Further Notes From the Dispatch Box of John H Watson MD (The Dispatch Box of John H Watson, MD)

by Hugh Ashton

  “ It is obvious, from the rather overbearing nature and air of command that he exhibits. This particular bearing is common to self-made proprietors of a business.”

  “ Very good. In which case, his parsimonious disposition can be explained by the fact that he is using one of his firm’s packing cases to transport his personal effects, rather than spending money on luggage. I agree that there is a certain indefinable something that marks him as a single man, and the boots that we remarked earlier, together with the overly ornate floral arrangement in his buttonhole, mark him as something of a dandy, and hence as a man with a roving eye. But I still do not see the drink that you mentioned as a part of his character.”

  “ That was the simplest of them all,” Holmes answered me. “ Surely the outline of his hip flask in his pocket was obvious when he descended from the trap ? If a man cannot live without drink within easy reach for the relatively short time that it takes to come here from Aberystwyth station, we may assume that alcohol may be deemed a necessary adjunct to his existence. However, you have followed my reasoning on all the other points. It is simply a matter of adding one’s experience to one’s observations.”

  “ You make it sound absurdly simple.”

  “ It is indeed absurdly simple, and yet I seem to be the only man in London—nay, in the whole kingdom—who seems capable of the feat.”

  I laughed at Holmes’ pretensions. “ You may be thankful that this is the case, for if it were otherwise, you might be bereft of a profession. Do we introduce ourselves to this Mr. Fuller, once he is settled ? ”

  “ You may do so if you wish, but I fear that he will prove very poor company.”

  -oOo-

  HOLMES’ PREDICTION was proved correct. Though I took the trouble to make myself known to Mr. Fuller, by the expedient of leaving my card at the Griffiths house, and though he returned the call the next morning, it seemed that we had little in common, and the subjects of which he spoke were either of little interest to me, or, containing as they did thinly veiled references to his experiences with the fair sex, were distasteful to me. It did seem indeed that Holmes’ judgement of his character was correct. When not speaking of his manufactory and the business associated with it, Fuller’s sole interest seemed to be the pursuit, and if I understood him correctly, the seduction, of as many young women as possible.

  I heard him with barely suppressed anger. Such a man was far from being the type that I would choose as a companion, and I was thankful that Holmes was absent on one of his long walks along the shore, for though he could in no way be termed a romantic, his attitude towards women was almost invariably one of courtesy and chivalry. At the earliest possible opportunity, I contrived to have Fuller leave the house, though it appeared to me that he wished to continue the conversation longer.

  When Holmes returned, I recounted the events of the morning to him.

  “ Even allowing for the exaggeration which is common among men of that type,” he remarked, “ it would seem wise for our neighbour Mrs. Griffiths to keep a close eye on her daughter.”

  I agreed. Young Gwen Griffiths, the daughter, was a fine figure of Welsh womanhood, and would undoubtedly attract the attentions of one such as Fuller. “ She has three strapping brothers to protect her honour,” I reminded him. Mrs. Griffiths, whose husband had perished at sea, as we had been told, kept the house with her three sons who carried on their father’s trade as fishermen, and the youngest of the family, young Gwen.

  Once again, Holmes proved himself to be a prophet. It was only the day after my conversation with Fuller that I observed him in conversation with the fair daughter of our neighbour. She appeared to be agitated, and he had caught hold of her sleeve, seemingly detaining her against her will. As I rounded the corner of the street where I beheld them, he caught sight of me, and immediately released her from his grip.

  “ A very good day to you, Watson ! ” he sang out, in his unpleasing Midland accent.

  It would have been churlish of me to cut him altogether, but I merely grunted a noncommittal reply and proceeded without speaking to him further. I turned into the lane that led to the tavern where I had been accustomed to refresh myself in company with the local villagers from time to time, and realised that I was being followed. I stopped and turned to behold David Griffiths, the youngest brother of young Gwen, who now hailed me.

