The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part IV

by David Marcum

  “There is a train leaving shortly from Charing Cross,” I said, my eye running down the columns of figures. “I think we could catch it if we leave within the next five minutes and secure a cab straight away. There isn’t another one for a couple of hours.”

  “Then we must catch this one,” said Holmes, springing to his feet. “Throw your razor and a spare collar into a bag, Watson, and be ready to leave in two minutes!”

  The next twenty minutes were a frantic dash through the crowded streets. It was not until we were ensconced in a first-class smoking compartment in the Dover express, en route for Ashford, where we would change for Ham Street, that we were able to relax and discuss further Mr. Lidington’s alarming mystery.

  “Do you see any possible meaning to these recent events, Mr. Holmes?” he asked

  “It is too early to speak with any confidence on the matter,” returned Holmes, “although I think the evidence so far permits us to make one or two conjectures. The first sightings you had of your mysterious persecutor were somewhat ambiguous in nature. He appeared to be watching you from the edge of the woods, but that might not have been the case. He might, for instance, have been watching and waiting for someone else. However, the more recent events at your house, especially the performance he put on in your garden the night before last, which you found so disconcerting, can surely mean only one thing.”

  “What is that?”

  “If we set aside any supernatural explanation, we must conclude that someone has been deliberately trying to frighten you.”

  “He certainly succeeded in that,” said Lidington with feeling. “But why should he? What have I ever done to harm anyone?”

  “It may not be because of who you are, but because of where you are. You mentioned that your two-year lease on Naxon House is coming to an end. Perhaps someone does not wish you to renew it, because he wishes to rent the house himself.”

  “It would seem a somewhat elaborate scheme if that is his only aim.”

  “I agree, but it is possible. However, there is another possibility, which is that someone wishes to frighten you away from the house for just a day or two.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “So that he can break into the house for some reason. If that is his aim, then it is possible that your visit to London today may have provided him with just the chance he has been waiting for. The fact that you have no domestic staff in the house would of course make his task easier.”

  “Good Lord!”

  “Do you have anything of significant value in the house?”

  Lidington shook his head. “No, nothing at all that I can think of. But,” he added, “I saw the sinister-looking figure crushed flat by that heavy garden urn the night before last. I am sure if you had seen it, you would have been as horrified as I was. Yet in the morning there was no-one there, and no sign that there ever had been. How can you explain that?”

  “It is not so very difficult,” said Holmes, filling his pipe with tobacco and putting a match to it. “The dark suit of clothes - the long coat, hat and spectacles - that you had previously seen worn by the figure in the woods, were in this case, I suggest, hung upon a wooden frame of some sort. An upturned rake or broom would serve the purpose adequately, I should think. Perhaps they had always been on such a frame - you were never close enough to see before.”

  “But the person in the garden had a head. I could see that clearly enough.”

  “Yes, but your gaze would inevitably have been drawn to the most prominent feature, the dark spectacles. I doubt you would have scrutinized the rest of it very closely.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “That what you thought was a head was in fact some kind of inflatable ball, with the hat perched on top of it and the spectacles secured at the sides.”

  “I suppose it is possible,” conceded Lidington. “The face - what I saw of it - did seem strangely pale and rounded. But the urn seemed to tip over of its own volition, as if by magic.”

  “I fancy I could achieve the same effect, given the circumstances,” returned Holmes, much to Lidington’s surprise. “It was, I suspect, an ancient and time-honoured conjuring trick, which is simple but always effective. All the villain would have needed was a large piece of black cloth to hide behind as he pushed the urn over. You were very unlikely to see what was really happening in the late twilight, when, as you described, the light had almost completely gone. The fact that he had all the equipment necessary for the performance suggests that that was his ultimate aim, and that the sightings you had had of the figure by the woods formed a sort of deliberately disturbing prologue.”

  “You may be right,” said Lidington, “but that still leaves unanswered the question of why I am being persecuted in this way.”

  “There are, as I mentioned, several possibilities,” said Holmes. “If I knew which was the correct one, I should not be travelling down to Kent with you, but should be sitting at home with my feet up, having already solved all your problems for you. Let us therefore leave the matter there for the moment and see what we turn up in and around Apstone.”

  In two hours we had reached Ashford. The branch train stood waiting in the bay platform, but Holmes went to consult a time-table on the wall by the exit.

  “This train leaves in eight minutes,” he said, “but there is another later this afternoon that we can take. I want first to have a word with the house-agent who deals with the rental of Naxon House.”

  Lidington took us through the streets of the busy town to an office bearing the sign “Sandhurst and Martin, House Agents”. Inside, a young man whom Lidington introduced to us as Mr. Carter was seated behind a large desk. He greeted us cordially, but when Holmes asked if anyone had recently expressed an interest in Naxon House, he shook his head.

  “No, not at all,” said he. “We were rather hoping that Mr. Lidington would renew his lease next month. That would keep things simple from our point of view,” he added with a chuckle. “I hope there is no problem - loose tiles, leaks, or anything of the sort?”

