‘You are too pessimistic,’ I returned. ‘The vast majority of our fellow citizens would, I am sure, agree upon most moral questions and that in itself is progress. The fact that your profession brings you into frequent contact with those who do not share the moral beliefs of the majority has surely influenced your opinion adversely.’
‘Perhaps you are right, Watson, and I am becoming a little cynical. Still, the true cynics are those – however small their number – who seek to take advantage of the moral behaviour of the majority to achieve their own selfish and immoral ends.’
It was a bright Saturday in the early spring of 1886, the sort of day that can feel as warm as summer when the sun is out, and as cold as winter when it is hidden by clouds. Our discussion was interrupted by a sharp peal at the front-door bell, and a moment later a young man in a blazer with a bright striped muffler wrapped round his neck was shown into the room, and introduced himself as Julian Ashby.
‘Excuse my bursting in upon you without prior warning,’ said he in a breathless voice. ‘You must think me very rude, but I have little time. My train only arrived about eight minutes ago, and I have run like the wind to get here!’
‘Not at all,’ said Holmes in an affable tone, pulling forward a chair for the young man. ‘Pray let us know how we can be of assistance. You have, I perceive, just arrived from somewhere up the Thames valley, but not, I think, from Oxford on this occasion, although you are of course an undergraduate there, where you spend a fair amount of time on the water. How are the daffodils by the river this year?’
Our visitor looked surprised. ‘You appear to know half of what I was going to tell you before I have even opened my mouth,’ said he.
‘It is not so amazing,’ said Holmes. ‘The only railway station from which you could reach here in less than ten minutes, however wind-like your progress, is the Great Western terminus at Paddington. All the trains arriving at Paddington have come down the Thames valley, but those from Oxford are run to a fairly regular timetable and do not reach London at the time your train must have arrived, hence you have come from elsewhere. Your blazer and muffler give you the cut of an undergraduate and that you spend some time on the river is suggested by the little enamel badge on your lapel, which displays the crossed oars of a college rowing club.’
‘Oh, I see!’ said Ashby. ‘How very observant of you! Although I suppose it is all fairly obvious!’
‘Everything is obvious when someone has explained it to you,’ returned Holmes with some asperity. ‘But, come! What has brought you to consult us on this bright Saturday morning?’
‘I am, as you say, a member of the rowing club at my college,’ replied Ashby after a moment. ‘The college is All Saints and the rowing club is Pegasus. I am also a member of several other clubs and societies. There are, of course, innumerable societies at Oxford, catering for every possible interest. One of these at All Saints is a rather stuffy organisation, the Independent Language Society, the members of which seem to place an inordinate amount of emphasis on punctuation and the minutiae of grammar, and which has thus come to be known to outsiders, somewhat disparagingly, as “The ABC Club”. Inspired by that, some of my fellow undergraduates at All Saints proposed setting up a new society, devoid of all pretensions to learning and scholarship, and devoted only to trivial enjoyment, to be known as “The XYZ Club”. I joined last autumn, largely because the other fellows on my stair did. Altogether there were about a dozen of us, and at first it was very democratic, but it has since come to be dominated by one particular member.’
‘Who is that?’
‘Charles Churchfield. His family are very wealthy, I understand.’
‘The bankers?’
‘Yes, that is it. As far as I can make out, his whole life has been one of hedonistic pleasure, so why he should wish to institutionalise it by creating the XYZ Club, I’m sure I don’t know. It was because of his domination of the group, I think, that several members left. There are now just five of us: Churchfield, myself, Stavros Xantopoulos, Archibald Loxton and Philip Warnock. I, too, had had enough of it and intended to resign some time ago, but was dissuaded from doing so by some of the others. The trouble is that although I certainly have no objections to enjoying myself, Churchfield’s idea of pleasure strikes me as fairly unpleasant at the best of times and downright malicious at others. Sometimes it just seems like old-fashioned debauchery, and at other times he seems to derive his greatest pleasure from being offensive to perfectly ordinary and unexceptionable people, and going out of his way to humiliate those less wealthy or less well-connected than himself. Just recently we had an elaborate supper at a restaurant. By the end of the evening, Churchfield had managed to insult all the waiters, break several dishes, two wine bottles and a chair, and then complained to the manager about the service we had received. The others were drunk and did not care, but I felt so ashamed I did not know where to look.’
