Chapter 2: The Investigation

Palmerston's brougham pulled into Hounslow Manor shortly before dusk. As we three stepped down to stretch after the jarring ride from London and the footmen unstrapped our bags from the rear of the carriage, I heard the door to the manor open and I turned to discover the most divinely radiant vision I have had the pleasure to experience.

Lady Palmerston – or Victoria, as I still think of her – stood at the top of the stone steps with the last dappled light of the day shining through the swaying treetops and playing over her lissom body. Just barely a woman, she stood no taller than five feet; her clear, milky skin and gentle, girlish curves might have held my attention for hours, if only I could drag my eyes from the glory of her hair. Almost perfectly ice-blonde, it hung in rapturous flowing locks that reached all the way down to the perfect round peach of her bottom where the tips played gaily in the gentle breeze.

Palmerston and Holmes had turned to mount the steps, and as I stumbled to catch up to them, I realised that not only had I been staring, but Victoria had been staring at me as well.

"Hello, my love," Palmerston said tenderly, kissing the cheek he was offered. "As you can plainly see, they came, as you said they would. This is Mr Sherlock Holmes," he gestured to the tall frame of my companion.

"Good evening Mr Holmes," she offered her hand coolly to Holmes, who dutifully bowed and touched his lips to it.

"I am at your service, Lady Palmerston," he said.

"And this must be the famous Dr Watson," she turned and blinded me with a smile; white, straight teeth framed in the soft, pink cupid's bow of her lips. She touched her tongue to them, making them shine. "I am an avid reader of your adventures, Dr Watson. The way you set the page alight with your writing ... I get most excited and feel as though I share a small measure the danger with you."

I touched my lips to her offered hand, so small and soft in my own, and felt a spark of lust in my heart, not wanting to let her go.

"But you're touch is so gentle, Dr Watson," she said softly. "One can scarcely believe that these same hands have held a gun to defend your life and that of your friend."

"You flatter me, Lady Palmerston," I said. "I am sure some credit for those adventures must go to Mr Holmes."

Palmerston looked awkwardly between me and his glowing bride.

"Well come inside gentlemen," he said. "Your rooms are ready and dinner will be served at seven."

Dinner was uneventful, although that was to be expected. Holmes and I were there on business and it is impolite to discuss business at the dinner table. When Victoria withdrew at the conclusion of serving, Palmerston invited us to share a cognac and asked the servants to leave, signalling that he was ready to return to the subject of our visit.

"Well, Mr Holmes," he began. "Do you have any observations of Victoria as they pertain to the case."

"Lord Palmerston," Holmes looked at him gravely over the top of his snifter. "I beg your forgiveness, but I have nothing to offer in connection with the case. I perceive many things: that the young lady is a keen horse-woman, that she suffered briefly as a child with polio but with no lasting symptoms, and that she is indeed, as you maintain, a virgin. Sadly, none of these things bear on the case.

"I further sense that her motivations in having us to your manor are truly in the service of love and a genuine desire to fulfil her role in the marital bed."

"So you agree that there is no deceit in the girl?"

"My Lord," Holmes said. "The girl is guileless. She is plainly ready and willing to fulfil her marital duties, but for reasons yet to be revealed she is unable to do so."

Palmerston collapsed into a chaise in despair, drained his cognac and combed his fingers through his hair in frustration.

"What am I to do?" he lamented. "Doctors, clerics, even the great Sherlock Holmes unable to help me. Tell me gentlemen; what am I to do now?"

We waited in awkward silence while the mantle clock ticked out half a minute and my thoughts played on the exquisite beauty of the young lady whose maidenhead we discussed; the maidenhead I would gladly claim for myself were she not already married.

"Holmes," I began cautiously. "Is it not true that when your methods fall short, then it is inevitably due to a lack of data rather than a fault in your logical process?"

"Of course, my dear Watson," he agreed. "It is in fact certain that we have not yet collected the key that will unlock this case, for if we had then there can be no doubt that the mystery would be laid bare before us. But I do not see how it helps to know that there is something we do not know."

"Forgive me Holmes, for I am but a student of your methods," I continued with a goal in mind. "But in such cases, is it not typical of your process to make further observations in search of that key?"

"But further observations of whom, Watson?" Holmes lamented, every bit as despondent as our host. "By its very nature, this production has but two players, both of whom have already taken the stage before us. There are no others upon whom the case depends."

"Further observations of 'what', Holmes, not 'whom'," I clarified. "Yes, we have met the players. Is it now not the time to observe the play itself?"

Palmerston took a sharp intake of breath. "Dr Watson, surely you cannot mean..." he met my eye fiercely. "You cannot intend an intrusion upon our bed chamber!"

"But that is precisely what I mean, Lord Palmerston," I retorted. "And before you object, remember that I am a physician with service in the army. I assure you that there is no part of the human anatomy, inside or out, that I have not seen before – and nothing that you have not already shown your own doctor."

"A doctor, yes. I see your point, Dr Watson, but..." his eyes shifted briefly to Holmes.

