Текст книги "The Mammoth Book of the Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes"
Автор книги: Denis O. Smith
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“I will leave tomorrow,” said Holmes after a moment, in a measured tone, “but on one condition only.”
“Which is?”
“That you grant me a brief audience at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon, before I depart.”
Colonel Reid looked surprised. “What possible good can that do?”
“I wish to speak to you about this matter in general, and about your son in particular.”
“It is utterly pointless, Mr Holmes. There is no more to be said on the matter. Whatever you have in mind will be a waste both of your time and mine.”
“Nevertheless, that is my condition.”
The old man sighed. “And you will then leave, return to London, and drop this matter altogether?”
“I will.”
“Very well, then. I shall expect you at three o’clock. Come along, Northcote!”
The secretary helped the old man to his feet, I opened the door for them, and the two made their way slowly down the stairs. As I was closing the door, I observed that Northcote’s stick was lying on the floor, half under the sofa upon which our visitors had been seated.
“Northcote has forgotten his stick,” said I, bending to pick it up, but Holmes put his hand on my arm.
“Leave it,” said he.
I looked round in surprise. “If I hurry I may catch them before they leave,” said I.
“He will return for it,” said Holmes. “He left it here deliberately. Indeed, I should not be surprised if– ”
He broke off as there came a knock at the door. I opened it and there stood Northcote.
“I have mislaid my stick,” said he. “Thank you, Dr Watson,” he continued as I handed it to him. “As a matter of fact, I left it here on purpose, as I wished to see you alone, gentlemen.” He put his hand inside his coat and withdrew a long white envelope. “Things have been very difficult lately, and my own position has become almost unbearable,” he continued. “I have written a letter to Captain Reid, in which – well, read it for yourselves and see. I should be obliged if you would pass it on to Reid, but as you are acting for him, it would probably be best if you read it yourselves, too, so please feel free to open it. Now I must go, or Colonel Reid will wonder where I have got to.”
The secretary gave a little bow, blinked his eyes at us from behind his spectacles, and was gone. Holmes looked after him for a moment with a thoughtful expression on his face, then slit open the envelope and extracted a foolscap sheet, which he held out for me to see. Upon it, I read the following:
Dear Reid,
You will, I hope, forgive my writing to you in this way, and not think me impertinent for making reference to matters that are none of my business. But the difficulties which have arisen at Oakbrook recently have made me painfully aware that my presence there represents an unfortunate, and certainly unlooked-for, intrusion into the privacy of your family.
You should know, as I am sure you already confidently believe, that your father, Colonel Reid, does not discuss family matters with me, nor in my presence, and I should certainly never encourage him to do so. Nevertheless, my situation is an uncomfortable, and at times difficult one. In the last few days I have come to feel that my presence may be a hindrance to the restitution of harmony within the family, as it may act as a bar to free and frank conversation between family members.
I therefore propose to give notice to Colonel Reid at the end of this week that I should wish to be relieved of my duties and end my employment with him, for the time being at least, as soon as he feels able to dispense with my services.
I trust that this proposal meets with your approval, and hope that if I do not see you before I leave, we may meet again in more propitious circumstances.
Yours sincerely,
W. N. Northcote
“I suppose it is well intentioned,” I remarked as I finished reading, “but the estrangement between father and son appears so complete at present that I doubt Northcote’s presence or absence will make much difference.”
My friend nodded his head. “In any case,” said he, “if things work out tomorrow as I hope, then such a gesture will not be necessary.”
“You have spoken of your plans for tomorrow to both Miss Blythe-Headley and Colonel Reid,” I remarked. “You appear confident but, to be frank, I cannot imagine what you intend to do.”
“I may need a dash of good fortune in the case of certain details – there are one or two matters I am hoping to finalize in the morning – but in the main I am confident that my analysis of the case is correct.”
“I should be pleased to hear it,” said I. “I confess that I am still very much in the dark. I seem to remember,” I added with a chuckle, “although it seems a very long time ago now, before the deluge of visitors, that you were about to give me your opinion as to the precise details of the death of Sarah Dickens. The inquest, as we know, reached a verdict of ‘accidental death’, but some think otherwise, and believe that the girl deliberately took her own life. What is you opinion, Holmes?”
