The Execution of Sherlock Holmes

by Donald Thomas

  ‘Saturday is a busy day, sir, and the chapel deacons hold their meeting on Wednesday. I like to have it cleaned on Tuesday, for the deacons next day, though the work is not always done as late as the evening. First thing on Wednesday morning, about half past eight, Mr. Crisp and I go down Church Lane and satisfy ourselves that everything is in order and the place properly cleaned for the evening meeting and prayers. By going early, it gives time to have anything put right that needs putting right.’

  ‘And when you went to the chapel first thing on the morning after the alleged scandal, everything was as you expected? The chapel had been cleaned?’

  ‘It had, sir. Even the numbers on the hymn board had been changed as usual and the hymn books put in order.’

  ‘And you are quite sure that you entered by using the key that was in the desk drawer?’

  ‘It was the only one we had ever used, sir. The other had never left the safe. Naturally, it was where I put it the night before, when the girl handed it back. I can’t say exactly what time that was, for I had no reason to remember until the murder. It might have been as late as nine o’clock that she gave it me, because she was sometimes back and busy in the kitchen before I came in. Not later than nine, though. If it had been later than about nine, I should have wondered where she was. She was a good girl and dependable, except for whatever put her in the family way.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Holmes. ‘The time of her return is of great importance, Mrs. Crisp. However, you must not let us persuade you to say anything that you do not accurately remember. There is one thing more. When she returned that evening, was her dress as it normally might have been?’

  ‘Indeed it was, sir. By the time I saw her, she had put away her shawl, and of course she would not wear a bonnet to go so short a distance.’

  After Mr. and Mrs. Crisp had withdrawn, Wright and Skinner entered together. Whether Eli Nunn had sent them both at once or whether they had insisted upon this, in case one might contradict the other in his absence, I could not tell. A meaner-looking pair of bullies I had never seen. I do not say they would lie in wait to garrotte a man for his purse, but, I thought as I looked at them then, they would blast the reputation of man or woman without a second’s thought. Skinner, I think, was the worse of the two.

  One by one they told their stories again. Wright, who was loitering in Church Street, had seen Rose Harsent go up the path to the chapel at seven thirty that evening, and Gardiner had followed her at about seven forty-five. Wright had gone to Skinner’s lodgings about eight o’clock and urged him to come and watch some fun. They arrived outside the chapel at eight fifteen or eight twenty and crept up along the raised bank until they might crouch behind the hedge. From there they could look down at the southwest window of the chapel. Skinner had remained in position for about an hour. Wright had been absent for about ten minutes during this time, but they had both been there when the couple in the chapel went their separate ways home.

  Skinner gave the more complete version of what he alleged had happened in the chapel, though both agreed that it was getting too dark to see distinctly through the window. Skinner heard a woman’s voice, which he could not recognize, say ‘Oh! Oh!’ At that point Wright went away for about ten moments. Skinner heard the woman say, ‘Did you notice me reading my Bible last Sunday?’ The man, whose voice was allegedly that of Gardiner, said, ‘What were you reading about?’ ‘I was reading about like what we have been doing here tonight. Chapter thirty-eight of Genesis. It won’t be noticed.’

  ‘You may save yourself the trouble of being coy with us, Skinner,’ said Lestrade. ‘Onan spilling his seed upon the ground, you mean?’

  To my astonishment, Skinner blushed.

  ‘That is correct,’ he said. ‘“And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife and marry her and raise up seed to thy brother.”’

  ‘You are to be congratulated on your knowledge of Holy Writ’—the voice of Sherlock Holmes had an edge like a freshly honed razor—‘especially since you say you are not a church-going man. And was that all you heard?’

  ‘Later on the female said, “I shall be out tomorrow night at nine o’clock but you must let me go now.” George Wright had returned by then and was with me when that was said.’

  Wright nodded his head but without looking up at us.

  ‘And that was all?’ Holmes inquired gently.

  ‘All that I remember, sir.’

