Текст книги "The Mammoth Book of the Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes"

Автор книги: Denis O. Smith

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 36 страниц)

Holmes paused and took a sip from the glass at his elbow.

“You see, Watson, how the discovery of a single hair transformed my view of the case? One moment I was helping Lanner to trace a violent eccentric who appeared to have killed Lady Yelverton in hot-blooded anger, the next I saw unfolding before me a carefully constructed, cold-blooded plot to murder a defenceless old lady. But if ‘Quinlivan’ did not really exist, who was it that had played the part so convincingly for the past three months? I at once thought of Thorne, who had never been seen at the same time as ‘Quinlivan’, who would know of his aunt’s susceptibility to charitable callers and who stood to gain substantially from her death. The case seemed clear.

“Our enquiries at the railway station in Leicester quickly established that no one who had been on duty there on Friday morning could remember seeing a man matching Quinlivan’s description. This puzzled the police, who believed he had purchased a ticket there for Hull or Glasgow; but I took it as a further confirmation of my theory: Lady Yelverton’s murderer had removed his disguise and entered the station inconspicuously as himself, probably, I conjectured, to return to London. If this were so, it was possible he had deposited his disguise somewhere safe, to be collected later, when the hue and cry had died down. I gave Thorne’s description to the clerk who had been on duty at the left-luggage office on Friday, and was gratified to learn that a man exactly answering to it had deposited a leather bag there early in the morning.

“When we returned to London, I made discreet enquiries into the state of Thorne’s affairs, and was soon able to learn that he is very heavily in debt and that his creditors are pressing for their money. Yesterday I travelled down to Leicester again with a recent photograph of Thorne cut from one of the society papers. This was recognized by three separate railway officials who had been on duty the previous Friday: the left-luggage clerk, the ticket clerk and a porter who had been on the platform when the Sheffield to London Express had pulled in.

“I then explained the whole matter to the superintendent of the railway police there, and he ordered Thorne’s bag to be opened at once. Inside we found a white wig and a false beard, together with various items of clothing which Quinlivan had been wearing when last seen. My conjectures were thus precisely confirmed. The superintendent naturally wished to announce the discovery at once, but I managed to persuade him that the better course of action was to say nothing until we had the villain in our grasp. He and two of his men brought Thorne’s bag with them when they came up to town this afternoon with the left-luggage clerk, whose testimony provided us with the dramatic denouement that such a case demands. You know my taste in these things, Watson: the dramatic touch, the rapier-thrust of truth. Life without such moments would be flat indeed!”

“It really is a sensational success for you,” said I in unfeigned admiration. “Without your intervention, Holmes, the case would probably never have been solved! Tomorrow morning, and for weeks, your name will be blazoned in every newspaper in the land!”

“I very much hope not,” said he, a note of alarm in his voice. “It might make my life here somewhat unendurable. I have told Lanner that he is at liberty to take as much credit as he pleases from the case, but he is an honest man, so I suppose I may receive a brief mention at the foot of a column on the back page!”

I laughed as I rose to my feet and put on my coat. “I had best be off,” I said. “I have a number of things to do. No doubt you will be taking a well-earned rest over the next few days!”

“On the contrary,” said he, “the Yelverton case has whetted my appetite for something a little more challenging! When I have finished this whisky and soda, I must turn my attention at once to those papers by your chair. They contain details of some bizarre and threatening letters received recently by the Earl of Redcastle, which promise to furnish me with a very pretty little problem!”

The Adventure of

THE SMILING FACE

THE NOTEBOOKS AND JOURNALS in which I recorded so many of the cases of my friend Sherlock Holmes hold much that is strange and dramatic and very little that is merely commonplace. For Holmes was generally recognized not only as the final court of appeal in cases which others had given up as unsolvable, but also as the first port of call for those who were sorely troubled but who had little in the way of facts or evidence with which they might enlist the sympathy and aid of the authorities. Among these latter cases, those that spring readily to mind include the strange tale of the hidden garden of Balethorpe House and the surprising nature of what was discovered there, the enigma of the thirteen steps at Hardshaw Hall, and the mystery surrounding the eminent archaeologist, Professor Palfreyman, and the old cottage in Stagg’s Lane. It is this last case which I now propose to relate.

