“Could you not have taken a later train? I understand your first class was not until eleven o’clock.”
“That is true, and I might have done so, but I had a meeting with one of my students, a bright lad called Lexington. As it happened, the boy never turned up.”
“Did he offer an explanation?”
“He said our meeting was for five o’clock that evening, not nine a.m. as I had written in my diary. I cannot imagine why I would have agreed to a meeting so late in the day. It would have meant rushing for my train. I can only assume I misheard the five for a nine.”
“And the boy’s integrity is in no doubt?” Holmes asked.
“No, not at all. He is a very sound student. I must confess, sir, I am a bit scatter-brained. I have my own ideas and they dominate my thoughts to the point where I completely forget everything else. That is why I was not initially too alarmed to find my family were not at home. I was unsettled, of course, but I convinced myself I had made another of my foolish blunders. I’m afraid my wife was always scolding me for my forgetfulness.”
“Yes,” Holmes said. “A common problem for brilliant academics, I believe.” The professor bowed slightly. “I wonder, Dr. Addleton, if you can talk me through the events of Monday evening. Start with your meeting with Lexington, if you would.”
“Very well, I shall do my best. Lexington arrived in my office at five o’clock, perhaps a few minutes before. He realised I needed to catch the train and I suppose he felt guilty about our earlier misunderstanding. The examinations were due to start, well, today, in fact, and there were a number of issues upon which he needed clarification. We talked for some time and in the end he walked with me to the train station. We continued our conversation as we went. I only just reached the station in time to catch my train.
“The weather was quite dreadful and I faced a long walk home. Ordinarily, I do not mind. I find a long walk helps me clear my thoughts. On that evening, however, the weather was so wretched I longed for my supper and the warmth of my hearth. You can imagine my surprise when I arrived at my home to find it utterly deserted. No one came to greet me as I came in. I called for my wife and children, but no one answered my call. I searched the whole house. I was alarmed to find the table still set for breakfast. There was the teapot and the bread. I confess I rather panicked and rushed to the minister’s house to see if he had heard of any incident that might have stolen my family away from me.”
“Very distressing, I’m sure,” Holmes said in a calm voice. “Can you tell me what your wife and children were wearing the last time you saw them?”
The man frowned, trying to remember. “Uh, I’m afraid I am not very observant about clothing. Let me see, my wife was wearing a black gown with a woollen shawl around her shoulders. The children were still in their nightclothes. Yes, I am sure they were. I was concerned about them catching cold.”
“You are doing splendidly,” I said. “It is a very difficult situation, to be sure.”
The man nodded and hugged himself with thin hands.
Holmes said, “Doctor Watson is correct, you really are doing very well. Now, I wonder if I could ask you to go back a step and describe as accurately as you can the contents of the table.”
Addleton stopped and thought. “It was just the breakfast things. There was the pot of tea, stone cold. The remnants of tea in one cup. Uh... the bread.”
“A whole loaf?”
“Yes, that’s right. It might help my recollection if I could follow your reasoning, Mr. Holmes,” the professor said.
“I am trying to determine when your wife and children left the table. From what you say, it appears it must have been very shortly after you left for the train station.”
“Yes, I suppose so, but where could they have gone? They certainly were not on the train. I would have seen them at the platform.”
“And you only just caught your train, so it does seem very unlikely that they would have been able to get there so quickly.”
“They could have taken the trap,” Lestrade said. “That would have enabled them to get to the station before the professor.”
“Then how did the vehicle get back here, Inspector?” Holmes said. “Besides, Mrs. Addleton was observed by the river some hours later.”
“If they had been on the train, surely they would have found me,” Addleton said.
“It is reasonable to assume so. I suppose relations between you and your wife were cordial?”
“Of course. Never a cross word between us.”
“And what of the neighbours? Has your wife ever spoken about anyone who alarmed her or caused her anxiety?”
The professor considered. “She spoke of Mr. Fairchild as a kind gentleman, and I think she knew his son to say hello to. There were some people in the village, mostly tradesmen, and the minister. She mentioned all of them from time to time, but no one in particular. Well, there was the schoolteacher.”
“The schoolteacher?”
“Mr. Nithercott. Only our oldest boy was in school, but Mr. Nithercott spoke highly about him. My wife seemed to like the teacher very much.”
“Is he a married man?” I asked.
Addleton said, “No, he is single. Of course, he’s only in his twenties, I think. You understand, I don’t really know him myself, but my wife always spoke of him as ‘young Mr. Nithercott’, so that was the impression I formed.”
“Thank you, Dr. Addleton,” Holmes said. “You have been exceedingly helpful. I wonder if I might look at the rest of the house? I doubt there is anything left to find after so long a delay-” He gave Lestrade a disapproving look. “But I would be negligent in my duty if I did not try. No, please do not disturb yourself. I can manage perfectly well on my own.”