  ‘You had known this young woman for years, had you not, Skinner? By your account, you did what you call odd jobs at Providence House. You tell us that you heard her talk of Bible-reading in chapel on the previous Sunday. Since you heard everything so plainly, how is it possible you could not know her voice after an hour of listening to it, but only recognized her when you say she came out of the door?’

  ‘She talked low.’

  ‘And yet you heard her so plainly?’

  Skinner scowled at his shoes and said nothing. My friend exchanged a glance with Lestrade, as if it was time for some prearranged ceremony to take place. Then he turned to the two young men again.

  ‘Wright and Skinner, you will please go outside with Dr. Watson and Constable Nunn to the fence behind which you say that you crouched. You will crouch there again. I shall stay here and Chief Inspector Lestrade will see fair play. This time, I shall be the one who recites the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis. You will be able to demonstrate to Dr. Watson and Constable Nunn that you are able to hear the words.’

  ‘It is not a fair test!’ said Wright scornfully.

  ‘Fairer by far than the test to which you have put William Gardiner!’ Holmes snapped. ‘The ventilators will be open, which they may not have been that evening. You will have as good or better chance than then of hearing what is said.’

  They would have wriggled out of this, I swear they would, but for the presence of PC Nunn and a Scotland Yard man. With Nunn and the two youths I went up to the bank and crouched behind the fence. At a signal, Holmes began to read. With the ventilators open, I could just hear the murmur of a man’s voice but not the words. The ventilator flap was at least twelve feet away from us and the sound would have had to travel round two corners in a muffled tube. It was impossible, of course, to say that a younger witness with exceptionally acute hearing might not pick up something. With the ventilators closed, I could hear nothing. All the same, there was nothing to prevent Skinner with a young man’s sharp ears telling the court of what he alleged had taken place. We returned to the little chapel and I took my place at the table again. Eli Nunn stood behind the two witnesses.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Holmes to the two young men, ‘let us decide whether you have been truthful witnesses or willful perjurers before the King’s justices. How much did you hear?’

  ‘Some of it,’ said Wright sullenly. ‘It was in the evening then, not the afternoon with the drill works going.’

  ‘Same here,’ said Skinner.

  The eyes of Sherlock Holmes glinted very slightly with triumph.

  ‘It is a quiet afternoon. If you can hear any sound of the road at present, please tell us. As for the machinery at the seed drill works, that is silent at my request.’

  Skinner glared at him, but Sherlock Holmes had got him on the run. Before long, this malevolent lout would be fighting for his life.

  ‘You tell us that you heard some but not all of that passage from Genesis,’ said Holmes courteously. ‘Let me tell you, gentlemen, that I would not profane this little chapel or dignify you by using Scripture for such a purpose. Inspector Lestrade will read out the words I used and to which he was a witness.’

  Lestrade glanced down at a small sheet of paper before him and looked more self-conscious than I had ever known him before. He read slowly and solemnly.

  ‘Hey! diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon, the little dog laughed to see such craft while the dish ran after the spoon.’

  ‘Quite.’ Holmes looked again at the two witnesses. ‘I repeated the ver
se twice to give it sufficient length.’

  ‘It is nothing but a filthy trick!’ said Wright angrily, while Skinner’s eyes narrowed with fury.

  ‘Oh, no’—Holmes shook his head slowly—‘the trick was yours. A trick that may yet have William Gardiner, who has never done you the slightest harm, dangling at the end of the hangman’s rope. Constable Nunn, be good enough to lock the door and oblige me by arresting these two and charging them if they should try to leave before they have answered fully.’

  He stared at the two witnesses.

  ‘Let us come to certain questions that you have never been asked in court and for which you may be less prepared. You have both sworn that you saw Rose Harsent leave the chapel, followed a little later by William Gardiner. How did you see them?’

  Skinner hesitated, but Wright had the answer.

  ‘We were above them looking down. The hedge is about ten feet from the chapel and perhaps we were six or seven feet further along it. Not more. Easy enough to see anyone in the dusk.’