“My opinion is that the inquest was very seriously at fault. The girl’s death was not an accident.”
“You agree, then, with those who believe the girl took her own life?”
“No.”
“What!”
“I agree with no one, Watson. They are all wrong. Sarah Dickens was murdered.”
“What!” I cried again. I confess that I was almost dumbfounded by my companion’s calm pronouncement. He stated as a fact a possibility that I had never, even in my wildest speculations, considered. “How can you know?” I cried after a moment.
“How can I know?” returned he. “How could I not know? Why, the matter is as plain as a pikestaff. The evidence admits of only one conclusion. No other is possible.”
“But the coroner’s court—”
“The problem at the coroner’s court, I take it, was that even before the inquest began each man there had determined in his own heart that Sarah Dickens had in fact taken her own life, but was equally determined that, for the sake of the girl’s memory and for the feelings of her family, that should not be recorded as the verdict of the court. This issue therefore dominated the thoughts of everyone there, including, from the reports I read, those of the coroner himself. Certain questions that were crying out to be asked were not even considered. No one wished to question the circumstances of the girl’s death too closely – so, at least, it seems to me – just in case the answers to the questions made a verdict of suicide unavoidable. In its well-intentioned desire to spare the feelings of the girl’s family, the court thus failed in its one bounden duty, that is, to uncover the truth. In this case, attempted kindness has led the court to inadvertently collude in the concealment of a most monstrous crime.”
“You are convinced of this?”
“I am. This case exemplifies very clearly why truth and justice must always precede mercy. The time for mercy is when the truth is established beyond all reasonable doubt, and justice has apportioned each man’s responsibility. To give premature consideration to mercy before truth and justice are satisfied will almost inevitably lead to the truth never being known, and justice never being satisfied. In this case the girl lies dead in the churchyard at the top of the road and her murderer walks free to this day. Every ounce of duty in my body compels me, Watson, to apply all my powers in this case; to bring justice, not only to John Reid, whose predicament, as you put it, is what has brought us into this case, but also to Sarah Dickens, whose foul murder cries out for justice!”
My companion thumped his fist into his hand as he spoke, and it was evident that he was very angry at what he saw as a serious miscarriage of justice. To one who had previously seen him only as the cool reasoner of Baker Street, and who had come to think of him as an isolated phenomenon of intellect, a brain without a heart, such a display of anger came as a surprise. I confess I found it difficult to believe that he alone could be right, and all others who had considered the matter wrong, but I kept my doubts to myself. In later years I was to learn, as I came to know my friend better and studied his methods more closely, that such a state of affairs, in which he was right and everyone else wrong, was almost commonplace.
“What will you do?” I asked.
“First,” said he, “I shall call a fresh inquest.”
“I am no expert on such matters,” said I, “but I do not believe that is possible.”
“In this room, old fellow,” said Holmes, shaking his head, “for I perceive that you harbour some doubts as to the truth of my conclusions. I shall be the coroner, and you, if you are agreeable, shall be the people of the parish, and act as both witness and jury.”
“Certainly.”
“Are you prepared to consider all the evidence fairly and impartially?”
“I am.”
“Very well. Then let the inquest begin into the death of Sarah Dickens, who was found drowned upon 10 September 1878. Where was her body discovered?”
“At the Willow Pool, in Jenkin’s Clump.”
“Why had she gone there?”
“To pick blackberries.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she herself gave that as her intention to her family that morning. Also, she took with her a basket in which to collect the blackberries.”
“Were there in fact any blackberries in the basket when it was found?”
“No.”
“Did you observe any brambles on or near the road between Topley Cross and Jenkin’s Clump?”
“I did. There are a great many.”
“How would you describe the berries they bore, making allowance for the fact that it is now October and the fruit is past its best?”
“They were luxuriant. Even now, although I understand the fruit is not worth picking after the end of September, the bushes are laden with berries.”
“And did you observe the brambles by the Willow Pool in Jenkin’s Clump?”
“I did.”
“How would you describe them in comparison to the others of which you have spoken?”
“They were relatively spindly and stunted. The fruit upon them was sparse, small and ill-formed.”
“Can you suggest any reason for this?”
