by Tim Symonds
I fell back on to the cab bench and reached over to lay my hand hard upon my friend’s sleeve. ‘Holmes, I speak as your friend and ally. Think what you told the Kipling League today - ‘Never do I spring to a conclusion without possession of a sufficiency of necessary and credible facts’. It embarrasses me beyond compare that I myself told them - let me quote myself - ‘Not for Holmes the fanciful weaving of ingenious theories miscalled ‘intuition’ nor the blind acceptance of circumstantial evidence untested by the searching light of cross-examination’! Here you are, scarcely three hours later, babbling on about moats and wagon ponds and the eleven-fifty rather than the three-ten train, the assassination of a Boer, the effect of temperature on rigor mortis, boiled linseed oil and scumbling... and ’ I added wildly, ‘pairs of paintings - what in Hades does it matter if Siviter commissioned one work or ten?’
My near-incoherent agitation had no effect.
‘I simply build the foundations of a case,’ Holmes responded, imperturbably. ‘I build it as the mason builds the house. You speak of circumstantial evidence as though it were inconsequential yet all the while it accumulates into a collection whose pieces become corroborating evidence. Together, they may more strongly support one particular inference over another, the more valid as proof of a fact when we have ruled out all the alternative explanations. As to the theory you propose, that such magnates have no motivation for murder, why, you are not the student of history I had supposed! Remember,’ he added inscrutably, a characteristic further honed by his lengthy stay with the Tibetan Grand Lama, ‘the Chinese character for knife is one of the simplest of two hundred and fourteen radicals. Do not be taken in by the meekness of today’s assembly - even Red Riding Hood’s wolf would look the less farouche seated on a Knole in Siviter’s parlour.’
He sat back.
‘Nevertheless, Watson, I accept you are finding the meaning of all this is very dark. Do I follow a fixed star, you wonder, or a will-o’-the-wisp? Yet you it is who helped me solve the second of the riddles. You ask, why the second canvas? Why the pair?’
‘Given you kindly say I was instrumental in the answer, Holmes,’ I replied with growing acerbity, ‘I should be eternally grateful if you can enlighten me on my solution.’
‘From the start I was certain it is a big fact. What it told us lay beyond my reach until you showed me the Watson Codex.’ To my intense irritation he continued, ‘But let me digress a short while. If we were to be their alibi, as I am certain was their plan, the very essence of their success depended on the most precise and calculated timing. I repeat, I am sure it was their watchman who stood outside our door purporting to offer hares for sale. He it was this morning who would have sent Siviter successive communications, the first to announce my return from Rotherhithe some fifteen minutes before the hour of eight, the second to say their telegram had reached our door.’
Rather than assisting my understanding, these utterances bolstered my confusion and agitation. I feared I was at breaking-point.
‘Holmes,’ I stuttered, staring at him aghast, ‘this is all ... quite the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard. Have you taken leave of your senses? How often do you remind me you need clay to make bricks? When you confront Siviter at his door with your accusations he will in his most literary way utter Ophelia’s words - ‘O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown’!’
As I spoke, our carriage swung sharp left between the church and a Crimea war memorial, plunging into the Dudwell Valley, the two greys straining to hold the sociable’s weight from running loose down the one-in-ten gradient. On the left stood the village school. Settled on the roof facing west, six ring-doves sat in line, pouting chests etched by the yellow-gold rays of the setting sun.
I looked at Holmes in desperation. ‘Why take a corpse to Scotney Castle at all? Why not the confines of the Crick’s End estate? If they wished to make a murder look like drowning, they have the mill-pond to hand!’’
‘A corpse on the doorstep of the Kipling League would be a grave embarrassment. These are not claqueurs out to gain the public’s attention. They chose Scotney Castle for three good reasons. It is at a departure from Crick’s End, it contains a moat, and most of all they can place reliance on their accomplice Lord Fusey. Left at that it would have been simple - but these rich and powerful men took delight in constructing a daring game to occupy a rainy day, far more entertaining than the hunt for elephants and tigers from the safety of a machan. In a word, they aimed to ensnare Holmes in their deadly plot.’
