Sherlock Holmes In Montague Street Volume 2 (23 page)

“The thing is plain,” Mr. Bowyer said. “The poor lad was writing home, and perhaps to other places, and Main, after his crime, burned the letters, because they would have stultified his own with the lying tale about small-pox.”

Holmes said nothing, but resumed his general search. He passed his hand rapidly over every inch of the surface of everything in the room. Then he entered the bedroom and began an inspection of the same sort there. There were two beds, one at each end of the room, and each inch of each piece of bed linen passed rapidly under his sharp eye. After the bedroom he betook himself to the little bathroom, and then to the scullery. Finally he went outside and examined every board of a close fence that stood a few feet from the sitting-room window, and the brick-paved path lying between.

When it was all over he returned to Mr. Bowyer. “Here is a strange thing,” he said. “The shot passed clean through Rewse's body, striking no bones, and meeting no solid resistance. It was a good-sized bullet, as Dr. O'Reilly testifies, and therefore must have had a large charge of powder behind it in the cartridge. After emerging from Rewse's back it
must
have struck something else in this confined place. Yet on nowhere - ceiling, floor, wall nor furniture, can I find the mark of a bullet nor the bullet itself.”

“The bullet itself Main might easily have got rid of.”

“Yes, but not the mark. Indeed, the bullet would scarcely be easy to get at if it had struck anything I have seen about here; it would have buried itself. Just look round now. Where could a bullet strike in this place without leaving its mark?”

Mr. Bowyer looked round. “Well, no,” he said, “nowhere. Unless the window was open and it went out that way.”

“Then it must have hit the fence or the brick paving between, and there is no sign of a bullet there,” Holmes replied. “Push the sash, as high as you please, the shot couldn't have passed
over
the fence without hitting the window first. As to the bedroom windows, that's impossible. Mr. Shanahan and his friends would not only have heard the shot, they would have seen it - which they didn't.”

“Then what's the meaning of it?”

“The meaning of it is simply this: either Rewse was shot somewhere else and his body brought here afterwards, or the article, whatever it was, that the bullet struck must have been taken away.”

“Yes, of course. It's just another piece of evidence destroyed by Main, that's all. Every step we go we see the diabolical completeness of his plans. But now every piece of evidence missing only tells the more against him. The body alone condemns him past all redemption.”

Holmes was gazing about the room thoughtfully. “I think we'll have Mrs. Hurley over here,” he said; “she should tell us if anything is missing. Constable, will you ask Mrs. Hurley to step over here?”

Mrs. Hurley came at once and was brought into the sitting room. “Just look about you, Mrs. Hurley,” Holmes said, “in this room and everywhere else, and tell me if anything is missing that you can remember was here on the morning of the day you last saw Mr. Rewse.”

She looked thoughtfully up and down the room. “Sure, sor,” she said, “'tis all there as ord'nary.” Her eyes rested on the mantelpiece andshe added at once, “Except the clock, indade.”

“Except the clock?”

“The clock ut is, sure. Ut stud on that same mantelpiece on that mornin' as ut always did.”

“What sort of clock was it?”

“Just a plain round wan wid a metal case - an American clock they said ut was. But ut kept nigh as good time as me own.”

“It
did
keep good time, you say?”

“Faith an' ut did, sor. Mine an' this ran together for weeks wid nivir a minute betune thim.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hurley, thank you; that will do,” Holmes exclaimed, with some excitement in his voice. He turned to Mr. Bowyer. “We must find that clock,” he said. “And there's the pistol; nothing has been seen of that. Come, help me search. Look for a loose board.”

“But he'll have taken them away with him probably.”

“The pistol perhaps - although that isn't likely. The clock, no. It's evidence, man, evidence!” Holmes darted outside and walked hurriedly round the cottage, looking this way and that about the country adjacent.

Presently he returned. “No,” he said, “I think it's more likely in the house.” He stood for a moment and thought. Then he made for the fireplace and flung the fender across the floor. All round the hearthstone an open crack extended. “See there!” he exclaimed as he pointed to it. He took the tongs, and with one leg levered the stone up till he could seize it in his fingers. Then he dragged it out and pushed it across the linoleum that covered the floor. In the space beneath lay a large revolver and a common American round nickel-plated clock. “See here!” he cried, “see here!” and he rose and placed the articles on the mantelpiece. The glass before the clock-face was smashed to atoms, and there was a gaping rent in the face itself. For a few seconds Holmes regarded it as it stood, and then he turned to Mr. Bowyer. “Mr. Bowyer,” he said, “we have done Mr. Stanley Main a sad injustice. Poor young Rewse committed suicide. There is proof undeniable,” and he pointed to the clock.