  “No,” said Holmes with a glance at his client. “We are interested in the past history of the property, though. Could you tell us who was in the house before Mr. Lidington?”

  “One moment,” said the young man. He leaned over, pulled open a large drawer in a cabinet behind him, and, after a moment, took out a large manila envelope. “As far as I recall,” he said as he tipped the contents of the envelope onto his desk, “the house had been unoccupied for six months before Mr. Lidington took it, and prior to that the owner himself had lived in it for some years. Yes,” he continued after a moment, “the owner of the property is a Mr. Westerton - he lives at Hythe now - Cliff Road, which always sounds a bit dangerous to me,” he added, laughing at his own joke. “He lived at Naxon House from ’81 to early ’84. Before that, it was rented out for about eight years, from ’73 to ’81, to an officer of the South Eastern Railway, a Mr. Stroulger. Before Mr. Stroulger it was rented to a Mr. Smith for about two years. That takes us back to 1871, which was the first year we had anything to do with the property. I believe it had previously been occupied by the owner, who died in that year. He was probably some relation of the present owner, I should think.”

  “If I remember correctly,” said Holmes to Lidington, “Colonel Strother told you he had lived in Apstone for thirteen years, which means he came in ’73. He also said that the incident of the man who had gone mad and been taken away early one morning occurred just a couple of months after he moved there, so that must also have been in ’73, and the man in question must be the Mr. Smith that Mr. Carter referred to. Do you know any more details of the matter, Mr. Carter?” he continued, turning to the house agent.

  “I’m afraid not,” replied Carter. “That was long before my time. My superior, Mr. Martin, might possibly remember. He’s been here a long time.”

 
The young man disappeared through a doorway at the back of the office, but reappeared a few moments later. “If you come this way,” he said, “Mr. Martin will see you now.”

  We were shown into a warm office at the rear of the building, where a fire burned merrily in the grate. An elderly, grey-haired man stood up from behind a desk and waved us to the chairs in front of it. “I understand you are interested in our mysterious Mr. Smith, who got taken away from Naxon House one bright morning,” said he in a dry tone.

  “Among other things,” returned Holmes. “Why do you refer to him as ‘mysterious’?”

  “Well, his name wasn’t Smith, for a start,” said Martin, “as we discovered after he’d gone. It was Farley.”

  “Had you not taken up his references?” asked Holmes in surprise.

  Martin shook his head. “The whole business was quite irregular, which is why I recall it so clearly. The first time we ever had anything to do with Naxon House was when the owner, Serenus Charling, died. That was an odd business in itself. Of course, he was a fairly well-known local character, being a writer of some repute, but he was also a decided eccentric. He used to wander about the Romney Marsh at all hours of the day and night, wearing a large ankle-length black cape and wide-brimmed black hat, generally talking to himself and ignoring everyone else. Most people thought he was slightly mad, so when he was found one morning, drowned in the Royal Military Canal, no-one was altogether surprised. Whether he slipped in or jumped in, no-one could say, and the verdict at the inquest was death by misadventure.

  “Shortly after his death, we were approached by a distant cousin of his, a Mr. Westerton, who had inherited Charling’s property. He himself lived in Ashford at the time, and wanted us to deal with the letting of Naxon House. We had just agreed to this, when he called on us again a few days later to say that an acquaintance of Charling’s had turned up at Naxon House while Westerton was there looking round the place. This acquaintance, who gave his name as Smith, said he had been staying with Charling for some time, although he hadn’t been there at the time of his death. Now, he said, he was interested in renting the house for himself, and, as an old friend of the dead man, would prefer it if Charling’s furniture and other belongings were left in place. This suited Mr. Westerton perfectly, as it meant he would not have the trouble of sorting out his late cousin’s possessions, so he told us to go ahead and rent the house to this man, Smith. I was a bit dubious about this, as I didn’t much care for the look of Smith, a deceitful-looking, rat-faced man, but it was Westerton’s house, to do with as he wished, so I went ahead and wrote out the lease.

  “Nothing much happened for the next two years, although I heard occasional reports from people I knew who lived down that way that this Smith fellow was every bit as eccentric as Charling had been, scarcely ever leaving the house until it had gone dark. Then, early in the autumn of ’73, I had a visit one day from a police inspector, accompanied by a senior officer from Maidstone Prison. They informed me that they were on the track of a man called Farley who had escaped from prison three years previously and who, they now had reason to believe, was one and the same person as the man called Smith, who was living at Naxon House. I was astounded at this, although it did confirm that the unfavourable impression I had formed of him in the first place had been correct. I told them what I knew of him - which wasn’t much - and gave them my spare key, and the next morning at dawn they entered Naxon House and arrested him.

  “I later heard that there was a rumour in the district that Smith had been insane and had been taken away for his own and others’ safety. How this rumour began, I cannot say, but I never went out of my way to correct it. From the point of view of letting the house, it was bad enough that it had been occupied by a man who had gone mad. It would have been even worse, I thought, if it were known that the occupant had been a hardened and vicious escaped convict.”

