by Ashton, Hugh
“Thank you, sir,” replied the girl. “You are perfectly correct.”
“And, sir, now that your daughter-in-law is on her way to London—” The Earl started at this, and Holmes gestured through the window at the vista beyond. The trap was visible in the act of leaving the driveway. “—I will explain all if you come downstairs. But first let me send some instructions.” He ripped a page from his notebook and scrawled a few lines, giving it to Bouverie, together with a sovereign and instructions that his message be taken by one of the outdoor servants to the village post office and dispatched by telegram to London as soon as possible.
-oOo-
ONCE seated in the library, Holmes addressed Lord Darlington and myself.
“You were correct in your suspicions and doubts regarding Lady Hareby. I am convinced that she was directly responsible for your son’s illness of the heart that took him to hospital, and that she also encompassed his death.”
The old man sat with his head in his hands. “I had always believed it to be an imprudent match,” he explained. “But he was not to be persuaded. If only his dear mother had lived, he might have changed his mind. But...”
“Love will have its way,” replied Holmes. “Or rather, in this case, perhaps the word ‘infatuation’ might be more appropriate.
“It is clear that she married your son, with the intention of gaining control of the estate after your death. I think that much is obvious from her actions and from her behaviour towards her husband and towards you. Earlier, she had almost killed Lord Hareby by preying on his superstitious fears. The books provided for his entertainment in his bed-room were almost certainly provided by her, in order to heighten his fancies, and to weaken his will.
“The Mace, as you have almost certainly deduced for yourself, sir, was abstracted by her from the cabinet here in the library, and was treated in such a way as to make it a frightening object when beheld at the dead of night, especially by a man in his frail condition. I have no doubt that it was these manipulations that were responsible for his sudden illness that morning. Whence the idea originated, and from whom she obtained the luminous compound to make it shine in the dark, I am confident that I shall shortly discover.
“Naturally, she is unable to inherit the estate in her own right, according to the terms of entailment. The full control of the estate and its revenues could only be attained through her child, or more specifically, her son. For her, this was a wager – that the child she was carrying was male. As I remarked to Watson earlier, it would be staking all on the toss of a coin. If the child proved to be female, then all would be lost. Her husband was almost certainly incapable of providing her with another child. She therefore, to continue my analogy, therefore had to provide herself with a double-headed coin. She made enquiries down in London with the aim of procuring a new-born baby boy, again from sources as yet unknown to me, and the aim was to pass it off as her own. Tell me, sir, who was present at the birth of her child?”
“Not I, naturally. Nor my son. Dr. Brendell was the physician, but now I come to recall, he was late in arriving, and he was not actually present at the birth. Only the village midwife was in attendance.”
“I will need to speak to her soon. Please send one of your people down to the village to bring her here.”
The Earl rang and gave the order for the midwife to be brought to the Hall as soon as possible.
“Once she had a child whom she could present as the next heir, the way was clear for her to eliminate her husband entirely. It is almost certain that it was she who dosed his tonic with a deadly poison, the exact composition of which is still a mystery to me, which had the effect of irritating the skin and causing a temporary loss of sanity. Dr. Watson here was subjected to a very minor dose of this drug which had been introduced into the horseradish at luncheon today. Once again, Watson, I owe you my apologies for subjecting you to this.”
“And I owe you my thanks,” added the peer to me. “Almost certainly I would have succumbed had not been due to your courage, and the diligence of Mr. Holmes.”
I was agog to ask Holmes how he had come to the conclusion that he had reached regarding the existence of the priest’s hole, as well as the way in which he had managed the fire (for there was not the faintest doubt in my mind that he was the genius behind that incident), but I knew it was fruitless to quiz him on these matters unless he chose to speak of them.
“I wonder what will become of Mad Maggie’s curse now,” said the Earl, reflectively, a wry smile on his lips. “Is the curse now broken, as the coin was not thrown into the well, and we have no heir?”
“That is a question whose answer falls outside my sphere,” replied Holmes sternly. “I deal in facts and physical evidence. You must seek elsewhere for the answer to that question.”
We sat together in silence for a few minutes, broken at length by Bouverie’s entrance and his announcement of the arrival of the village midwife.
“Show her in, then,” the Earl told him. A minute later, an ancient crone hobbled into the room, and gazed at Holmes and me suspiciously.
“A good afternoon to your Lordship,” she croaked. “And who may these two be?”
“These are two gentlemen from London who want to ask you a few questions, Rebecca,” answered the Earl. “Won’t you sit down?” indicating a chair.
“I will, thanking you, sir,” replied the old woman, continuing to glare at us. “So you two gentlemen have come all the way from London to ask me some questions?”
“That is correct,” replied Holmes.
“I must warn you gentlemen that my memory is not what it once was. It would be a waste of time for you to ask me about things that happened long ago.”
“This is about something that happened only two weeks ago. I am sure your memory is not that poor.”
She frowned in response. “Are you wanting me to talk about her Ladyship?” she answered. “Because if you are, I can tell you now that you are wasting your time.” She set her hands on her knees and sat in her chair solidly.
“That is a pity,” said Holmes, rising, and making as if to leave the room.
