The Execution of Sherlock Holmes

by Donald Thomas

  Holmes leant forward a little and took up the questioning.

  ‘Mr. Gardiner, tell me this. It is a very simple question. Let us suppose it was only slander or malice on the part of Wright and Skinner, perhaps a vicious sense of fun. Why would these two youths stick to their falsehood after Rose Harsent had been murdered and your life was at stake in a murder trial?’

  I quite expected Gardiner to act a dramatic part over this, but he became very quiet.

  ‘Because, Mr. Holmes, they are evil through and through. That is the simple answer to your simple question, and I will tell you why I make it. They saw that if they told the truth and admitted their falsehoods about me after Rose died, I should certainly be acquitted on the charge of murdering her. There would be nothing to connect me with this young woman in an immoral way and their lies would be turned against them. They feared that when I was set free, I should find the money to sue them in earnest for their slanders. I would have the decision of a jury behind me. And they knew very well I should win. Worse than that, for them, they might be indicted for perjury and sent to prison for many years. What worse perjury can there be than trying to swear a man’s life away? Rather than risk prison, they would see me hanged. It was the only way they could be safe. I never said any of this when I was in the witness-box, for it would be no evidence in the case. My only witness to the truth, Rose Harsent, was dead. But as you ask me, Mr. Holmes, that is the depth of their evil. Those two are a hundred times more likely to have murdered her than anyone else I can think of.’

  It was an argument that might have gone against him in court, when he was cross-examined. Spoken in that prison room, as he spoke them, the words carried a terrible probability to my mind, though not to the Chief Inspector’s.

  ‘It is easy enough, Gardiner, to call men evil,’ said Lestrade sharply, ‘but of little use unless you can show them to be so. These are two witnesses who submitted to the chapel inquiry, which they were not bound to do, and have never refused to cooperate with the law.’

  ‘I can show you what they are!’ said Gardiner quietly, and for the first time his dark eyes glittered with malice. ‘Suppose, sir, you had seen filthy behaviour of the kind they allege, seen it between a young woman you knew and a married man who was also of your acquaintance. What would you have done?’

  Lestrade colored a little at this.

  ‘You are not here to ask questions, Gardiner, but to answer them!’

  ‘All the same, Lestrade,’ said Holmes gently, ‘it may do no harm in this one instance.’

  Lestrade glared at him, I can use no other word. Reluctantly, he gave way.

  ‘Very well, if I knew the fellow, I should take him on one side and speak to him.’

  ‘Just so,’ said Gardiner gratefully, ‘or, sir, if that accomplished nothing, you might speak to his wife. You would not ignore the man and his wife but spread dirty stories of him behind his back, among all those who knew him. Among his neighbours and friends. There, sir, is the difference between the good and the evil man. Whether you believe me or them, I leave you to judge of what kind these two witnesses show themselves to be. Evil tongues.’

  ‘The tongue can no man tame,’ said Holmes thoughtfully, ‘it is an unruly evil.’

  ‘Full of deadly poison,’ Gardiner took up the quotation. ‘The General Epistle of James, Mr. Holmes, sir, chapter three, verse eight.’

  By the time that Holmes and Lestrade had finished questioning Gardiner over the allegations of his conduct with Rose Harsent, it seemed to me that a long couple of hours had passed. So great had been the intensity of these exchanges that it was only when we stepped out into the dark prison courtyard that I looked at my watch and saw that four hours and a half had gone by.

  Darkness had fallen before we stood in that yard with a winter drizzle falling. The oil light was reflected in pools on the smooth paving of the yard and on the rough stonework of its walls. The burly figure of Lestrade in his travelling cloak confronted Sherlock Holmes as we waited under the light of the stone porch for Arthur Leighton and the cab that was to take us to the White Horse hotel.

  ‘Well, Mr. Holmes,’ said the Scotland Yard man rather huffily, ‘I don’t see how all that has got us much further. I don’t believe your client stands an inch further from the noose.’

  ‘He is not my client,’ said Holmes patiently. ‘Mr. Wild is my client, so far as I have one. I am prepared to find Gardiner guilty or innocent, as the evidence presents itself. Yet if you believe that what we have heard gets us no further, I shall be sadly disappointed in you.’