  “ That man is no friend of yours, then, sir ? ” he enquired of me, in a slightly aggressive tone of voice.

  “ By no means. The kind of behaviour that I just witnessed fills me with disgust, and I can tell you in all honesty that if he had not released your sister when he did, I would have used the strongest possible methods to make him do so.”

  A smile spread over his face. “ I’m very pleased to hear you say that, sir,” he told me in that curious Welsh singsong accent. Me and my brothers would be very much obliged to you, sir, if you and the other gentleman staying next door would be good enough to keep an eye on Gwen. My brothers and I are out in the boat all the day, and with no man in the house, there’s no knowing what might be going on.”

  “ I am sure that I and my friend will be happy to do as you say. By the way, why are you not in the boat with your brothers today ? ”

  “ I twisted my shoulder yesterday hauling in the net, and Owen and Gareth told me that today they could manage without me. Would you be going to the Dragon, sir ? Because if you are, I would like to express my thanks to you, if you understand my meaning.”

  I was happy to accept his invitation, and we made our way to the tavern, talking as we did so. I discovered several things about young Griffiths and his family. As we had been told, his father had drowned, tragically within sight of land, but the sea had been too rough for any attempt at a rescue. The three boys and their sister were left to fend for themselves, and support their mother, with the eldest of the boys being a mere seventeen years of age when he was orphaned. On our arrival at the Dragon, I waved aside his intention of purchasing my drink, and instead “ stood a round” is the phrase has it, for him and the other occupants of the bar. This was much appreciated, and a place was made for me in the circle. I spent the best part of a happy hour listening to tales of life in the village, which held my interest, although the protagonists were unknown to me.

  On my return to the Williams household, I informed Holmes of what had happened, including some details of the local gossip. “ And our beauteous neighbour of next door,” I concluded, “ while not formally betrothed to the man generally reckoned to be the strongest in the village, a Mr. Dai Edwards who is a fisherman also, is generally reckoned to be attached to him and he to her. If our Mr. Fuller decides to pay her any attention, the general opinion of the taproom in the Dragon is that he would do best to leave the village before Mr. Edwards’ boat returns to harbour. And of course, that is to say nothing of the three Williams brothers, who likewise seen pledged to defend the honour of their sister.”

  Holmes threw back his head and laughed heartily. “ Good old Watson. I have my own methods of obtaining information, but I have to confess that in matters like these you have an uncanny knack of discovering the most trivial of details in a very short space of time. But I think that you are right to have made your promise to the Williams lad as regards keeping a watchful eye on Fuller. It is hard for me to be sure, since I am without my usual methods of verifying my information, but I am reasonably certain that this is a man who was acquitted, on evidence that I can only describe as dubious, in an embezzlement case a few years ago. My feeling is that we have a bad character as our neighbour, and even without the Williams girl, his presence here would add interest to an otherwise deathly dull community.”

  What Holmes described as “ interest” is what most of the law-abiding world would describe as “ crime”. It must be admitted, though, that however congenial I had found the company of David Griffiths and his companions, and however beautiful the dramatic scenery of this part of Wales, there was a large part of me that agreed with Holmes’ cha
racterisation of the village, and I began to wonder whether we would not have been better served by a stay at Brighton or Eastbourne or some other fashionable watering place.

  In the event, though, it was only a matter of a day before Holmes found something of interest to him—that is to say, before a crime requiring his extraordinary skills occurred.

  We were sitting down to our evening meal, which Mrs. Williams termed “ tea” (and indeed, a large brown pot filled with that beverage was placed in the centre of our table along with a ham salad, for it had been an unseasonably warm day, and our hostess had expressed her opinion, with which we concurred, that a hot meal in the evening would be unwelcome, bread, butter, and home-made cakes) when Mrs. Griffiths burst in, her face ashen.

