Mr Herbert dined at our house in Paddington later that summer and attempted – with indifferent success, I must admit – to educate me in the finer subtleties of the game of chess. Later in the year, acting on Holmes’s diagnosis as to the cause of his bronchitis, he moved to Greenwich, where my wife and I visited him the following Easter, and he was pleased to show us the view from his upstairs windows, which commanded a splendid panorama of the river, with its ever-changing kaleidoscope of shipping. This, he said, would always remind him of what he described as the greatest adventure of his life.
As to Sherlock Holmes, when next I saw him he was absorbed in a fresh problem, the consequences of which, he confided to me, might well bring down every government on the Continent. The details of Mr Herbert’s strange adventures had quite passed from his mind and he appeared genuinely surprised when I suggested to him that the citizens of London owed him a debt of gratitude.
‘They may all sleep a little easier in their beds, as a result of your achievements in the Rowsley case,’ I remarked.
‘Perhaps you are right,’ he responded with little interest. ‘I really have no time to consider matters from such a perspective. My work itself is the sole focus of my attention and must be its own reward. Do you know that line of Chaucer’s, Watson: “The life so short, the craft so long to learn”? It is an observation that applies with peculiar accuracy to my own line of work. That being so, you will perhaps appreciate that it is the pursuit of professional mastery rather than ephemeral praise to which my energies must always be directed.’
The Adventure of the Brown Box
‘Is it really possible, do you suppose,’ said Sherlock Holmes to me one morning, as we took breakfast together, ‘that a healthy and robust man may be so stricken with terror that he drops down dead?’
‘Certainly it is,’ I responded. ‘There are numerous recorded instances. Of course, in many of them there were also other factors. If a man’s heart is weak or diseased, for instance, the likelihood of such an event is increased. And if the fear arises suddenly, and comes as a terrific shock, that also increases the likelihood. Do you have a specific case in mind?’
‘Indeed: that of Victor Furnival, of Wharncliffe Crescent, Norwood, who died suddenly on Tuesday. There was a brief mention of it in yesterday’s papers.’
‘I did not see the report,’ I said. ‘Was he in a situation of menace?’
‘On the contrary, when the blow fell, he was seated at the breakfast table, as you and I are now, no doubt drinking tea and contemplating a boiled egg.’
‘What, then? Why should the papers have reported that he died from fear?’
‘It is not the papers that mention it. They give the cause of death as heart failure and otherwise confine themselves to listing Mr Furnival’s accomplishments – he was, it seems, a local councillor, a magistrate and altogether a notable figure in the district; but I have this morning received a letter from the dead man’s niece, Miss Agnes Montague, who has been acting as his housekeeper for the past eighteen months. She informs me that Mr Furnival was seated at the breakfast table, opening his post, when he uttered what she describes as the most dreadful cry of terror she has ever heard. A moment later he was dead.’
‘Then the shock he received must have come in the morning post.’
‘That is, I agree, the logical inference. And something more than simply a steep bill from the gas company, to judge from the severity of it. Miss Montague proposes to consult me this morning, so perhaps we shall learn a little more then. If she is as punctual as the urgency of her note suggests,’ he added, glancing at his watch, ‘she will be here in precisely seventeen minutes, Watson; so if you would ring for the maid to clear away the relics of our breakfast, I should be obliged.’
It was a dull morning in September, chilly and damp, and as I stood by the window for a moment, surveying the ceaseless flow of traffic in Baker Street, I was struck by the banality of the scene. It was certainly difficult to imagine anyone dying of terror in modern London and I confess I rather doubted that Miss Montague’s problem would be of much interest to Holmes, or would possess any of those recherché features which so delighted his eccentric taste.
His client arrived at the appointed time. She was a slim, dark-haired young lady of about five and twenty, a little below the medium size. She had a soft West Country accent and a quiet reserve in her manner which I had learnt to associate with those raised far from the brash clamour of London.
‘I understand,’ said Holmes, when his visitor was seated in the chair by the fire, ‘that you wish to consult me in connection with the death of your uncle.’
‘That is correct.’
‘And yet I am not clear what it is you wish me to do. As I understand it, the cause of death was given as heart failure. In your letter you suggest that Mr Furnival’s heart failed him as a result of fear. Do you have any reason for this supposition?’
‘Mr Holmes, there can be no doubt. Mr Furnival cried out in the most terrible fear only moments before he died.’
‘I do not doubt your conviction on the point, madam; but is it not possible that his cry was one of pain, occasioned by the heart seizure?’
Miss Montague shook her head. ‘No, Mr Holmes,’ said she in a firm tone. ‘His cry was not one of pain, but of terror. There is a difference, which anyone hearing it would recognise at once. Even as I speak to you now, I can hear his last cry ringing in my ears and it chills my very bones.’
‘Very well,’ said Holmes. ‘Perhaps you could describe to us the circumstances and what you suppose might have caused such fear in your uncle.’ So saying, he leaned back in his chair, with his eyes closed and his fingertips together, the very picture of motionless concentration.
