‘The next day was fine, if a little breezy, and after Uncle Moreton had applied a second coat of varnish to the frame of the mirror, the four of us went for a long walk to a picturesque little babbling brook where we had a picnic and Sylvie and I did a little paddling and fishing with our nets. On our way back to The Highlands, Mr Hemming made a detour to Crompton’s house to see that everything was still all right there. When he rejoined us later, he reported that there had been no one about and everything had seemed to be in good order. It therefore came as a great surprise when, the following day, Mr Crompton himself arrived at our house early in the afternoon in a state of great agitation. Breathlessly, he told us what had happened. He had arrived back that morning with his sister, who was to stay with him for a few days, and had found that his house had been broken into while he had been away.
‘“But when I looked it over yesterday,” said Mr Hemming, “everything seemed all right. There was no sign of any of the windows having been forced, or anything of the sort.”
‘“They appear to have gained entry through a small pantry window,” said Crompton, “then wedged it shut again with a sliver of wood, no doubt to hide the fact that it had been forced open. My Roman coins have been stolen and, worse than that, they have dug up and stolen several of the tiles in the garden that were covered by the tarpaulin, including the one inscribed with the name of Tacitus.”
‘“Oh, no!” cried Uncle Moreton in dismay. “That is terrible! Have you informed Constable Pilley?”
‘“Of course. But I doubt it will do much good. I told him it is his job to prevent such things happening, but the useless, idle lie-abed just says he can’t be everywhere at once, as if that entirely exonerates him from any responsibility. He has sent for some kind of detective officer from Lincoln to look into the matter, but who knows when he will get here? In the old days, all the respectable people in a parish would band together to make sure that this sort of thing did not happen. Nowadays, we are so modern that we have our very own constable, so of course people just leave everything to him and don’t take any responsibility themselves. Well, I for one have had enough of this modern, irresponsible world. I’m going to do something about it!”
‘Crompton was not entirely specific about what he intended to do, but the general impression was that he hoped to persuade his neighbours to join him in patrolling the country lanes after dark. This seemed to me at first a wonderful idea, but that is because eleven-year-old boys rarely appreciate the practical difficulties inherent in such plans. In any case, it would only have been of any use if the lanes had been full of marauding bands of robbers every night, which even I could see was unlikely to be the case. Not long after Crompton had left, Constable Pilley called by to ask if we had observed anything the previous night which might cast light on what had happened, but we were unable to help him.
‘“Was anything else stolen, apart from the coins and the tiles?” Uncle Moreton asked.
‘The constable shook his head. “It’s clear the thieves knew what they were after. The two coins are more or less identical, I understand,’ he continued, consulting his note-book, “except that one is in better condition than the other. I am informed that each of them is a denarius from the reign of Hadrian, if that means anything to you gentlemen. Mr Crompton tells me that they are not especially valuable, as such things go, but even so, I reckon they would fetch a few bob somewhere, which would be enough to make it worth someone’s while to steal them. It’s the tiles that puzzle me more. I can’t see where they could be sold without it being obvious where they had come from.”
‘“I suppose some unscrupulous collector of such things might buy them and ask no questions as to their provenance,” Mr Hemming suggested.
‘“Or perhaps someone simply took them out of spite,” added Uncle Moreton; “someone who envied Mr Crompton’s good fortune in having them on his property.”
‘“Perhaps,” said Constable Pilley, closing up his note-book. “We shall have to wait and see what Inspector Tubby makes of it when he gets here. He should be here tomorrow morning.”
‘That evening was a very windy one, and I went to sleep to the sound of the trees in the garden creaking and groaning, as the gusting wind blew them this way and that. Some time in the night I awoke abruptly and lay there listening, as a variety of different nocturnal noises came to my ears. They might have been anything – a small animal scurrying about, perhaps, or a branch being blown down – but to one whose head was full of thoughts of burglars they sounded like nothing so much as the latch of the garden gate being lifted, followed by footsteps on the path. I leaned from my bed, pulled back the curtain and looked out, but the night was very dark and I could not see anything. For some time I lay awake, my senses straining to catch the slightest sound, but heard nothing more.
‘In the morning, as we were taking breakfast, the road outside seemed uncommonly busy and Uncle Moreton left the table to see what was happening. There had been the sound of vehicles passing and numerous voices. He did not return for nearly twenty minutes and when he did his face was grave.
‘“It’s a bad business,” he said in answer to Mr Hemming’s enquiring look. He glanced in our direction, then beckoned to Mr Hemming to join him in the hallway, which he did, closing the door behind him. Of course, Sylvie and I at once got down from the table and went to listen at the closed door. “It’s Mr Crompton,” we heard Uncle Moreton say in a low voice. “He’s been found dead in the road, not far from here. It seems he was clubbed to death, some time during the night.”