“Possibly the lack of sunlight in the wood. Brambles grow best in open country, when they are not overhung by trees.”
“Do you think, Watson, that if you were a resident of Topley Cross you would choose to pick blackberries by the Willow Pool?”
“No.”
“Can you believe that Sarah Dickens herself chose to pick them there?”
“No.”
“In the light of that answer, would you like to reconsider your answer to the earlier question as to why Sarah Dickens went up to the Willow Pool on 10 September 1878? In particular, do you still believe that her chief or only purpose in going there was to pick blackberries?”
“No. She must have gone there for some other reason.”
“Thank you. The point about the fruit is a perfectly straightforward one, you see. It must have been obvious to many people, including, no doubt, the girl’s own mother, who had probably picked blackberries with her daughter in years gone by, but no one raised the matter. The reason they did not raise it, Watson, is that they feared to give support to the theory that the girl had deliberately taken her own life. The people of this parish, I am sure, are on the whole good and charitable people, but on this occasion their inclination to charity has led them astray. Now, if the girl did not go to Jenkin’s Clump to pick blackberries there, then she went for some other reason. Can we say what that other reason might have been?”
I considered the matter for some time before replying. “Not with any confidence,” I answered at length, “unless it was, as people have suspected, to take her own life.”
“Is there no other reason that someone might go to a quiet, secluded spot, but to commit suicide?” queried my friend in a sceptical tone.
“To enjoy the peace of the countryside,” I suggested, without any great conviction. “To reflect upon one’s life, perhaps.”
“Perhaps. But there are other, more commonplace reasons, which you seem determined to overlook. Do you recall the lunchtime of last Friday?”
“Certainly,” I replied in surprise.
“You paid a visit then to the Criterion Bar. Why was that?”
“I had arranged to meet someone there.”
“Precisely! Is it not at least possible, Watson, that Sarah Dickens went to the Willow Pool on the day of her death because she, too, had arranged to meet someone there?”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Thank you. Turning now from Sarah Dickens’s purpose in going to Jenkin’s Clump that day to the situation of her lifeless body when discovered, can you recall where it is said her body was found?”
“In the water, near the bank, on the far side from the footpath; that is, the northern bank, where the brambles grow thickly.”
“Very well. From which part of the bank, then, do you think she entered the water?”
“The north side, surely, close to where her body was found.”
“Why do you think she had gone round to that side of the pool?”
I hesitated. “It was thought that she had gone round to that side in order to pick blackberries,” I replied after a moment, “but that does not now appear so likely.”
“Quite so, especially when you consider that she had left her basket behind, on the south side of the pool. And nor had she returned to the north side to retrieve something she had dropped when picking blackberries earlier, for she had picked no blackberries earlier – the basket was empty. Nor can it be suggested with any plausibility that she took herself round to the north side of the water in order to stand and read her note there: it is a difficult, prickly spot, and there is barely space between the brambles and the water for anyone to stand. No one would choose to go there except to pick blackberries, and that, as we have seen, Sarah Dickens was not doing.”
“Perhaps,” I suggested, “her reason for going to the Willow Pool was to retrieve the note, which she realized she had dropped there on a previous visit. She may have seen it in the brambles from across the pool, left her basket by the footpath on the south side of the pool, and made her way round to the north side to try to reach the note.”
“Ingenious, Watson!” cried Holmes with a chuckle. “That is, indeed, on the face of it, a possibility. Let us continue the hypothesis a little longer, then. What do you suggest happened next?”
“The most likely sequence of events is this,” I began when I had considered the matter for a moment: “that she was stretching to try to reach the note, when she lost her balance, and perhaps her footing, too, and fell into the water. There she hit her head upon a submerged stone, as was suggested at the original inquest, lost consciousness and drowned.”
“Capital!” cried my friend, clapping his hands together.
“You think there is some truth in that suggestion, then?” I asked, pleased that my hypothesis appeared to meet with his approval.
“No. None whatever.”
“What!”
“I simply meant that you have presented your hypothesis cogently. It illustrates very clearly how convincing a hypothesis can be, even though quite fallacious, when it is derived from only a selection of the evidence, rather than from all of it.”
