by Ashton, Hugh
The four of us, that is to say, the two Warburtons, Purcell, and myself, took tea, elegantly presided over by Alice. Colonel Warburton proved to be as genial and hospitable as could be desired, and I could detect no trace of the derangement that Purcell had reported to me. The topics ranged from our time together in India to the life of a general practitioner in London. At my earnest request to Purcell, made as we were travelling down on the train, the name of Sherlock Holmes and my association with him were not mentioned.
As we were finishing our repast, the parlourmaid announced the arrival of Mr Guy Chelmy. I was interested to see the man, given the account I had received of him from Purcell. His appearance as he entered the room was not impressive. Before I started to examine the man himself, I noted the reactions of the others in the room to his arrival – a trick I had observed Holmes use on past occasions.
“You can often learn more about a man, Watson,” he had remarked to me once, “by watching those around him than you can by watching the man himself.”
Colonel Warburton, I saw, seemed to find Chelmy’s presence somewhat objectionable, and though he disguised his feelings well, it was apparent to me, at least, that there was something of disgust in the way he took Chelmy’s hand in greeting. His daughter, on the other hand, seemed relatively at ease, though there was something in the way that she regarded the visitor that made me believe that all was not as it appeared at first sight. Although Purcell had denigrated Chelmy as a rival suitor for Miss Warburton’s hand when he had described the man, it was plain he considered him as such. A thinly veiled hostility underlay his every move and word directed towards Chelmy, belying his earlier statements to me about their relations.
As to the man himself, it was difficult to make any definite opinion about him. His dress was, if anything, a shade too immaculate and fashionable to be considered in good taste, though there was no one single item that could be judged to be so. His manners were likewise somewhat too formal and elaborate for comfort, but there was nothing on which one could lay one’s finger precisely in order to justify such a judgement.
As I was introduced to him, a flicker of recognition seemed to show in his eyes when my name was mentioned, but he made no comment. I did, however, notice him occasionally glancing in my direction throughout the conversation in what might be taken as being a somewhat suspicious manner.
After some small talk, chiefly about the difficulty of cultivating orchids, a hobby apparently shared by both Chelmy and our host, the Colonel announced that Chelmy would be joining us for dinner, which was to be served in a few hours, and the tea-party broke up. Purcell announced that he would take a turn in the garden, and Alice Warburton proclaimed her intention of joining him. The effect of this announcement on Chelmy was pronounced. For a second or two his face contorted in a look of hideous jealousy, which passed as quickly as it had arrived. Indeed, had I not been watching him closely, I would not have been able to swear that anything had occurred. It was obvious that, whatever Purcell may have believed, he was indeed a suitor for the hand of the lovely Alice.
However, Chelmy was all smiles as he turned to me and proposed a game of billiards.
“I have hardly played the game since my return from India,” I excused myself. “I fear that I will prove a very poor opponent.”
“No matter,” he replied. “I am sure some of your former skill will return once you hold a cue in your hands once again.”
As it happens, I had never been a particularly skilful exponent of the game, though I had spent many hours in the Mess hunched over the green baize, but I assented to his importuning.
As we retrieved the cues from the racks in the well-appointed billiard room, Chelmy suggested a wager.
“Shall we say five guineas a hundred?” he suggested.
“I fear you somewhat overestimate the income of a general practitioner in medicine,” I laughed. “If we are to play for money, I would prefer that we play for somewhat lower stakes.”
“Ah,” he replied, his eyes twinkling. “I had assumed that the chronicler of so many interesting adventures would have received suitable compensation for his labours. My apologies for that mistaken assumption.” So saying, he sketched a sort of half-bow, somewhat un-English in its execution. It was obvious, therefore, that he was aware of my association with Holmes.
We agreed on the terms on which we would play, and the game began. As Chelmy had predicted, some of my original skill with the cue returned, but even had I played with the full dexterity of which I had been capable in my younger days, it was clear that I could never have been a match for my opponent, who was a master of the table. Throughout the game, he persisted in making oblique allusions to my friendship with Sherlock Holmes, but I refused to enlarge on the subject. My feelings were that this strange affair of Colonel Warburton’s behaviour was in some way connected with this man, and I had no wish to vouchsafe to him more than was necessary in order to maintain a semblance of politeness.
At the end of the third frame, which ended as disastrously for me as had the previous two, I called a halt to the game.
“No matter,” he replied, pocketing the modest winnings that I had handed to him. “I trust that the game was not too painful for you,” he said, with a smile that had more of cruelty than humour to it.
“Not at all,” I replied. I fear my own answering smile was rather forced, not so much at the financial loss I had just incurred, which I could easily afford, but at the insolence of the man, which had expressed itself in many little ways as we had played our game. It is not often that I take a dislike to a man after so short an acquaintance, but there was something about Chelmy that I found distasteful, but whether it was his heavily pomaded hair, or his patent-leather pumps, or indeed, a combination of these and other factors, I was unable to decide. I found it strange, however, that such a man should apparently be an intimate of the Colonel, who was of quite a different calibre.