  ‘I say only that we have wasted our time this afternoon.’

  Holmes rounded on him.

  ‘This allegation of misconduct in the Doctor’s Chapel is the only sinister link between the accused and Rose Harsent prior to the murder. She was a member of the Primitive Methodist congregation, a friend of Gardiner and his wife who visited their house regularly. She continued to pay these visits after the scandal broke. That could hardly be the case if Mrs. Gardiner believed her husband to be the girl’s lover. The world has seen that good lady twice in the witness-box. Is it likely that such a woman would have welcomed Gardiner’s mistress under her roof—as the companion of her six children? Gardiner denies the truth of the scandal, his wife denounces it as impossible because he was at home with her at the material times. If it were not for the story told by Wright and Skinner, Gardiner’s name would have no connexion with the murder nor, indeed, with the pregnancy of Rose Harsent. I do not think, Lestrade, that we have wasted our time.’

  ‘Then you had better have a look at these, Mr. Holmes.’

  Lestrade put his hand in his pocket and drew out an envelope, from which he took two photographs. They had been taken by a police photographer and were reproductions of two sets of handwriting. The first showed a pair of single-page letters carried to Rose Harsent by her young brother, telling her that Gardiner proposed to sue Wright and Skinner over ‘some scandal going round about you and me going into the Doctor’s Chapel for immoral Purposes.’ Gardiner had signed both letters. The handwriting was firm and rounded, but the phrasing was laboured, as might befit a self-educated man. The writer also showed a tendency to use a capital ‘P’ and ‘R’ in the middle of his sentences to begin certain words, where a small, lowercase initial letter would have been usual.

  ‘And now this,’ said Lestrade confidently. The second photograph showed an assignation note for the night of Rose Harsent’s death, written by a lover who was surely her murderer. It was accompanied by the envelope in which it had been posted, addressed to ‘Miss Harsent, Providence House, Peasenhall, Saxmundham.’ I read the note, whose dreadful appointment the poor young woman had kept.

  ‘Dear R, I will try to see you tonight at twelve o’clock at your Place if you Put a light in your window at ten o’clock for about ten minutes. Then you can take it out again. Don’t have a light in your Room at twelve as I will come round the back.’

  ‘Well now,’ said Holmes quietly, ‘it seems you have the better of us all, Lestrade. And this is the evidence on which the famous Mr. Thomas Gurrin, handwriting expert extraordinary of Holborn Viaduct, proposes to swear a man’s life away? I fear, my friend, that he will have to do better than this.’

  ‘You deny the resemblance, Mr. Holmes?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Holmes at once, ‘The resemblance between the two letters is quite remarkable. Perhaps a little too remarkable. What I deny is the authorship of the murderer’s note. In the first place there is the literary style, which I know is not a matter of handwriting. The first two letters to Rose Harsent, signed by Gardiner and admitted by him, are a little awkward. They are the work of a man not born to letter-writing. Look where he says ‘I have broke the news’ and ‘she say she know it is wrong.’ Then there is a sentence eleven lines long but with hardly any attempt at punctuation, which was still beyond him. By contrast, the unsigned assignation note, which we may assume was the work of her murderer, has a confidence and a precision. I do
not think its author would write, as Gardiner does, ‘you and me’ rather the more correct form ‘you and I.’ A small matter, but significant.’

  ‘I don’t see that,’ said Lestrade gruffly.

  ‘Do you not?’ Holmes now held the two photographs side by side under the light of the porch. ‘Then let me help you a little in the matter of the handwriting. In the unsigned note, presumably from the murderer, there is much play of using incorrectly a capital initial ‘P’ or an ‘R’ in the middle of a sentence. It occurs three times in seven lines. In the two signed letters by Gardiner, the first is eighteen lines long and the curious capital ‘P’ occurs only once, the ‘R’ not at all, though there were four opportunities. The second letter is more than thirty-six lines long and no error of the sort occurs whatever.’

  ‘Which signifies what, precisely, Mr Holmes?’ There was no mistaking the skepticism in Lestrade’s voice.