Lestrade, the constable, and I sat together with the professor. We could hear Holmes painstakingly making his way through the cramped and ancient cottage. The professor entertained us with tales of the barrow mounds that stood just outside the village. “My particular interest is the Neolithic period,” he said, “So you can imagine how fascinated I am by these strange mounds. Of course, some of them are Bronze Age or even Roman, but they are all worthy of study. Amazing to think of primitive man walking these very fields thousands of years ago, is it not? These mounds close at hand are called by some the Bartlow Pyramids. Of course, these ones are fairly modern, comparatively speaking, being from the first or second century of the Common Era. These ones are conical, which is why they are compared with pyramids. A misnomer, of course, but such things intrigue the uneducated. Even less useful is the term ‘fairy hills’, which I have heard some use.”
“I suppose anything that attracts people to archaeology is of use,” I said, seeing both policemen looking exceedingly bored.
The professor continued to discourse on the ‘tumuli’, as he called the barrow mounds. “Yes,” he said, “We have a Roman tumuli right here in Bartlow. There were seven at one time but, alas, only three remain. They were gravesites, originally.”
“Have you been inside them?” I asked.
“Oh, no, not I. They were excavated about fifty years ago. Wooden chests, glass, and pottery were discovered inside, I believe. Even an iron folding chair, can you imagine?” He became quite animated as he spoke.
“Were they built by the Romans?” Lewis asked, trying to take an interest.
“During the Roman period, certainly, but they were built by Celtic chiefs. There are any number of mounds dotted around these islands. A man could spend his life investigating all of them. The highest is around forty feet. Very impressive. Of course, there are tumuli scattered around the rest of the world, too, but the ones here in the British Isles are among the finest. The Hill of Tara in Ireland seems especially promising, as is Brú na Bóinne in County Meath. Some Irish sites are older than the pyramids. Extraordinary. I should dearly love to conduct a d
ig there. It would be the opportunity of a lifetime, but my wife would not hear of it. She reminded me of my parental duties. ‘Children before science, Winston,’ she said. I am sure she was right.”
For an hour, the professor droned on and in the background we could hear the creaking of floorboards and the occasional “A-ha!” as Holmes continued his investigation of the house.
At last he reappeared. “Yes,” he said, chuckling. “Not quite as useless as I had feared. Someone made a very careless error. Very careless indeed. Thank you for your time, Dr. Addleton. I think I know where to find your wife Jenny and your four little ones.”
“What - ?” the professor began but Holmes refused to reply.
“It is too soon to say more just yet, but I believe I know where they are. Yes, indeed. Inspector, I think we should return to London tonight, and in the morning we will make an early start. Good afternoon, Professor. Courage! All is not lost.”
We rode away in the constable’s carriage, but before we were too far along, Holmes said, “Tell me, Constable, is there an inn close at hand?”
“Yes, sir. The Three Hills is not far from here.”
“Excellent. Let us go and have supper. We have a long night ahead of us.”
“I thought we were going back to London,” Lestrade asked.
“No, indeed, Inspector.”
Over a splendid supper, the constable said, “Please, Mr. Holmes, you have obviously seen far more than we. What was it you found during your search of Barrow House?”
“Porridge oats.”
“Porridge?” I exclaimed. “You speak in riddles, Holmes.”
He chuckled. “Consider the facts, gentlemen,” he said. “A man returns home on a Monday evening to find his family missing. The table is laid out with tea and bread. Monday last was a cold, wet day. Mrs. Addleton, who is widely acknowledged as a devoted mother, serves breakfast to her children. Tea and bread, though there is a half-full bag of porridge oats in the cupboard. Surely a far more likely meal for children on a cold morning?”
“And who would serve bread without butter?” I added.
“And there were only two glasses of milk, though there were four children,” the constable added. “So the breakfast table was staged for the professor’s benefit? But why?”
“Could Mrs. Addleton have staged it herself?” Lestrade asked. “After all, she was seen on her own... Oh, dear heavens, could she have gone mad and murdered her children?”
“Drowned them and then herself like Ophelia?” I said. “It was odd that she went walking along the riverbank wearing such inappropriate clothing. Madness would explain it.”
“Oh, really,” Holmes scoffed. “What nonsense. Mrs. Addleton did not go mad and she did not harm her children.”
“Wait,” I said, “So someone dressed as Mrs. Addleton to make it look like she was still in Bartlow. A family member? Her hair was very distinctive. It is how Mr. Fairchild recognised her, that and her outfit.”
“That is significant. He did not see her face, only her familiar clothing and that red hair.”
“But what does it mean, Mr. Holmes?” Constable Lewis asked.
“Something unspeakable.”
After we had eaten, my friend said, “We must return to Barrow House, gentlemen. Lestrade, you and the constable take the north side of the house. Keep watch on the back door. Doctor Watson and I shall remain to the south and watch the front. Be careful, gentlemen. This fellow has no scruples nor does he value human life. Follow him, but keep a very careful distance. We must not let him know he is being watched. I implore you, be as still as statues and silent as those barrows yonder. We have an ugly business ahead of us.”
The sky was cloudy and the moon, such as it was, failed to appear. Around eleven o’clock, the light went off in Barrow House and a few minutes later, a figure emerged. He headed east towards the barrows. Holmes and I followed at some distance. On the edge of the wooded area, Lestrade and Lewis caught up with us. Silently, we followed our prey towards the mounds.