  “Is there any particular reason why you refer to him as ‘hardened and vicious’?” asked Holmes.

  “He was a member of the gang that carried out the notorious bullion robbery here in Ashford in the late sixties, in the course of which several railway employees were badly beaten. I don’t suppose any of you have heard of that.”

  “I have read something of it,” said Holmes. “A quantity of gold bullion - both bars and coins - was being shipped in great secrecy from Dover to London by the South Eastern Railway. One of that company’s employees got wind of what was being carried and hatched a plan with his confederates to rob the train just north of Ashford Station. As I recall, there were some ingenious touches to the scheme, involving replacing the couplings either side of the wagon containing the bullion with loops of thick rope which could then be cut with a knife - first the back one and then the front one - thus isolating that wagon from the rest of the train. Unfortunately for the gang, the execution of the scheme was not so accomplished as the planning of it had been. They cut the ropes too soon, and too close together, so they didn’t remain isolated for long enough to make off with much of the gold.”

  “Your account of it is very accurate,” said Martin in surprise.

  “The history of such crimes is a little hobby of mine,” returned Holmes. “Could the date of the robbery have been April 25th, 1869?”

  Martin frowned as he tried to remember. “Yes, that would be about right,” he said at length. “I remember it was in the spring. Anyway, all five members of the gang were soon caught and convicted. Three of them, including Farley, were sentenced to ten years in Maidstone Prison. The other two, who were evidently judged less culpable, got seven years. As far as I remember, most of the stolen gold was recovered, but not quite all of it.” Martin paused. “We seem to have drifted quite a long way from your question about previous tenants of Naxon House,” he remarked, scratching his head.

  “Nevertheless, it is all interesting, and we are very grateful to you for sparing us the time,” said Holmes.

  As we walked back to the railway station, Holmes was silent, with a look of intense concentration on his features. I knew better than to bother him with questions when he was so deep in thought, and knew he would share his thoughts on the matter when he felt he had reached a worthwhile conclusion, but Lidington asked him if the information we had received from the house agents had altered his views of the matter.

  In answer, Holmes shook his head in a puzzled manner. “Sometimes,” said he at length, “a little fresh information can clarify a case considerably. In this instance, however, the new information has served only to complicate the matter further. It now seems very likely that the bizarre and puzzling date on the mysterious letter you received a few weeks ago is in fact the date of this notorious bullion robbery, but what might be the significance of that, we cannot say. Let us therefore possess our souls in patience a little longer before attempting to reach any conclusions.”

  We caught the next branch train and a short time later alighted at Ham Street, the first stop on the line. A brisk walk of ten minutes brought us to the hamlet of Apstone, its scattered houses dotted about among the fields and woods. Away to the east, the vast flat and featureless expanse of the Romney Marsh stretched far away. After a moment, following Lidington’s lead, we turned from the main road into a muddy lane. A short distance up this lane an equally muddy track went off to the left, and just beyond this track stood a substantial double-fronted house built of dark red brick, which Lidington informed us was Naxon House.

  “If you will wait here in the lane,” said Holmes, “I shall inspect the area around the house.”

  We watched as he made a slow and careful examination of the path from the garden gate to the front door of the house, then of the lane outside the garden, and lastly of the side-track. Something there seemed to particularly catch his attention, and he followed the track all the way along the outside of the garden hedge, and beyond the hedge, into the field behind the house.

  “It is as I
thought,” said he as he rejoined us.

  “You have discovered something?” queried Lidington.

  Holmes nodded. “Fortunately, it rained here last night. As a result, all the footprints are fresh and clear, and I can be sure that they were all made today. The first thing that happened this morning, Mr. Lidington, is that you left the house, got half-way down the path to the gate, and turned back. You then re-entered the house, came out again, and made your way out of the garden and down the lane here.”

  “That is true. I realised that I had come out without any money, having left my purse on the kitchen table, so I went back to get it.”

  “The second thing that happened,” Holmes continued, “is that a man with a nick in the outside edge of his right shoe came up the lane. In several places his footprints overlay your own, going in the opposite direction. Interestingly, he did not proceed to your garden gate, but turned off into the track at the side of your garden. He had not gone very far up the track, however, when he met someone with large feet coming down the track from the field behind your garden.”

  “That must have been Colonel Strother. He has large feet, I have noticed, and he often comes down that track when he has been for his morning walk over the fields.”

  “The two of them stood together for a few moments, then both of them came down the track, into the lane, and so down to the main road. In other words, large feet continued on the way he had been going when they met, while the other man, the one with the nick in the side of his shoe, turned round and accompanied large feet down to the road.”

  “Can you really see all that?” asked Lidington in an incredulous tone.

  “Certainly. The footprints are very clear.”

  “Do you think the two men met by arrangement?” I asked.

  Holmes shook his head. “It looks to me as if they met by chance,” he replied. “After their brief conversation, which is indicated by the area on the track where their feet shuffle about a little, the man with the nicked shoe evidently changed what he was planning to do, as he turned round and accompanied the other man back down to the road. This suggests that large feet told him something that obliged him to change his plan.”