  ‘How did you see them?’ Holmes repeated. ‘In your evidence, you told the court that when you reached the chapel it was eight fifteen and getting dark, so that you could not see clearly what was happening inside. If you are to be believed, the man and woman did not leave until nine fifteen or nine twenty. When you verify the fact in your diary, you will see that the sun had set at seven fifteen. It may still have been getting dark, as you swore was the case, when you both reached the chapel at eight fifteen. By nine fifteen it was not dusk but pitch dark and had been so for up to half an hour.’

  There was silence in the little chapel for a moment before Holmes continued in the same level voice.

  ‘Anyone coming from the chapel into the path that runs beside it would be in a canyon below the hedge. That path is unlit, the road beyond has no street lighting, the seed drill works would long ago have been in darkness. Further along, the road might be illuminated by the reflection from the windows of the houses, but near the chapel there are no houses. Even had there been a glimmer of light, every man that I have seen in Peasenhall—and in numerous photographs of Peasenhall—wears a similar cap, large and round. Every woman wears either a hat or a shawl—she wears the shawl over her head after dark. Identification might not have been easy in full daylight, yet you ask us to believe that it was simple, through a hedge, in complete darkness. I may have some say in what happens to you both as a result of the evidence you have given. Do not try my patience.’

  ‘They might have had oil lamps,’ said Wright desperately, ‘I do not recall.’

  Holmes nodded as if he accepted this, but Skinner could hardly restrain himself from glaring at his companion for the stupidity of the suggestion.

  ‘I see. You do not recall it but they might have had oil lamps, might they? You have given evidence at the coroner’s court, the magistrates’ court, and twice at the assizes. Neither of you has mentioned a single oil lamp until now. Let that pass. They had oil lamps, did they? Yet rather than light them, they spent an hour in the chapel in total darkness, did they? They must have done so, for you took your Bible oath four times that it was too dark for you to see inside the building. Mrs. Crisp tells us that, next day, the chapel had been cleaned and even the hymn books put in the correct order and the numbers of the hymn board changed. A remarkable accomplishment in total darkness. Indeed, if you are correct, Rose Harsent had a lamp. Rather than light it, she did all this in darkness.’

  Neither of them answered him. Sherlock Holmes sat back in his chair and continued without mercy.

  ‘If they had lamps, when did they light them?’

  ‘I don’t recall they did,’ said Skinner grimly.

  ‘That is something else you do not recall.’ He was the quiet assassin now. ‘But they would have lit them before they left the chapel, surely. Why else carry them?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Skinner gave up the struggle.

  ‘If you have spoken a word of truth between you, those lamps must have been lit long before. If your story is to be believed, Rose Harsent said of some mishap that might have stained or disfigured a surface, ‘It won’t be noticed.’ How could she tell what would be noticed and what would not if she could not see it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If they lit lamps, you could have seen what was happening. You swear you could not. Therefore they did not have lamps and you could not have seen who it was that came out through the door.’

  Wright had given up and was staring at his feet. Skinner struggled in the net. I do not think, in all my experience of Sherlock Holmes, I had ever seen such a mixture of fear and anger as in the eyes of this young rustic. He was not done for yet.

  ‘You do think yourself clever, Mr. Holmes, the Baker Street detective! Perhaps if you’d spent a little less time in London and a little more in the country, you might have learnt a good deal.’

  ‘I am always ready to learn,’ said Holmes humbly.

  ‘Well then, look at the sky at night! You talk about it being pitch dark. That sky ain’t pitch dark all the time. Moonlight and starlight show a good deal.’

  ‘I hardly think starlight would have illuminated the sunken path, hemmed in by shadow as it is.’

  ‘I daresay not, but moonlight would. With a clear sky and the moon almost at the full, as it was.’

  ‘You say the moon had risen?’

  Skinner relaxed, as if he had sprung a trap on his victim.

  ‘Of course it had risen, or we wouldn’t have seen Rose and Mr. Gardiner, would we?’

  ‘Dear me,’ said Holmes, ‘a perfect example of petitio principii, better known as begging the question. Do go on.’

  Skinner went on.