‘I will tell you what I can,’ began his visitor. ‘The difficulty is that I have known my uncle and his household for less than two years. I was born and raised at Swanage, in Dorset, where my parents ran a small hotel. Two years ago my father died and when the business was sold, I was obliged to look elsewhere to make my way in the world. Some three years previously, Mr Furnival had paid us a brief visit. He was a distant cousin of my father’s and thus not, strictly speaking, my uncle; but I have always addressed him as such. His visit to Swanage was the only previous occasion upon which we had met, for he lived in Norwood, in the suburbs of London, where he was, so I understood, an important and wealthy man. Now, despairing of finding a suitable occupation in Dorset, I wrote to him and asked if he would put me up while I sought employment in London. This he agreed to do and I came up to London about twenty months ago.
‘The household then included also Mr Furnival’s widowed sister, Mrs Eardley. Her husband had died some years previously, upon which, having no children, she had gone to live with her brother in the West Indies, where he was resident at the time, and had subsequently returned with him to England. The household was a very regular and orderly one, and I soon learnt that I should be required to fit in with its strict routines. Both brother and sister admired order and cleanliness above all else, and had a deep abhorrence of anything which fell short of this ideal. This inclination even extended to the garden of the property, for I subsequently learnt from a neighbour that when Mr Furnival moved into the house, he had most of the flowering plants cut back severely, so that little remains now but a strip of lawn and a row of small rose-bushes, and he had the climbing plants – wisteria and so on – completely removed from the walls of the house, which are now perfectly bare of any such ornament.
‘A few months after I took up residence in Norwood, Mr Furnival and his sister fell out. They were both very quarrelsome by nature and had often exchanged sharp words, but on this occasion the rift was more severe, and shortly afterwards Mrs Eardley moved out and went to live by herself in Peckham. Mr Furnival then asked me if I would act as housekeeper for him, which, having no other immediate prospects, I agreed to do. Since that time, Mrs Eardley has called round occasionally, but her visits have almost always concluded with the two
of them quarrelling.
‘It was not what I had intended when I came up to London,’ Miss Montague continued after a moment of reflection, ‘and I cannot pretend that the situation has been entirely congenial to me; for, even without his sister’s provocation, my uncle was a severe and ill-tempered man. Our conversations were perfunctory and brief and concerned only with household matters, for he had little interest in anything which was not of immediate personal relevance to him. Nor did he read much, except for newspapers, parliamentary reports and the like, which he would pore over for hours, in the hope, it seemed to me, of finding something with which he could quarrel. Save for this consuming passion for politics – Mr Furnival was of some celebrity locally in this field and we often had his political colleagues for dinner, when they would squabble noisily all evening – my uncle had only one interest, and that an unusual one. He had developed a taste for exotic carvings and other curios from the most remote corners of the world and had amassed quite a collection. No doubt his interest had begun during his time in the West Indies, where he spent over twenty years, but his collection had since grown to include objects from many different lands. One evening he showed me some of them.
‘“To you, this may be simply a carved piece of wood,” he said to me, as he held up some kind of oriental idol, which I must say struck me as perfectly hideous; “but the man that carved it has not simply shaped the wood, he has striven to impress part of his own soul into this object, in the hope of living on in it after his death and gaining revenge on those that have done him down in life. In many parts of the world, you know, such an object is regarded as definitely holding a part of the man that made it – for good or evil.” He laughed as he said this, in a hard, callous manner, which I found very unpleasant. “And this is an interesting little pot,” he continued, holding up a small earthenware vessel, the size of a small coffee cup, on the lid of which was a hideous figure with its tongue out. “It is a death pot, from Central America. You put something in it belonging to your enemy – a lock of his hair, say – then bury it in the ground. Within one month, so they say, your enemy will die.”
‘“How horrible!” I cried; but Mr Furnival only laughed.
‘“You are young and high-minded,” said he, in a bitter, cynical tone. “When you are older, you will learn that a man has many enemies in the world, and must use what means he has to destroy them and crush them beneath his feet.”
‘This conversation made a deep and disagreeable impression upon me. After it, I could not look upon my uncle’s collection of curios without a shudder and I began to long for the day when I might move away from this household.
‘I come now to the events of Tuesday morning,’ Miss Montague continued after a moment. ‘It was in every respect an ordinary morning. The maid is away at the moment, so I took in my uncle’s breakfast myself, then returned to the kitchen, leaving him opening the post, which had just been delivered.’
‘Of what did the post consist that morning?’ asked Holmes.
‘Two letters, which I could see were simply tradesmen’s bills, and a brown-paper parcel. I had been in the kitchen scarcely a minute, when I heard my uncle cry out – such a cry as I hope I shall never hear again in my life. I dropped what I was doing and hurried back to the dining-room, to find him sitting rigid with fear at the breakfast table, his eyes very wide and his mouth hanging open, as if in terror.
‘“What is it, Uncle?” I cried out, and hurried to his side; but even as I did so, he pitched forward on to the table and breathed his last.’
The young lady bit her lip and shuddered at the memory.
‘What was in the parcel?’ asked Holmes after a moment.
