“She was, I should say, plain and straightforward in all respects, both in appearance and manner. She was certainly not the sort of girl to turn the head of every man in the village, or anything of the sort, but she was not unattractive, in a rustic sort of way. She was a good-hearted girl, honest and hard-working, and the general opinion before her death had been that she would make someone a good wife. At the time of her death, she was, as far as one could ascertain, ‘unattached’, as they say in these parts; but since her death there have been persistent rumours that she had been seeing someone secretly, as you are only too aware.
“On that fateful day, that is, 10 September 1978, after occupying herself in the morning with various tasks about the house and farmyard, Sarah announced that after lunch she intended to pick blackberries up by the Willow Pool. Her brother had also been at home that morning, working on the family farm, but was employed that afternoon, as he often was, on the Topley Grange estate. He therefore said that he would accompany her up the road as far as Jenkin’s Clump, and the two of them set off, she with her basket on her arm, at about a quarter to one. They walked together until they reached the entrance to this wood, just by the humpbacked bridge, as you probably observed, where they parted. Sarah’s last words to her brother were that she would bake a blackberry and apple pie for his tea. That was the last time that she was ever seen alive.
“When she did not return that afternoon, her family were mildly concerned, but not greatly so, for she had of late taken to wandering off alone for hours on end in a brooding sort of manner, which was quite unlike the character she had displayed when younger. Later, in the early evening, two youths were passing along this path through the woods and saw her apparently lifeless body floating in the water. They were too frightened to approach it, and ran down to the village to get help.”
“Do you recall the names of these youths?” asked Holmes.
“Yes. One was Noah Blogg, youngest son of Jack Blogg, who has the hardware shop in the village. He is a bit of a simpleton, I am afraid, but good-natured and harmless.”
“Ah, yes. We met him earlier, just at this spot. Of course, we did not know then that he had been one of those who discovered the girl’s body.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that you saw him here,” Yarrow remarked. “He spends a lot of time up here. The pool appears to possess a morbid fascination for him, and I don’t think he can quite get the girl’s death out of his simple mind. Indeed, it seems to me sometimes that he returns here again and again in the hope of one day seeing her alive once more.” He shook his head and sighed. “The other lad’s name was Harry Cork. He joined the Navy a couple of years ago, and I have not seen him since. I don’t think he has been back to Topley Cross in the last two years.
“When these boys reached the village, the vicarage was, of course, the first house they came to. I was in the garden at the time, for it was a fine evening, and they quickly described to me what they had seen. I instructed them to notify Sarah’s father, and at once set off for this spot in the company of George Childers, the local jobbing gardener, who had been doing some work in my garden when the boys arrived. We got here in a little over ten minutes, I suppose, waded into the water and brought the girl’s body ashore. It was at once clear that she was dead, and had been so for some time.”
“One moment,” interrupted Holmes. “You say that you waded into the water to reach the girl’s body. I take it, then, that it was not far from the bank, for the middle of the pool is too deep for wading, as I ascertained earlier.”
“That is correct. In the middle, the water is a good seven or eight feet deep, but it is quite shallow at the sides. The girl’s body was only a few feet from the bank, and we were easily able to reach it.”
“Which side?” queried Holmes. “This side or the other?”
“The far side, a little higher up the pool than where we are now standing.”
“So – I am sorry to labour the point, Mr Yarrow, but I wish to be quite clear on the matter – you and the gardener went round by the stepping stones to the other side of the pool and approached the body that way?”
“That is correct. The brambles were growing very thickly there, but we were just able to reach the spot. Had she been any higher up the pool I don’t know how we would have reached her, for the brambles were quite impassable further along the bank, and hung right down into the water. As a matter of fact, the poor girl’s hair was caught on these brambles, and Childers and I had the distressing task of trying to disentangle it. Eventually we got her free, lifted the body onto the bank, then carried it round to this side and laid her on the turf here. By this time, several others had arrived. The light was then fading – it was very gloomy in these woods, as you can imagine – and there was nothing to be done for the girl, so between us we carried her lifeless body down to the village.”
“And her basket?”
“Her basket?” repeated the vicar in surprise. “What of it?”
“Someone carried that down to the village, too?”
“I suppose so. Yes, I recall now that someone had it on his arm. I cannot see that it is of any importance.”
“It was not you or Childers that retrieved it?”
“No. Our minds were on somewhat more important matters, Mr Holmes. Someone picked it up. It was just here, on the ground. I really cannot see the point of your interest in the basket.”
“I am a great one for detail, Mr Yarrow. Sometimes, perhaps, I make a vice out of what should be a virtue. Do you recall if there were any blackberries in the basket?”
“No, there were not.”
“Very good. The next day, I understand, you returned here with the dead girl’s mother?”
“Yes, as I described to you last night. The two of us walked up here after lunch. She was in an extremely distressed state. It was then that I saw the slip of paper, down among the brambles by the water’s edge, on the far side.”
