The Mammoth Book of the Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

by Denis O. Smith

  We had been following this pleasant road for about ten minutes when the hedge on our left gave way to a high brick wall. A little way along this was a wide gateway, flanked with old, lichen-blotched stone pillars. A sign on one of these indicated that this was the entrance to Oakbrook Hall, and through the gateway I could see a long shaded avenue of oaks and elms, curving away to the left. A little further on, the wall gave way once more to a hawthorn hedge, punctuated at intervals by spreading oak trees, and the road dropped into a small vale. At the bottom of the vale was a stone bridge, spanning a stream. As we approached this, a gentleman on horseback came trotting down the road towards us, on the far side of the stream. He crossed the bridge, then slowed his horse to a walk as he approached us. He was, I observed, a young man of perhaps five-and-twenty, and he was dressed in a very smart riding costume.

  “The remains of the Roman villa are the other way,” he called out in a peremptory fashion.

  “I am obliged to you,” returned Holmes in an affable tone, “but we are not looking for the villa.”

  “You’ll not find anything up this way,” persisted the other, drawing his horse to a halt.

  “Well, we shall find that footpath, at least,” said Holmes, pointing to a gap in the vegetation a little way ahead of us, just before the bridge, which indicated the entrance to the path up to the Willow Pool.

  “What on earth do you want to go up there for?” exclaimed the young man in a tone of surprise and disdain. “There’s nothing of interest up there.”

  “Well, well. No doubt the exercise will be beneficial, anyhow!”

  The young man snorted. “You’re down here from London, aren’t you?” he continued after a moment.

  “That is so. And you, if I might venture to speculate, are a resident of these parts.”

  The young man did not reply, but flicked his horse forward. “Please yourself,” he called over his shoulder in an unpleasant tone, “but you’re wasting your time.”

  “We shall see about that,” said Holmes to me as we resumed our walk. “It may be, Watson,” he added, “that that egregiously rude young man is Admiral Blythe-Headley’s son, Anthony, to whom Reid referred the other day.”

  I glanced back as we reached the entrance to the footpath. The rider had turned in the saddle and was staring back at us. “We seem to have aroused his curiosity,” I remarked.

  “Indeed,” returned Holmes. “He appeared uncommonly keen to send us off in another direction, although whether he had any purpose in so doing, or is simply ill-mannered, we can only speculate.”

  The pathway through the woods rose gently at first, then levelled off, meandering among the thickly growing bushes and trees, but never far from the gurgling stream on our right. The canopy of foliage overhead was in some places very dense and cast the wood into gloomy shade, but elsewhere the sunshine pierced the gloom and sent shafts of light down to the woodland floor. Presently, a side path branched off to the right, and passing by stepping stones across the stream, vanished among the undergrowth beyond.

  “That must be the path to the Topley Grange Estate,” remarked Holmes.

  Ahead of us, to the right, I spied the shimmer of water through the trees, and a moment later we came upon the boggy, reed-girt margin of the pool. In shape it was long and narrow, being scarcely more than twenty-five feet across, but a good sixty or seventy in length. At the other end, the pool was fringed by willow trees, their slender branches dipping into the water, but at the lower end, on the side where we stood, was a flat open area of damp, mossy turf, and on the other side a tangle of brambles and briars. Just by the patch of turf, another side path went off to the left and climbed steeply up the wooded valley side.

  “This is evidently the way from Oakbrook Hall,” said Holmes, looking up the steeply sloping path. At the top of the hill, which marked the limit of the wood, a bright rectangle of sunlight indicated where the path emerged from the shade of the trees into open country.

  “It does not appear a very well-used path,” I remarked.

  “Why so?”

  “The space where the grass is worn away on that path is considerably narrower than on this one,” I replied. “The obvious conclusion is that fewer feet have passed upon that one than upon this.”

  “There, I regret, you fall into a popular error,” observed my friend. “In fact, it makes little difference to the width of a path whether it is lightly or heavily used.”