“Proof? How? Where? Nonsense, man. Pooh! Ridiculous! If Rewse committed suicide why should Main go to all that trouble and tell all those lies to prove that he died of small-pox? More even that that, what has he run away for?”

“I'll tell you, Mr. Bowyer, in a moment. But first as to this clock. Remember, Main set his watch by the Cullanin Town Hall clock, and Mrs. Hurley's clock agreed exactly. That we have proved ourselves to-day by my own watch. Mrs. Hurley's clock still agrees.
This
clock was always kept in time with Mrs. Hurley's. Main returned at two exactly. Look at the time by that clock - the time when the bullet crashed into and stopped it.”

The time was three minutes to one. Holmes took the clock, unscrewed the winder and quickly stripped off the back, exposing the works. “See,” he said, “the bullet is lodged firmly among the wheels, and has been torn into snags and strips by the impact. The wheels themselves are ruined altogether. The central axle which carries the hands is bent. See there! Neither hand will move in the slightest. That bullet struck the axle and fixed those hands immovably at the moment of the time when Algernon Rewse died. Look at the mainspring. It is less than half run out. Proof that the clock was going when the shot struck it. Main left Rewse alive and well at half-past nine. He did not return till two - when Rewse had been dead more than an hour.”

“But then, hang it all! How about the lies and the false certificate, and the bolting?”

“Let me tell you the whole tale, Mr. Bowyer, as I conjecture it to have been. Poor young Rewse was, as you told me, in a bad state of health - thoroughly run down, I think you said. You said something of his engagement and the death of the lady. This pointed clearly to a nervous - a mental upset. Very well. He broods, and so forth. He must go away and find change of scene and occupation. His intimate friend Main brings him here. The holiday has its good effect perhaps, at first, but after a while it gets monotonous, and brooding sets in again. I do not know whether or not you happen to know it, but it is a fact that four-fifths of all persons suffering from melancholia have suicidal tendencies. This may never have been suspected by Main, who otherwise might not have left him so long alone. At any rate he
is
left alone, and he takes the opportunity. He writes a note to Main and a long letter to his mother - an awful, heartbreaking letter, with a terrible picture of the mental agony wherein he was to die - perhaps with a tincture of religious mania in it, and prophesying merited hell for himself in the hereafter. This done, he simply stands up from the table, at which he has been writing, and with his back to the fireplace shoots himself. There he lies till Main returns an hour later. Main finds the door shut and nobody answers his knock. He goes round to the sitting-room window, looks through, and perhaps he sees the body. Anyway he pushes back the catch with his knife, opens the window and gets in, and
then
he sees. He is completely knocked out of time. The thing is terrible. What shall he - what can he do? Poor Rewse's mother and sister dote on him, and his mother is an invalid - heart disease. To let her see that awful letter would be to kill her. He burns the letter, also the note to himself. Then an idea strikes him. Even without the letter the news of her boy's suicide will probably kill the poor old lady. Can she be prevented hearing of it? Of his death she must know - that's inevitable. How as to the manner? Would it not be possible to concoct some kind lie? And then the opportunities of the situation occur to him. Nobody but himself knows of it. He is a medical man, fully qualified, and empowered to give certificates of death. More, there is an epidemic of small-pox in the neighborhood. What easier, with a little management, than to call the death one by small-pox? Nobody would be anxious to examine too closely the corpse of a small-pox patient. He decides that he will do it. He writes the letter to Mrs. Rewse announcing that her son has the disease, and he forbids Mrs. Hurley to come near the place for fear of infection. He cleans the floor - it is linoleum here, you see, and the stains were fresh - burns the clothes, cleans and stops the wound. At every turn his medical knowledge is of use. He puts the smashed clock and the pistol out of sight under the hearth. In a word he carries out the whole thing rather cleverly, and a terrible few days he must have passed. It never strikes him that he has dug a frightful pit for his own feet. You are suspicious, and you come across. In a perhaps rather peremptory manner you tell him how suspicious his conduct has been. And then a sense of his terrible position comes upon him like a thunderclap. He sees it all. He has deliberately of his own motion destroyed every evidence of the suicide. There is no evidence in the world that Rewse did not die a natural death, except the body, and that you are going to dig up. He sees now (you remind him of it in fact) that
he
is the one man alive who can profit by Rewse's death. And there is the shot body, and there is the false death certificate, and there are the lying letters, and the tales to the neighbors and everything. He has himself destroyed everything that proves suicide. All that remains points to a foul murder and to him as the murderer. Can you wonder at his complete breakdown and his flight? What else in the world could the poor fellow do?”

