Without My Boswell: Five Early Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (From the Dispatch Box of John H Watson, MD)

by Hugh Ashton

  “ The very same,” Holmes answered me. “ And as for the women...” He paused and buried his head in his hands. “ Believe me, I had seen the results of violence before this time, but what I saw there shocked me to the very core. I could not believe what had been done to that poor woman, and that little girl. If I may trouble you for a few fingers of the brandy, Watson ? ” He raised his head, his eyes still closed, and I saw his face was set in a rigid mask, with his fists clenching and unclenching convulsively, as he doubtless relived that awful scene in his mind.

  It was almost unprecedented for Sherlock Holmes to display emotion in this way, and I hastened to supply him with the requested liquor, pouring a small amount for myself. He thanked me, and sipped the drink in silence for a while before continuing.

  “ We were all taken aback,” he said, “ and I turned to Lestrade. ‘ Inspector,’ I said to him. ‘ I believe I owe you an apology. This is indeed the work of a madman, though whether it is he who escaped from the asylum, I still doubt.’

  “ As I examined the scene with as dispassionate an eye as was possible under the circumstances, I was suddenly struck by a number of facts.

  “ ‘ What was the weather on the night of the murder ? ’ I asked Ruddle.

  “ ‘ Why, it was a cold night. A hard frost here, I believe.

  What has that to do with this business ? ’

  “ ‘ Everything,’ I told him. ‘ Observe the feet of the victims. They are bare.’

  “ ‘ Do you sleep in your boots, Mr. Holmes ? ’ laughed Lestrade sarcastically.

  “ ‘ I would also draw your attention to the stone floor in the hallway outside this room, and the uncarpeted stairs that I observed as we entered the house.’

  “ ‘ I begin to catch at your meaning,’ said Ruddle.

  “ ‘ And all of these are in their night attire alone, with no wrapper or dressing-gown,’ I pointed out. ‘ I leave you to draw your own conclusions from this, as well as the fact that there is considerably less blood in this room than I would expect.’

  “ ‘ More than enough blood for me,’ said Lestrade. ‘ Where is the murder weapon ? ’ Ruddle indicated the fireplace, in which it was possible to discern what appeared to be the head of a small axe.

  “ ‘ A hatchet, then,’ I remarked.

  “ ‘ So it would appear,’ said Ruddle. ‘ It is just possible to make out what seems to be the ashes of the handle among the clinker of the coal.’

  “ I bent to the fireplace, and it was indeed as Ruddle had described. The remains of what had been a small hatchet lay there, and it was easy to discern a line of wood ash, which presumably represented the remains of the handle, leading to a blackened axe-head thrust into the fire. A small patch of grey matter by the fender caught my attention. ‘ Halloa, what is this ? ’ I asked myself aloud, not really expecting an answer.

  “ ‘ It is ash, such as you might reasonably expect to find in a fireplace,’ Lestrade answered me, with a degree of sarcasm still evident in his words.

  “ ‘ It is not coal ash or wood ash,’ I told him. Indeed it was not. I scooped it up and put it into one of the envelopes that I always carry with me. ‘ I have seen enough in this room,’ I told the two policemen. ‘ For my part, I would strongly recommend photographing the room and the disposition of the bodies before removing them and attempting to restore some dignity to them.’”

  Here Holmes again broke off his narrative, and sat silently, sipping the last of his brandy. Without being asked, I refilled his glass, an action he acknowledged with a nod before he spoke again. “ I am not, Watson, a sentimental or a superstitious man, as you know. And yet there was something in that room that stirred me. It was the sense of an almost palpable evil at work, which filled me with a pity for its victims. It is an emotion that is typically a stranger to me, and I can provide little explanation for it other than as a reaction to what I had encountered. In any event, we left the room.

  “ ‘ We should interview the servants,’ I told the others. ‘ In their testimony, I believe that we may discover the truth of this matter.’

  “ ‘ I have two copies of their statements here,’ said Ruddle, handing a thick envelope to Lestrade, and another to me. I read through, but it was obvious that the questioning had been conducted by an officer of limited intelligence, and virtually no imagination. Nonetheless, I managed to produce some words of thanks to Ruddle for his efforts.

