The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

by Denis O. Smith

  ‘I shall be only too pleased to give it, if you will acquaint me with the facts.’

  ‘Well, we’ll call them facts for the moment, but what you will make of them, I don’t know. A few snatches of conversation here, a trivial incident there – even as I think of these things now, they strike me as amounting to nothing.’

  ‘You had best let me be the judge of that,’ said Holmes. ‘Pray proceed with your account.’

  ‘I have lived most of my life in Ceylon,’ began our visitor after a moment. ‘My father had been a successful coffee-planter there, but he lost everything when the crash came – when, in a single season, those infernal spots of mould destroyed both the island’s plantations and its prosperity – and, sadly, neither he nor my mother lived to see the success which was later achieved so rapidly with tea. I was fortunate, for I managed to get in on the new business early on and after a couple of successful seasons, with a planter by the name of Widdowson, I decided to strike out on my own. I went in with two other fellows of like mind, Bob Jarvis and Donald Hudson, and by working all the hours in the day, and sometimes, it seemed, more than that, we soon made our plantation one of the finest on the island.

  ‘It was just then, when I was successful – and proud of that success, I don’t mind admitting – and more wealthy than I could ever have imagined, that this cursed swamp-fever struck me down. It took poor Jarvis clean away in under a week, so, in a way, I suppose I must count myself fortunate; but I cannot pretend to feel it. For weeks my life was despaired of, until eventually the doctor gave it as his opinion that my only hope lay in quitting the island altogether until the fever was beaten. With great reluctance, then, I returned to England, leaving Hudson in charge of the plantation.

  ‘That was three years ago and things have since gone very well for me in most ways. The attacks of malaria had become so infrequent, until a couple of months ago, that I fondly believed myself fully cured and I have managed to set up a company to sell our own tea – a long-standing ambition of ours – which has been at least moderately successful. I have also during my stay here met and married Laetitia Wadham, the most delightful woman in all the world. We met at Willoughby Hall, near Gloucester, where she was acting as companion to Lady Craxton, and soon discovered that we had much in common. Her father had been for a time a district magistrate in Ceylon and she had thus spent some years there as a child. It was at Gloucester that we were married, a small, quiet affair, for she was almost as without kin as I was myself. She had no brothers or sisters, and her mother and father were both dead. After a brief holiday at Lyme Regis, we took a fine modern villa, known as Low Meadow, which lies beside the Thames between Staines and Laleham. It has splendid gardens, about sixty yards in length, which sweep down from the house almost to the river itself, from which they are separated by a narrow belt of trees. It is a place where flowers bloom and birds sing, and there is all a man could wish for to complete his domestic bliss. Once more my life seemed upon an even keel; once more it seemed that nothing could come to blight my happiness.’

  Our visitor paused and, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped his brow, which glistened with beads of perspiration.

  ‘Once more,’ he continued after a moment, his voice lower and softer than before, ‘once more I have been struck low. And if I had thought malaria to be unseen, insidious, intangible, how much more so is the present evil! Thank you, Dr Watson, a glass of water would be most welcome.

  ‘About seven weeks ago I was, quite suddenly and without warning, laid low with the fever. It came quite out of the blue, for I had not had an attack for nearly a year; but it was as if the disease had been storing its energies for one almighty battle, for I had never been so knocked up by it since I left Colombo and I felt quite at death’s door. There I lay, prostrate in my bed, while outside, the sun warmed the garden, and birds sang gaily and a beautiful English spring day took its course. How much worse did it make me feel, to know that just beyond my bedroom window was such peace and tranquillity! It was then that an odd thing happened, from which I now believe I can date the beginning of the trouble which has beset me.