“Well, well - yes, yes,” Mr. Bowyer replied thoughtfully, “it seems very plausible of course. But still, look at probabilities, my dear sir, look at probabilities.”

“No, but look at
possibilities.
There is that clock. Get over it if you can. Was there ever a more insurmountable alibi? Could Main possibly be here shooting Rewse and half way between here and Cullanin at the same time? Remember, Mrs. Hurley saw him come back at two, and she had been watching for an hour, and could see more than half a mile up the road.”

“Well, yes, I suppose you're right. And what must we do now?”

“Bring Main back. I think we should advertise to begin with. Say, ‘Rewse is proved to have died over an hour before you came. All safe. Your evidence is wanted,' or something of that sort. And we must set the telegraph going. The police already looking for him, no doubt. Meanwhile I will look here for a clue myself.”

The advertisement was successful in two days. Indeed Main afterwards said that he was at the time, once the first terror was over, in doubt whether or not it would be best to go back and face the thing out, trusting to his innocence. He could not venture home for money, nor to his bank, for fear of the police. He chanced upon the advertisement as he searched the paper for news of the case, and that decided him. His explanation of the matter was precisely as Holmes had expected. His only thought till Mr. Bowyer first arrived at the cottage had been to smother the real facts and to spare the feelings of Mrs. Rewse and her daughter, and it was not till that gentleman put them so plainly before him that he in the least realized the dangers of his position. That his fears for Mrs. Rewse were only too well grounded was proved by events, for the poor old lady only survived her son by a month.

These events took place some little while ago, as may be gathered from the fact that Miss Rewse has now been Mrs. Stanley Main for many years.

The Affair of Mrs. Seton's Child

It has struck me that many of my readers may wonder that, although I have set down in detail a number of interesting cases wherein Holmes figured with success, I have scarcely as much as alluded to his failures. For failures he had, and of a fair number. More than once he has found his search met, perhaps at the beginning, perhaps after some little while, by an impenetrable wall of darkness through which no clue led. At other times he has lost time on a false trail while his quarry escaped. At others still the stupidity or inaccuracy of some person upon whom he has depended for information has set his plans to naught. The reason why none of these cases have been embodied in the present papers is simply this: that a problem with no answer, a puzzle with no explanation, an incident with no satisfactory end, as a rule lends itself but poorly to purposes of popular narrative, and it is often difficult to make understood and appreciated any degree of skill and acumen unless it produces a clear and intelligible result. That such results attended Holmes's efforts in an extraordinary degree those who have followed my narratives so far will need no assurance; but withal impossibilities still remain impossibilities, for Holmes as for the dullest creature alive. On some other occasion I may perhaps set out at length a case in which Sherlock Holmes achieved nothing more than unqualified failure; for the present I shall content myself with a case which, although it was completely cleared up in the end, yet for some while baffled Holmes because of some of the reasons I have alluded to.

On the ground floor of a building near where Holmes resided were the offices of Messrs. Streatley & Raikes, an old-fashioned firm of family solicitors. Messrs. Streatley & Raikes's junior clerk appeared in Holmes's rooms one morning with the statement, “Mr. Raikes sends his compliments and will be obliged if you can step downstairs for a few minutes? It's a client of ours - a lady - and she's in a great state about losing her baby or something. Mr. Raikes would bring her up, only she seems too ill to get up the stairs.”

This was the purport of the message, and in three minutes Holmes was in Streatley & Raikes's office.

“I thought the only useful thing possible would be to send for you, Mr. Holmes,” Mr. Raikes explained; “indeed, if my client had been better acquainted with London, no doubt she would have come to you direct. She is in a bad state in the inner office. Her name is Mrs. Seton; her husband is a recent client of ours. Quite young, and rather wealthy people, so far as I know. Made a fortune early, I believe, in South Africa, and came here to live. Their child - their only child, a little toddler of two years or thereabout - disappeared yesterday in a most mysterious way, and all efforts to find it seem to have failed as yet. The police have been set going everywhere, but there is no news as yet. Mrs. Seton seems to have passed a dreadful night, and could think of nothing better to do this morning than to come to us. She has her maid with her, and looks to be breaking down entirely. I believe she's lying on the sofa in my private room now. Will you see her? I think you might hear what she has to say, whether you take the case in hand or not; something may strike you, and in any case it will comfort her to get your opinion. I told her all about you, you know, and she clutched at the chance eagerly. Shall I see if we may go in?”

