by John Hall
Carstairs’s reaction was very different from that of Wieland earlier. He did not speak for a moment, and then, an odd note in his voice, he asked me, ‘May I ask just how it came to your attention, Mr Harris?’
‘I’m afraid I cannot answer that,’ I said stiffly. ‘My association with Holmes – and Watson, too, of course – has made me something of a busybody, I fear, and I seem to accumulate these little bits of information. Did you see Greville that night?’
Carstairs lit another match, and took his time to get his pipe going to his satisfaction. ‘I’m damned if I know how you know,’ he said, ‘but I did, as a matter of fact.’
‘Around midnight?’
‘About that time.’ Carstairs leaned forward, and spoke earnestly. ‘Look here, Mr Harris, I didn’t say anything at the time, or later at the inquest, because I was scared. Greville had come to see me earlier that day. He seemed in a very edgy, nervous state, talking all sorts of nonsense –’
‘What sort of nonsense?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Said people were “after him”, that sort of thing. I’d have said he’d been drinking.’
‘Did he drink?’
‘No, I can’t say that he did. But his behaviour, you know, was so very odd that I couldn’t explain it any other way. Now, of course, with hindsight, I can see that he was most probably ill, brain fever or something of that sort. Why else would he jump from the tower like that? To think that I might have saved him! I blame myself, you know. That’s partly why I kept quiet about seeing him.’
‘Ah, yes, you were telling me about that.’
‘Yes. He insisted that I meet him that night, to “investigate fully”, as he put it.’
‘Why you?’ I asked. ‘Why did he not go to the headmaster, tell him what he suspected?’
‘There you have me. Possibly with my being more his own age, he felt happier? I couldn’t say. Anyway, I tried to talk him out of it, to tell him there was nothing to worry about, but he insisted, as I say, became quite upset until I agreed, just to shut him up. Well, I met him as he said, around midnight, at a side door – all very cloak and dagger, but he insisted – and I brought him here. I gave him a glass of whisky, and tried again to calm him down.’
‘Ah, so it was you who gave him the whisky?’
‘Yes, to try to settle his nerves. But it was only a very small one, not half of what you’ve got there. Not enough to make a mosquito tipsy! Anyway, it seemed to work, he settled down a bit, and then he said he was going to bed.’
‘And that was all?’
‘That was all I had to do with it. He left me here, and I thought about it a moment or so, decided it was a shame, a good man going to the dogs like that, then I went off to my own bed.’
‘You didn’t think to accompany Greville back to his rooms?’
‘It simply never occurred to me,’ said Carstairs frankly. ‘As I say, he seemed to have settled down a lot, and his rooms are just down the corridor. Why should I suspect that he would – do what he did?’
‘You are convinced that he killed himself, then?’
‘Absolutely. What other explanation could there possibly be?’
‘You dismiss the notion that someone did intend him some harm?’
‘Oh, come on, Mr Harris!’ Carstairs laughed, then grew serious again. ‘I am sorry, it is no laughing matter, I know. But you cannot honestly imagine that anyone at the Abbey School had anything to do with poor Greville’s tragic death? Apart from him, I mean.’
‘It is a curious coincidence, though, is it not? Greville tells you that he feels himself threatened, and then he dies in that very strange fashion?’
‘So you unhesitatingly conclude that this mysterious “someone” killed him?’ Carstairs did not bother to hide his contempt. He leaned forward. ‘Look here, Mr Harris, I kept quiet about the whole thing just because it would have confirmed what everyone suspected, the coroner included, though he tried to spare the feelings of Greville’s family. The man was unhinged. He came to me for help, and I more or less sent him off with a flea in his ear. It reflects badly upon me, I agree, but that was not the reason for my silence. Had I spoken, it would have been glaringly obvious that the man committed suicide whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed, as I believe the correct phrase goes. When I think about it, I’m rather sorry that I gave him that whisky. He was no drinker, and it may just have been that small glass which tipped the scale, caused him to take that fatal decision. I’m not proud of that, Mr Harris, and I don’t propose to advertise the fact that I had anything to do with it. Nor do I intend to do anything that might change the “accidental death” verdict. Now, I’ve laid the facts before you, and if you want to make them public, there’s nothing I can do to stop you.’