“Pray, let us hear your own view, then,” I retorted – irritated, I admit, by his tone of superiority.
“First of all,” he replied, “on your hypothesis – and that which is implicit in the verdict of the original inquest – the girl would not have drowned had she not lost consciousness, and she would not have lost consciousness had she not struck her head upon a stone.”
“That is so,” I concurred. “Indeed, that seems an obvious inference.”
“Well,” said he, “it might well have been an obvious inference had there been any stones in the water. But there are none there, Watson, as I ascertained this afternoon. I am, I take it, the first person who has troubled himself to verify the assumption.”
“Perhaps, then, she struck her head on the bottom of the pool,” I suggested, “or on the bank as she slipped into the water.”
“The bottom of the pool is soft and sandy, the bank grassy. Neither would have produced the bruise described by the local medical officer at the inquest.”
“What then?”
“Well, it is your theory, old fellow. How do you account for the girl’s drowning, if she did not knock herself unconscious?”
“We know from Mr Yarrow,” I replied after a moment, “that her hair was tangled in the brambles that drooped into the water. Perhaps, then, after she fell in she became hopelessly entangled, with her head under the water and drowned in that way.”
“The water is no more than three feet deep in that part of the pool,” returned Holmes. “She could easily have stood up, out of the water.”
“But if her hair was entangled?”
“Brambles are undoubtedly tough and troublesome,” said Holmes, “but not so tough that a normal adult cannot overcome then. Besides, if the girl had struggled to free herself from prickly brambles, her hands would have been covered with scratches, and her scalp and face, too; yet the medical officer’s report, read out at the inquest, specifically stated that there were no marks upon the body whatever, other than the bruise on the side of the head.”
“Very well,” said I. “I concede that you have disproved the view that Sarah Dickens’s death was the result of mischance. The verdict of the inquest was wrong. But what of the possibility that she took her own life?”
“How might she have done that, do you suppose?” asked Holmes.
“I cannot pretend to be an expert in such matters, but I suppose she would have walked into the water until she was out of her depth, swallowed water and thus drowned.”
“And then?”
“I am not sure what you mean. Presumably her body would have remained floating in the water until it was discovered.”
“If we accept this hypothesis for a moment,” said Holmes, “where, then, must the girl have entered the water?”
“There are only two places, realistically speaking,” I returned. “Most of the circumference of the pool is thickly overgrown with brambles, briars, nettles and so on, and can thus be discounted. The two possible places are the flat, open area on the south bank, where we sat on the fallen tree, and the narrow strip by the brambles on the north bank, which we have spoken of already. Of the two, the former is by far the more likely. If the girl did not go round to the north bank in order to pick blackberries, or to retrieve that piece of paper, then there was no reason for her to go round there at all. It would be much easier, as well as more direct, for her to enter the water from the south bank.”
“Very good. And do you recall the position of the body when found, according to the testimony of Mr Yarrow?”
“He said that it was a couple of feet from the bank on the north side, a little higher up the pool than the spot where one could pick blackberries.”
“Did you observe the current in the pool?”
“I did. I observed your experiments with the sticks this morning. It runs, of course, from west to east, the direction of the stream that feeds and drains the pool.”
“How do you suggest, then, that the body of Sarah Dickens was found on the other side of the pool, and upstream of the spot from where she must have entered the water?”
I considered the matter for a moment. The point had not, I confess, occurred to me before.
“Perhaps,” I suggested at length, “the girl had waded up the pool a little way before she drowned.”
“You say you observed my experiments with the sticks. Do you recall then, the fate of those sticks, large and small, which I threw into the centre of the pool?”
“Not specifically.”
“Then I shall remind you. The current is much stronger and swifter in the centre of the pool, as one would expect, and anything floating there is swiftly borne to the extreme east end of the pool, where the stream leaves it.”
“But if her hair had become entangled in the overhanging brambles?”
“It could only have become so entangled if her body had been carried by the current into that side of the pool. My experiments this morning established beyond doubt that the current in the pool has no tendency to do that.”
“Then she must, after all, have entered the water from the far side.”
“But the brambles there would have prevented her getting any higher up the pool unless she waded further out into the centre, and the current in the centre would then have carried her away from the bank, not towards it.”