“Near where you found the girl’s body?”
“Yes, a foot or two further into the tangle of brambles than the place from which we had entered the water. Just over there.” He pointed across the water to a spot on the far side, a few yards higher up the pool than where we stood.
“It was not in the water?” asked Holmes.
“No. If it had been in the water it would probably have been unreadable. It was a foot or so back from the bank.”
“I see,” said Holmes. “I should very much like to see the note, to complete my mental picture of the matter. Do you think that would be possible? I understand that the girl’s brother keeps it.”
“That is so. I doubt he would take very kindly to exhibiting it, as it were, to strangers, especially if he thought those strangers were acting on behalf of Captain Reid, but perhaps I could persuade him to let us all have a look at it together.” Yarrow glanced at his watch. “I happen to know that he will be at home this afternoon, so if you wish we could go along there now.”
“Capital!” cried Holmes. “I shall be greatly indebted to you, Mr Yarrow!”
The day seemed very bright as we emerged from the shade of the woods, and the sun was surprisingly warm for so late in the year. It was pleasant indeed to walk down that rolling country road in such balmy weather, and to see the hedgerows ablaze with berries, and the clear blue sky alive with birds. When I reflected on our day’s employment, however, I could not but think that we might as well have remained sitting in the parlour of the inn all day, for all the good our expedition had achieved. We had seen for ourselves the place where Sarah Dickens had died, and Holmes had drawn from our companion the details of the matter, but of what use was this to his client, Captain Reid? Whether the girl’s death had been an accident or a deliberate act of suicide could make little difference now, I reflected, and would make no difference whatever to Reid’s predicament. However she had died, he would still stand condemned in the eyes of the parish for having used her so ill, and having brought sorrow and anguish into her happy young life. I was
curious to know what Holmes would do next, but could not but feel that so far his energies had been largely wasted.
In ten minutes we had reached the village. Our guide led us on, past the vicarage and the curving wall of the churchyard, and down the high street a little way to the crossroads. Here he turned left and, passing a few outlying cottages, we found ourselves in a pleasant lane, lined on either side with hawthorn hedges and large, spreading trees. Presently, when we had gone perhaps half a mile, we came to a small thatched cottage, behind which was a jumble of farm buildings.
“This is the place,” said Yarrow, pushing open a small wicket gate and leading us along a path, which passed by the side of the cottage and brought us, through another gate, into a yard at the back. “Old Dickens has something of a reputation for keeping an untidy farm,” murmured the vicar under his breath, and as I glanced about the yard I could not but think the reputation was well earned. Ducks, geese and hens milled about in apparent confusion around crates, sacks, mounds of straw and pieces of old machinery. In one muddy corner, a stout pig with a chain around its neck was rooting about in the earth, and in another corner, tethered to a post, a goat was chewing on a dirty-looking pile of hay, and eyeing us with no very friendly expression.
The vicar’s knock at the door was answered by a robust woman in an apron, whom he greeted as Mrs Dickens. She invited us in, but he declined the offer, saying he would not trouble them, but wished to speak to her son, John, for a few moments. She disappeared from the doorway, and a moment later a short, powerfully built young man of perhaps four-and-twenty appeared. His manner was friendly enough, until Yarrow explained to him our purpose in calling there, whereupon he assumed a look of stubborn intransigence.
“No offence intended to you, Vicar,” said he in a resolute voice, “but I should like to know why I should oblige John Reid or his friends.”
“It is not a question of your obliging them, but only of obliging me,” the vicar returned.
Several minutes of such debate ensued, the upshot being that Dickens grudgingly agreed to let us see his sister’s final note. “You can hold it, Mr Yarrow,” said he, “but I don’t want these gentlemen touching it.”
He disappeared into the shaded interior of the house and returned a moment later with a slip of white paper in his hand, which he passed to the vicar.
“I’ll just take it out of the shadow of the house, if I may,” said Yarrow, taking a few steps into the middle of the yard. “Here, gentlemen,” he continued, holding it out so we could see.
It was an unexceptional little sheet of white notepaper, which showed evidence of having been folded and refolded many times. Upon it, written in pencil, in a copybook script, were the following lines:
My heart is broken, for you have cast me away and do not care for me any more. You have gone away and left me, all alone in my sorrow. Now what can I do? I trusted you and you betrayed me. I loved you and you used me. How could you use a poor girl so?
It was a touching little epistle, moving in its simplicity, and I read it through several times. Holmes, too, read it over and over, his brows drawn into a frown of concentration. Then he took from his pocket a small lens and, craning forward until his nose almost touched the paper, examined it with the minutest attention.
“Here! What’s your game?” came a cry from behind us. I turned as John Dickens advanced towards us, a look of anger upon his face. “I said you wasn’t to touch it!” said he, taking the sheet from Yarrow’s hand.
“No more they have,” responded the vicar.
“Thank you for letting us see this note,” said Holmes to Dickens in a pleasant, measured tone. “It has been most helpful.”