Mr. Raikes knocked at the door of his inner sanctum and waited; then he knocked again and set the door ajar. There was a quiet “Come in,” and pushing open the door the lawyer motioned Holmes to follow him.

On the sofa facing the door sat a lady, very pale, and exhibiting plain signs of grief and physical weariness. A heavy veil was thrown back over her bonnet, and her maid stood at her side holding a bottle of salts. As she saw Holmes she made as if to rise, but he stepped quickly forward and laid his hand on her shoulder.

“Pray don't disturb yourself, Mrs. Seton,” he said; “Mr. Raikes has told me something of your trouble, and perhaps when I know a little more I shall be able to offer you some advice. But remember that it will be very important for you to maintain your strength and spirits as much as possible.”

“This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you know,” Mr. Raikes here put in - “of whom I was speaking.” Mrs. Seton inclined her head, and with a very obvious effort began. “It is my child, you know, Mr. Holmes - my little boy Charley; we can't find him.”

“Mr. Raikes has told me so. When did you see the child last?”

“Yesterday morning. His nurse left him sitting on the floor in a room we call the small morning-room, where we sometimes allowed him to play when nurse was out, because the nursery was out of hearing, except from the bedrooms. I myself was in the large morning-room, and as he seemed to be very quiet. I went to look, and found he was not there.”

“You looked elsewhere, of course?”

“Yes, but he was nowhere in the house, and none of the servants had seen him. At first I supposed that his nurse had gone back to the small morning-room and taken him with her - I had sent her on an errand - but when she returned I found that was not the case.”

“Can he walk?”

“Oh, yes, he can walk quite well. But he could scarcely have come out from the room without my hearing him. The two rooms, the morning-room and the small sitting-room, are on opposite sides of the same passage.”

“Do the doors face each other?”

“No; the door of the small room is farther up the passage than the other. But in any case he was nowhere in the house.”

“But if he left the room he must have got out somehow. Is there no other door?”

“Yes, there is a French window, with the lower panels of wood, in the room; it gives on to a few steps leading down into the garden; but that was closed and bolted on the inside.”

“You found no trace whatever of him, I take it, on the whole premises?”

“Not a trace of any sort, nor had anybody about the place seen him.”

“Did you yourself actually see him in this room, or have you merely the nurse's word for it?”

“I saw her put him there. She left him playing with a box of toys. When I went to look for him the toys were there, scattered on the floor, but he had gone.” Mrs. Seton sank on the arms of her maid and her breast heaved.

“I'm sure,” Holmes said, “you'll keep your nerves as steady as you can, Mrs. Seton: much may depend on it. If you have nothing else to tell me now, I think I will come to your house at once, look at it, and question your servants myself. Meantime, what has been done?”

“The police have been notified everywhere, of course,” Mr. Raikes said, handing Holmes a printed bill, damp from the press;” and here is a bill containing a description of the child and offering a reward, which is being circulated now.”

Holmes glanced at the bill and nodded. “That is quite right,” he said, “so far as I can tell at present. But I must see the place. Do you feel strong enough to come home now, Mrs. Seton?”

Holmes's business-like decision and confidence of manner gave the lady fresh strength. “The brougham is here,” she said, “and we can drive home at once. We live at Cricklewood.”

A fine pair of horses stood before the brougham, though they still bore signs of hard work; and indeed they had been kept at their best pace all that morning. All the way to Cricklewood Holmes kept Mrs. Seton in conversation, never for a moment leaving her attention disengaged. The missing child, he learned, was the only one, and the family had only been in England for something less than a year. Mr. Seton had become possessed of real property in South Africa, had sold it in London, and had determined to settle here.

A little way past Shoot-up Mill the coachman swung his pair off to the left, and presently entering a gate, pulled up before a large, old fashioned house.

Here Holmes immediately began a complete examination of the premises. The possible exits from the grounds, he found, were four in number: the two wide front gates giving on to the carriage-drive, the kitchen and stable entrance, and a side gate in a fence - always locked, however. Inside the house, from the central hall, a passage to the right led to another wherein was the door of the small morning-room. This was a very ordinary room, fifteen feet square or so, lighted by the glass in the French window, the bottom panes of which, however, had been filled in with wood. The contents of a box of toys lay scattered on the floor, and the box itself lay near.

“Have these toys been moved,” Holmes asked, “since the child was missed?”