“Then it is impossible!” said I.
“Thank you,” said Holmes in a magisterial tone. “This inquest has therefore determined that it is practically impossible that the girl’s death was a mere mischance. It has also determined that it is practically impossible that the girl took her own life. What, then, is your final verdict?”
“I do not know,” I responded with some hesitation. “Your analysis seems to make everything impossible!”
“Not quite everything,” said he. “I refer you once more to the axiom that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I believe you see the truth, Watson, but are reluctant to voice it.”
“I can still scarcely believe what you are suggesting,” said I.
“It is not a question of what I am suggesting,” returned my companion, “but of the verdict of this little inquest of ours. We have established beyond all reasonable doubt that the girl’s death was due neither to suicide nor to accident. What then remains?”
“Murder,” said I at last.
“Precisely, Watson. The verdict of the original inquest was ‘accidental death’; the opinion of many in the parish is clearly that the girl’s death was suicide; but they are all wrong. Sarah Dickens was murdered. She did not take her own life for love of Captain Reid, nor for love of anyone else, she did not accidentally lose her life while in a distracted state from love of Captain Reid or of anyone else; her life was cruelly taken from her in the most deliberate and cold-blooded manner. While all these people have been busying themselves in ostracizing poor Reid – who is, of course, perfectly innocent of all that he is charged with – the murderer of Sarah Dickens has been walking free, without a shadow of suspicion upon his name!”
“It is a terrible thought,” said I, “and one that almost defies belief! Can it really be so? Can your theory really explain satisfactorily all the difficulties you have raised with regard to the other views of the matter?”
“Certainly it can,” returned my friend in an assured tone. He refilled his pipe and put a match to it. “But you are right to ask the question, Watson. We shall make a detective of you yet, my dear fellow! One must, of course, always subject all theories to equally stringent analysis!”
“Well, then,” I continued, “what of the bruise to the side of the girl’s head, and the position of the body in the water, upstream of any place where she could have entered the pool?”
“Sarah Dickens was struck on the side of the head by the murderer,” responded Holmes, “probably with a heavy stick, as there are no loose stones in the vicinity of the Willow Pool. The blow would have rendered her unconscious. The murderer must then have held her head under the water until she drowned, then propelled her lifeless body across the pool with some force, so that it reached the other side, a little way up the pool, where her hair became entangled in the brambles.”
“Why should he push her body across the pool?”
“To delay its discovery. The footpath runs along the south bank of the pool, and an unobservant passer-by might well miss the body if it lay among the overhanging brambles by the north bank. So the murderer probably judged, anyway. He would wish to ensure that he was far from the scene before the body was discovered.”
“But who, then, can the murderer be?” I asked after a moment. “What a great misfortune it is that so much time has passed since Sarah Dickens’s death! There cannot possibly be any clue remaining now, after three years, which might guide us to her murderer!”
“On the contrary,” returned my friend. “There are a number of indications. However,” he continued, with a glance at the clock on the mantelpiece, “it is getting late, and as I must make an early start in the morning, I do not propose to stay up much longer. What I suggest,” he continued, giving a pull on the bell-rope, which hung beside the fireplace, “is that we order a hot toddy and smoke a last pipe together, and then I really must turn in.”
V: OAKBROOK HALL
I took my breakfast alone the following morning, for Sherlock Holmes had risen early and gone out before I was awake. He had been in a great hurry, so Mr Coleman informed me, and had declined the offer of breakfast.
“I understand you are leaving today, sir,” the landlord added after a moment in a slightly hesitant tone.
“I cannot be certain yet as to our plans,” I returned. “Did Mr Holmes inform you that we were leaving?”
The landlord shook his head. “No, sir. Admiral Blythe-Headley.”
“I see. Well, he may be right, but I cannot yet say for certain.”
“Admiral Blythe-Headley seemed very certain on the point,” muttered Coleman to himself with a shake of the head as he left the room.