Once he was under the cover of the trees, the man lit a lantern which helped us to follow him. After some minutes, the light stopped moving.
“Softly, softly,” Holmes said.
We crept forward and found the professor with a shovel at the base of the mound. He had dug an opening. That is to say, he had opened a doorway that had already existed. The man screamed when he saw us.
“Hold him!” Holmes cried as the man swung the shovel at us.
The young policeman leaped upon the villain and brought him to his knees with a sound right hook. He placed cuffs on him, though Addleton was hardly moving.
“Nicely done, Constable. Now, let us see what our friend is hiding.” He paused and turned to us. “I fear this will be distressing, gentlemen.”
Just a few feet inside the maw of the barrow we saw them. Even now, my gorge rises at the memory. There, side by side upon the heartless earth, lay the woman and her four babies, stone dead, already foul with decay.
“How could he do such a thing?” the constable asked. His face was red with fury and tears filled his anguished eyes.
The distasteful task of examining the dead fell to me. The bodies of the children were too decayed for me to say with certainty, but I suspected they had been suffocated. Mrs. Addleton had been strangled - the ligature was still around her neck. Further, the woman’s hair, her bright red hair, had been hacked off close to the scalp.
Much later, back at the police station in the nearby village of Linton, Holmes explained.
“It was a matter of a man trying to be clever, but having insufficient wits to carry it off. Each of the clues seemed compelling on their own, and yet they did not form a coherent picture. Therefore, it was reasonable to assume that some or all of the clues had been manufactured.”
“The breakfast table,” Lestrade said. “You kept asking about that, but even now I do not see the significance.”
“The professor wanted to us to believe his family had vanished sometime in the middle of Monday morning. He set the breakfast things in place, but he did a poor job. There was a full pot of tea, a large pot such as one would make for a family, but only one teacup. There was a loaf of bread, but no butter or marmalade. What mother would serve dry bread to her children when there was porridge in the cupboard? The professor’s indifference to his family told against him when he tried to present the image of a normal morning.”
“That seems plain enough,” the constable said. “And I wondered about the egg, too.”
“The egg?” Lestrade asked.
“You remember,” Lewis said. “The professor said he didn’t have time to eat breakfast, and yet his wife was able to make a hard-boiled egg for him. That’s a good six or seven minutes. Would a man in a rush have waited so long when there was bread right there?”
“Well done, Constable. You are perfectly correct. There was also Fairchild’s report of seeing Mrs. Addleton by the river. This was to make sure the professor had an alibi for when she supposedly vanished.”
“Who did Fairchild see, Holmes?” I asked.
“Addleton himself. He dressed in his wife’s garb and cut off her hair to fashion a make-shift wig, so the old man would identify the dead woman for a time when the professor was apparently at the university. Addleton caught the train at the usual time, but got off at the next stop and doubled back.”
“How dreadful,” I said. Something about the hacking off of his wife’s hair seemed chilling.
“The professor made an error when I asked what his wife had been wearing the last time he saw her. The question took him by surprise and he told the truth. She was wearing a black dress. That is what she was wearing when we found her. But why would she have changed into a different gown to go walking by the river?”
“And she wouldn’t have gone walking wit
hout her children in any case,” Lewis added. “Yes, he made a hash of it, all right, but we still wouldn’t have found the bodies without your help, Mr. Holmes.”
“I had to let Addleton believe he had made some mistake or other so he would go back to check on the bodies. He saved us an infinite number of pains by leading us right to them.”
“What of Lexington?” Lestrade asked. “The student who made the mistake about the meeting. Was that a genuine mistake, do you think?”
“I spoke with Lexington myself last week,” the constable said. “He confirmed that the appointment had been scheduled weeks ago.”
“It was part of the professor’s plan,” Holmes said, “Furthermore, it proves the murders were premeditated.
“I believe the professor murdered his family on Friday night. There is evidence of a struggle in the couple’s bedroom and in the children’s beds. He then had a whole weekend to haul away the bodies, which left dried mud on the wheels of the trap. You did very well to spot that, Constable. I congratulate you. The fact that the mud had dried suggested some time had passed between the moving of the bodies and when you were called to the scene.”
“But I don’t understand why, Holmes,” I said. “What sort of a man murders his wife and children?”
“Since Addleton continues to assert his innocence, we can only surmise. However, I suspect he already gave us the motive. He wanted to go to Ireland to study the mounds there. His wife reminded him of his obligations as a father. The fact that the murders coincided with the end of term suggests he had hoped to have the whole summer to indulge his passion for archaeology without any family obligations to trouble him. Once you look into his background, Lestrade, I believe you will find his money has been saved to pay for that expedition.”
So it proved. Dr. Addleton protested his innocence to the last, but the jury found Sherlock Holmes’s testimony compelling and he was hanged.
There. I have set down the tragedy. Perhaps now I will forget.
A Loathsome and Remarkable Adventure
The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part IX Page 39