‘I think we understand the situation,’ said Holmes. ‘But what has brought you to consult us on this matter? My only advice would be for you to relinquish all connection with this unsavoury group of people and their immature and unpleasant activities.’
‘I quite agree,’ I said. ‘Do not let them persuade you to do anything you do not wish to do. People of that sort always need weak cronies about them, without whom they are nothing. Plough your own furrow, not someone else’s, and you will gain the respect of all decent-minded people, and, more importantly, you will retain your own self-respect.’
‘Yes, of course, you are right,’ said our visitor. ‘I had already practically decided to do as you suggest. But the difficulty is that I am rather stuck with them for the next day or two and I fear there is something odd afoot, something that I don’t understand.’
‘Pray, let us have the details,’ said Holmes.
‘It was decided that we would spend the end of this week at Churchfield’s family home, Challington House, which we have visited once before and which lies beside the Thames, not far from Bourne End. Don’t ask me how this was decided, or by whom, as I wasn’t present when the others were discussing it. The house is apparently closed up at the moment, as Churchfield’s family are travelling on the Continent, and Churchfield said we could have an entertaining time there, ‘‘untrammelled by social conventions and artificial restrictions’’ as he put it. The others all travelled down there yesterday afternoon, but I pleaded a prior engagement of having to visit a cousin of mine at Maidenhead and said I would join them later. In fact, this ‘‘engagement’’ was not such a definite one as I pretended. It was true enough that I had been meaning to visit my cousin for some time, but my main reason for absenting myself from Churchfield’s house for a few hours was to avoid the excessive drinking and gambling that I knew would be a prominent feature of Friday afternoon.
‘I paid a pleasant visit to my cousin and then, the day being a breezy one, had an idea. He is a keen rower and sailor, as I am, and has a small sailing dinghy in which we have passed many a pleasant hour on the river. I asked if I might borrow the dinghy, my idea being that I would sail it upriver and arrive at Churchfield’s house by water. Just before I was about to set off, however, there was a heavy and prolonged shower of rain which set me back about an hour, and by the time I left the day had become grey and overcast.
‘I had been making reasonable progress for some time when there came another heavy rain shower and I was drenched. I didn’t mind that too much, but as the rain cleared, the wind dropped and I found myself becalmed in the middle of the river. I unshipped the oars and rowed for a while, but the current was running strongly against me and my progress was very slow. Presently the wind got up again, but it was very uneven and gusting from almost every quarter but the south, which, of course, is where I would have liked it to be. I was thus obliged to tack back and forth across the stream, and progress was again very slow. All this time, the light was fading. However bright the day may be at this time of the year, it never lasts very long. Soon the light had gone
altogether, when I was still some distance from Churchfield’s boathouse.
‘The moon was up, which was a help, but whenever it went behind a cloud, I couldn’t see a thing. Eventually, one brief burst of moonlight revealed that I was at last approaching the boathouse. It was fortunate that I knew where to find it, as it appeared now as little more than a vague, grey shape. I dropped the sail and took up the oars again. Next moment I ran slap-bang into a very large houseboat which was riding at anchor in midstream with no lights displayed. The collision almost threw me into the water and I very nearly lost my oars in the darkness. At least I was only rowing; had I been sailing I think the dinghy would probably have capsized. I was a bit shaken up by this, but recovered and rowed my way into the boathouse without further mishap. Of course, it was pitch black in there, and I couldn’t see a thing, but I knew there was a wooden walkway by the side wall and I felt my way along this with my hands, until, with a jolt, the dinghy hit something. I leaned over the prow and my hands touched what was clearly another small skiff. Returning my hands to the footway at the side, I located a mooring-ring, tied the boat up, picked up my bag and stepped out.