It was a cold and foggy day in November, 1884, when Miss Georgina Calloway called at our chambers in Baker Street, shortly after nine o’clock in the morning, as I was glancing over the papers. She was a very handsome young lady, no more than four and twenty at the outside, I judged, with delicate, intelligent features and curly, gingery hair. Holmes showed her to a chair by our blazing fire, where she removed her gloves and held her hands out to the flames appreciatively.

“It is a cold morning,” said she, with a shiver.

“At least you have not had far to come,” remarked Holmes.

“That is true,” she returned, then paused, a look of surprise on her face. “How do you know how far I have travelled?” she asked.

“You have brought with you on your instep a little of that distinctive North Kent clay,” replied Holmes. “It is quite unmistakable. You have come up from some rural corner of Beckenham, I should say.”

“You are quite right,” said she. “Our cottage lies in an old country lane, about twenty minutes’ walk from Beckenham railway station. It is a very remote spot, considering how close it is to London. I used to think it simply quaint and peaceful, but now . . .”

“Now?”

“Now I find the isolation disturbing. Recently, I have been anxious and on edge all the time, as if waiting for something dreadful to happen. I shall speak honestly to you, so you will understand, even if you think me absurd. Some days recently, when the daylight has faded and the fog is creeping through the woods, I have not simply been anxious, I have been terrified.”

Our visitor’s face as she spoke these words seemed to lose all colour and become so white that I thought she would faint, but she bit her lip and turned to the fire for warmth.

“It is clear you are very upset,” said Holmes in a sympathetic tone. “Watson, please be so good as to ring for a pot of tea. I think we could all do with a cup! Now,” he continued after a moment, addressing Miss Calloway once more, “pray let us have some details, so that we may understand your circumstances better. Have you always lived where you live now?”

“No, for less than a year.”

“Do you live alone there?”

“No, with a distant relative, Professor James Palfreyman.”

“Is that the archaeologist?”

“Yes, that is he. I act as his housekeeper, and also as his secretary and assistant.”

“Is there anyone else in the house?”

“Mrs Wheeler, our cook, who is a widow. When I was first there, Mrs Wheeler’s daughter, Beryl, acted as housemaid, but in the summer she ran off with an Italian waiter who was staying at Penge. This was no great loss from the point of view of the household, as she had had a somewhat cavalier attitude to her work. Now Mrs Wheeler and I share the household duties between us. It is not very onerous, as Professor Palfreyman is not a great one for dusting and cleaning, so I just do what strikes me as absolutely necessary and leave the rest.”

“That sounds agreeable enough,” remarked Holmes with a chuckle. “I take it that your residence there did not initially cause you any anxiety.”

“No,” replied his visitor. “When I was first there everything seemed fine.”

“In that case,” said Holmes, “tell us how you came to be in such a rural spot, and what has happened since.” As he spoke, he leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. For a moment, Miss Calloway appeared surprised, but then she began the following account.

“My connection with Beckenham, and with Professor Palfreyman, dates only from the time of my mother’s funeral,” she began. “My father had died some years previously, when I was away at boarding school in Sussex. My chief interest at school had been botany, at which I was said to show promise, and I was hopeful that I might be able to continue my studies in that field, either at London University or the Botanical Institute at Kew. Shortly before I was due to leave school, however, my mother’s health began to decline, and I was obliged to abandon my plans and return home to look after her. We lived quite comfortably in Peckham, for my father had left her fairly well provided for, but to be honest I found it a somewhat dull existence. Then, in early December last year, my mother’s health suddenly declined markedly, and inside a week she had died.

‘‘It had all happened so quickly and with so little warning that I was in a state of shock for several days. I was also thrown into turmoil by the immediate uncertainty of my financial situation. The income my mother and I were living on came mainly from an insurance policy my father had taken out many years previously. This provided for my mother while she was alive, but ceased absolutely upon her death. Apart from that income, we had very little, and I was flung into wild despair as to what I could possibly do. A quarter’s rent would shortly fall due, and I could not afford to pay it, let alone pay for the other necessities of life. This is the state I was in on the day of my mother’s funeral: great sadness at her departure and utter despair at my own future.

