“I will leave tomorrow,” said Holmes after a moment, in a measured tone, “but on one condition only.”
“Which is?”
“That you grant me a brief audience at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon, before I depart.”
Colonel Reid looked surprised. “What possible good can that do?”
“I wish to speak to you about this matter in general, and about your son in particular.”
“It is utterly pointless, Mr Holmes. There is no more to be said on the matter. Whatever you have in mind will be a waste both of your time and mine.”
“Nevertheless, that is my condition.”
The old man sighed. “And you will then leave, return to London, and drop this matter altogether?”
“I will.”
“Very well, then. I shall expect you at three o’clock. Come along, Northcote!”
The secretary helped the old man to his feet, I opened the door for them, and the two made their way slowly down the stairs. As I was closing the door, I observed that Northcote’s stick was lying on the floor, half under the sofa upon which our visitors had been seated.
“Northcote has forgotten his stick,” said I, bending to pick it up, but Holmes put his hand on my arm.
“Leave it,” said he.
I looked round in surprise. “If I hurry I may catch them before they leave,” said I.
“He will return for it,” said Holmes. “He left it here deliberately. Indeed, I should not be surprised if— ”
He broke off as there came a knock at the door. I opened it and there stood Northcote.
“I have mislaid my stick,” said he. “Thank you, Dr Watson,” he continued as I handed it to him. “As a matter of fact, I left it here on purpose, as I wished to see you alone, gentlemen.” He put his hand inside his coat and withdrew a long white envelope. “Things have been very difficult lately, and my own position has become almost unbearable,” he continued. “I have written a letter to Captain Reid, in which – well, read it for yourselves and see. I should be obliged if you would pass it on to Reid, but as you are acting for him, it would probably be best if you read it yourselves, too, so please feel free to open it. Now I must go, or Colonel Reid will wonder where I have got to.”
The secretary gave a little bow, blinked his eyes at us from behind his spectacles, and was gone. Holmes looked after him for a moment with a thoughtful expression on his face, then slit open the envelope and extracted a foolscap sheet, which he held out for me to see. Upon it, I read the following:
Dear Reid,
You will, I hope, forgive my writing to you in this way, and not think me impertinent for making reference to matters that are none of my business. But the difficulties which have arisen at Oakbrook recently have made me painfully aware that my presence there represents an unfortunate, and certainly unlooked-for, intrusion into the privacy of your family.
You should know, as I am sure you already confidently believe, that your father, Colonel Reid, does not discuss family matters with me, nor in my presence, and I should certainly never encourage him to do so. Nevertheless, my situation is an uncomfortable, and at times difficult one. In the last few days I have come to feel that my presence may be a hindrance to the restitution of harmony within the family, as it may act as a bar to free and frank conversation between family members.
I therefore propose to give notice to Colonel Reid at the end of this week that I should wish to be relieved of my duties and end my employment with him, for the time being at least, as soon as he feels able to dispense with my services.
I trust that this proposal meets with your approval, and hope that if I do not see you before I leave, we may meet again in more propitious circumstances.
Yours sincerely,
W. N. Northcote
“I suppose it is well intentioned,” I remarked as I finished reading, “but the estrangement between father and son appears so complete at present that I doubt Northcote’s presence or absence will make much difference.”
My friend nodded his head. “In any case,” said he, “if things work out tomorrow as I hope, then such a gesture will not be necessary.”
“You have spoken of your plans for tomorrow to both Miss Blythe-Headley and Colonel Reid,” I remarked. “You appear confident but, to be frank, I cannot imagine what you intend to do.”
“I may need a dash of good fortune in the case of certain details – there are one or two matters I am hoping to finalize in the morning – but in the main I am confident that my analysis of the case is correct.”
“I should be pleased to hear it,” said I. “I confess that I am still very much in the dark. I seem to remember,” I added with a chuckle, “although it seems a very long time ago now, before the deluge of visitors, that you were about to give me your opinion as to the precise details of the death of Sarah Dickens. The inquest, as we know, reached a verdict of ‘accidental death’, but some think otherwise, and believe that the girl deliberately took her own life. What is you opinion, Holmes?”
“My opinion is that the inquest was very seriously at fault. The girl’s death was not an accident.”
“You agree, then, with those who believe the girl took her own life?”
“No.”
“What!”
“I agree with no one, Watson. They are all wrong. Sarah Dickens was murdered.”
“What!” I cried again. I confess that I was almost dumbfounded by my companion’s calm pronouncement. He stated as a fact a possibility that I had never, even in my wildest speculations, considered. “How can you know?” I cried after a moment.
“How can I know?” returned he. “How could I not know? Why, the matter is as plain as a pikestaff. The evidence admits of only one conclusion. No other is possible.”