  ‘It was, I believe, early in the afternoon. I had been lying for some time in a fevered sweat, slipping in and out of delirious dreams and barely ever fully conscious. From time to time the warm breeze through my window set the curtains fluttering and I was, I recall, observing this gentle movement when I gradually became aware of voices, speaking softly, in the garden below. I could not tell if they had at that moment begun, or if they had been speaking for some time whilst I had been asleep, but as I listened it seemed to me that one of the voices was that of my wife. Who her companion might be, I did not know, nor, in truth, did I much care. That low, hushed whisper might have been a friend or a stranger, a man or a woman, for all I could tell; for the chief part of my mind was concentrated upon the fiery struggle within my own body and I had little energy left over to eavesdrop upon the conversation of others. By and by, however, I heard a chinking sound, as of a spoon’s being stirred in a jug of lemonade, and a few snatches of the low conversation came to my ears.

  ‘“How is he?” came one voice.

  ‘“Bad, very bad,” replied the other. “The doctor has practically given him up.”

  ‘“How much longer must we endure this torment?” asked the first.

  ‘“A few weeks at the most, so I understand; then all our troubles will be at an end.”

  ‘“Good. You do not know how I have prayed for the day it will all be over, and you and I can know happiness once more.”

  ‘Whether I drifted back to sleep then, or whether the conversation ceased, I cannot tell, but I heard no more. That night, however, I was sleeping only fitfully, as a result of the fever, when I was rendered suddenly wide awake by a sharp noise outside my bedroom window. The room was in darkness and I was alone, for my wife slept in another room during the course of my illness. For a few moments I lay still and listened, but no further sound came to my ears. Then I heard it, a soft, rustling sound, as of the wind disturbing the shrubs in the garden below; but I could see from the stillness of my curtains that there was no wind blowing. I left my bed, crept to the window and drew the curtain quietly aside. The garden appeared at first to be of a uniform blackness, but gradually I was able to make out the dark shapes of the shrubs and trees. Even as I looked, one shadow seemed to detach itself from the larger shadow of a bush, and flit without a sound across the lawn and into the darkness beside an old stone shed. Almost petrified – for the fever had set my nerves jangling quite enough already, before this unwonted visitation – I watched for fully ten minutes, but saw nothing more.’

  ‘One moment,’ interrupted Holmes. ‘What was the size of this moving shadow?’

  ‘It seemed at the time somewhat smaller than a man, but it could, of course, have been someone crouching low. It was certainly not an animal I saw, if that is what you have in mind.’

  ‘Do you believe, then, that it was in fact a man?’

  ‘So I should judge,’ replied Pringle after a moment, ‘especially in the light of subsequent events. But, I must say, it was not a man I should care to meet. There was something so horribly skulking and furtive in the way he scuttled across the lawn.’

  ‘Very well. Pray continue with your most interesting narrative.’

  ‘The next day I was feeling a little better and could not bear the thought of being cooped up in my bedroom again. I dressed, therefore, and took breakfast with my wife downstairs. I described to her the dark apparition I had seen in the night-time, but she was inclined to dismiss it as simply the product of a fevered imagination. I did not agree with her, but it is true enough that my eyes have in the past been affected both by my illness and by the medicines I have been given to alleviate it, so I did not argue the point. In any case, I had myself devised an explanation which satisfied me at the time: there is a footpath which runs along the bank of the river, at the very foot of our garden, which the locals sometimes use; no doubt t
he figure I saw was some fellow the worse for drink, who had strayed from the path in the darkness and ended up by trampling through our shrubbery.

  ‘After breakfast I took my stick with the intention of walking to the riverside.’

  ‘Did you not mention to your wife the conversation you had overheard the previous afternoon?’ Holmes interrupted.

  ‘Not at that time, no. You will gain some notion of my state of mind if I tell you that the whole incident had quite passed out of my head. When I left the house that morning I had no other thought than that it would be pleasant to sit beside the river for a little while and watch the sunlight catching the ripples on the surface of the water.

  ‘The path to the river runs down the right-hand side of the garden, separated from the boundary fence for the first twenty or thirty yards of its length by a succession of low sheds and storage buildings, in various stages of dilapidation. My way therefore took me past the very spot where I had seen the figure vanish the night before. Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw that upon the whitewashed wall of the shed was the print of a human hand.’