“It was a cold day in December, with a few flakes of snow blowing in the air. There had been hardly anyone at the funeral, save myself and an elderly neighbour, and I was leaving the cemetery alone, deep in thought, when, to my surprise, a dis tinguished-looking elderly man approached and spoke to me. I had seen him standing a little way off, but as it was no one I knew, I had paid him no attention. Now he introduced himself as Professor Palfreyman, a distant cousin of my mother’s. He had seen a notice of her funeral in the local paper, he said, and although she and he had not met in the last ten years, he had wished to pay his last respects. I must have cut a sorry picture, for after a few moments he offered to buy me lunch at a nearby hotel, an offer I accepted.

“Over lunch, he explained to me that although he and my mother had seen little of each other in the last thirty years, they had always stayed in touch, if only by one letter a year, as she was, so far as he was aware, his only relative, and he hers. We chatted a little about family matters, and I must say I found him a very pleasant and thoughtful gentleman. Of course, I had no desire to bore him with the details of my own miserable financial situation, but somehow it came out, at which he looked most concerned.

“‘If you wish, Miss Calloway,’ said he, ‘you can stay with me for a few weeks, until you get on your feet again.’

“Of course, I responded that I could not possibly impose myself upon him, but he insisted that it would be no trouble to put me up, and that it was the least he could do for my mother’s memory. In the end, common sense won the day over pride and politeness, and I moved into his house, Bluebell Cottage, in Stagg’s Lane, near Beckenham, two days before Christmas last year.

“It is an interesting old house, somewhat larger than the name ‘cottage’ would suggest, and full of odd corners, narrow corridors and crooked stairways. It has a small garden at the front, and a much larger one at the back, which extends some way into a dense wood, where Professor Palfreyman sometimes likes to walk, or sit and smoke his pipe. He had been Professor of Classical Archaeology at London University, and when he retired he had chosen Bluebell Cottage because of its remote, secluded situation, so that he could work on a number of books he had planned to write without being disturbed. Stagg’s Lane itself is little more than a cart track, a byway off another byway called Aylmer’s Lane.

“Remote and secluded it may generally have been, but it could also, on occasion, be very lively, for Professor Palfreyman’s former colleagues would sometimes call in to see him to discuss academic matters, and I must say I found their visits immensely stimulating. Among these visitors was Professor Ainscow, who had succeeded Professor Palfreyman to the chair of Classical Archaeology. He is a large, jovial man, whose habitually dishevelled appearance belies a keen intellect and ready sense of humour. Not all the visitors were quite so entertaining, however. Dr Webb, who had once been a rival of Professor Palfreyman’s for the chair, is somewhat irritable and short in manner, and tends to stick tightly to his subject and avoid all other matters. I have had the impression once or twice that despite the evident respect he has for Professor Palfreyman’s professional opinions, he still bears his old rival a grudge for having beaten him to the chair many years ago. Dr Webb was accompanied on one or two occasions by his son, Paul, who is, if anything, even less agreeable than his father. While Dr Webb was in discussion with Professor Palfreyman, his son appeared to think that my presence in the house was entirely for his benefit, both mentally and physically, and he was unpleasantly overfamiliar in his manner. Mercifully, I have seen nothing of him in the last few months.

“One Saturday in the spring, Professor Ainscow arrived for lunch with a young man by the name of Timothy Martin, whom he introduced with a chuckle as his ‘latest recruit’. Mr Martin, he explained, had come down from Oxford the previous summer, having studied Classics and the History of Art, and was now doing research for his thesis in the department of Classical Archaeology.”

There was some slight alteration in the tone of Miss Calloway’s voice as she mentioned this young man, and Holmes evidently noticed it, too, for he opened his eyes for a moment.

“This young man is more agreeable than the other one you mentioned?” said he.

