardener, Throbble. The murder was left to another.
“Yes, the doctor and Throbble were only pawns whom this evil woman lured into her honey trap and easily convinced to do away with her unsuspecting husband.
“She concocted a story for Throbble. How her husband had discovered that she loved the dimwit, and he was going to have the poor man dismissed from service, beaten, and jailed. There was only one way Throbble could save them. He would have to hit Wolkner with a rock and kill him, she said. It would look like a fall and then he, they, would be safe to continue their affair.
“Of course, she knew better. A face smashed by a rock would never be taken for the result of a fall. So she watched from the cabin as Throbble approached her husband and struck him down. After she sent the dimwit back to the manor, she went over and placed the shotgun’s barrel next to the unconscious man’s face and pulled the trigger.”
He stared down at the woman, a look of distaste spread across his face. “Is that how you killed your first two husbands?”
“Oh, with that twit Eustice, it was suicide all right. I made sure he had plenty of reason. It wasn’t difficult to arrange it so he would come upon me while I was in a compromising position with one of the plantation overseers. I knew he couldn’t handle it emotionally. It was risky, though. He might have killed me as well.” She gave a little laugh.
“As for Otto? I had him teach me everything he knew. He thought it was a lark to have his wife fence. The epée, the saber, the foil, I learned them all. And when I became as good a fencer as he was, I killed the swine.
“Yes, Mr. Holmes, it was easy to kill the old fool. While we were hunting one afternoon, I asked if I could use his shotgun instead of mine. So we switched weapons. And then just a push as he stepped over a log while going down a slope and I shot him with his own gun and took mine back. A tragic accident. Everyone agreed.” She gave a venom-filled laugh.
I was shocked by the bitterness of the laugh that came from such a pretty mouth. Even Holmes drew away from her, horror on his face. The woman laughed again. “Don’t be so surprised, Mr. Holmes. After all, Irene Adler played you for the utter fool.”
Rage suddenly flooded into Holmes’s face. I had never seen my colleague so angry. He reached out and grabbed the Black Widow’s braids and twisted them so roughly that the evil wench was forced to her knees.
He yanked on the braids, forcing her face upwards. “If you even utter as much as syllable of her name again, I swear I’ll garrote you with your own hair.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” With a sudden move, she hooked one of his legs with her walking stick and upended him. Springing to her feet, she twirled the stick as if was a baton. “Oh, did I forget to mention that Otto also taught me the art of single stick before he had his accident?”
At the mention of that ancient and noble art of canne de combat, which my colleague was also an aficionado of some repute, I was curious to see if the Black Widow’s prowess with cudgel could best him.
Holmes rolled over on his side several times until he reached the chair where he had rested his umbrella. He snatched it up and held it in front of his face just in time to parry what might have been a lethal blow from the gold-plated head of the walking stick. The Black Widow danced away, and then with a spin of her body she danced forward, thrusting her stick at his groin, only to have him parry it once more.
He had not yet been touched but clearly he was on the defensive in this combat. On her toes, the evil woman circled him and then once more thrust the stick toward his manhood. Holmes managed to parry again, only to have her twirl the stick like a baton and bring it down upon the center of the umbrella, which snapped like a twig.
“I have you now, Mr. Holmes. And I assure you, I will make your demise as humiliating and painful as possible.” She thrust once more at his groin, but Holmes managed to deflect most of the blow with a shard of the umbrella. But with a flick of her wrist, she sent the other end, the one with the gold-plated knob, crashing against his left knee. Holmes fell to the floor, trying to ward off further blows with his left arm while jabbing at her with a piece of the umbrella in his right hand.
It was no use. I could see he was tiring and it would be only a matter of time before the Black Widow delivered an incapacitating blow which surely would be followed by others until my colleague was no more.
“Stop!” I cried, taking my service revolver out of my pocket and pointing it at her. With a motion so fluid and so fast that I did not even see it until it was over, she knocked the gun out of my hand, dropped her stick, snatched the gun up and waved back and forth at Holmes and myself.
“One more murder or two, it matters not,” she laughed.
“You’ll never escape,” Holmes said.
“We’ll see.” She turned to the housekeeper. “Essie, fetch my walking stick and go harness the carriage.”
The old woman picked up the stick but did not move further. Finally she spoke. “I knew you were evil the day I first laid eyes on you. But to kill your husband, who was only good to you...?” Essie suddenly lashed out with the walking stick, knocking my pistol out of her evil mistress’s hand. As it clattered to the floor, the Black Widow dove for it. Holmes, just as quickly, rushed toward her and buried his head between her thighs and gripping her buttocks, upended her before she could the reach the weapon. She kept bucking her hips while clawing for the pistol as my colleague pushed his head further between her thighs. Suddenly, with a violent twist, she managed to break free and sprang to her feet.
Holmes was on his hands and knees, gasping for breath, but was now between the killer and the gun. She stood in front of him and laughed. “You think you are very clever, don’t you, trying the French trick on me. Did you really think you were the first man to try and subdue me in the Gallic manner?”
She dashed for the doors to the garden before Holmes could reach the pistol. She turned back and glared at us, her eyes dark pools of hate. “I’ll have my revenge, Mr. Sherlock Holmes; we’ll meet again.” Then she disappeared through the doors.
“Holmes, she’s getting away.”
“Let her go, Watson, I have what we need. The law will soon catch up to her.”
* * * *
Such was the sad case of Ethelbert Wolkner of Ogham Manor, Dorset. How Holmes used his prodigious mental talents of deductive reasoning to discern the plot by the dead man’s wife, the erstwhile baroness Portia von Schritter zu Adelberg and her true identity as the “Black Widow of Virginia,” and the complicity of her paramour, Dr. Sedgecombe, was revealed to me on the train ride back to London.
“The clues were all there, Watson, as