  “You speak as if you have made a special study of the matter,” said I with a chuckle.

  “As a matter of fact I have,” said he, to my very great surprise.

  “You are surely in jest!”

  “Not at all. During my second year at college, I became interested in this very question, as a result of certain observations I had made of the pathways that were most frequented by the undergraduates. It is one of those many matters to which the answer has always been assumed without verification and, as it turns out, assumed quite erroneously. The history of human knowledge is littered with such false assumptions. You will no doubt recall, for instance, that before Galileo, it was universally believed that if two objects identical in all respects save their weight are dropped from a height, the heavier of the two will strike the ground first. That esteemed gentleman alone considered the matter worth verifying. He therefore performed the experiment and discovered that the universal belief was quite mistaken: the two objects strike the ground at precisely the same moment. It is, as I remarked the other day, always worthwhile verifying universally held opinions for oneself. My interest in footpaths having been aroused, I made many score of measurements and calculations, and reached certain very definite conclusions. Among the chief of these is that the amount of human traffic on a footpath has no significant effect on the width of that path, and that a footpath’s width is in fact almost entirely dependent upon the moisture of the ground. To put it simply, if the ground is wet, the path will become muddy, and in stepping to the side to avoid the mud, those who use it will widen it accordingly. The wetter the ground, the wider the path, even if it is used by only a few people each day. It is the same with pathways used by animals: I have seen sheep tracks in dry heathland, which were rutted almost a foot deep by constant use, but were scarcely three or four inches in width. The average width of the paths in the university grounds, incidentally, was exactly nine and five-eighths inches.”

  “I cannot but admire your thoroughness and precision,” I remarked with a chuckle. “How was your research received?”

  “Alas! I regret to say that my treatise, Upon the Properties of Footpaths Occurring Naturally in Various Terrain, with some notes upon the effects of seasonal variation, failed to arouse any great enthusiasm among the college tutors.”

  “Perhaps,” I ventured, “they considered that however intellectually sound the research, it nevertheless constituted somewhat superfluous knowledge.”

  “If so, they were in error, and seriously so. We can never tell what use the future will make of our present research. Very often, it is the work that is highly praised upon publication and which satisfies current expectations that ultimately proves of no worth. The work that is done for its own sake, on the other hand, without any consideration of the prevailing fashion, and without, perhaps, any immediately obvious application, generally proves in the end to be of most benefit to mankind. Should anyone wish to avail themselves of the fruit of my labours, they will find it handsomely bound in black buckram in the college library – row ‘J’, as I recall.”

  All the time he had been speaking, he had been pacing up and down the margin of the pool, peering this way and that, as if his aim was to view the scene of the old tragedy from every possible angle. Then, breaking off a long stick from a fallen tree, he took himself across the stepping stones and through a tangle of brambles and briars to the other side of the pool. There the brambles were growing close to the water’s edge, their branches trailing into the pool in several places, and I watched as he pushed his way through this un
dergrowth and made his way along the bank, poking with his stick into the depths of the water as he went. After a while he paused, broke off a small piece from the end of his stick and tossed it into the pool, then watched closely as it drifted slowly upon the surface of the water. He repeated this experiment several times, with increasingly larger pieces of wood, throwing them further out into the centre of the pool each time. At length, evidently satisfied with these experiments, he returned to where I was sitting on the fallen tree.

  “There are no brambles on this side of the water, and nor does it appear that there ever have been,” said he. “The ground here is probably too wet for them. Therefore, anyone collecting blackberries would have to do so on the far side, where the ground is firmer and the bushes are growing thickly. The brambles are very close to the water’s edge there, however, leaving little space for anyone to stand, but of course they may not have been quite so close three years ago.”

  “Perhaps the narrowness of the gap between the brambles and the water is what caused the girl to slip,” I suggested.

  “Perhaps so,” said he in an abstracted tone. For some time he stood in silence, his chin in his hand and his brow drawn down in a frown of concentration as he stared across the water at the tangled undergrowth on the far side, as if he would penetrate the veil of time and see for himself exactly what had occurred in that fateful spot three years ago.