  “ ‘ There are three servants living in the house,’ Ruddle reminded us. ‘ The cook, Mrs. Dolan, a scullery-maid, Betty Cartwright, and a parlour-maid, Lily Minton.’

  “ ‘ And a groom living over the stables,’ Lestrade reminded him. ‘ James Deegan may well have seen or heard something of the intruder, and it was he, was it not, who first broke down the door and discovered the bodies.’

  “ ‘ Indeed so. Whom shall we call in first ? ’ asked Ruddle.

  “ ‘ The cook, if you have no objections,’ I requested. It is my habit when questioning a household, Watson, always to start with the most senior of the servants. Following their interview, they are typically less likely to gossip in the servants’ hall than the younger more junior members of the household, such as the maids or the boots and so on. In that way, if the culprit is to be located among the servants, there is less chance of an advance warning of the subjects and nature of the expected interview from those who have previously been questioned. It is by no means an infallible system, but it typically serves me well.

  “ As it turned out, the others had no objection to this suggestion of mine, and Mrs. Dolan presented herself before us in due course. By tacit consent, it was I who posed most of the questions to her. In answer to the question as to whether she had heard anything on the fatal night, her answer was an unequivocal negative.

  “ ‘ I have trouble sleeping,’ she told us, and I usually take several drops of laudanum before I go to bed, sir. That helps me sleep like a baby until it’s time to get up.’ I had remarked the tell-tale signs of one addicted to opium before she had informed us of this, but it was good to have this confirmed by the woman herself. Her room, it appeared, was on the top floor, at the other end of the house from that of the room in which the bodies were lying, and even without the laudanum, it is hard to see how she could have heard anything untoward.

  “ When asked about the character of her late employers, she had nothing but praise for Mrs. Grimshaw, and for the two children, whom she described as ‘ perfect angels’, but she appeared to be somewhat reticent about the husband. She would only say that ‘ he paid me my wages on time, and always ate what was put in front of him’. It seemed to me that there was very little use in questioning her further. “ Before she left, I asked her if there was anything at all unusual that she could remember about the evening of the night on which the murders had taken place. She paused and frowned. ‘ Actually, now that you mention it, yes, there was something funny there, sir. I started a new bottle of laudanum only four or five nights ago. The bottle should have been almost full, but it is nearly empty now, and it was nearly empty on the night that they all were killed.’

  “ ‘ Thank you,’ I told her, making a note. ‘ You are sure that the bottle emptied on that night ? ’

  “ ‘ Yes, sir, there is no question about it at all in my mind. As clear as I am talking to you now.’ She left the room, and I felt that another piece of the puzzle had fallen into its appointed place.

  “ ‘ Betty Cartwright, the scullery-maid next, I think,’ I said. She turned out to be a middle-aged woman, who told us that she had worked for the Grimshaw household for seven years.

  “ ‘ A very contented family, for the most part. She was a good mistress, and the children were little darlings,’ was all she would say about her late employers, refusing to provide any further details. Again, it was unlikely that she would have heard anything, given the location of her bedroom. She told us that she had retired to bed with a headache.

  “ ‘ It was you, was it not, who discovered the bodies ? ’ I
asked her.

  “ ‘ Not as such,” she answered. It was me who found the door was locked, and I called up to the stables to Deegan to come and break it down, as the master and mistress didn’t answer when I knocked on their bedroom doors. He came down and forced the door open. And there they all were, in a pool of blood. Oh, it was horrible. I fainted, I tell you, and when I came to, I was in the kitchen. Deegan had carried me there, and sat me in a chair. And then Mrs. Dolan took care of me while Deegan went for the police.

  Lily – that’s the parlour-maid – was out for the night. Her sister’s child had taken sick, and she had received permission to help her sister care for the baby. She came in when I was in the kitchen. We told her what had happened, and what we had seen.’

  “ ‘ What was her reaction ? ’ I asked.

  “ ‘ I suppose you would say it was what you would expect. Mind you, I wasn’t taking much notice of other people at that time. I was all of a flutter myself, and the world was spinning round me, if you know what I mean, sir.”

