585. Chapter 585

After In Plane Sight

Episode 7.21

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Elementary, my dear readers. I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above

On a dreary, foggy London evening, a hansom cab arrived at 221A Baker Street, disgorging a single passenger who pulled his mackinaw more tightly about him and strode to the door. The housekeeper, Mrs. Gates, let him in and took him inside. There he was ushered into the presence of Katherine Beckett, the first lady consulting detective and her husband, Dr. Richard Castle.

"Ah, Demming." She said. "I heard that you were recently…promoted?...to the post of Chief Bungler at Scotland Yard due to your total inability to solve a single case with my help. Well, out with it, man. What trivial problem needs my attention for the few seconds it'll take to solve your problems?"

Demming gulped. While Beckett was as beautiful as she was brilliant, it did bother his vanity, of which he had plenty, to have to keep coming to her to solve difficult cases. "There's a horrible creature that's been seen out on the moors by Baskerville Hall, making the most hellacious noise…"

"It's Joshua Davidson. He should never order pizza with double anchovies. It upsets his stomach something dreadful." Beckett interrupted coldly.

Demming scribbled that in his notebook. "Then there's the odd case of the Redheaded League. Someone has been paying redheads to sit and copy passages from a book. The Yard thinks it's suspicious and…."

"It is. My stepdaughter, Alexis, solved that one already. A rogue named Vaughn is using the premises of the redheaded Jabez Wilson to break into the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street and rob the country blind. Oh, yes! That Vaughn fellow also framed that French officer, Dreyfus for treason. He was sent to Devil's Island. The place is nearly impossible to escape from. It took me almost twenty minutes to do so."

"Had I been there with you, you would have been out in ten." Her husband said.

"I would have been out in three minutes and seventeen seconds if you had been with me, dearest. But you were off confirming my observations of the Mary Celeste mystery. You were splendid as usual." She turned to Demming. "Anything else, Demming?"

Demming managed to hold back the tears he felt forming from having this woman solve cases in seconds that he had puzzled over for days. "Just the mystery of the missing gold shipment from the RMS Queen-Empress…."

"The stewardess, one Jacinda, who has so many aliases that even she no longer remembers her surname. You'll find she is connected to the Ku Klux Klan in America."

Demming began crying. "Thank you." He said and ran for the door.

Beckett picked up her accordion and began to play a simple Mexican tune she had learned in the little town of Nuestra Senora de Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula. She sang along with herself.

"In the Morelos Mountains campesinos are planting their fields,

"Where the ghost of Zapata rides a horse that can still outrun the wheel,

Suddenly Mrs. Gates interrupted. "Excuse me, sir. But there's a lady here to see you."

Beckett, accustomed to Gates' odd syntax nodded. "Show her in."

In seconds a rather frumpy redhead stood before them, looking worriedly at Beckett. "I'm Meredith Dowdy, ma'am."

Beckett thought to put her at ease. "I can tell nothing about you other than the obvious. You are a former Irish nun who ran away to sea before taking your final vows, and arriving in Boston, you became a pugilist until you were arrested by an officer of the law of Italian descent and were given a one way ticket out of town to New York where you worked as a seamstress for a baseball team called the New York Highlanders. You then sold a food called a hot dog until you were convicted of making one end of the hot dog out of bread."

"It's hard to make both ends meat." The woman said defensively.

Beckett rolled her eyes. "You then escaped from jail and stowed away on the Staten Island Ferry, thinking it was a seagoing ship. You finally managed to get onto a cattle ship and landed at Southhampton. You walked to London from here." Beckett sniffed. "You haven't bathed since…Boston?"

The redheaded woman stood open mouthed. "How did you know all of that?"

"It's so simple, that I can't even be bothered to explain it to you." Beckett said, yawning with boredom. "Do you have a reason for coming to see me?"

She nodded. "Me dear grey haired mother lives here in London. When I went to see her, she said I had package in the mail what come for me two days before I arrived. These were in it." She held out a handful of emeralds and a small metallic device.

Beckett looked at the device. "An Irish harp. This is the regimental badge of the Connaught Rangers, the Devil's Own." She muttered.

"Me father was in the Connaughts, but he disappeared years ago, in 1881. He was last seen in Dublin, driving a stolen wagon full of Guinness Stout. The wagon was found in the River Liffey, but no trace of Dad was ever found."

Beckett examined the emeralds. "Do you recall where your father served?"

"Certainly. He sent us letters and I always looked at the postage stamps."

"Was your father stationed in India in 1880, particularly Bengal?" Beckett asked.

"Why, he was. How did you know?"

"From the size, color and cut of these emeralds, they are from the lost Crown of the Moghul Emperor Akbar, the Magnificent. The crown disappeared in 1880 while in the custody of a detachment of the Connaught Rangers. I suspect your father stole the emeralds."

Before she could say anymore, the lights went out and Beckett felt someone grab the emeralds from her hand. When they go the lights on again, the emeralds were gone."

"I've lost the emeralds." Screamed Meredith. "You've lost the emeralds. I want my emeralds back!"

"I shall find them and return them to you by tomorrow." Beckett said.

And with that, Meredith left.

"Dearest, why didn't you search her?" Rick asked.

"Because she doesn't have them."

"Who does then?"

"We shall see, but just to be sure, I intend to strip search you tonight."

"I suppose I'd better do the same to you, then." Rick said with a naughty gleam in his eye.

The next day, Beckett and Castle went to an address well known to them. Entering the shabby rooms without knocking, they found Meredith tied up in chair and gagged, and the emeralds out on a table.

"Who the devil…" A man said, walking into the room.

"Hello, Demming." Beckett said. "I told Meredith I'd find the emeralds and I did,"

"But how…?" Demming began.

"Did you think I couldn't see the family resemblance between you and your sister, Meredith? Your father did steal the emeralds, and then went on a drunken rampage in Dublin when he got back to Ireland. Being wanted for the theft of the Guinness wagon, he deserted from the Army and hid the emeralds in a stone dock on the River Liffey. But the river was at a historic low point in 1881 and when he came back, he couldn't recover the emeralds without diving equipment. This year, the river was also at a historic low point. Your father recovered the emeralds, but I suspect he was ill and dying so he sent them to his daughter, Meredith. She told you, of course."

Castle's forehead furrowed in a frown. "But dear Kate, why the charade? Why not just take the emeralds and live a life of ease from the sale of them?"

Beckett smiled. "Vanity. Before he disappeared, after killing Meredith here, of course, he wanted to get the better of me, just once. The famous Kate Beckett, losing the famous emeralds of Akbar, the Magnificent? I'm sure he imagined he'd have the last laugh at last."

Both Demming and Meredith were arrested and convicted. The emeralds were given to the British Museum, where they were housed in the Katherine Beckett wing along with all of the other priceless artifacts recovered by the remarkable Katherine Beckett, the first lady consulting detective.

Through an administrative mix up, instead of being sent to Wormwood Scrubbs Prison, Demming was sent to Devil's Island, known as the dry guillotine. It's said he's there yet.