  “ He’s dead ! ” she shrieked. “ He’s sitting there at the table, in a pool of his own blood ! ”

  Holmes, who had risen to his feet at her first words, gently took her by the arm and led her to a chair where she sat, shaking in obvious terror.

  “ Now then,” he said softly to her. “ Who is dead ? Is this one of your sons ? ”

  The terrified woman looked up at Holmes, her face wet with tears. “ Oh no, sir, it’s not one of my boys. It’s that Mr. Fuller, the paying guest. He’s dead,” she repeated, and burst into hysterical sobbing. I moved to be near the woman, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “ Come now,” I said in my most gentle tones. “ You must tell us more.”

  The wretched woman broke down again, and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. At length she spoke, but I was unable to catch the words. I looked at Holmes questioningly, but he too shook his head.

  “ She is speaking in Welsh, a language I have yet to master,” he told me.

  Our hostess answered her in the same language, and she started to speak in English.

  “ It was half an hour ago that I found him. I know it was half past five because the grandfather clock was just striking when I opened the door. I was bringing him his second pot of tea, because he liked his tea. And there he was, just sitting there, covered in blood, and the blood still dripping from him, drip, drip, drip, onto the best parlour carpet. I’ll never be able to look at that carpet again,” and once again she burst into sobs.

  “ Shall I call Constable Evans ? ” Mrs. Williams asked Holmes.

  “ I think we had all better view the scene,” he replied.

  At the sound of his words, our visitor’s hysterical sobs grew louder. “ Oh no, sir. I’m not going in that room again. Not with him sitting there dead in his blood like that.”

  “ Very good, Mrs. Griffiths,” my friend said to her. “ No one can force you to go in there. But you must tell us what happened as clearly as possible.”

  She wiped her eyes and looked up at him. “ I took in his tea, and set it out on the table and then called him down to it, sir,” she began.

  “ At what time was this ? ” asked Holmes, who by now had pulled out his ever-present notebook, and was writing in it.

  “ I called him down to his tea at a twenty past five or a little after. It was the same sort of thing as you gentlemen were going to eat. A nice bit of ham from one of Morgan’s pigs, a few bits of green and some bread and butter with some of my tea bread. And I’d made a good strong pot of tea to go with it all. Well, sir, he came down and went into the room. I came from the kitchen with the teapot, and like I say, the grandfather clock was just striking when I opened the door and I saw him there. I don’t know quite what I did, but the next thing I knew was that my three boys were standing round me. I was lying on the floor, and I suppose I must have fainted away. My boys told me that they had come straight from the harbour, where they had come in from fishing on their boat and they had just discovered me lying on the floor there.”

  “ What time was this ? ”

  “ Just before I came here, sir.”

  “ Let us say ten minutes past six, then,” said Holmes, pulling out his watch and making a note of the time. “ So you had been unconscious for about forty minutes.” He paused, as if in thought. “ Tell me,” he said suddenly, “ where was the teapot when you woke up ? ”

  Our visitor’s face creased in thought. “ I can’t rightly say. That is to say, I don’t know.”

  “ May I ask where your daughter was while all these events were taking place ? ”

  It may have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that a guilty look passed across her face before she answered us. “ She had gone out earlier that afternoon. She hasn’t returned yet.”

  “ Very well. Mrs. Williams,” he addressed our landlady. “ Please make Mrs. Griffiths comfortable, and when you feel she is settled, inform the constable of these events. Dr. Watson and I will step next door, and examine the scene.”

  All three of the Griffiths sons were standing outside the door of the house as we approached. David, the youngest, with whom I had spent some time in the Dragon, spoke to us first.

  “ I think you are too late, Doctor,” he addressed me. “ He’s dead, if ever I saw a dead man.”

  “ I am sure you are right, but I can assure you that my interest in this is not simply one of idle curiosity.”

  “ Shouldn’t you wait until the police arrive ? ” one of the other brothers asked us.