  ‘Which signifies, my dear fellow, that someone has taken an occasional eccentricity of handwriting, imitated it, and turned it into a regular feature of the script. And then there is the accuracy of the script. It is Gardiner’s style but more rounded and regular than Gardiner could ever be. Many a bank forger might be caught if our experts were alive to a single fact: It is very difficult for any man or woman to sign his or her name identically on ever y occasion. Where it appears to be identical, time after time, it has very likely been counterfeited with great care.’

  ‘Which gets us where, Mr. Holmes?’

  ‘To the point, Lestrade, of acknowledging that the unsigned assignation note is written in Gardiner’s style, but a style more polished than Gardiner ever attained. And then there is the envelope in which the unsigned note was posted.’

  ‘You don’t deny that the unsigned assignation note and the envelope are written in the same hand and by the same person?’

  ‘Not in the least.’ Holmes wagged the photograph a little. ‘Yet look at the address.’

  Lestrade read slowly, ‘Miss Harsent, Providence House, Peasenhall, Saxmundham.’

  ‘There you have it,’ said Holmes triumphantly, ‘and the postmark on the envelope is Yoxford—which is also the postmark for Peasenhall itself. This letter was surely posted in the box opposite Hurren’s post office in the main street of Peasenhall and collected by the postman. It was franked at Hurren’s and delivered. To add Saxmundham is superfluous. Saxmundham may be the largest village between here and Ipswich but the note would never have gone there. This is as redundant as if you were to address a letter to London, England, when you posted a letter in London to be delivered in London. A man who has lived as long in Peasenhall as William Gardiner would not address a Peasenhall letter to Saxmundham.’

  ‘Unless he wished to disguise his intent,’ Lestrade replied.

  Holmes laughed.

  ‘Unless he wanted to draw attention to himself. If he wished to disguise its origin, better by far for him to walk to Saxmundham and send the letter with a Saxmundham postmark on it. When we began our labours this afternoon, I was quite prepared to find that Gardiner was the murderer. You, my dear fellow, have helped to bring me to the near certainty that he can only be innocent.’

  This caught the inspector on the raw and he became a little snappish.

  ‘Be that as it may, Mr. Holmes, my time grows short. At the risk of trespassing on your hospitality, I should be grateful if we could deal with Gardiner’s murder alibi after dinner this evening. The facts are known and it hardly requires an inquisition or further witnesses. I cannot stay in Ipswich for ever.’

  ‘Good God, man! You have only been in the town for a few hours!’

  I was not surprised that there was general silence in the cab until we drew up in the half-timbered yard of the White Hart. The old low-beamed hotel was busy that evening with barristers on circuit for the assize court at the Shire Hall. The White Hart is where the bar mess meets for dinner during these weeks, though Mr. Wild absented himself in order to keep us company. The ice was broken a little, as the saying is, when the four of us sat round our table in the panelled dining room. By an unspoken agreement, we avoided all mention of the case, which was soon to occupy us into the small hours.

  4

  As usual, Holmes had engaged a private sitting room adjoining our bedrooms. With Lestrade and Mr. Wild we took our ease in armchairs, a decanter of whisky and a jug of hot water with a plate of lemon on the table between us.

  ‘Let us clear the ground,’ said Holmes, looking about him.

  ‘Certain facts are plain. On 31 May last, Rose Harsent received an anonymous note from her lover, asking her to put a light in her attic window at Providence House at ten P.M. and promising to come to the back door at midnight. It is disputed whether that note may or may not be in Gardiner’s handwriting.’

  ‘It is his handwriting,’ said Lestrade hastily. ‘Mr. Thomas Gurrin has said so on two occasions in court. He is the greatest expert we have.’

  ‘Or the greatest charlatan,’ said Holmes equably. ‘However, let us return to the night of 31 May. Rose lit a candle in her window that remained there for ten minutes or so. Gardiner and his neighbours were standing in their doorways or in the street watching the storm. Had Gardiner stood in the middle of the road, he might have seen the candle in the window, two hundred yards away. All other evidence apart, Rose Harsent was certainly alive at ten P.M. and dead at eight A.M. next morning.’

  ‘Let us say four A.M.,’ I added quickly, ‘and quite possibly two A.M., according to postmortem evidence of rigor mortis.’