  The wood was very quiet, the only sound the constant soft splash of the water as it left the pool and spilled over the stones in the stream below. All at once, however, there came the robust voice of a man singing, somewhere higher up the wood. There was a curious, nasal quality to the voice, and its accent was undoubtedly a rustic one. As its owner approached, I caught some of the words of the song, the subject of which appeared to be “going to the fair”. Holmes looked round in surprise as a large, powerfully built man came into view higher up the path, at the far end of the pool, clapping his hands as he walked along. He was a young man, little more than two-and-twenty at the outside, I judged, and he was clad in a coarse, loose-fitting shirt, knee breeches and leather gaiters. His face was ruddy and shining, and upon it was an expression of openness and good-natured simplicity.

  “Good day!” cried Holmes as the newcomer approached.

  “Good day to you, sir!” returned the other in a broad rural accent, giving a little salute. “Are you lost, sir?”

  Holmes shook his head with a smile. “My friend and I are taking the air,” said he.

  The young man’s mouth fell open a little and his features assumed a look of puzzlement and alarm. “Taking the air, sir?” he queried in an anxious tone.

  “No, no,” said Holmes quickly, chuckling to himself. “I mean, my friend and I are enjoying the fine fresh air of this beautiful countryside. You live locally, I take it. If so, you are indeed fortunate!”

  “Yes, sir. Fortunately, I live at the hardware shop!”

  “Ah, yes. I saw it as we walked up the high street: ‘J. Blogg, Hardware’. You are, perhaps, Noah Blogg?”

  “Yes, sir. Noah Blogg,” returned the other, appearing pleased to hear his own name spoken.

  “My name is Sherlock Holmes,” said my colleague, extending his hand to the young man, who took it and shook it vigorously, “and this is my friend Dr Watson.”

  “Pleased,” declared Noah Blogg with a broad smile, repeating his energetic performance with my own hand.

  “This is an interesting spot,” said Holmes, indicating the pool and its surroundings. “Do you come here often?”

  “Often,” repeated the young man.

  “You like it here?”

  The young man hesitated and appeared unsure.

  “Sometimes,” he responded at length.

  “And sometimes not, eh?” said Holmes, regarding the young man keenly. “When do you not like it?”

  The young man again looked unsure. His mouth opened, but he did not answer.

  “Do you remember Sarah Dickens?” asked Holmes.

  “My friend,” was the simple reply.

  “I am sure she was,” said Holmes in a kindly voice. “It was sad that she was drowned here, was it not?”

  “Don’t know,” the young man replied, appearing confused. His previously cheery face had assumed a sombre look, and his eyes moved to a spot at the edge of the water, close to where we were standing.

  Holmes followed his gaze. “Is that where she was drowned?” he asked.

  The young man did not reply. A variety of emotions passed across his features in rapid succession, and his lips moved without producing a sound. Then, with a suddenness that made my hair stand on end, he blurted out, “Don’t know nothing,” turned on his heel and ran very swiftly back along the path by which he had come.

  “It appears that your questions have awoken painful memories for him,” I remarked as the sound of Noah Blogg’s heavy footsteps faded. “You were perhaps a trifle blunt.”

  Holmes nodded. “If so, I am sorry. I had no wish to cause him distress, but I could not neglect a possible source of information.”

  “Of course, it is arguable whether any information he provided would really be of much value,” I remarked, but Holmes shook his head.

  “Do not be too quick to dismiss it,” said he. “If he was on friendly terms with the dead girl he may perhaps have been privy to her secrets. One can never tell in such a case who might hold the key that will unlock the problem.”

  For some time then, Holmes resumed his pacing about and his probing of the water, examining the area from every possible angle and muttering to himself constantly as he did so. Then he seated himself upon the fallen tree and slowly began to fill his pipe, a thoughtful look on his face.