‘It was at that point that I felt I could do with a spot of light. I didn’t want to trip over something and break my neck, or fall into the water. I took out a box of matches and struck one. For half a second I was dazzled by the sudden light, then, with a shock so unexpected and alarming that I can scarcely describe it, I saw that there was someone else there in the boathouse, someone who was standing perfectly still and watching me. It was the face of a young lady, quite beautiful, staring rigidly at me in perfect silence. I think I cried out in surprise and took a step backwards. The match burnt my finger and I tossed it away as it went out. Then – I don’t quite know what happened – I think I struck my head on something hard behind me and can remember no more.
‘When I came to, I was lying on the lawn in the dark, with Churchfield leaning over me, holding a lantern, a look of concern on his face.
‘“Thank goodness!” said he as I stirred. “I thought you were never going to wake up!”
‘He turned and called out, and the others – Loxton, Xantopoulos and Warnock – appeared out of the darkness from somewhere behind him. They asked me what had happened to me and I said I didn’t know. ‘‘I must have banged my head on something,’’ I said.
‘“I was in the garden,” said Churchfield as he helped me to my feet, “when I heard a noise – a cry, I think – from the boathouse. I went in to have a look and found you laid out, unconscious, on the walkway. I carried you out here and went to tell the others. What on earth were you doing in there?”
‘“I came by sailing-boat,” I replied, gingerly feeling the back of my head, which was throbbing with pain.
‘“Yes, I could see that,” said Churchfield. “Your boat is in there.”
‘“Wait a moment,” I interrupted as the recent events came back to me. “There was someone else in there.”
‘“What!” cried Churchfield. “Burglars?”
‘I shook my head. “I don’t know who it was. I saw a girl – a young lady, I mean. She was just staring at me.”
‘Churchfield looked puzzled. “Did she say anything? No? Oh, wait a minute!” he cried all at once. “I think I know what it is.”
‘He led the way to the boathouse, and pushed open the back door. “My sister, Lavinia, had her portrait painted a few months ago, but when she saw the result, she hated it. She refused to have it in the house, and it ended up down here. That must be what you saw, Ashby.”
‘He held his lantern up to show me. Leaning against the wall on a broad work-bench at the back of the boathouse was a life-sized portrait of a handsome young lady. “There,” said he. “Isn’t that the face you saw?”
‘I frowned, trying to remember. “I suppose it must be,” I said, “although it doesn’t seem exactly the same.”
‘“But you saw it for only a moment,” said Churchfield. “It must be the same. I don’t blame you for being startled, Ashby. It’s enough to unnerve anyone, having that face staring at you out of the darkness!”
‘“Oh, I don’t know,” said Loxton, laughing. “I can think of worse faces to see! Come along, Ashby! Let’s get back to the house and I’ll mix you a restorative drink!”
‘Later that evening, when the others were playing cards, I went to get myself some bread and cheese from the kitchen, but mistakenly went through the wrong doorway and found myself in what appeared to be a dining-room. As I glanced about, holding up a lamp, my eye was drawn to a blank space on the wall at one end of the room. A large rectangular shape on the wallpaper was a slightly lighter shade than the rest of the wall, as if a picture that had hung there for some considerable time had recently been removed. I could not help wondering if the picture in question was the portrait of Churchfield’s sister, Lavinia.
‘I used my sore head as an excuse to retire early and, as I lay in bed, reconsidered the events of the evening. I had a strong suspicion that the picture that was now in the boathouse had only been placed there that evening, while I lay unconscious. There was something about the girl’s hair in the picture and the angle of her gaze that were not quite as I remembered them. Of course, I might have been mistaken, but I did not think I was. What it might mean, though, I could not imagine.
‘This morning I rose earlier than the others and told Churchfield, who was still in bed, that I had previously promised to visit my great-aunt today. She lives in Bayswater, just a stone’s throw from Paddington Station.