I thought about it for a moment. Carstairs’s testimony had the ring of truth. There was no point causing Greville’s relatives more distress, not without more evidence one way or another. ‘I’ll say nothing for the time being,’ I told Carstairs, ‘although I should have been inclined to tell the truth at the outset, were I in your shoes. Now, we can put Greville here at midnight, or soon after. Some time later that night, he fell from the tower. So he must have left his own rooms, if indeed he ever returned to them.’
‘That much is certain. As I say, I never thought to walk back to his rooms with him, so I cannot say one way or the other.’
‘H’mm.’ There seemed little point pursuing the matter, and so I said ‘good night’, and went back to my rooms. I did not go immediately to bed, though, as you may readily imagine. Instead I sat gazing at the dying embers of the fire, and tried to put my thoughts into some sort of order.
If nothing else, I had at least discovered the identity of the man Greville had met that fateful night. More, for up until now, nobody, apart from the two rather frightened boys, had even known that Greville had met anyone.
The next task was to consider Carstairs’s statement, and his bearing. He had been hesitant at first, but that was only to be expected; but then he had answered me readily enough. As a working hypothesis only, then, I took Carstairs’s statement at its face value; Greville had been in a nervous frame of mind. Possibly more than that, he may have been suffering from – what was it my alienist colleagues labelled it – paranoia? The delusion that one is being watched, followed, persecuted. I could accept that, for I’ve seen some odd things in my time.
Next, Carstairs had given Greville, who was unused to spirits, some whisky to calm him down. Now, I privately thought it very likely that Carstairs may actually have given Greville considerably more than he had indicated to me. The ‘stiff drink to settle one’s nerves’ is well enough known; but the embarrassed Carstairs would naturally wish to minimize his own contribution to Greville’s condition, and had thus pretended to me that it was a small measure he had served to Greville. Assume that the whisky had not settled Greville’s nerves, that it had the opposite effect and made him yet more jumpy. We have all experienced that, I fancy? Very well, Greville returned to his rooms, but was unable to settle down to sleep. His old phantasms, whatever ghosts and ghouls that he imagined were haunting him, came again as he sat there alone. In desperation, he fled from them. It was useless to ask his colleagues for help, he had already asked Carstairs, and been told, in effect, to pull himself together. He very likely had some notion of escaping by climbing the tower, and when he reached the top, found he had nowhere to go, except –
I shuddered. It was not so very ridiculous, though. Or perhaps he really had slipped; it may, as the coroner had said, have been a genuine accident.
Either way, it made sense, a good deal more sense than all this talk of murder and conspiracy and Lord alone knew what else. I reviewed the other odd aspects, trying to clear up loose ends. The gossip about ‘something going on’, for example? Easy enough to explain: you get that sort of thing in the army, in hospitals, in any large business concern; it is human nature to grumble about one’s superiors, one’s colleagues, when all is said and done. Trom
arty? A harmless old man! Why, I myself had scoffed at my own foolish fancies when they first obtruded upon my mind. The name was, just as I had told myself, a coincidence. And his visit to the spinney? Well, it was no true ‘visit’, as I have told you; he merely went in and came out again. Most likely he had been taking a constitutional after being cooped up indoors all day; nothing so very strange about that, was there? And the matter of young Lord Whitechurch and the alleged theft of money? That probably had nothing whatever to do with Greville’s sad death. I did not know the rights and wrongs of the Whitechurch business, it is true, but then neither did Holmes; it had puzzled him too, so I need not feel too bad about that.
However, I was fairly certain that I had solved the more important riddle, that of Greville’s death. I stood up, pretty well satisfied with myself. Tomorrow, I would telegraph to Holmes, tell him that his clients were mistaken, and the death had indeed been a tragic accident. Or suicide? Well, there was surely no need whatever to cause further distress to the young man’s family. And the circumstances meant that a better man than I would be sorely puzzled to know the exact truth. No, ‘accidental death’ had been the coroner’s verdict, and it might just as well be mine.