‘A dark-brown wooden box,’ replied Miss Montague, ‘such as I have never seen before. In shape it is like a cube, about five inches on each side, and very ornately carved all over, in a pattern of twining leaves and vines. The lid, which is attached by brass hinges and fastened with a little brass clasp at the front, is pierced in several places, forming a sort of open lattice-work within the carving. Here and there, among the carved leaves, are little pieces of crystal, in pairs, like horrid and sinister eyes, watching you from among the foliage.’ Miss Montague shuddered again and shut her eyes tightly.
‘Was there anything in the box?’ asked Holmes after a moment.
‘No,’ returned his visitor; ‘nothing whatever. When I re-entered the dining-room and found my uncle on the point of death, I saw at once that the lid of the box was open and I could see that the interior was covered with some kind of thick black lacquer, so dense in its blackness, that as one looked into it, it was like looking into the very depths of evil; but it was perfectly empty. Mr Holmes, there is something sinister and unpleasant about that box and I believe it was sent to my uncle deliberately to bring about his death. You may consider the suggestion ridiculous; but I am convinced it is the literal truth!’
I was surprised at Miss Montague’s somewhat fanciful description of the old box her uncle had received and expected Sherlock Holmes to display a certain impatience at her account. But when he spoke, it was in his usual placid tones.
‘My dear Miss Montague,’ said he; ‘you need not fear ridicule for your convictions. I have frequently observed that the intuitions of those most closely involved in a case are generally nearer to the truth than the impersonal reports of the police or newspapers. However, a few more facts would be helpful. Do you have any reasons, other than your own intuition, to believe that there is something sinister about the box your uncle received?’
I was expecting our visitor to admit that she had not and was therefore surprised when she nodded her head vigorously. ‘Indeed I do,’ cried she. ‘My uncle’s death is not the only misfortune which that evil box has caused. Yesterday – just one day after his death – it came very close to claiming a second victim!’
‘Really?’ said Holmes in surprise. ‘How very interesting!’
‘Yes, Mr Holmes! It was this second dreadful incident which led me to write to you yesterday afternoon. You have a reputation for divining the truth where others see only mystery. Mr Holmes, I pray that you can do so now and destroy this evil!’
‘Pray, let us have the facts of the second incident, then,’ said Holmes.
‘It was yesterday morning. I was making sure the house was in good order, for Mr Furnival’s sister is coming today, when there came a knock at the door. I opened it to find a nautical-looking man standing there, a tall, middle-aged man with a grizzled beard and a lined, weather-beaten face, clad in a black pea jacket and cap. He introduced himself as Captain Jex and said he was an old friend of Mr Furnival’s from the West Indies. He had been back in England only a few weeks and had been hoping to see his old friend, but had not known his address, when he had chanced upon the notice of his death in that morning’s paper. I conducted him upstairs, to see Mr Furnival’s body and pay his last respects, and as we left my uncle’s room, he appeared very much affected by the experience, so I offered him a cup of tea. He said that, while I made the tea, he would sit in silent contemplation in the room where my uncle had died, so I left him in the dining-room and went to put the kettle on.
‘It was scarcely five minutes later that I carried in a tray of tea things. Imagine my horror when I entered the room, to find my visitor lying stretched out, face down on the floor, unconscious. Quickly, I put down the tray and bent down to him.
‘“Captain Jex! Captain Jex!” I cried. As I did so, he stirred slightly, lifted his head from the floor and opened his eyes, but his features expressed confusion. ‘‘What has happened?’’ I asked.
‘“I don’t know,” said he, rubbing his eyes. “I can’t seem to remember. I must have come over faint, I suppose, but it’s never happened to me before.”
‘Even as he spoke, I saw that that horrid box was lying open on the floor beside him.
‘“The box!” I cried. “Did you open it?”
‘“Why, yes,” said he, looking in puzzlement from me to the box and
back again, as he stood up. “It happened to catch my eye and I picked it up to have a closer look at it. I opened the lid and then I can’t remember any more. Why do you ask?”
‘“My uncle had just opened that box when he had some kind of seizure and died,” I said.
‘“Good God!” cried Captain Jex in alarm. “Let’s get the thing closed straight away, then!” With a quick stoop, he picked up the box from the floor, clapped the lid shut and replaced it on the sideboard. You will understand, then, Mr Holmes, why I regard that box with such horror, Since that moment, I have not touched it. But if the box does have some evil power, it is but the means by which someone has attacked my uncle. Someone deliberately sent it to him, with malice in his heart. It is that person that is the source of the evil!’
‘Does your uncle have any enemies?’ asked Holmes.
Miss Montague shook her head. ‘He has many political opponents, but I doubt that any of them would do anything so wicked as this,’ said she. ‘I do recall an odd incident about three weeks ago, however,’ she added after a moment, ‘which I had quite forgotten until now. My uncle had returned home in a state of great anxiety. He asked me if there had been any callers at the house that day and I said that there had not.
‘“What is it, Uncle?” said I. “Why do you ask?”
The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes Page 22