  “ ‘ Why were you attempting to enter the drawing-room ? ’ Lestrade asked her.

  “ ‘ That’s my job, sir. I look after all the fires in the house, and I was there to clean out the ashes from the night before.’

  “ ‘ So the fire was burning all night ? Is that not somewhat dangerous ? ’

  “ ‘ Burning all night, sir ? Not at all. It’s my job to clean out the ashes and lay the fires in the morning, and to make sure they’re all out when the family goes to bed. Except for the ones in the master’s and mistress’s bed-rooms, that is. They take care of putting them out for themselves.’

  “ As you can imagine, Watson, this information was of great interest to me. ‘ You are sure that the fire in the drawing-room was out when you went to bed ? ’ I asked her.

  “ ‘ Absolutely sure, sir. I made sure that the fire was properly out and there was no unburned coal left in the grate, and then shut the drawing-room door, and used the key to lock it. I’d take my oath on that.’

  “ ‘ You may have to do exactly that,’ remarked Lestrade quietly.

  “ ‘ But I didn’t do anything, sir,’ she protested.

  “ ‘ We know that,’ I told her, ‘ but the words of a sensible woman such as yourself will be of great value in helping determine what really happened. You have been of great help here.’ Her face lit up at these words of praise, and I followed my line of questioning. ‘ The key was in the lock of the door, on the inside ? ’

  “ ‘ So Deegan said to me. I never saw it myself. The door was definitely locked, though, sir.’

  “ ‘ Excellent, Betty. You are obviously not in the habit of inventing stories, and you only report what you know to be true and what you have seen with your own eyes.’

  “ ‘ That’s the way I was brought up, sir, and there’s nothing going to change that.’

  “ We dismissed her, and I told Lestrade and Ruddle that in my opinion the man Deegan should be the next to be questioned. They offered no objection, and a surly-looking man, aged between thirty and forty, with a strong whiff of the stables about him, entered the room.

  “ Without waiting for us to speak to him first, he burst out with the words, ‘ I don’t know anything about it. I was asleep over the stables as always, and I knew nothing until Betty came knocking on the door and woke me up.’

  “ ‘ Thank you, that is most helpful,’ I told him, in an attempt to gain his confidence a little. ‘ Let me ask you a few questions, if I may, regarding the state of the room when you broke open the door.’ He reluctantly gave his assent, but it was difficult for me to gain any clear picture of what had occurred when he saw the interior of the room. He claimed to have been overcome with horror at the sight, the truth of which statement I was inclined to credit. Subsequent to this, he corroborated the scullery-maid’s account, saying that he had picked her up and carried her to the kitchen, where he had attempted to revive her.

  “ ‘ Was the fire in the fireplace burning when you opened the door ? ’ Lestrade asked him at one point, displaying an acuteness that somewhat surprised me.

  “ ‘ I couldn’t tell you that, sir,’ he mumbled. ‘ It wasn’t something you’d notice, really, given the other things there.’

  “ ‘ I am sure that is true,’ I assured him. ‘ May I ask you a few more questions about your work here ? ’ It appeared that Deegan had worked in the household for several years. As well as being the groom, he also was responsible for some of the rough outdoor work in the garden, as well as some of the heavier fetching and carrying of coal for the stove and fireplaces, sacks of potatoes and the like. When questioned about his relationship with the family, he provided a similar answer to those of the cook and the scullery-maid, that is to say, that he praised the mistress of the household, and her children. A noticeable scowl spread over his face when he mentioned Mr. Grimshaw, but he told us that ‘ he was a fair employer to me’, though the words sounded somewhat forced to my ears.

  “ ‘ By the by,’ I said to him as he was leaving, ‘ I see by the bulge in your pocket that you are a pipe-smoker.’

  “ ‘ So I am,’ he answered me. ‘ What of it ? ’

  “ ‘ It is nothing ; a mere trifle. I too am a devotee of the weed, but I find I have come down from London without my tobacco-pouch. Would it be too much to ask if I could call on your lodgings above the stables in a little while and purchase some tobacco from you ? ’

  “ He laughed. ‘ No need for the money. I’ll gladly share with another man who loves his tobacco. Now if you want to know something more about the master, it’s that he couldn’t abide the smell of tobacco. I could never smoke in his presence, and of course in a stable, you have to be careful of fire. I’ll gladly give you a fill, officer, if you step up to see me. I’ll be there for the next thirty minutes or so, at least.’ So saying, he left the room.