“But the coroner’s court—”
“The problem at the coroner’s court, I take it, was that even before the inquest began each man there had determined in his own heart that Sarah Dickens had in fact taken her own life, but was equally determined that, for the sake of the girl’s memory and for the feelings of her family, that should not be recorded as the verdict of the court. This issue therefore dominated the thoughts of everyone there, including, from the reports I read, those of the coroner himself. Certain questions that were crying out to be asked were not even considered. No one wished to question the circumstances of the girl’s death too closely – so, at least, it seems to me – just in case the answers to the questions made a verdict of suicide unavoidable. In its well-intentioned desire to spare the feelings of the girl’s family, the court thus failed in its one bounden duty, that is, to uncover the truth. In this case, attempted kindness has led the court to inadvertently collude in the concealment of a most monstrous crime.”
“You are convinced of this?”
“I am. This case exemplifies very clearly why truth and justice must always precede mercy. The time for mercy is when the truth is established beyond all reasonable doubt, and justice has apportioned each man’s responsibility. To give premature consideration to mercy before truth and justice are satisfied will almost inevitably lead to the truth never being known, and justice never being satisfied. In this case the girl lies dead in the churchyard at the top of the road and her murderer walks free to this day. Every ounce of duty in my body compels me, Watson, to apply all my powers in this case; to bring justice, not only to John Reid, whose predicament, as you put it, is what has brought us into this case, but also to Sarah Dickens, whose foul murder cries out for justice!”
My companion thumped his fist into his hand as he spoke, and it was evident that he was very angry at what he saw as a serious miscarriage of justice. To one who had previously seen him only as the cool reasoner of Baker Street, and who had come to think of him as an isolated phenomenon of intellect, a brain without a heart, such a display of anger came as a surprise. I confess I found it difficult to believe that he alone could be right, and all others who had considered the matter wrong, but I kept my doubts to myse
lf. In later years I was to learn, as I came to know my friend better and studied his methods more closely, that such a state of affairs, in which he was right and everyone else wrong, was almost commonplace.
“What will you do?” I asked.
“First,” said he, “I shall call a fresh inquest.”
“I am no expert on such matters,” said I, “but I do not believe that is possible.”
“In this room, old fellow,” said Holmes, shaking his head, “for I perceive that you harbour some doubts as to the truth of my conclusions. I shall be the coroner, and you, if you are agreeable, shall be the people of the parish, and act as both witness and jury.”
“Certainly.”
“Are you prepared to consider all the evidence fairly and impartially?”
“I am.”
“Very well. Then let the inquest begin into the death of Sarah Dickens, who was found drowned upon 10 September 1878. Where was her body discovered?”
“At the Willow Pool, in Jenkin’s Clump.”
“Why had she gone there?”
“To pick blackberries.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she herself gave that as her intention to her family that morning. Also, she took with her a basket in which to collect the blackberries.”
“Were there in fact any blackberries in the basket when it was found?”
“No.”
“Did you observe any brambles on or near the road between Topley Cross and Jenkin’s Clump?”
“I did. There are a great many.”
“How would you describe the berries they bore, making allowance for the fact that it is now October and the fruit is past its best?”
“They were luxuriant. Even now, although I understand the fruit is not worth picking after the end of September, the bushes are laden with berries.”
“And did you observe the brambles by the Willow Pool in Jenkin’s Clump?”
“I did.”
“How would you describe them in comparison to the others of which you have spoken?”
“They were relatively spindly and stunted. The fruit upon them was sparse, small and ill-formed.”
“Can you suggest any reason for this?”
“Possibly the lack of sunlight in the wood. Brambles grow best in open country, when they are not overhung by trees.”
“Do you think, Watson, that if you were a resident of Topley Cross you would choose to pick blackberries by the Willow Pool?”
“No.”
“Can you believe that Sarah Dickens herself chose to pick them there?”
“No.”
“In the light of that answer, would you like to reconsider your answer to the earlier question as to why Sarah Dickens went up to the Willow Pool on 10 September 1878? In particular, do you still believe that her chief or only purpose in going there was to pick blackberries?”
“No. She must have gone there for some other reason.”
“Thank you. The point about the fruit is a perfectly straightforward one, you see. It must have been obvious to many people, including, no doubt, the girl’s own mother, who had probably picked blackberries with her daughter in years gone by, but no one raised the matter. The reason they did not raise it, Watson, is that they feared to give support to the theory that the girl had deliberately taken her own life. The people of this parish, I am sure, are on the whole good and charitable people, but on this occasion their inclination to charity has led them astray. Now, if the girl did not go to Jenkin’s Clump to pick blackberries there, then she went for some other reason. Can we say what that other reason might have been?”
I considered the matter for some time before replying. “Not with any confidence,” I answered at length, “unless it was, as people have suspected, to take her own life.”