Holmes dropped his voice. ‘Watson, not by any stretch of my imagination was I invited as entertainment on an idle afternoon. From my calculations based on your Codex their victim was killed this morning, his corpse taken immediately to the moat. No doubt it was submerged under overhanging branches until discovery timed precisely to accommodate my lecture - your Codex proves the coolness of a moat fed by a stream would prolong the onset of rigor mortis until at least an hour past six, six being the time I should have been on my feet if we had come on the three-ten train. Seven would be the time they scheduled for the corpse’s discovery.’
‘Holmes,’ I broke in desperately. ‘The second canvas - you say I helped...’
‘...provide the solution to this vexing riddle, indeed you did, and I shall now tell it to you. There was one reason and one alone for Siviter to order the second commission. It was to provide evidence the victim was standing beside the moat at six this evening. The painting would become the set-piece in their defence if needed. They summoned me by telegram to take the three-ten train, enticing me with the prospect of a hamper and a considerable fee. At most I thought this invitation a minor flattery. I see now it was a most ingenious and brilliant conceit. I repeat, the famed consulting detective was invited to Crick End to be witness at a Court of Law, witness for the defence of famous poet, Randlord and two Gold Bugs against a charge of assassination!’
To this day I cannot recollect another instance where Holmes engaged in such extraordinary calculations. His adamant adherence to so preposterous a theory stirred me to the point of insanity.
As though taking my silence to mean I awaited further explanation, Holmes pressed on. ‘Yes, Watson, should Scotland Yard by chance adopt an interest, it was essential to the League’s original plan I and they together should be assembled at Crick’s End at six o’ clock. The local constable would be summoned from his cottage to inspect a body found in the moat by a woodman ‘in the undertaking of his rounds’ at seven, its limbs still short of stiffening, claimed by Fusey to have been alive only an hour before, corroborated by Pevensey’s painting. Instead, to the plotters’ consternation, we caught the earlier train and I would be on my feet much sooner. According to the Watson Codex, far from a need to delay rigor mortis by keeping the body cool, now they needed to speed the process up, otherwise they might lose me as their witness. Leaving the body in the cool water of the moat would have maintained the suppleness of its limbs far too long. Even the local bobby would have found it feasible the victim died well past the time of my presentation at three. We might easily have been whirling back to London. My value to the League would be placed in serious jeopardy. Hence they hastened to take the body from the moat and place it in the warmer water of the wagon pond. Thus the sheen on the figure in the Constable.’
‘Again, Holmes, what of the sheen?’ I repeated haplessly. ‘Please explain.’
‘I asked myself even while we were at the easel in the mill-attic, why did Pevensey suddenly resort to boiled linseed oil? What was the urgent need? Why commit a sin against his own profession? There could be only one answer - force majeure. Why else? Imagine him at the wagon pond not long after lunch-time today, completing at leisure the last few brush-strokes in the Constable painting, namely the dog. It is possible up to then he was unaware of the murderous activity taking place around him. He was simply finishing the Constable before returning to the moat by six o’ clock to st
aff the second canvas - at Siviter’s behest - with a figure wearing Sir Julius’ flamboyant hat. From The Musgrave Ritual we know in the early evening a rod of six feet would throw a shadow approaching nine. The shadow and the spectre’s reflection would indicate the hour. Pevensey would be driven direct to a railway station to catch the train. After his departure, the body hidden in the waters of the moat among the carp and bream was to be discovered by the woodman at seven. Instead, what happens? Just after lunch, Pevensey was at the wagon pond completing the Constable by painting in the dog. Dudeney drives up, accompanied by Weit and Sir Julius. With at most a hurried explanation, Dudeney lifts a corpse from the back seat or boot and drags it into the shallow water before Pevensey’s bulging eyes. Weit or Sir Julius order the artist to overpaint the dog with a living stranger wearing the flamboyant hat, the shadow and reflection to indicate three this afternoon, precisely the time I would be on my feet, the Kipling League before me.’
‘Holmes,’ I demanded hotly, fearful of the reckoning drawing nigh, ‘this is all quite exceptionally ingenious though as near impossible a supposition as you have ever uttered. What of motive? How else can you convince Scotland Yard let alone a jury? This is a case as different from the Abergavenny murder as the moon is from Earth.’
‘For the moment it is not motive which concerns me, Watson, it’s the proof! As of yet I have not grasped the motive - we must leave it in gold and diamonds and the Rand. Emanations from the recent war in Africa are far from settled. Across the Continent the great scramble goes on. Nyasaland and the Congo are up for grabbing.’