We parted, I to dress for dinner, and he to the drawing-room where, I have no doubt, he hoped to encounter Alice alone, since we came across Purcell on his way to his room, on the same errand as myself.
I changed quickly, providing myself with sufficient time to write a few lines to Holmes concerning the events of the afternoon, and my impressions of the protagonists in the piece, which I slipped, together with a florin, to the house-maid as we went into dinner, with the request that she post it as soon as was convenient.
Dinner consisted of a delicious mutton curry, of which the three Indian veterans partook with gusto, recalling similar dishes that had been served in Messes in the past as they did so. I noticed that Miss Warburton appeared not to care for the dish, but that Chelmy ate as heartily as the Colonel, Purcell and myself, notwithstanding his lack of an Indian background.
The atmosphere round the table was charged. Chelmy definitely appeared as the odd man out, not merely on account of the fact that he was the only one never to have lived in the East, but because the other members of the party seemed to be bearing some sort of animosity towards him. On Purcell’s part, this could well have been the jealousy I had noticed earlier, and Alice Warburton’s mysterious attitude still apparently prevailed. I have already spoken of my own feelings, and Colonel Warburton, though remaining perfectly civil, nonetheless managed to convey a sense of displeasure at sitting at the same table as Chelmy. The man himself behaved as if he were unaware of the others’ attitudes towards him, and remained unconcerned, continuing to laugh and tell stories, some of which in my opinion verged on being unsuitable for the ears of young ladies.
Since Miss Warburton was the only lady, and she declared herself to be immune to the effects of cigar smoke, the whole party rose and proceeded to the drawing room, where the male members of the party enjoyed some fine cigars provided by the host while sipping a fine crusted port that the Colonel had decanted in honour of his guests. I noticed that the Colonel limited his intake of this noble liquor to a single glass. Alice Warburton provided us with entertainment in the form
of a recital of songs, accompanying herself on the pianoforte. To my mind, the choice of material was somewhat on the sentimental side, but it evidently met with the approval of the rival suitors (for so I felt I must now regard them) as well as that of the fond parent, who beat time with his cigar. I continued to observe him, but could see nothing out of the ordinary that could account for the strange behaviour of which I had been informed.
The music put an effective brake on any conversation, which may have been all to the good, given the potentially stormy atmosphere that had been building up during the meal, and very soon after the last song, Chelmy rose from his seat and with one of his over-courtly bows, announced his intention to quit our company. Wishing him a good night and a safe return to his own house, the Colonel saw him to the door, and then returned to us.
“I must retire to bed, Papa,” Miss Warburton said to him. “I am sure that you three Indians have much to talk about. Please do not keep him up too long, Mr Purcell and Dr Watson. I know how you men can be when you start on your memories.” She smiled a smile that would have melted the heart of a statue, and Purcell wilted visibly under its force. “Good night to you all.”
As she had predicted, the talk soon turned to our Indian adventures, and talk of comrades, some still alive, and some, sadly, now gone before. Purcell had been applying himself to the port, which, truth to tell, was of a fine quality, and it was this, I fear, that led him to his next unfortunate observation.
“But of all the acquaintances that we have made over the years, I venture to suggest that the doctor here has the most interesting friendship of any man in this room,” he remarked to the Colonel, who said nothing, but merely raised his eyebrows in response.
I looked at Purcell and silently mouthed a command to him to cease, but he appeared blind and deaf to all such hints.
“Yes, our old sawbones is the John Watson who writes about the celebrated bloodhound in human form, his good friend Mr Sherlock Holmes.”
The effect on the older man was dramatic. He turned to me and glared furiously. “Upon my word, sir! I had no idea that you were some sort of police spy. Were it not for the lateness of the hour, and the comradeship of the Regiment, I would have no hesitation, sir, in turning you out of doors this instant. No hesitation, sir!” he repeated. There was certainly anger in his face, and I imagined also that I detected more than a trace of fear.
I started to stammer some excuse. “Sir, my friend Sherlock Holmes is far from being a police spy. It is true that he has worked with the police on occasion, but he has never taken money from the police for his services, and far from being a spy, he is one of the most honest and law-abiding persons of my acquaintance.” I was obliged to stretch the truth a little in my last utterance, as Holmes and I had been compelled to step outside the strict bounds of the law of the land on a number of occasions, but always in the interests of a higher Law.
“Hmph,” was the only answer I received, but it was followed by a long silence, during which the Colonel appeared to be lost in thought. Eventually he came out with, “I know you of old, Watson, and know that you are a good man. If you give me your word that Holmes is no spy, of course I will take your word for it.”
“I give you my word that Sherlock Holmes is no spy, but is, on the contrary, one of the greatest and noblest men it has been my privilege of meeting.”
“That’s good enough for me,” replied the old soldier, extending his hand to me in a fraternal gesture. “My apologies for the outburst, but you must admit,” he chuckled, “that it is something of a surprise to me to discover such a connection so close at hand. Please forgive any harsh words I may have spoken just now to you.”
There was now nothing untoward in his appearance or his manner, and I was reminded of the sudden changes in mood that had been described to me by Purcell. “Think nothing of it, Colonel. Such news is always a surprise, even to those with nothing to hide.”