‘The next few days were strange ones. Crompton may have been only a slight acquaintance, but his death, and the dreadful circumstances surrounding it, cast a pall over our stay at The Highlands. Although Uncle Moreton and Mr Hemming did not discuss the matter openly in front of us, one way or another Sylvie and I learnt whatever there was to know about it, in the way children do. The facts of the matter, which were soon established, were as follows: after he had left our house, following his tirade against Constable Pilley and his declaration that he would take a personal stand against what he saw as the local lawlessness, Crompton had called upon those of his neighbours he considered might be agreeable to his ideas. Each had listened to his proposals, but had declined to participate, regarding Crompton’s scheme as, in the Reverend Beardsley’s words, “unlikely to achieve anything”. Undeterred by his neighbours’ lack of enthusiasm, however, Crompton had determined to press on alone with some kind of night-time patrol.
‘At half past ten that evening, just after his housekeeper had retired for the night, and as his sister was about to do so, Crompton had announced that he was going out on patrol. A brief altercation with his sister had ensued. She told him that it would not do any good, that he would only make himself appear ridiculous, but, undeterred, he left the house at about eleven o’clock, equipped with a small pocket lantern and with a life-preserver attached to his wrist by a loop of cord. That was the last time anyone saw him alive. His body was found the following morning by the boy who attended to Mr Stainforth’s pony, stretched out face down in the road near Stainforth’s house, his life-preserver still attached to his wrist. The back of his head had been crushed in by what appeared to have been a fearsome blow from a cudgel or some similar blunt and heavy weapon.
‘As the body was found scarcely twenty feet from Stainforth’s gate, on the road between his house and ours, Constable Pilley – and Detective Inspector Tubby, when he arrived – gave particular attention to Stainforth’s house, to see if anyone had tried to break in there during the night. The house had been completely unoccupied, for Stainforth himself was away in London as usual, and the only domestic servant he employed was a local woman who came in to see to his cooking and laundry when he was at home, but returned to her own house when he was away. The policemen soon found evidence to confirm their suspicions. A few feet to the right of the front door was a sturdy wooden trellis, for the support of climbing plants, which went all the way up to the sill of
a first-floor bedroom window. This window stood slightly ajar, and it appeared from marks visible on the window-sill and on the trellis immediately below it that someone had recently climbed up there.
‘A wire was at once sent to Stainforth’s address in London and he returned that evening. In the company of the policemen, he then made a thorough examination of the inside of the house, but declared in the end that as far as he could see, nothing had been taken or disturbed. The open bedroom window had certainly been forced, however, for a close examination of the frame revealed that the paintwork at the edge was scratched and chipped, as if someone had inserted a blade there to force up the catch. A subsequent search of the garden turned up an open clasp-knife of a common type, on the ground under a bush by the gate. The conclusion of the policemen, then, was that Crompton had surprised someone in the act of breaking into Stainforth’s house. This person had jumped down to confront him on the garden path and probably threatened him with the knife. That the assailant had made at least one slashing attack on Crompton was suggested by a long shallow cut across the palm of his right hand, as if he had tried to ward off an attack. It was supposed that Crompton had then struck the knife from the other man’s grasp with his life-preserver and sent it flying to where it was subsequently found.
‘A bruise and cut on the bridge of the dead man’s nose suggested to the policemen – who had seen similar wounds among the roughs of Lincoln – that Crompton had been punched in the face. Then, it was supposed, realising that he could not hope to overcome his opponent, who was no doubt younger and stronger than he was, Crompton had turned and fled out of the gate, but his assailant, catching up with him in a few strides, had struck at him with a bludgeon of his own and delivered the fatal blow to the back of his head.
‘So much seemed clear, but did not help at all in establishing the identity of Crompton’s assailant. The only real clue was the clasp-knife, but that was of little help, for it was, as I mentioned, a very common type. There were no initials or other distinctive markings upon it and there was probably one such knife in every household in the district. Indeed, when Michael Shaxby was questioned on the matter, he was able to show the policemen what he claimed was his own knife, which was still in his possession. Shaxby had been one of the first people questioned by the police, but they subsequently questioned everyone in the district as to what they might have heard or seen on the night of the murder, without advancing their knowledge in any way.
‘Uncle Moreton and Mr Hemming discussed whether we should stay on in East Thrigby or leave straight away, and Hemming said he would write to his wife and see how matters were progressing in London. Her reply was not long in coming. This informed him that although Percival was now much better than he had been, he was still not fully recovered, and she and Aunt Phyllis had decided not to return to Lincolnshire, but to stay with a relative in London until the end of the summer. Mr Hemming and Uncle Moreton then reconsidered what we should do in the light of this and decided that we would stay just one more week. Meanwhile, Sylvie and I still played in the house and garden, but in a subdued sort of way. The Highlands seemed now a much quieter and less lively place, few visitors called by and sometimes, so it seemed, no one spoke for hours on end.
‘Two days after Crompton’s murder came a surprising development. Michael Shaxby’s younger brother, David, came forward with the information that he had found one of the stolen coins in the field next to Crompton’s garden which belonged to the farmer, Thoresby. He admitted that he had found it the day before Crompton had been killed and had been slow to announce his discovery, but said he had been shocked when he heard about the murder, unsure what to do and frightened that he would be suspected of having something to do with Crompton’s death. Of course, the policemen didn’t entirely believe him at first, although a point in his favour was that he had volunteered the information, rather than simply throwing the coin away. Despite repeated questioning he did not change his story and the police were obliged in the end to conclude that it might well be true. If so, it probably meant that whoever it was that had broken into Crompton’s house had made his escape through a gap in the hedge into Thoresby’s field, where he had accidentally dropped the coin.