  Sherlock Holmes answered him. “ In cases like this, I have found that the sooner these incidents are investigated, the more evidence remains to solve the case.”

  “ You mean that you have done this sort of thing before ? ” asked David Griffiths.

  I answered for my friend. “ Maybe you have heard of Sherlock Holmes ? ” The three brothers nodded. “ This is he.”

  The three looked at each other, and I saw what appeared to be a glance of dismay pass between them. “ I still think you should wait for the police,” said the one who had previously expressed his opinion on that matter.

  “ I can assure you,” Holmes told him in his most authoritative manner, “ that the police will welcome my help in this investigation. If you gentlemen wish to assist, you can do so best by preventing anyone other than the police from entering this house.” Again a glance seem to be passed between the brothers, but they made no attempt to prevent us entering the house.

  The interior of the house seemed to be unreasonably warm, and I found myself perspiring slightly as we reached the door of the fatal chamber. As we had been told, Fuller was sitting in his chair at the table, with his neck and chest covered in blood, which had splashed onto the table in places, and had dripped onto the carpet.

  “ It is no wonder that she said she could never use that carpet again,” I remarked, shuddering.

  “ I am sure that our impressions, as well as those of the Griffiths family, are correct,” Holmes answered me, “ but if you will have the goodness to confirm that life is indeed extinct, then I would be grateful.”

  I was thankful that my service in India had blunted my feelings at the sight of violent death—a sight which, I was well aware, had an effect even on some members of my profession. Sherlock Holmes, for his part, appeared to have nerves of steel where this sort of thing was concerned, and the sight of a bloody corpse seemed to affect him little more than the sight of a roast chicken on his dinner plate. I could detect no signs of life in this case, and reported as much.

  “ I know this is stretching your professional judgement to the limit, Watson, but would you be prepared to give any estimate as to the time of death ? ”

  “ I think that the excessively warm atmosphere prevents me from giving any definite opinion on the matter, and I can only say that death has almost certainly occurred within the last hour or two. I am sorry not to be able to give any more precise an opinion than that.”

  “ I feared as much,” he replied. Moving to my side, he took the hand of the corpse, and flexed the wrist gently. The meal, set in front of the dead man, appeared to have been untouched.

  “ What do you make of the wounds ? ” he asked.

  “ I lack your extensive experience in these matter
s, but I will give you my opinion, for what it is worth.” I bent to examine the grisly wounds that had been inflicted on the dead man. “ There are more wounds than are necessary to kill him. It is almost as if he had been sacrificed in some ritual, absurd as the idea may sound. I would have to say that from the angle, or rather from the angles, of the wounds, that more than one person was involved.”

  “ And what of the weapon ? ”

  “ It is hard to say. A knife of some kind. Obviously not the bread knife on this table, or the knife that has been used to slice the ham.”

  “ Obviously not,” he agreed. He brought out his lens, and peered through it at the corpse. “ A single edged blade, designed more for cutting than stabbing. And a short blade, such as might be found on a seaman’s or a fisherman’s jack-knife.”

  “ This would all seem to point to one particular group of people, would it not ? ”

  “ Indeed it would, were it not for the fact that we were specifically told that they had arrived from the harbour where they had moored their boat. That should be an easy enough fact to establish.”

  “ Or to disprove,” said I.

  Holmes did not reply to this, but seemed engrossed in an examination of the items on the table. “ Now, where is that teapot ? ” he asked, half to himself. “ Aha ! ” He turned to examine the small table at the entrance to the room, upon which stood a teapot covered by a tea cosy.

  “ What is this ? ” He was referring to a small recess in one wall, covered by a curtain. He drew the curtain back, and dropped to his knees to examine the floor of the recess. “ It is impossible to say if anyone has been standing here or not, but it would make a fine hiding place for an assassin, would it not ? ”

  “ I agree. And with the victim’s back to the recess, he would have no warning until it is too late.”