The morning passed very slowly. I understood the account of the case that Holmes had given me the previous evening, but the account had not been complete and I did not know what it was that he intended to do that day. I thus had no idea how long it might be until he returned. In vain I attempted to distract myself with one of the vicar’s pamphlets on the prehistoric pathways of the South Downs, but the subject matter merely recalled to me the observations my friend had made on the subject of footpaths, at the Willow Pool, and brought my mind back once more to the strange business that had brought us down to this rural corner of England. I was aware from remarks Holmes had made that he had tasks to perform that morning which he regarded as very important, and it was thus extremely frustrating for me to be sitting idly in the White Hart all morning, with no idea of how his plans were proceeding. Eventually, impatient to be doing something, whatever it was, I took my hat and stick and set off to walk the length of the high street, up to the churchyard.
It was another balmy autumn day, and the street was bathed in sunlight, but there were few people about and the village seemed very quiet. As I passed the hardware shop, I paused to examine the quite amazing variety of merchandise which was displayed in piles and stacks on the pavement outside. The door of the shop stood open, and I had lingered there a moment, when all at once, to my very great surprise, I heard the voice of Sherlock Holmes from within. I could not catch what he was saying, but his clear, slightly strident tone was unmistakable. I glanced in through the doorway, but could see no one there. Evidently, Holmes was in some back room, but what he was doing there, I could not imagine. Puzzled, I continued my walk.
In the churchyard, I rambled for some time among the gravestones, until at length, in the remotest corner, I found myself by chance before the gravestone of Sarah Dickens. For a long while I stared at it, reading over and over the inscription it bore, as I fell into a brown study. Here rested the mortal remains of a young girl who had supposedly met her death as the result of a tragic accident. Many people no doubt believed that to be the case. But it was evident that many others were equally convinced that she had deliberately taken her own life. Holmes alone dissented from both these opinions. In his view, the girl had been murdered. As I stood there in silent contemplation in that quiet country churchyard, the dappled sunlight playing upon the old stones, this struck me afresh as so shocking and horrible that I was once more assailed with doubt. Surely, it was too strange and terrible to be believed? Was it really possible that my friend, clever and perceptive though I knew him to be, could be right in this matter and everyone else entirely wrong? In a state of some doubt and puzzlement, I retraced my steps down the road to the White Hart.
As I approached the wide front door of the inn, a dog cart drew up in front of it. Two men were on the box, one of whom immediately sprang down with an appearance of great haste. I recognized him at once as Captain Reid. The other man I had not seen before. He was tall and lithe, with a sallow complexion and a thin moustache. I quickened my pace, followed Reid in through the inn door and caught him up in the hall, where we shook hands. I explained that Holmes had been absent all morning, but might have returned, and led him upstairs to the residents’ sitting room. There, in a chair beside the fireplace, Holmes was sitting smoking his pipe, the blue smoke curling in lazy spirals above his head. He appeared deep in thought as we entered, but sprang to his feet in a moment.
“Captain Reid!” said he, shaking his client by the hand. “I am glad you have been able to return so promptly. I have much news to impart. And Watson! I was wondering where you had got to, old fellow!”
“Ranworth and I came as quickly as we could,” responded Reid. “We caught the very first train from Rye this morning, but the connections were a little difficult. I am keen to hear your news, Mr Holmes, for I understand from your wire that you have discovered something that sheds light on the troubles I have had.”
Much to my surprise, Holmes shook his head. “No,” said he, “I have not discovered something, Captain Reid; I have discovered everything. I am now in a position to offer an explanation of every little incident that has puzzled you and caused you distress, from the broken window at Oakbrook Hall shortly before you left for India, to the white feather you received last week.”
“I am amazed and thrilled to hear it,” returned Reid. “But there is one thing, at least, that you cannot know.”
“What is that, pray?”
“That another window has been broken at Oakbrook, in mysterious circumstances.”
“What!” cried Holmes in surprise. “When did this occur?”
“Last night, apparently. Ranworth and I went straight to Oakbrook from the railway station this morning, and have just come from there now. The window that was broken is in a small dressing room that adjoins my bedroom. It must have occurred very late in the night, for no one heard it. Northcote was up late, working in the upstairs study, but that is at the other side of the house, and he says he heard nothing. The sound would have been slight in any case, for the panes of glass in that window are small ones, and whoever was responsible had smeared treacle on the glass and covered it with scraps of cloth, to muffle the noise and hold the pane together when it broke.”