“I suppose he is,” returned Miss Calloway, looking slightly flustered. “Anyway, to return to my account: the first few weeks at Bluebell Cottage seemed to pass very quickly, and all my efforts to obtain a suitable position of employment for myself came to nought, as did my attempts to resume my studies. By then, the little money I’d had left after I had sorted out my mother’s affairs had dwindled practically to nothing. I think that Professor Palfreyman had guessed this, for one evening after supper he asked me if I would be interested in acting as housekeeper for him for the time being, for which he would pay me a small salary. To be honest, I think that in his kindness he would willingly have given me a little money for doing nothing, and that the suggestion of acting as his housekeeper was made more as a sop to my pride than out of any real need. Anyway, after I had protested, as before, at his unwonted kindness, I accepted his proposal. I saw no other option for myself.

“The work was not difficult, and I had, as I mentioned, Mrs Wheeler and her daughter to help me. Soon, when I had become accustomed to the weekly routine, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. I flatter myself that the professor had realized by then that I was capable of somewhat more than simply ordering the groceries and parcelling up the laundry once a week, and when he asked if I would like to assist him in tidying some of his professional papers, I readily agreed. From that moment on – a month or two after I had first arrived at Bluebell Cottage – I became the professor’s unofficial assistant and secretary, and he increased my salary accordingly. This work I found very interesting, and I have learnt a lot about archaeology, about which I previously knew very little, and also about ancient Greece and Rome, which are the professor’s special field of expertise.

‘‘Sometimes, of an evening, we would sit by the fire with our cocoa and he would tell me the most fascinating anecdotes of his explorations in the wildest parts of the world, and of the great advance in knowledge which the discovery of an insignificant-looking piece of pottery might represent. I think he was pleased that I took such an interest in his work, and he began to show me some of his own collection of artefacts and works of art, which is extensive but utterly disorganized. Most of these things are from the Classical period, as you would expect, but there are also items dating from the Middle Ages and the period of the Renaissance. Professor Palfreyman was in Italy at the time of that terrible earthquake in Rienzi, about twenty years ago, when the church there was practically destroyed, and he played a major part in saving much of value from the rubble, and in subsequently excavating the ruins. As a mark of their gratitude, the regional authorities presented him with an enormous bundle of old documents and similar things, much of which he himself had rescued from the church crypt. Most of this material languishes still in a dusty old tin box, as Professor Palfreyman has never found the time to sort it all out. I suggested that I might make a start in trying to catalogue it for him, to which suggestion he readily agreed. You will appreciate, then, how, as the months passed, I was kept very busy.

“A few weeks after he had first visited Bluebell Cottage, Tim – Mr Martin – began to call more frequently, which also made my life there more interesting. Professor Ainscow and the other members of the department began to use Mr Martin as a willing messenger, to convey sundry books and documents between the university and Professor Palfreyman. He also called sometimes on his own initiative, and although I am not so conceited as to suppose that it was to see me that he called, rather than to consult Professor Palfreyman, it is certainly true that we saw a great deal of each other. During the university’s spring vacation, he came down to see us several times a week, and helped me get the professor’s papers and other documents into some kind of order. This period was one of the happiest of my life.

“But if most of my daily life at Bluebell Cottage was interesting and enjoyable, there were other aspects of it which were more than a little odd. Not long after I had first moved in there, I was passing the professor’s study one morning when I heard voices. Thinking that he must have a visitor whom I hadn’t seen arrive, I knocked on the door and put my head in, to enquire if they would like a pot of tea. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found that there was no one in the room but Professor Palfreyman.

“‘I thought I heard you speaking to someone,’ I said.

“He looked a little embarrassed. ‘I sometimes speak aloud when I am thinking about something,’ said he.

“Later, I asked Mrs Wheeler if she had ever heard the professor speaking to himself.

“‘Bless you, my dear!’ was her response. ‘The professor is always talking to himself. It’d be a rare day if he wasn’t!’

“‘But he sounded so agitated,’ I persisted, ‘as if he were quarrelling with someone.’

“‘Ah,’ said she. ‘But you see, Miss Calloway, when he is discussing things with himself, sometimes he agrees with himself, and sometimes he doesn’t.’

“This sounded nonsensical to me, but I did not pursue the matter further. After that, I frequently heard the professor speaking to himself, and occasionally calling out loudly, as if in a heated discussion. The most common phrases I heard him repeat were ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I don’t know’. The former varied in tone from a muttered, subdued utterance, as if he were accepting the blame for something, to a louder, more defiant statement, as if his apology were not quite genuine and he felt he was being accused of something that was not entirely his fault. The latter – ‘I don’t know’ – was generally spoken with great emphasis, as if to deny an accusation of knowledge upon which he perhaps should have acted but had not.”