  “There is something in the air here,” said he at last, looking about him. “Do you not feel it, Watson? Perhaps I am permitting myself to indulge in fancies, but many places have their genius loci, and the spirit of the Willow Pool is, I think, one of tragedy and misfortune.”

  “I have known cheerier spots,” I remarked.

  My friend chuckled. “Let us walk on a little way, then,” he suggested, rising to his feet. “Mr Yarrow will not be here for a while, so we have plenty of time to follow this path out beyond the wood and take our lunch upon the hillside above.”

  Following the way, therefore, by which Noah Blogg had made his abrupt departure, we passed along the length of the pool and on through the wood, our path rising as it followed the course of the stream, until we emerged at last upon a sunlit upland. Of Noah Blogg there was no sign.

  “Has your examination of the pool furthered your thoughts in any way?” I asked my companion as we sat on the springy turf, smoking our pipes after our humble lunch.

  “Indeed. It has enabled me to see for myself the location of the event which is at the root of Captain Reid’s problems,” he returned, “and has provided further material for judicious speculation.”

  “Perhaps so,” said I, “but I cannot see how anything you discover here can really make much difference to your client’s lamentable position. The girl in question is dead. Nothing you discover, as to the precise circumstances of her death, can alter that fact, nor alter the generally held opinion that Reid was the cause of her sorrow.”

  “You enunciate one particular point of view very clearly, Watson,” returned Holmes, “but as it is a view that would foreclose most possibilities before they have been examined, it is not a view I favour. I have undertaken sufficient investigations to know that new facts can emerge from the unlikeliest of quarters. There is an unresolved question about the girl’s death: some in the district think it was an accident, others, despite the verdict of the coroner’s court, believe that it was suicide. I am confident of discovering the truth of the matter, to my own satisfaction at least. Once I have established in my own mind precisely what occurred here three years ago, I can then address the remainder of the problem. I am hopeful that when Mr Yarrow arrives he will be able to furnish us with a little more information. Ah, ther
e he is now!”

  I followed my companion’s gaze and saw that some distance off to our right, a dark-clad figure was making his way along the edge of a ploughed field towards Jenkin’s Clump. In a few minutes we had retraced our steps and were once more within the shaded spinney, by the margin of the pool. A moment later there came a man’s voice, calling to us from the path from Oakbrook Hall, and looking up the hill I saw a figure framed for a moment in the bright sunlit rectangle where the path through the wood met the open fields beyond. Holmes had been once more examining closely the ground at the edge of the pool, but he looked up as the vicar called to us, and there was a sudden stillness in his manner. I turned and saw that his face was rigid and tense, like a keen hound that has got the scent of game in his nostrils, and in his eyes was a steely glitter. What had wrought this abrupt change I could not imagine. In a moment his features had relaxed again, as the vicar joined us by the pool and we all shook hands. Mr Yarrow was a broad-faced, learned-looking man, with a shining bald head fringed with grizzled grey hair. He declared himself ready to answer any questions that we might have.

  “I should be very obliged,” said Sherlock Holmes, “if you would repeat the main points of the account you gave me yesterday evening. Dr Watson would no doubt appreciate hearing the details from your lips, and I wish to ensure that I have not overlooked any fact of significance.”

  “By all means,” responded the vicar in an agreeable tone. “Let me see now. First of all, you should know that Sarah Dickens lived with her parents and her brother, who was two years older than her, on the outskirts of the village. Her father farms there in a small way, on land rented from Admiral Blythe-Headley, the smallholding being known as ‘Hawthorn Farm’. It is probably true enough to say that Sarah came from typical rural stock, but I do not mean by this that she was in any way a simpleton. She had learned her lessons at the village school very well and was a great reader. She had something of a taste for poetry, and had herself composed many little poems, the best of which she wrote up neatly in an exercise book that she had bought for the purpose. She had showed me one or two of these poems on occasion, and I had encouraged her to write more. She also went into the school fairly often, at the request of Miss Mead, the teacher, to help the little ones learn their letters, and I know that Miss Mead found her a great help.