"Lord Palmerston, trust me when I say that you are not the first client with a delicate matter who has darkened the door of the great Sherlock Holmes. The only reason that his discretion is not legendary is precisely because he is the very soul of discretion; people are not even aware of the mere existence of the great and embarrassing secrets to which he is privy.

"My Lord, you might search the county and not find two more dispassionate or more discreet observers. And as Holmes correctly states, his methods are faultless; the collection of the right data, wherever it lies, will surely lead to the breakthrough you seek."

Palmerston appeared to consider the proposition most deeply and finally his eagerness for resolution shone through.

"Very well, gentlemen," Palmerston stood and began to take control. "I shall have Victoria's lady's-maid place two chairs in her chamber, after which she will collect you from here and show you hence. For propriety's sake, the room shall be darkened and lit only by the coals in the hearth. You shall be seated in the deepest shadows, and from the moment of Victoria's arrival, you shall remain silent. For all intents and purposes save for the collection of data, you shall not be there."

"That strikes me as an adequate arrangement," agreed Holmes.

"After ... the act," Palmerston took on a grave countenance. "Assuming a repetition of past failures, we shall retire silently to this room to discuss your observations."

"Agreed," we said in unison.

"And now gentlemen you must excuse me," Palmerston stood in preparation for departing. "I must explain to my beloved why I have invited our houseguests into her private chamber." He gave us a wry smile. "Wish me luck."

Luck indeed! My own pulse was racing with the possibilities of what I had just suggested. A dispassionate doctor I may be; but Sherlock Holmes excepted, no man could gaze upon the perfection of Lady Palmerston's beauty and remain unmoved. And now I should sit in a darkened room and regard that beauty in the loving embrace of a man; naked perhaps, in the firelight; to be taken as a man takes his wife. My heart pounded as I sat in companionable silence with Holmes while we waited for the lady's-maid.

I confess that I am no stranger to the female form. As is the practice of most servicemen stationed abroad, I admit to having visited a professional woman on occasion; and though I have never married, it is not for want of practice, as I have on made many loving overtures to ladies of my acquaintance; welcome ones, I hazard; it is just that none of them has taken root.

Holmes and I stood as a young woman not many years older than Victoria opened the door and bid us to follow her. She led us upstairs and stopped outside a closed chamber door.

"His Lordship will meet you inside," she said simply and then departed in silence.

I looked at Holmes, shrugged, and then quietly opened the door. It was as Palmerston had described: darkened save for the dim glow in the hearth and with two straight-backed dining chairs placed in the shadows on the opposite side of room. In the middle stood a four-poster bed trimmed with festoons of white silk at the top and laid with an intricately fashioned lace coverlet.

Closing the door behind us, we took our assigned station wordlessly and waited in silence for the couple. It was not two minutes before the door to the adjoining dressing-room opened to admit the sublime figure of Lady Palmerston, clad only in a shift of shimmering white silk that draped closely over the curve of her hips and completely exposed the terrain, if not the flesh, of the small, flawless swell of her breasts.

My heart skipped a beat when this vision of beauty approached not the bed, but us: the male intruders in a young virgin's bed chamber! With the hearth behind her, her face was invisible in the gloom, however I had the strongest intuition that she was looking directly into my eyes. She came within three feet of our position in the corner before rounding the foot of the bed and kneeling at its side to whisper a night-time prayer.

Our view of Lady Palmerston by the fire's dim light was assisted by the smooth, white fabric of her nightgown, and as she perched on her heels in prayer I realised with a surge of excitement that just below the tip of her long silver braid, I could see the cleft of her buttocks as an unbroken line in the silk; the only flaw in the perfectly smooth globes of her small, round bottom.

My manhood rose with the understanding of her near nakedness; to see her so close, so beautiful, and so obviously bereft of any undergarments; I grew hard with desire for her. As I entertained a vision of stripping that thin sheath of silk from her body and feasting my eyes and my carnal lust on the naked perfection that I knew lay underneath, Victoria stood from her own prayer and granted one of mine. With slow, deliberate movements, she unbuttoned the front of her gown and removed first one shoulder and then the other until it was held only by her cupped palms beneath her breasts. We were seated behind and to the side and saw her in partial profile. With the firelight playing across her naked shoulders, I felt sure that I saw the glint of a reflection in the corner of her eye as she perhaps checked that we were watching her, and then with a flick of her eyelash she released the gown and let it drop to the floor.

As I have said, the female body is no mystery to me, but it is also true that neither the whores whom I bedded in my army days nor the patients I have seen undressed in private medical practice were even remotely the equal of the goddess in human form standing before me.

Like many men, I am partial to a woman who has some 'meat on the bone, ' shall we say. The angular countenance of very slight women holds little interest; they remind me of the young street-waifs who can be seen in the poorer back-alleys of London. Victoria was every bit as slight as one of those urchins, but every part of her body was shaped into a delicate curve such as might be fashioned on a master potter's wheel.