  ‘Three nights before, on the Saturday, a dozen of us went rabbit-catching. We do that when the moon is full sometimes. I can give you the names of witnesses enough. We went off early, about seven or eight, seeing that was when the moon come up and crossed the southern sky, as it generally does. That night, the moon would have shone almost directly onto that chapel door, the path, the gate, and the road beyond. It rises always a few minutes later ever y night, don’t it? We all know that. But not so much later as to make much odds only three nights after, when we saw what we saw at the chapel. Don’t tell me what we could and couldn’t have seen, Mr. Holmes. We were the ones that were there.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Holmes meekly, ‘then let me ask you one more thing and we shall have done.’

  My heart sank. Was this all? It seemed as if these two wretches might be almost safe in their tale of ‘seeing’ Rose and her lover together at the chapel. Safe enough to hang William Gardiner. Skinner squared his shoulders confidently for the one more question. He truly seemed to think that he had beaten Sherlock Holmes at last.

  ‘All right,’ he said magnanimously, ‘what do you want to know?’

  ‘Who locked the chapel door?’ asked Holmes in the same meek voice. ‘Mrs. Crisp and her husband found it locked as usual when they went there at half past eight on the following morning. You have both sworn that a woman left first on the evening before, Rose Harsent, if it was she. You did not follow her but waited for the man, William Gardiner, if it was he. You understand?’

  ‘Well enough, I should say.’

  ‘Who locked the door that evening, for locked it was and locked it was found the next morning?’

  Wright joined in.

  ‘Gardiner must have done that. He was the last to leave. It can’t have been anyone else, can it?’

  ‘It cannot,’ said Holmes in the same subdued voice. ‘And you followed Gardiner, did you not? According to your evidence, Skinner caught up with him almost at once. Let me see. Here we are: “I walked level with him for about twenty yards.” You then stood at the crossing and watched him continue home down the main street of Peasenhall, which is simply called the Street? Is that correct?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Skinner with a slight laugh at the absurdity of it all. Sherlock Holmes changed his manner in a split se
cond. He came in, as they say, for the kill.

  ‘Kindly do not laugh, Skinner; a man’s life depends on our conversation this afternoon. So does your liberty for the next seven years and that of your foolish friend. All this was at nine twenty, you say?’

  ‘I have said so in court. It was nine twenty or perhaps by then nine thirty.’

  ‘Mrs. Crisp was able to tell us this afternoon that long before nine twenty, let alone nine thirty, the key to the chapel was safely locked in a drawer of her desk. Gardiner could not have used it to lock the chapel door.’

  ‘Then he did not lock it!’

  ‘Mr. and Mrs. Crisp found it securely locked the next morning. According to your sworn testimony, you watched Gardiner walk home from the Doctor’s Chapel. Rose Harsent was nowhere around. You did not follow her when she left and had gone on ahead. Gardiner, also according to your evidence, did not approach the door of Providence House. To use your own words in court, he walked straight past it.’

  ‘Then. …’

  ‘I am there before you, Skinner. Then, perhaps, Gardiner returned in the middle of the night, burgled Providence House, ransacked the desk, forced open the drawer, took the key to the chapel, and locked it? Or Rose Harsent got up in the middle of the night, broke open the desk, and took the key for the same purpose. By a fairy’s magic wand, all trace of breaking and entering vanished before Mrs. Crisp went to her desk the next morning. And all this happened at a time when neither the man nor the woman in your story had any idea that they had been watched—and therefore they had no reason for doing it. In any case, they would have thought that early next morning would do just as well for locking the chapel.’

  ‘It must have. …’

  ‘Do not tell me what must have happened, Skinner. Had you been a little more skilled in falsehood, you would have invented a story in which Gardiner caught up with Rose and handed her the key before he went home. If there were a word of truth in anything you have sworn to, Gardiner could not have given the unlocked chapel door a second thought and it would have been still unlocked next day—which it was not. Had he been uneasy, he would have hurried after Rose Harsent, got the key, and gone back to lock it then and there, which you swear he did not. My only regret in all this is that public flogging has been abolished for willful perjury.’