“As the months passed, I became more accustomed to Professor Palfreyman’s eccentric ways, although I never really got used to his talking to himself. Sometimes at night, I would hear him talking to himself in his bedroom, and I was never quite sure whether he was asleep or awake. One night, however, I had confirmation that the professor’s troubled mind was not confined to the hours of wakefulness. It came at the end of what had been an odd day, which had begun with a most curious incident. It may be of no significance – I cannot judge – but it sometimes seems to me that a slight decline in Professor Palfreyman’s competence and health dates from about that time. He and I were seated together at breakfast, one morning in the spring, when the maid brought in the post, which had just been delivered. There were a couple of tradesmen’s accounts and one expensive-looking long envelope.

“‘I wonder what this can be?’ said the professor as he opened it and drew out the letter from within. Next moment, he let out a little cry of surprise. He held up the sheet and turned it over, and to my great surprise I saw that it was perfectly blank.

“I laughed. ‘Someone has made a rather silly mistake,’ I said.

“The professor did not reply, but looked again intently at the outside of the envelope.

“‘Do you recognize the handwriting?’ I asked, as I saw his face assume a thoughtful expression. He did not respond to my question, but after a moment asked me if I knew what the date was.

“I glanced at the calendar on the wall. ‘It is May the fourteenth,’ I said. At this an odd look came over his face, which contained something, I thought, of fear, and he sat without speaking for several minutes. ‘Perhaps there is a secret message on the sheet,’ I ventured at length in a jocular tone, as much to break the silence as because I thought it at all likely.

“‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

“‘I remember seeing in an Adventure Book for Girls which I read at school that spies and people of that sort send messages to each other in invisible ink.’ Afterwards, I regretted saying this, but what is done cannot be undone, and I wasn’t to know the effect it would have upon the professor. I had simply been trying to lighten the mood a little.

“‘How could we read it if it’s invisible?’ the professor asked.

“‘I understand that if you heat it the writing becomes visible,’ I said. I picked up the blank sheet, and, using the fire tongs from the coal scuttle, held it just in front of the blazing fire. At first nothing happened, then slowly something began to appear on the sheet. It wasn’t a message, however, but a drawing, a sketch of a human face. It was fairly crude, but I could see it was the face of a woman, with long hair and a broad smile. A strangled cry from behind me made me turn. The professor’s eyes were wide with fear.

“‘What do you know of this?’ he demanded sharply.

“‘Why, nothing,’ I cried in alarm. ‘What do you mean?’

“A moment later, the spark of anger in his eyes had vanished. He sunk his head in his hands and remained motionless for several minutes. I turned back to the fire, to see that the flames had caught the bottom edge of the paper, and it was beginning to burn. Quickly, I tossed it onto the fire, and watched as the flames consumed that strange smiling face. Then I turned once more as I heard the professor stand up from the table.

“‘Forgive me, Georgina, for speaking to you in that way,’ said he in a gentle tone. ‘I didn’t know what I was saying. Either someone has made a silly mistake, as you say, or someone is deliberately playing a trick upon me. In either case, let us say no more about it.’ He picked up the envelope from the table, tore it into several small pieces and threw them onto the fire, where they blazed up in an instant. He then began to speak to me about the architecture of ancient Sicily, which was something I had asked him about the previous day, and the incident of the letter was not mentioned again.

“That night was very dark and overcast. I had been fast asleep, when I was abruptly awakened by a terrible cry. Scarcely knowing what I was doing, I struck a match and lit the candle beside my bed. It was, as I saw from my bedside clock, about quarter to four. The next moment came that terrible cry again, a cry of utter terror, and I knew then for certain that it was Professor Palfreyman. His bedroom is next to mine and the walls are not particularly thick. It was evident that he was having some kind of awful nightmare, and I sat up in bed, unsure what to do. Then I heard him cry again, ‘No!’ Then, after a slight pause, ‘Don’t look at it! For God’s sake, don’t look at the face!’ This was followed by a series of bangs and crashes, and I wondered if the professor had fallen out of bed. I flung on my dressing gown, picked up my candle and went to see what had happened.