  ‘What sort of print?’ said Holmes sharply, sitting forward in his chair with an expression of heightened interest upon his face.

  ‘It had been deliberately done, for it was quite clear and un-smudged. It was of a bright purple colour and showed the whole of the hand. I thought at first that it was a drawing, but saw when I got closer that it was a true print, for all the lines and finger-joints showed up clearly. I also saw then that there was something most peculiar and horrible about it: there, at one side, as one would expect, was the print of the thumb, but directly above the palm were not four fingers, but five.’

  ‘The right or the left hand?’ enquired Holmes.

  ‘The right.’

  ‘How high above the ground?’

  ‘I cannot say exactly. About five feet, I suppose.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Holmes, refilling his pipe. ‘Your case, Mr Pringle, begins to assume the colours of something truly recherché! I am most grateful that you have brought it to my attention and I will endeavour to return the favour by bringing a little light into your darkness. Pray continue!’

  ‘Over luncheon that day I mentioned to my wife the mark I had seen upon the wall. ‘‘There,’’ I said; ‘‘you see, there was someone in the garden last night.’’

  ‘“Perhaps,” said she, “although why anyone should do such a silly thing I cannot imagine.”

  ‘“Well, it has made a confounded mess of the wall, anyway. I shall have to have it repainted. Incidentally,” I added, as something stirred my memory, “did I hear you speaking to someone in the garden yesterday afternoon?”

  ‘“I do not believe so,” she answered after a moment, “unless it was the postman. But, wait: you are quite correct dear: a charming woman called, collecting for some good cause or other. She was very tired with the heat, so I offered her a glass of lemonade and we sat chatting for five or ten minutes. That must have been what you heard.”

  ‘“I suppose it must,” said I. I did not mention to my wife the words which I had thought had passed between them, for I was convinced now that they were entirely of my own invention. I had in the past suffered badly with nightmares when the fever was upon me and had always felt utterly foolish the next day – when my bad dream would strike me as simply absurd and trivial – so I had learnt to keep such things to myself.

  ‘My health picked up rapidly after a few days, thanks to the fine weather and the good clean air I was breathing, and life continued as before. Some time later – about the twenty-seventh of May, if my memory serves me correctly – I returned home, after a week of travelling in the north upon business, to find my wife in high spirits.

  ‘“I hope you do not mind, Mark,” said she, “but I have taken the initiative while you were away and employed a gardener.”

  ‘“Not at all,” I replied. “That is excellent news.” We had previously relied on the intermittent services of an old fellow from the nearby village, but he was really past coping with so large a garden as ours now; for although always pretty and full of colour, it has a tendency to run riot if left to its own devices, and for all my wife’s enthusiasm and endeavour it had been deteriorating for some time. “Is he a local man?” I asked.

  ‘“No,” said she. “He is from Hampshire, a man by the name of Dobson. He had placed an advertisement in the gardening journal and I thought such enterprise should be rewarded. His testimonials were first class and I am sure he will make an excellent gardener. His wife, too, seemed a splendid woman and she will be able to help Mary about the house. I thought they could have the old cottage near the river, and I have arranged for a firm of builders from Staines to come tomorrow to set it to rights for them.”

  ‘“You have been busy!” I cried. “And I agree entirely! It would do the old cottage good to have someone living in it again. I was thinking only last week what a pity it was, to have had it standing empty all this time.”

  ‘The cottage is an old, low building, which stands just beyond the belt of trees which separates the garden from the river, and has stood upon that spot since long before ever our own house was built. It had become dilapidated over the years, but within a few days, the men my wife had hired had brightened it up considerably: the broken slates upon the roof had been replaced, the guttering mended and the whole of the outside given a fresh, bright coat of white paint. All was finished by the end of the week, when the gardener and his wife arrived to take up residence.