  “ ‘ No love lost there between man and master,’ remarked Ruddle. ‘ More than his pipe involved there, I would say.’

  “ ‘ I agree,’ I said. ‘ But before I collect my tobacco – and I thank you, Lestrade, for not mentioning the fact that I do in fact have my tobacco with me, as you saw for yourself on the train coming down – we must talk to Lily, the parlour-maid, who was not in the house that night, according to what we have been told.’

  “ Lestrade chuckled. ‘ I know why you have so conveniently forgotten your tobacco. Ruddle here or I would require a warrant to enter his lodging. You amateurs have powers denied to us poor official guardians of the law.’ He opened the door and called for Lily Minton.

  “ I do not know what we were expecting to enter the room, Watson, but it certainly was not the feminine vision that presented itself to us in the shape of the parlour-maid. I lack your connoisseurship in these matters,” he smiled at me, “ but I have rarely seen a female form that would appeal more to the majority of men.”

  “ But not to you ? ” I could not refrain from asking.

  “ The features were all those that an artist could wish for, should he wish to paint a portrait of Venus. The figure, such as could be discerned under the servant’s dress, could have been the model for a classical statue. And yet... There was something missing behind the eyes. True beauty comes from within, and what was within in this instance was far from beautiful. Even so, the effect of her face and her figure was sufficient to cause both Lestrade and Ruddle to become virtually tongue-tied in her presence. As for me, even I can confess that I found her disconcerting. There may not have been what you or I would term intelligence there, but there was a certain amount of cunning apparent from the set of her lips, and the way that her eyes darted around the room.

  “ She answered our questions readily enough, though, telling us that she had served the family with their dinner of curried mutton, followed by a treacle sponge pudding, before leaving the house. Rather than her sister’s child which was ill, as we had been told previously, she told us that it was her cousin who had a sick baby. But such discrepancies do occur in case
s, where details are remembered wrongly or become confused in the turmoil of events, and I felt this could be regarded as being irrelevant to our enquiries.

  “ She told us that that she had returned to the house to find Deegan standing over an unconscious Betty in the kitchen, with Mrs. Dolan in a state of some panic at the news that Deegan had apparently just imparted. Other than that, she said that she could tell us no more of the terrible events of that night.

  “ When asked about her relationship with her employers, she answered that she had no time for the family, and indeed had intended to give in her notice that week, on the grounds that she found it impossible to work there, but refused to give more details.

  “ “ We will probably be asking you more questions later,’ Ruddle told her before dismissing her. ‘ Well,’ he said, turning to Lestrade and me as the door closed behind her. What do we have here ? ’

  “ Lestrade looked at me, and taking my cue, I began. ‘ We have a series of paradoxes. We have a fire which was out and then was relighted. We have a door which was locked from the outside, and then was unlocked and re- locked from the inside. This despite clear evidence that an intruder entered the room through the window.’

  “ ‘ These are the reports of one person alone,’ pointed out Lestrade.

  “ ‘ That is so, but I happen to know that this Betty Cartwright attends the same chapel as do I myself, and I have never heard ill spoken of her,’ said Ruddle. ‘ I feel we can trust her testimony, unscientific as my opinion may appear to you London men. Pray continue, Mr. Holmes.’

  “ ‘ We have a barbaric crime committed, which reminds me of nothing so much as those vile practices that Eastern women inflict upon their captives,’ I said to the others. ‘ And we have in the household a man who has served in the Indian Army. No ? You failed to observe the darkened skin and the bearing typical of one who has served as a soldier, not to mention the Oriental style of his cravat-pin ? Well, let that pass, as well as the fact that you apparently failed to notice that he was wearing hobnailed boots of a pattern seemingly identical to those which produced the prints outside the window. Not only has he served as a soldier, by the way that he carries himself and from his manner, I would lay odds that he was the victim of the cat on more than one occasion.’”