The young farmer regarded him with a sullen expression, clearly indicating that he had not the slightest desire to be helpful.
“I understand,” Holmes continued, “that your sister composed poetry, which she kept in a special exercise book.”
“What of it?” demanded Dickens gruffly.
“I wonder if it would be possible for us to see it, just for a moment?”
“No, it would not,” retorted the other. “You’ve got a nerve,” he added in an angry tone. The set of the young farmer’s face was one of resolute defiance, and there appeared little prospect of his agreeing to my companion’s request. But Mr Yarrow intervened once more and, after considerable entreaty and persuasion, Dickens disappeared into the house again, with a great show of reluctance, and emerged a minute later with a slim, blue-covered exercise book in his hand.
“I’ll hold it and turn the pages,” said he in a tone that precluded debate upon the issue.
“By all means,” responded Holmes affably.
On the first page of the book was inscribed a poem entitled “The Storm”, which began with the words “The seagulls cry; the clouds race by” and described very well, I thought, the gathering gloom that precedes such an event. The poem on the second page was entitled “The Robin”, and captured nicely the character of that friendly little bird. Thus the poems continued, painting a charming picture of everyday country life in that secluded corner of rural England.
“These really are very good,” said the vicar after a moment in a quiet voice, to which I murmured my assent. Holmes, however, said nothing, but craned his head forward like some strange bird of prey inspecting its quarry. His face was tense and still, his every feature displaying his intense concentration. Only his eyes moved, darting about the pages swiftly as Dickens slowly turned them over for us, as if determined to absorb every square inch of their surface.
The poems came to an end just a few pages short of the middle of the book. The remainder of the leaves were blank. I could not wonder at Dickens regarding the book with some reverence; it was perhaps the most personal memento anyone could possibly have of the girl, displaying as it did so clearly the author’s simple and unaffected character.
“Thank you,” said Holmes again as Dickens closed the book at last. He extended his hand but the young man declined to take it.
“We shall speak again,” said Holmes.
“I think not,” returned the other.
“Perhaps not, but we shall nevertheless. I intend to get to the bottom of this matter.”
With that, Holmes turned on his heel, and Yarrow and I followed him out of the farmyard. I glanced back as I closed the gate, and saw that John Dickens was still standing by the back door of the cottage, observing our departure. There was an odd expression upon his features, which had something of defiance about it, certainly, but something also, I thought, of grudging respect, and even perhaps of apprehension.
We parted from the vicar in the village high street, Holmes thanking him warmly for his kind assistance, and made our way back to the White Hart.
“The girl’s exercise book yielded several points of interest, did it not?” remarked Holmes as we walked along together. “You observed, I take it, that two pages had been removed?”
“I saw that one leaf had been torn out near the middle of the book,” I responded. “As it came after the last poem, I assumed that it was a blank sheet.”
Holmes nodded. “Yes, that was of interest, although it was no more than we might have expected, of course. But the second missing leaf is certainly of very great significance.”
“I did not observe any other.”
“Really? It was near the beginning of the book, between the poem about the robin and the one about the daffodils – which, incidentally, I thought somewhat superior to Wordsworth’s effort on a similar theme. It had been removed very neatly, with a small pair of nail scissors.”
“But surely these things are of no great importance?” I protested.
“On the contrary,” returned my friend in a tone of surprise, “they are very significant links in the chain of events that stretches unbroken from the summer of ’78 to the present time.”
“You will not, I hope, take it amiss,” I ventured after a moment, “if I express my opinion on the whole matter?”
&nbs
p; “Not at all,” returned my companion, raising his eyebrow slightly. “Indeed, I should welcome your observations.”
“Then I must, in all honesty, declare that I see little point in much of what we have done today, Holmes. A few details of the matter may perhaps have been elucidated – the circumstances surrounding the girl’s death, for instance – but aside from that, which, in any case, scarcely seems pertinent to your client’s predicament, our day’s work has surely been essentially profitless.”
“There, my dear fellow,” returned Holmes, “I must beg leave to differ. You clearly believe that we have wasted our energies today. That is a suggestion with which I must disagree most strongly.”
“Why so?” I asked, surprised at the vehemence with which he spoke.
“Because,” said he, “I have solved the case.”
IV: AT THE WHITE HART
When the mood was upon him, my friend Sherlock Holmes was undoubtedly the most maddeningly uncommunicative person I have ever known. Upon our return from Hawthorn Farm he had called in at the post office and sent a wire to Captain Reid, but had then fallen into a moody silence, and all my efforts to engage him in conversation had been answered only by preoccupied grunts, when they had been answered at all. At length I had admitted defeat and abandoned my attempts altogether. By dinner time that evening, however, he had evidently resolved whatever it was that had been exercising his mind, for he seemed more at ease as we ate, and spoke freely of many matters, although not of the case.
The Mammoth Book of the Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes Page 38