  ‘So it shall be.’ Holmes put down his glass and glanced at the sheet of paper before him. ‘Gardiner and his wife were asked by a next-door neighbour, Mrs. Rosanna Dickenson, an ironmonger’s widow, to keep her company because she was afraid of the storm. Mrs. Gardiner arrived at Mrs. Dickenson’s house at about eleven thirty P.M. Gardiner had said that he would look to see that the children were sleeping. He then followed his wife about fifteen minutes later, let us say eleven forty-five P.M. Gardiner was described by Mrs. Dickenson as ‘calm and collected.’ He was wearing carpet slippers and not dressed for going out, even in fine weather, let alone in the storm that was still in full force. The couple stayed with Mrs. Dickenson until one thirty A.M. and left together. I see that Mrs. Dickenson was not cross-examined at the trial, so I take it we may accept the truth of her evidence?’

  Our Scotland Yard man took the pipe from his mouth.

  ‘I think we may.’

  ‘Very well. Mrs. Gardiner then describes how they walked straight home and went to bed. She recalled that the first predawn light began to appear in the sky just before two o’clock. Remember that this was 1 June and almost the earliest sunrise of the year. As they got into bed at two twenty A.M., she said to her husband, ‘It is getting quite light.’ Furthermore, the walls of those cottages are thin and their neighbour, Amelia Pepper, heard Mrs. Gardiner’s voice and her tread on the stairs at about two A.M. Mrs. Gardiner tells us that she had a pain in her body and did not sleep until after five A.M., when she heard the clock strike. Her husband was in bed with her all that time. If this is true, then he cannot have murdered anyone after eleven forty-five P.M., unless we disregard his wife’s evidence.’

  ‘Which we should be well advised to do,’ said Lestrade quickly.

  ‘It is completely uncorroborated after two A.M.’ Holmes looked at him without expression.

  ‘I think, Lestrade, that a little common sense will suffice. If you check your diary or your almanac, you will find that the sun rises at that time of year at two forty-five A.M. and that it lights the sky from below the horizon somewhat before then. Were I Gardiner intent upon murdering Rose Harsent, it would be a deed of darkness. I should not walk down the main street in broad daylight where a wakeful neighbour or an early riser might see me from a window or even meet me on the way. Peasenhall is not Park Lane or Baker Street. Country people rise with the sun, not several hours after it. Added to that, the medical evidence cannot place the crime later than two
or three o’clock, four o’clock if we accept Dr. Lay’s unsupported guess.’

  ‘That is certainly true,’ I said before Lestrade could intervene again. ‘In any case, Miss Harsent was in the kitchen when she was murdered, and the candle in her bedroom had been put out. If her lover failed her at midnight, she would surely have gone to bed and not sat up in the kitchen for two hours and more in her nightclothes.’

  Lestrade turned round to us all.

  ‘This may be very a very amusing game to you, gentlemen. To me, it is something else. The young person may have been murdered as late as four A.M., according to Dr. Lay. If that was the case, then she had indeed sat up waiting or gone to the kitchen at that hour, however unreasonable it may seem to you. Remember she was wearing night attire and may have gone downstairs in answer to a knock or signal. Let that be enough.’

  ‘Enough for suspicion and innuendo, far too little for guilt,’ said Holmes quietly. ‘If I were you, I should place the murder at a time before the Gardiners went to Mrs. Dickenson and not afterward. That would put it before eleven forty-five P.M. on the previous evening.’

  ‘Time enough, Mr. Holmes.’

  Holmes stared into his glass.

  ‘Is it, indeed? Rose Harsent was seen alive by Mrs. Crisp who said goodnight to the girl at ten P.M. It was ten fifteen when Mrs. Crisp went to bed and to sleep. She woke somewhen during the night and heard a thud, followed shortly after by a scream. She said at first it was at midnight; now she is not sure of the time, but it was dark. No matter. We have a period between ten fifteen and eleven forty-five, less than that if Gardiner was the murderer. He had to be at Mrs. Dickenson’s in his carpet slippers at eleven forty-five, so let us say between ten fifteen and eleven thirty.’

  ‘Long enough,’ said the inspector decisively.