As I say, I was well pleased with myself. But something nagged at me, and as I prepared for bed, I remembered what it was. Watson Minor had mentioned an elder brother, said that this brother had also had some misgivings, and had been very interested to learn that Greville was uneasy. I would do the thing properly. I would speak to this Watson Major tomorrow, and clear up the last little particle of doubt. That settled, I slept like the proverbial log, until my alarm woke me next day.
I could not tell you just how I managed my teaching duties that second day. The first day of the new term, and my first acquaintance with the boys in my charge, had been made easy by the novelty of it all. A little informality, a little scrappiness, even, could be expected and excused. But now things were somewhat more settled, and everyone – myself excepted, perhaps – anticipated that we should evolve our own routine of class work, fall into our appointed roles as teacher and pupils. It was all right for the boys, of course, they knew well enough what was expected of them! But I, to be frank, had not the slightest clue as to how to proceed. You see, I had fully expected that the investigation would take up the bulk of my time, and that the teaching would, as it were, be merely secondary. I now realized that such was not the case.
However, by avoiding the grammar and syntax side of things as much as possible, and concentrating instead on the set books, I managed to get through the lessons somehow or other. The boys, I think, were not too displeased at my methods, for although I am no grammarian my recording of Holmes’s cases has at least made me aware of what appeals to a youthful readership. I involved the boys in discussions of the merits and otherwise of the various works they had to read, and the hours passed pleasantly enough, so that I flattered myself that if I could but ‘mug up’ on the grammar – for I was unconsciously absorbing some of the boys’ phrases and usages – I might make a pretty useful sort of English teacher, given time.
As I say, I got through the day without too many gaffes, and when the last lesson was over, I sought out Watson Minor, and asked if he would be so kind as to send his elder brother to my rooms.
Watson Minor exhibited some surprise at this request. ‘I say, sir, there’s nothing wrong, is there?’ he asked anxiously. ‘It wasn’t about that other business, the thing with Edmonds and me, was it?’
‘No, no,’ I reassured him. ‘Nothing of that kind. Just send him along, there’s a good lad.’
Ten minutes later, Watson Major tapped upon my door, and I waved him to a chair. His face bore some indications of concern and surprise, I assumed because of the unexpected invitation, but he was a handsome enough young man of seventeen or eighteen, as I judged. Unless I was much mistaken, he had already turned a few of the village girls’ heads, and in a year or so the Society ladies would be thinking seriously of his attributes as a prospective son-in-law.
‘Sir?’ he asked, as he entered the room. ‘It’s not about that young devil – I mean, my brother, is it?’
‘No, nothing of that sort. Sit down, my boy, sit down.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘A cigar?’ I asked, as he took a seat. ‘Or would it spoil your appetite for dinner?’
His face showed real surprise at the offer. ‘Very good of you, sir,’ he stammered, ‘but – well!’
‘Oh, help yourself,’ said I, throwing him my case. ‘A decent cigar, now and then, does no real harm, not in my view. Just have to be careful not to overdo things, that’s the secret.’
‘Very kind,’ he repeated, lighting the cigar in a way which indicated a certain degree of familiarity.
‘Look here, Watson, I want to be frank with you. You have very likely heard some sort of talk about my being acquainted with Mr Sherlock Holmes and your namesake, Dr Watson? Well, I am here at Mr Holmes’s express request.’
‘I say!’ Watson Major had evidently not expected this. He choked on his cigar, coughed, and sat back in his chair, trying to look nonchalant.
‘It is a surprise, I know. But Mr Holmes has reasons for thinking that all is not as it should be at the Abbey School.’
Watson Major leaned forward. ‘I don’t know how he is involved, sir, or how he knows – although one might have expected that he would know, of course! But he, and you, are quite correct. There is something odd going on here.’
‘Ahah! I thought you were the man I needed. What exactly is amiss, then?’
Watson Major shook his head. ‘If I knew for certain, sir, I’d tell you like a shot,’ he said. ‘The trouble is, I don’t know, not anything substantial, if that’s the right word. Nothing I could put a name to, if you follow me, sir, just a sort of gnawing sense of unease.’
