The Three Monarchs Read Free Page A

windows tarnished and in need of repair.
    â€˜It is strange, do you not think, Watson,’ Holmes remarked, ‘that our burglar should have considered this house worthy of his attention.’
    â€˜You took the very thought out of my mind. It would seem obvious to me that the occupants were not wealthy.’
    â€˜You have to remember that it was night,’ Jones muttered. He was leaning against the coach and his face was flushed as if the exertion of returning here had worn him out. ‘This is a well-to-do street in a fashionable suburb and it might well be that, with the cover of darkness, the house would have looked as enticing as its neighbours. Moreover, the burglar broke into numbers one and five as well as number six.’
    â€˜I believe you said that a Mrs Webster lives at number one. I think we shall begin with her.’
    â€˜Not with the Abernettys?’
    â€˜The pleasure of meeting the Abernettys will be all the greater for the anticipation.’
    It was, therefore, to the home of the elderly widow, Cordelia Webster, that we next repaired. She was a short, stout woman who greeted us effusively and never once seemed to stop moving from the moment she opened her door and led us into her cosy front room. It was clear that, since the death of her husband, she had lived a somewhat solitary life and that the break-in, and even the death a few doors away, had provided her with considerable excitement.
    â€˜I could not believe at first that anything was amiss,’ she explained. ‘For I heard nothing during the night and, when the police officer called on me the following day, I was sure he must be mistaken.’
    â€˜The door at the back had been broken open,’ Jones explained. ‘I found footprints in the back garden, identical to those I had already observed at the Abernettys.’
    â€˜I assumed at once that it was my jewellery he was after,’ Mrs Webster continued. ‘I have a strongbox in my bedroom. But nothing had been touched. It was only the little statue of Queen Victoria that was missing from its place on the pianoforte.’
    â€˜You would have been sorry to lose it, I am sure.’
    â€˜Indeed so, Mr Holmes. My husband and I travelled to St Paul’s on the day of the jubilee and watched the procession with Her Majesty as it arrived. What an example she is to us all! I have to say that I bear my own loss more easily knowing that we share the pain of widowhood.’
    â€˜Your husband died recently?’
    â€˜Last year. It was tuberculosis. But I must tell you that Mrs Abernetty could not have been kinder to me. In the days following the funeral, she was here constantly. I was beside myself – I’m sure you can imagine – and she looked after me. She cooked for me, she kept me company . . . nothing was too much trouble. But then she and her husband did exactly the same for old Mrs Briggs. I swear you would not find two more caring people in the world.’
    â€˜Mrs Briggs, I understand, was your erstwhile neighbour.’
    â€˜Indeed so. It was she who employed the Abernettys. Mrs Abernetty was her nurse and Mr Abernetty was her general servant. That was how the two of them came to live there. She and I were very close and many times she told me how grateful she was to them. Matilda Briggs was not wealthy. Her husband had been a solicitor, a prominent member of the Law Society. He died at the age of eighty-three or -four and left her quite on her own.’
    â€˜There were no children?’
    â€˜They had none of their own. There was a sister and she had a son but he was shot dead in Afghanistan. He was a soldier.’
    â€˜And how old was the nephew?’
    â€˜He could have been no more than twenty when he died. I never met him and poor Matilda would never speak of him without becoming quite upset. The boy was all the family that she had, but she could not even bring herself to have his photograph near her. At