“Is there no other reason that someone might go to a quiet, secluded spot, but to commit suicide?” queried my friend in a sceptical tone.
“To enjoy the peace of the countryside,” I suggested, without any great conviction. “To reflect upon one’s life, perhaps.”
“Perhaps. But there are other, more commonplace reasons, which you seem determined to overlook. Do you recall the lunchtime of last Friday?”
“Certainly,” I replied in surprise.
“You paid a visit then to the Criterion Bar. Why was that?”
“I had arranged to meet someone there.”
“Precisely! Is it not at least possible, Watson, that Sarah Dickens went to the Willow Pool on the day of her death because she, too, had arranged to meet someone there?”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Thank you. Turning now from Sarah Dickens’s purpose in going to Jenkin’s Clump that day to the situation of her lifeless body when discovered, can you recall where it is said her body was found?”
“In the water, near the bank, on the far side from the footpath; that is, the northern bank, where the brambles grow thickly.”
“Very well. From which part of the bank, then, do you think she entered the water?”
“The north side, surely, close to where her body was found.”
“Why do you think she had gone round to that side of the pool?”
I hesitated. “It was thought that she had gone round to that side in order to pick blackberries,” I replied after a moment, “but that does not now appear so likely.”
“Quite so, especially when you consider that she had left her basket behind, on the south side of the pool. And nor had she returned to the north side to retrieve something she had dropped when picking blackberries earlier, for she had picked no blackberries earlier – the basket was empty. Nor can it be suggested with any plausibility that she took herself round to the north side of the water in order to stand and read her note there: it is a difficult, prickly spot, and there is barely space between the brambles and the water for anyone to stand. No one would choose to go there except to pick blackberries, and that, as we have seen, Sarah Dickens was not doing.”
“Perhaps,” I suggested, “her reason for going to the Willow Pool was to retrieve the note, which she realized she had dropped there on a previous visit. She may have seen it in the brambles from across the pool, left her basket by the footpath on the south side of the pool, and made her way round to the north side to try to reach the note.”
“Ingenious, Watson!” cried Holmes with a chuckle. “That is, indeed, on the face of it, a possibility. Let us continue the hypothesis a little longer, then. What do you suggest happened next?”
“The most likely sequence of events is this,” I began when I had considered the matter for a moment: “that she was stretching to try to reach the note, when she lost her balance, and perhaps her footing, too, and fell into the water. There she hit her head upon a submerged stone, as was suggested at the original inquest, lost consciousness and drowned.”
“Capital!” cried my friend, clapping his hands together.
“You think there is some truth in that suggestion, then?” I asked, pleased that my hypothesis appeared to meet with his approval.
“No. None whatever.”
“What!”
“I simply meant that you have presented your hypothesis cogently. It illustrates very clearly how convincing a hypothesis can be, even though quite fallacious, when it is derived from only a selection of the evidence, rather than from all of it.”
“Pray, let us hear your own view, then,” I retorted – irritated, I admit, by his tone of superiority.
“First of all,” he replied, “on your hypothesis – and that which is implicit in the verdict of the original inquest – the girl would not have drowned had she not lost consciousness, and she would not have lost consciousness had she not struck her head upon a stone.”
“That is so,” I concurred. “Indeed, that seems an obvious inference.”
“Well,” said he, “it might well have been an obvious inference had there been any stones in the water. But there are none there, Watson, as I ascertained this afterno
on. I am, I take it, the first person who has troubled himself to verify the assumption.”
“Perhaps, then, she struck her head on the bottom of the pool,” I suggested, “or on the bank as she slipped into the water.”
“The bottom of the pool is soft and sandy, the bank grassy. Neither would have produced the bruise described by the local medical officer at the inquest.”
“What then?”
“Well, it is your theory, old fellow. How do you account for the girl’s drowning, if she did not knock herself unconscious?”
“We know from Mr Yarrow,” I replied after a moment, “that her hair was tangled in the brambles that drooped into the water. Perhaps, then, after she fell in she became hopelessly entangled, with her head under the water and drowned in that way.”
“The water is no more than three feet deep in that part of the pool,” returned Holmes. “She could easily have stood up, out of the water.”
“But if her hair was entangled?”
“Brambles are undoubtedly tough and troublesome,” said Holmes, “but not so tough that a normal adult cannot overcome then. Besides, if the girl had struggled to free herself from prickly brambles, her hands would have been covered with scratches, and her scalp and face, too; yet the medical officer’s report, read out at the inquest, specifically stated that there were no marks upon the body whatever, other than the bruise on the side of the head.”
“Very well,” said I. “I concede that you have disproved the view that Sarah Dickens’s death was the result of mischance. The verdict of the inquest was wrong. But what of the possibility that she took her own life?”
“How might she have done that, do you suppose?” asked Holmes.
The Mammoth Book of the Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes Page 40