‘Sylvie and I continued to climb as high as we could in the big tree at the bottom of the garden, where, in our lofty perch, we would sometimes sit together in silence as the wind blew in our faces, and survey the quiet, peaceful countryside spread out all around us. It still bothered me that we had been unable to reach the very top of the tree, and one day it occurred to me that if a thick clump of small branches which blocked the way to the summit might be removed, we should probably be able to ascend the final few feet. I therefore asked Uncle Moreton if I might cut these branches off with a small saw I had seen in the garden shed. He was at first somewhat dubious about this proposal, on the grounds both of my safety and the question of disfiguring a tree which did not belong to us. However, I eventually persuaded him to allow it by promising to take no risks in the matter, and assuring him that the change I hoped to effect would not be visible from the ground. With the saw tied with a length of cord round my neck, I therefore clambered up the tree and set about my task, with Sylvie just below me, ready to receive the sawn branches, repeatedly urging me to “be careful”. It did not take long to complete, for the branches in question were relatively thin ones, and then, with the saw and the branches disposed of, Sylvie and I squeezed ourselves between the remaining branches and ascended in happy triumph to the very summit of the old tree. The wind was strong and blustery that day, and as it buffeted our faces and hair, we could feel the tree moving beneath us, like a ship rocking gently on the billows of the ocean.
‘That night in bed, however, the triumph of our achievement was driven from my mind by another thought, vague and nebulous, which, in some odd way, linked our tree-climbing achievements to the death of Mr Crompton. There was some parallel there, I felt, some analogy that my brain could not quite grasp, as if the thought were nudging me from behind a thick veil: I could feel its pressure on my mind, but could not make out its shape.
‘When I awoke the following morning, the same thought was still running through my head, but I now saw things more clearly: just as I had removed an obstacle in order to reach the summit of the tree, so I must remove an obstacle in order to solve the mystery of Mr Crompton’s death, and the obstacle I had to remove was the primary assumption that everyone had made about it. Immediately after breakfast, Sylvie and I repaired to our den beneath the laurustinus. There, in the seclusion of our secret meeting-place, I told her my theory about Mr Crompton’s death. She was a quick, intelligent girl, and at once understood my reasoning and the significance of the facts on which I had founded it. For some time we discussed what we might do to confirm or refute the hypothesis and decided at length that we would make an expedition to look for evidence. We had been forbidden to leave the garden of The Highlands since the death of Mr Crompton and so were obliged to do so in a furtive manner. When we were sure that Uncle Moreton and Mr Hemming were occupied in the house, we made our way through a gap in the hedge near the bottom of the garden, which was hidden from view by a large bush, and so passed through the field where we had stalked rabbits and seen Mr Clashbury Staunton, and into the lane beyond, which was sufficiently far from the house that we could not be seen there. We were gone for less than an hour and returned before our absence had been noticed, feeling pleased with ourselves.’
My friend paused at that point in his account and sat staring thoughtfully into the fire for some time. Then he took up his pipe again and lit it.
‘And that,’ said he, when he had been puffing away contentedly for a moment or two, ‘concludes the story up to the point when I made my views known. Does the account in your book include any facts I haven’t mentioned, Watson?’
‘Only one thing that might be important,’ I replied after a moment, as I turned the pages over to refresh my memory. ‘Of course, the author gives a little more deta
il about some things, and a little less about others, but save only your personal recollections of your holiday, your account and his are very similar. He does mention that Clashbury Staunton had had a very public quarrel with Pigge some time before, accusing the latter’s sixteen-year-old son of throwing stones at his windows. But that is probably not of any relevance, as Staunton seems to have fallen out with almost everyone at some time or another, including, surprisingly, Mr Stainforth, with whom he had an acrimonious disagreement over some question in the history of art. The one possibly significant fact that the author mentions and you have not is that four weeks after the murder of Crompton, Michael Shaxby was arrested in Lincoln while attempting to sell the antique candlesticks that had been stolen from the rectory. He claimed he had found them in a field somewhere and did not realise they were the stolen ones.’
Holmes nodded. ‘I heard about that later,’ said he. ‘Of course, no one believed his unlikely story about the candlesticks, and he was charged with the burglary at the rectory and sent for trial at the Assizes. While in custody he was questioned repeatedly on the other matters – the burglary at Crompton’s house, the attempted burglary at Stainforth’s, and the murder of Crompton – but denied all knowledge of those crimes, and as the police were unable to find any evidence against him, no charges were brought. At the Assizes he was found guilty of the burglary at the rectory, and sentenced to three years in prison, but the other crimes were never solved, and the cases remained open, as, indeed, they do to this day. Does your author reach any conclusions?’
The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes Page 52