“Indeed so,” replied the Colonel, and busied himself with relighting his cigar, which had extinguished itself through being left unattended during the recent exchange.
The incident had nonetheless cast somewhat of a shadow over the previously convivial evening, and soon afterwards, Purcell and I both proposed retiring for the night.
“I will stay up for a while longer,” said the Colonel. “At my age, you no longer need the sleep to which you were accustomed when younger.”
We bade him good night, and proceeded up the stairs. As I was about to enter my room, Purcell tapped me on the arm and gripped my sleeve fast. “I say, old man,” he said to me. The effects of the port on his speech were still obvious. “Dreadfully sorry and all that about mentioning your friend. I had no idea it would take the old man that way.”
“No lasting harm done, I believe,” I replied. “But it is somewhat strange that it should affect him in that fashion.”
“Good night, then,” he replied, releasing my arm from his grasp.
I wished him a good night and retired to my room. I determined to keep as accurate a record as possible of the events in order to aid Holmes when he arrived. Certainly the sudden flush of anger, together with the fear that I fancied was present at the mention of Holmes’ name gave me pause for considerable thought. It was hard to conceive of any reason why my connection with such a well-known defender of justice should provoke such a reaction, other than in an evil-doer, and it was hard for me to cast the Colonel in such a role.
If it had been Chelmy who had exhibited such a reaction, it would have been more comprehensible to me, given what I had seen of the man, but on the contrary, Chelmy had not seemed to shy away from the subject, but had rather appeared anxious to engage me in conversation about Sherlock Holmes.
I changed into my night attire, and threw my dressing gown, a fine garment adorned with bright Oriental dragons and other decorations, a present from my dear wife, around me as I sat at the small table in my room to write my account of the events of the evening, and my impressions of them. It did not appear to me that Colonel Warburton was deranged, despite his earlier flash of anger, but the more I considered matters, the more it appeared to me that there was something strangely unhealthy in the relationship between Chelmy and the Warburton household. As I was pondering the reasons for my suspicions which, if I were honest with myself, were based on little more than my personal dislike of the man, I heard a strange shuffling sound in the passageway outside my room. Almost certainly, I felt, this was the strange skipping that Purcell had described to me.
Unlike Purcell, I felt myself up to the task of confronting the Colonel unarmed, and I accordingly opened my bed-room door and stepped out into the passageway. As my friend had described to me, Colonel Warburton, clad in a maroon silk dressing gown, was positively skipping down the passageway, with his back towards me. I moved to the middle of the passage and waited for him to reach the end and turn round.
However, some five yards before the end of the passage, he whirled round abruptly, a wide and somewhat aimless grin covering his face. As he bent his legs, presumably to resume his exercise, I rushed forward and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Colonel,” I said. “Is it not time that you retired to your bed?” I spoke in a calm quiet voice, though I was somewhat horrified by what I had just witnessed. However, at the first touch of my hand on his shoulder, he seemed to relax. The tenseness of his muscles visibly departed, and the expression on his face returned to normality.
“Watson, I thank you,” he said to me in a perfectly calm voice. “I believe I was having one of my nightmares. They come on me from time to time, and I have found myself in very strange situations, having been sleepwalking while being visited by these nocturnal visions.”
“If I were your doctor,” I replied, “I would prescribe a mild sedative to be taken before retiring. I am confident you would not suffer in this way if you were to drink chloral or some such before going to bed. May I, as a friend, suggest that you consult your usual physician on the matter at an early opportunity?
”
He smiled at me. “Most thoughtful of you, Doctor. I shall do as you suggest tomorrow morning. A very good night to you and my profound thanks and apologies for having disturbed you in this way.”
“And a very good night to you,” I replied, returning to my room. I recorded the last events while they were still fresh in my mind, adding them as a postscript to my previous writing. Somehow the Colonel’s story of nightmares did not ring altogether true. The look on his face had not been one of a somnambulist, and I had never experienced, or heard described in the literature, such a skipping action performed by a sleepwalker. Nor, despite what had been said to me, could I agree with the diagnosis of mental derangement, tempting as it might be as an explanation of the Colonel’s extraordinary conduct. More puzzling still, I could not account for the fact that the Colonel was able to sense my presence while his back was turned to me. I had been wearing soft slippers on a carpet, and I had taken great care to make my movements as silent and unobtrusive as possible. After finishing my report, I extinguished the gas, and composed myself for sleep, but lay awake listening for further sounds. After what was probably about an hour of lying awake I had heard nothing, and eventually entered the land of dreams.
-oOo-
The next morning saw me awake bright and early. The events of the previous evening now seemed like a nocturnal fancy, but I had my written account to convince me of their reality.
Breakfast was a cheery meal. The Colonel and his daughter were both in high spirits, and Purcell seemed to have been infected by their gaiety. There was no sign by the Colonel that last night’s events had in any way affected him, until he reached the end of the meal, and threw down his napkin with a satisfied sigh, declaring to Miss Warburton, “I will be going to Dr Henderson this morning, my dear, but will return in time for luncheon.”