“No, we haven't allowed anything to be disturbed. The disappearance seemed so wholly unaccountable that we thought the police might wish to examine the place exactly as it was. They did not seem to think it necessary, however.”

Holmes knelt and examined the toys without disturbing them. They were of very good quality, and represented a farmyard, with horses, carts, ducks, geese and cows complete. One of the carts had had a string attached so that it might be pulled along the floor.

“Now,” Holmes said, rising, “you think, Mrs. Seton, that the child could not have toddled through the passage, and so into some other part of the house, without you hearing him?”

“Well,” Mrs. Seton answered with indecision, “I thought so at first, but I begin to doubt. Because he
must
have done so, I suppose.”

They went into the passage. The door of the large morning-room was four or five yards further toward the passage leading to the hall, and on the opposite side. “The floor in this passage,” Holmes observed, “is rather thickly carpeted. See here, I can walk on it at a good pace without noise.”

Mrs. Seton assented. “Of course,” she said, “if he got past here he might have got anywhere about the house, and so into the grounds. There is a veranda outside the drawing-room, and doors in various places.”

“Of course the grounds have been completely examined?”

“Oh, yes, every inch.”

“The weather has been very dry, unfortunately,” Holmes said, “and it would be useless for me to look for footprints on your hard gravel, especially of so small a child. Let us come back to the room. Is the French window fastened as you found it?”

“Yes; nothing has been changed.”

The French window was, as is usual, one of two casements joining in the centre and fastened by bolts top and bottom. “It is not your habit, I see,” Holmes observed, “to open both halves of the window.”

“No; one side is always fastened, the other we secure by the bottom bolt because the catch of the handle doesn't always act properly.”

“And you found that bolt fastened as I see it now?”

“Yes.”

Holmes lifted the bolt and opened the door. Four or five steps led parallel with the face of the wall to a sort of path which ran the whole length of the house on this side, and was only separated from a quiet public lane by a low fence and a thin hedge. Almost opposite a small, light gate stood in the fence, firmly padlocked.

“I see,” Holmes. remarked, “your house is placed close against one side of the grounds. Is that the side gate which you always keep locked?”

Mrs. Seton replied in the affirmative, and Holmes laid his hand on the gate in question. “Still,” he said, “if security is the object I should recommend hinges a little less rural in pattern; see here,” and he gave the gate a jerk upward, lifting the hinge-pins from their sockets and opening the gate from that side, the padlock acting as hinge. “Those hinges,” he added, “were meant for a heavier gate than that;” and he replaced the gate.

“Yes,” Mrs. Seton replied; “I am obliged to you; but that doesn't concern us now. The French window was bolted on the inside. Would you like to see the servants?” The servants were produced, and Holmes questioned each in turn, but not one would admit having seen anything of Master Charles Seton after he had been left in the small morning-room. A rather stupid groom fancied he had seen Master Charles on the side lawn, but then remembered that that must have been the day before. The cook, an uncommonly thin, sharp-featured woman for one of her trade, was especially positive that she had not seen him all that day. “And she would be sure to have remembered if she had seen him leaving the house” she said, “because she was the more particular since he was lost the last time.”

This was news to Holmes. “Lost the last time?” he asked; “why, what is this, Mrs. Seton? Was he lost once before?”

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Seton answered, “six or seven weeks ago. But that was quite different. He strayed out at the front gate, and was brought back from the police station in the evening.”

“But this may be most important,” Holmes said. “You should certainly have told me. Tell me now exactly what happened on this first occasion.”

“But it was really quite an ordinary sort of accident. He was left alone and got out through an open gate. Of course we were very anxious; but we had him back the same evening. Need we waste time in talking about that?”

“But it will be no waste of time, I assure you. What was it that happened, exactly?”

“Nurse was about to take him for a short walk just before lunch. On the front lawn he suddenly remembered a whip which had been left in the nursery, and insisted on taking it with him. She left him and went back for it, taking, however, some little time to find it. When she returned he was nowhere to be seen; but one of the gates was a couple of feet or more open - it had caught on a loose stone in swinging to - and no doubt he had wandered off that way. A lady found him some distance away, and, not knowing to whom he belonged, took him that evening to a police station, and as messages had been sent to the police stations, we had him back soon after he was left there.”

“Do you know who the lady was?”

“Her name was Mrs. Clark. She left her name and address at the police station, and of course I wrote to thank her. But there was some mistake in taking it down, I suppose, for the letter was returned marked ‘not known.' ”