“Where are you going?” she asked him.
“You told me that I was wasting my time,” replied Holmes coolly. “I see no point in my continuing this conversation. Maybe you would prefer to speak to me from a police cell.”
“Why would I be in a police cell?” she asked, obviously troubled by this prospect.
“Because you are withholding evidence necessary for the solving of a crime,” he answered. “Lord Darlington, I take it you have no objection to my sending one of your servants to fetch the police.”
“You can’t be doing that!” exclaimed the old woman. “I’ve done nothing I shouldn’t have done.”
“How much did she pay you? Five shillings?” asked Holmes.
“Five shillings? I have my standards, thanking you kindly, Mr. Busybody,” replied the old woman, making a motion as if to spit on the floor, but then appearing to remember where she was, and thinking better of it. “It was ten guineas – not pounds, mark you, but guineas.” She suddenly realised what she had admitted, and clapped a hand to her mouth.
“Somewhat in excess of your usual fee as a midwife, I would expect?” replied Holmes. “And how did you earn all this extra money?”
“It was a girl,” she muttered. “I’d told her it would be, because I’d swung her wedding ring over her belly a month before. It swung round and round in a circle like it does when it’s going to be a girl. If it’s a boy, it just goes back and forward.”
“Indeed,” said Holmes, hiding his obvious amusement at this piece of rustic superstition. “I live and learn. So what was Lady Hareby’s reaction when you told her?”
“She told me it had to be a boy, and she was going to make sure that it was a boy. I don’t know what she did in London when she went down there, but next I know was that just about her time, there was a knock on my door, and there was a man standing there with this little b
aby in his arms.
“ ‘Hello,’ says he, ‘and you are Rebecca Johnson?’
“ ‘I am,’ I says back to him, ‘and who are you, and who’s that little one you’ve got there?’
“ ‘Never you mind who I am,” he says, ‘but this here is Lady Hareby’s new-born son.’
“ ‘He hasn’t been born yet,’ says I, and I look a bit closer at the baby. ‘In any event, that’s no new-born,’ I tells him. ‘That baby’s two weeks old at least.’
“ ‘There’s few at the Hall who’ll know the difference,’ he says. ‘And those who do won’t say anything.’
“By now I had some idea of what was going on. ‘When my Ladyship’s time comes,’ I says to him, ‘you want me to change the baby if it’s a girl so that she has a new baby boy to show the world.’
“ ‘She said you were a quick one.’
“ ‘And what happens to the poor little girl?’ I asked. I’m soft-hearted, like, and I didn’t want to think of anything happening to a new baby. I mean to say, I had no idea what was going to happen to the new little one.
“ ‘There’ll be someone who will take care of her. She’ll be well looked after.’ Well, that put my mind at rest a bit, I can tell you. I mean, it’s one thing to change one baby for another, but there was no way I was going to be involved in anything rough.”
“Your sentiments do you credit,” observed Holmes, acidly.
Oblivious of the sarcasm in his voice, the old woman continued. “ ‘What if it’s a boy?’ I asks him.
“ ‘You said it was going to be a girl,” he says.
“ ‘I did, but the pendulum’s sometimes wrong,’ I had to tell him. I’m telling you gentlemen that it doesn’t always work. Sometimes you get the wrong feeling and it starts to rock back and forward and you don’t know what’s going on, and—”
“And then what happened?” Holmes was obviously making an effort to keep the exasperation out of his voice.
“Well, he gave me five guineas, ‘to be getting on with’ he said, and told me that there would be another five after the birth and the change. Well, it was a close thing him coming the day he did, because it was the very next morning that her Ladyship’s waters broke and I was called in. Doctor Brendell had been drinking the night before, I guess, and couldn’t be there in time, so I was the only one they could find. I went along with the little boy all wrapped up and did what I had to do. And just as I had told her, it was a lovely little baby girl. I gave the little thing to one of the new maids who’d just started and she carried her out of the room to somewhere else. But before she did, she gave me the five extra guineas that I’d been promised.
“Then I dressed up the little boy and made it look as though he was the new-born, and then Dr. Brendell came in. And a waste of time it was him coming in. It was all over by then.”
“Thank you,” said Holmes. “That is most helpful. One more thing. Can you describe the man who brought the baby boy?”
She frowned. “Well, he was about the height of that gentleman there or a bit less,” pointing to me. “Youngish, about twenty-five, I’d say. Not a day over thirty, anyway. A bit stout and dark-looking. No beard or moustache to him. In fact, he looked a bit of a baby face to me. Spoke like a toff, but looked more like a gypsy with those ears of his.”
“What about his ears?” asked Holmes, leaning forward intently.
“Well, they had holes in them like the gypsies do when they want to put earrings in them.”
“Aha,” Holmes said quietly. “That is extremely interesting.”
“And there’s one more odd thing about him, sir,” she went on. “He had this strange white sort of splash mark here,” pointing to her own forehead.
It suddenly occurred to me that I myself had encountered this man some time before while walking in the Park, and I was about to remark on the circumstance, but Holmes spoke.