  ‘They struck me as a pleasant enough couple, although oddly matched, I thought, in both appearance and manner. The husband, John Dobson, a thin, angular sort of fellow, with hair as black as his face was white, was taciturn almost to the point of rudeness and had the air about him of one who has suffered much. His wife, Helen, on the other hand, was a small, pink-cheeked and dainty woman, with hair the colour of sand, and quite the most chirrupy and voluble person I had ever met. Still, it was not for their conversation or appearance that they were employed and, in truth, I took little notice of them, leaving it to my wife to issue instructions as to the work they were to do.

  ‘A few days later, rising early, as is my habit, I discovered that I had misplaced my cigar-case. Recalling that I had had it with me the previous evening, when I had sat for a while on the bench by the river, I set out to see if I had left it there. The garden seemed bright and fresh in the morning air, and I smiled as I approached the gardener’s little white-washed cottage, nestled so prettily beneath the towering horse-chestnuts, all adorned as they were with their great pink and white candles.

  ‘“What a splendid little house it is!” I said aloud to the morning air. But no sooner were the words past my lips than I saw something which quite stopped me in my tracks and struck the smile from my face. For there, in the very centre of the clean white wall of the cottage, was the print of a human hand. It was in every respect the same as the one I had seen four weeks earlier upon the outhouse wall. It was the print of a right hand, a livid purple in colour, and again with that grotesque and horrible extra finger.’

  ‘It had not been there the previous evening?’ interrupted Holmes.

  ‘No. If it had been, I should have seen it.’

  ‘You are certain upon the point?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Very well. Pray continue.’

  ‘Anger rose within me that someone had again crept uninvited upon my property in the night and had besmirched this freshly painted wall. A pail stood nearby with a little water in it and next to it was a piece of rag with which someone had evidently been cleaning the cottage windows. In my fury I plunged the rag into the water, with the intention of expunging the odious mark from the wall. To my surprise and disgust, the rag emerged from the water as purple as the mark it was intended to erase. I tipped the water from the pail and looked with horror at the violet stream which ran out and splashed about my boots. I felt quite unable to comprehend the meaning of this sinister transf
ormation, but I did not loiter to ponder the matter. I quickly located my cigar-case at the nearby bench and hurried in a daze of bewilderment to the house. Just once I glanced back at the cottage to reassure myself that that evil-looking mark was really there upon its wall, and that I had not imagined the whole episode, and as I did so it seemed to me that a curtain quivered at one of the windows, as if someone had hurriedly closed it as I turned.’

  ‘The date of this incident?’ enquired Holmes.

  Pringle took a small diary from his pocket and leafed through it for a moment in silence. ‘I believe it must have been the third of June,’ he said at last; ‘about three weeks ago.’

  Holmes scribbled a note upon a scrap of paper, as his client continued his account.

  ‘The days passed, the wall was cleaned and the incident forgotten; but I began to have serious misgivings about the new gardener. I had soon learnt to tolerate his dark, silent manner – indeed, on the one occasion he had overcome his reserve so far as to actually hold a conversation with me, I had found him both amusing and intelligent, if a little cynical – but what I could not tolerate was the fact that he appeared to do nothing whatsoever to justify the wages he was being paid. Each day I arrived home from town expecting to see some improvement in the appearance of the garden and each day I was disappointed, until eventually I raised the matter with my wife.

  ‘“Dobson does not seem much of a gardener to me,” I remarked one evening. “Where are the testimonials he gave you?”

  ‘“I am afraid I have lost them, Mark,” she replied in an apologetic tone. “But I do not think you are being entirely fair to the man. He has, after all, only recently begun and there is such a lot to be done in the garden at this time of the year.”

  ‘I could see from the expression upon my wife’s face that she felt my remarks were impugning her judgement, so I shrugged my shoulders and let the matter drop. When I chanced later to recall the conversation, however, it seemed to me then that she had been just a little too ready with the information that the testimonials were lost. It was almost as if she had been waiting for me to ask; as if, indeed, she had been expecting it.