‘“Are you not coming with us to poke fun at the hopeless local football team?” asked Churchfield in a tone of disappointment. “You are becoming something of a part-time member of the XYZ Club, Ashby!”
‘I apologised for not telling him of my plans earlier, but insisted that I could not let my aged great-aunt down. “Don’t worry, Churchfield,” I said. “I shall be back this afternoon without fail.”
‘“If you get back before four,” he said, “don’t come here, but go directly to the football field. We’ll all be there.” With that, he closed his eyes, as if to go back to sleep. As I was leaving his bedroom, however, I happened to glance back and saw that his eyes were open and he was watching me. He closed his eyes quickly as I turned, but he had not been quite quick enough. This little incident left me with an unpleasant feeling, as I hurried off to the railway station.’
‘It is an entertaining story,’ said Holmes, when we had sat for some time in silence, ‘but I am not clear what it is you wish us to do.’
‘Possibly, nothing,’ replied Ashby. ‘It may be that my misgivings are groundless, and that today and tomorrow will pass off with nothing untoward occurring. But I cannot shake off the feeling that something odd is afoot, something of which I know nothing, and if so it will be a great support to me to know that I have related the matter to you. Would you be able to come, if I were to send for you?’
‘Certainly, if you considered the circumstances warranted our presence. Is there anything else you can think of that has increased your misgivings?’
‘It is difficult to put my finger on anything definite, but there seems something at Challington House that is not quite right. More than once yesterday evening, I had the impression that one or more of the others was watching me and, in the case of Churchfield, it was always with a calculating expression in his eyes.’
‘Very well,’ said Holmes, taking out his note-book. ‘If you could give me a little more detail about your fellow-members of the XYZ Club, it would be helpful.’
‘There’s not much I can tell you, I’m afraid. These men are friends of mine in college, but I don’t know a great deal about them outside of that. Loxton’s family come from Warwickshire, their claim to fame being that some forebear invented the Loxton Steam Regulator, which, I understand, had a great vogue in the early days of steam locomotion, although it has now been superseded. Xantopoulos is from Greece, as you would guess from his name, where his father apparently own
s a great number of olive-groves and fishing-boats. Warnock’s father is vicar of some rural parish near Ashbourne, in Derbyshire. Churchfield, as I mentioned earlier, is from the banking family of that name. Churchfield’s Bank is, I believe, one of the very oldest in the City of London.’
‘Thank you,’ said Holmes. ‘That will do for the moment. I shall see if I can discover anything today which might be relevant, but I shall do nothing more unless I hear from you. If you do wish us to come, a telegram any hour of the day or night will bring us. If the situation meets your worst fears, do not attempt to explain it in your telegram. Simply use a code-word.’
Ashby nodded. ‘I understand. In that case I shall use the name of my rowing-club – “Pegasus” – but hope I shall not have to do so. Now I shall leave the matter in your hands, Mr Holmes, and pay my belated respects to Great-Aunt Caroline!’
Holmes went out shortly after Ashby had left us and did not return until late in the afternoon. He had, I knew, numerous sources of information scattered about London and I looked forward to hearing the results of his enquiries. When he returned, however, he was unforthcoming. I asked him if he had learnt anything of significance, but he shook his head.
‘There are several possibilities,’ he replied, and no more than that would he say.
As I retired to my bed that night, I wondered when – if ever – we should hear from Julian Ashby again. I could not have imagined then quite how soon it would be.
I was awakened abruptly the following morning to find Holmes drawing back my bedroom curtains.
‘What is it?’ I asked in momentary confusion. ‘What is the time?’
‘Just before eight. We have had a message from young Ashby.’ He held up a telegram. ‘It’s “Pegasus”, Watson. Mrs Hudson was woken up earlier by the messenger and was none too pleased, but her temper is now soothed and she is making us a pot of coffee. You will have to hurry, though, old fellow. The train to Bourne End leaves Paddington at eight-forty.’
The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes Page 7