“Had he, indeed? That is most gratifying to hear. I think, sir,” turning to the Earl, “that since Mrs. Johnson was paid ten guineas to keep the secret, at least an equal sum could be provided for her since she has now revealed it.”
“What? Oh, yes, I suppose so. I will make the arrangements.”
“Why, thank you, sirs,” replied the old crone, smiling almost for the first time since she had entered the room. “Thank you,” she repeated, rising slowly to her feet, and being shown to the door by the Earl.
“We must to London, Watson,” Holmes addressed me. “As soon as the worthy Hanshaw returns from his little adventure, I am afraid we must trouble him or one of his fellows to convey Watson and myself to the station.”
“You believe him to be safe?” Lord Darlington asked anxiously.
“Of course. Her threat to shoot Hanshaw was, of course, merely a bluff. She could not drive herself to the station, so shooting him would defeat her purposes. In addition, any act of violence against him here would simply leave her as a proven criminal surrounded by witnesses.”
“You relieve my mind,” replied the Earl.
-oOo-
AS the express train carried us back to London, I could not refrain from asking Holmes to whom he had addressed the telegram he had caused to be sent from Hareby, and what the contents of it had been.
“I addressed it to Inspector Athelney Jones,” he replied. “He is not possessed of a multitude of redeeming features as a detective, but as a watchdog he has few equals within the Force. His task is to watch for Lady Hareby and to mark where she takes herself on alighting from the train.”
“Not to arrest her?” I asked.
“At present, I do not have enough evidence to secure a conviction. Jones would be a fool to proceed any further with the case at this stage of the proceedings. Especially when you take into account the fact that she is a young mother, with a new-born infant, she would have to commit murder or worse under the very eyes of the jury in order for her to be convicted. I require much more in the way of hard facts before Jones can take such a step.”
“But the bottle of tonic, the Mace that you discovered in the creeper outside the house!” I protested. “I am a witness to those things.”
“Watson,” he remonstrated. “You are, as I have remarked before, the epitome of true English reliability and solidity. They are estimable qualities, and I admire your possession of them. In the vast majority of cases, your testimony would carry absolute conviction to twelve good men and true. However, when the defendant is one such as Lady Hareby, a young woman of considerable personal attractiveness, recently widowed, and the mother of an adorable young baby—”
“How do you know it is adorable?” I broke in. “You have not even seen its face.”
“All young babies are adorable to certain classes of person, including jurors,” he replied sourly. “As I was saying, your testimony would carry no weight with a jury against a witness such as Lady Hareby.”
“What exactly are you seeking to discover in London?”
“I wish to know the full story of the infant that she was passing off as the heir to the Hareby estate. This is not something that she could have accomplished on her own, and I therefore believe that she was aided by person or persons who are outside the law. Whether she realises it or not, she has placed herself in their power. I am in hopes that she will lead me to the spider at the centre of the web. For several years it has been obvious to me that there is a central mind controlling almost all the major, and many of the minor criminal actions committed in London. I can see his traces in many of his subordinates’ actions and methods, but I am still unaware of his identity. I promise you that if I were able to lay hold of him, London would become a peaceful paradise compared to what it is now.”
“And you, my dear Holmes, would find yourself with nothing to occupy you,” I laughed.
“True. I do not see myself stooping to divorce cases or similar sordid matters. On the other hand, do you not think that I could justly congratulate myself on such a result?”
“First, as the cookery book so rightly advis
es, you must catch your hare, however.”
“As so often, Watson, you are perfectly correct with regard to these mundane details. And we are on the track of a hare now, who will, I expect, lead us a merry dance before we are able to track her to her lair.”
“I think that I have seen one of the minions of your central spider, if I may be permitted to mix our zoölogical metaphors,” I remarked to Holmes.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked me.
“The description that the midwife gave us of the man who brought the baby to her corresponds very closely to that of a man whom I observed in London some time ago.”
“Indeed? Where and when was this?”
I outlined the events that had taken place on the afternoon of Bouverie’s visit to us, and Holmes sat back, seemingly digesting the news.
“Very good, Watson. Almost certainly Lady Hareby had told your watcher that I had been employed on the case. It is quite likely, I consider, that John Clay, for that is the name of this enterprising young man, to have started keeping his eye on you and me, though whether that is a matter of his own initiative, or whether it has come from his master, I cannot tell. Possibly even Lady Hareby set him on our trail.”
“You know him?”
“Our paths have crossed, and I am certain that he is as aware of my existence as I of his, though we have yet to have the pleasure of meeting face to face. His watching you was no accident, of that you may be sure. Mr. John Clay may well be the fourth cleverest man in London, and he is not without a certain nerve and daring. If he is not stopped, he will unfortunately rise high in his chosen career of criminality.”
“What are his origins?”
“Rumour has it that he is the by-blow of a Royal Duke. There may well be some truth to that rumour. He undoubtedly possesses connections which are beyond the reach of the common criminal. We must be on our guard when we reach London, it appears.”
He lit his pipe and sank into silence.
“I am still unsure with regard to certain details of how you came to discover the baby’s existence,” I remarked, breaking the silence after about thirty minutes, hoping to draw him out.