“My knock at his bedroom door brought no response, so I pushed the door open. Professor Palfreyman was sitting on the side of the bed in his night clothes, looking somewhat dazed, as if he were not fully awake. Before I could speak, he looked up and stared at my face with very great intensity, then emitted the most dreadful cry of fear that I have ever heard in my life, and put his hands up to cover his eyes.

“‘Professor!’ I cried, taking a step forward. ‘Professor! It is I, Georgina! There is nothing to fear!’ I lowered my candle, so that it was not casting my face in a strange light, which I thought might have frightened him in his half-awake state. As I did so, he looked up and lowered his hands.

“‘Georgina,’ he said. ‘Is it really you?’

“I assured him that it was, at which a look of indescribable relief came over him. ‘I heard you cry out,’ I said. ‘Did you fall out of bed?’

“‘I suppose I must have done,’ he replied. ‘I can’t really remember anything about it.’

“I could see that he was embarrassed and ashamed of the whole episode, so I did not ask him any more about it. ‘I think,’ I said, ‘that you must have had a nightmare.’

“He nodded his head, but insisted that, after a sip of water, he would be all right. I therefore returned to my own room, after lighting his candle from my own. Whether or not he managed to get back to sleep, I do not know, but I heard nothing further that night. I don’t know if Mrs Wheeler had heard much of this night-time commotion – she sleeps in the attic and is, besides, somewhat deaf – but her daughter, Beryl, certainly had. The next day I chanced to overhear her speaking to her mother about it and referring to the professor as ‘a madman’. I told her that she shouldn’t speak that way about Professor Palfreyman. ‘He has had rather a lot on his mind recently,’ I said, ‘and he simply had a bad nightmare, that is all. It could happen to anyone.’ She didn’t say much to this, but I think she resented being scolded by me, and it was not long after this that she ran off, as I mentioned earlier.

“A few days later, when I was taking some books back to the university library for Professor Palfreyman, I mentioned his nightmare to Mr Martin, who was in the library, working on his thesis. I didn’t want to appear a gossipmonger, but I felt the need to speak to an educated person about it. I think I had thought that Tim might laugh it off and thus cheer me, but his response was surprisingly grave.

“‘I am not sure it is entirely wise for you to stay with the old fellow any longer,’ said he, shaking his head.

“‘Why, whatever do you mean, Tim?’ I returned. ‘Professor Palfreyman has been very kind and considerate to me. I could not simply walk out and leave him just because he had a bad nightmare!’

“‘Of course, I understand that,’ said Mr Martin, ‘and I understand the gratitude you feel towards him. But,’ he added after a moment, ‘I still find it a little worrying, Georgina. You must know that when people start to lose their grip on reality it can be a very steep downward slope.’

“I was shocked that he should say such a thing and protested vigorously. ‘You sound just like our housemaid,’ I said, and told him what Beryl had said.

“He laughed. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Georgina,’ said he, ‘but I’m just speaking my mind. How would I feel, do you imagine, if I simply said something to soothe your nerves and told you that there was nothing to worry about, and then heard later that something terrible had happened and you were hurt? I should never forgive myself! It is always better to err on the side of caution, Georgina, even if it means offending someone.’

“‘You don’t know the professor at all if you think he might do anything which would hurt me!’ I retorted, annoyed by his response. ‘Why, the professor is the very last person on earth who would ever do anything of the sort! He is the kindest, gentlest man I have ever known, and is, I fear, much more likely to cause harm to himself than to another!’

“‘No doubt. But I am only thinking of you, Georgina. You cannot always be taking on other people’s problems; sometimes you have to think of yourself. And don’t forget that most people who have ended up being described as “mad” didn’t start off that way. Rather, they slipped by tiny, imperceptible steps away from normality. So, for all we know, may it be with Professor Palfreyman. He has been a very great scholar in his day and everyone has admired him. He has also been very kind to you. But that does not mean that there cannot ever be anything wrong with him. Come away from there, Georgina, if not for my sake, then for your own safety and peace of mind. Leave Bluebell Cottage.’