‘Connected, perhaps, with the tragic death of Mr Greville?’
Watson Major started. ‘That, yes, sir.’
‘I understand that you and he shared these concerns that all was – is – not well?’
‘It’s very curious that you should say that, sir. On the day he died, Mr Greville had apparently let slip something in front of some of the boys, my brother, and Edmonds. Something about there being something odd, that kind of thing. Anyway, it coincided so exactly with what I’d been thinking that I determined to see Mr Greville that very day, try to thrash out what was wrong.’
‘And did you? See him, I mean?’
Watson Major shook his head. ‘I went to his rooms, and knocked, but there was no reply.’
‘Wait – when was that?’
‘Oh, after class. About this very hour, as a matter of fact. Half past four? About that. Anyway, there was no reply, and so I went on with my prep. I couldn’t concentrate very much, I’m afraid, for thinking about things, You know how it is? Anyway, the more I thought about it, the sillier I felt! I shuddered at the thought that Mr Greville might have been in, might have answered my knock. For what would I have said to him? The trouble was, my thoughts were so – so nebulous, so unclear, just a sort of sensation of something wrong. In the event, of course, I think he’d have given me a sympathetic hearing, but I couldn’t know that then. All I thought was, that I’d look foolish, telling a master these silly fancies. So I didn’t try again.’
‘You didn’t return to Mr Greville’s rooms that night?’
‘No, sir. I felt so foolish, as I say, so I just tried to forget the whole thing. Afterwards, of course, I realized that something had been wrong, horribly wrong, for Mr Greville to die like that. But I didn’t know just what. If it were suicide, and that seemed to be what everyone thought, even though the coroner said it was an accident, then – I don’t know, I think I thought that if Mr Greville had been – you know, wrong in the head, and killed himself in consequence, then perhaps my own fancies – well!’
‘You feared that perhaps you, too, were going mad? That it?’
Watson Major nodded, reluctant to speak.
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br /> ‘Well, I think we may dismiss that notion,’ I told him.
‘But I didn’t, not then, you see, sir. I was thinking all sorts of things. And then I didn’t see that speaking out would help. What could I say, that I thought something was wrong, and Mr Greville agreed? That would just be read as my seeing that Mr Greville was upset, suicidal. That’s what I thought. And then, with being afraid that I – that I might be affected, as it were, myself – so I just kept quiet, tried to forget the whole thing.’
‘Pretend that nothing was wrong? Well, I can’t blame you for that. But tell me, what originally kindled your suspicions, before Mr Greville died, I mean?’
‘Sir?’
‘Well, why did you first think that something, anything, was wrong? What was the “something” which made you uneasy?’
Watson Major frowned. ‘It’s hard to explain, sir. There was that business with young Whitechurch, of course. Why the devil should – sorry, sir – I mean why on earth should he steal anything? His father’s one of the richest men in all England, and Whitechurch himself was never short of a bob or two. It made no sort of sense. But that wasn’t it, that was merely the culmination, as you might say, of a whole series of vague things.’
‘What sort of things?’ I persisted.
Watson Major shook his head. ‘That’s just it, sir, it’s so hard to pin down. A sort of atmosphere, a feeling of secrecy; sneakiness, as the young ’uns would put it.’
‘Ah. Ever heard of a secret society at the school?’ I asked him.
‘Who told you that?’ He seemed shaken.
‘Oh, just gossip one overhears, you know. Is there?’
‘I think there is, now you mention it, sir.’
‘Among the boys, of course?’
‘I think so, sir. I’m not a member, of course, so I wouldn’t know. You get these things, I expect, in most schools, but here nobody seems to know anything about it, if you follow me. Very secret, so to speak. But I’ve heard and seen odd things, snippets of conversation, fellows giggling like a bunch of sissies. Well, you get that sort of rotten thing at some schools, I suppose,’ he added, in a tone that would not come amiss in a man of seventy, ‘but I’ve never seen anything of that sort here, thank the Lord. So I suppose it must be a secret society of some sort, membership strictly by invitation only. And I’ll tell you another thing, sir, I’ve an idea that young Whitechurch had been asked to join this mysterious society.’