A ‘Whoaa’ to the horses reminded us of the presence of the cabman hidden from sight above and to the back of us.
‘Holmes,’ I said, lowering my voice but unable to withhold my urgent tone. ‘Please answer me, have I been your true friend and loyal companion through a multitude of almost intractable cases...?’
‘You have, Watson, and I am most...’
‘And have we not together been confronted several times with death itself - in The Adventure of the Empty House, when we faced the threat of Colonel Sebastian Moran, for example? And when we infiltrated the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn?’
‘Indeed, my friend, we have,’ Holmes replied imperturbably. ‘I remember clearly.’
‘And in The Adventure of The Speckled Band?’ I pursued.
‘As you say,’ came the reply.
‘Did I not save your life on one never-to-be-forgotten occasion when we were hunting Sir Grimesby Roylott?’
‘...in the Dinaric Arc, yes.’
The Dinaric Arc was a vast network of underground caves, lakes and rivers running under the Balkan Mountains in labyrinthine fashion, dark and largely devoid of light.
‘And must I remind you Sir Grimesby was reputed to be the third most dangerous man in London?’
‘Indisputably you saved me from destruction at his hands, yes, my good friend Watson.’
‘And what of The Threadneedle...?’ I clamoured, at which Holmes interrupted with a slight smile.
‘Watson, I find your reference to several of our adventures most enjoyable but in turn I remind you we are short of time. Can we follow my maxim, ‘If ‘p’, then ‘q’’? You have made one point well - which is, unless I have misunderstood you completely, you are a most loyal and brave companion. Is there another point of equal merit to follow from the first? Surely you are now not going to whisper your old school number in my ear, which, unless I am mistaken, was thirty- ...?’
‘Holmes, in short, am I not a true comrade upon whose nerve you can place some reliance?’
‘I repeat, most certainly you are.’
‘A whetstone for your mind...’
‘Again, indeed.’
‘And if I irritate you by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, does that irritation make your own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly...?’
‘Watson, my dear old friend....’ Holmes interrupted, a wry look replacing the smile. ‘Please, I beg you, cut out the poetry.’
‘Holmes, I follow your words closely. I am aware at other times you have deduced from signs so subtle and minute that even when you have pointed them out to me I could scarcely follow you in your reasoning. On this occasion - you must forgive me for putting it so plainly - I would rather follow you into battle against Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran together, armed only with one of Mrs. Hudson’s feather dusters, than confront these Sungazers with what you have in mind.’
My knees trembled with anxiety but I forced myself to continue. ‘Tut, man, the facts so far presented are not the slightest bit convincing. Familiar as I am with your methods, it is impossible for me to go along with your deductions.’
‘Not for the first time in living memory, surely, Doctor?’ Holmes responded with an edge. ‘None the less, if you insist, I shall keep on piling fact upon fact until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. I hope by that process to have cleared up any little obscurity which the case may still present.’
In a more conciliatory tone he continued, ‘You have my word, Watson, once we confront them at Crick’s End, the facts will evolve before your eyes. I have no doubt that we shall have all our details filled in. The mystery will clear gradually away as each new element uncovered furnishes a step which will lead us on to the complete truth.’
‘We shall see, Holmes,’ I replied, giving him a dubious look. ‘I had no idea of the lengths to which your curiosity would carry you. This is not a puny plot in a yellow-backed novel or a sevenpenny by Rider Haggard. Gold Bugs and Randlord - and Siviter himself - these are hardly people who hang around in Tower Hill. To promote the charge of murder against men of such standing - of such wealth, such raw power - on what you speculate seems neither legally plausible nor politically palatable.’
His words were coming to me muffled as though through wool. I bent my head to look out of the carriage. My voice rose to a shriek. ‘Holmes, we are approaching the final furlong before we meet them face to face. I simply cannot let you...’
This adamant refusal to accept his deductions overstretched my companion’s patience. He ceased his attempts at reason or conciliation. With a violent movement of his forearm he fixed me with a synthetically enraged eye and in a high and strident tone shouted, ‘Watson, you dare to say you simply cannot let me? You question both my actions and my motives? You, a doctor - you are enough to drive a patient into an asylum. Do not make me regret I spoke of you with warmth and sympathy! Don’t harry me like a badger-baiter! This is not your novel. I am reconciled to the fact you are Ruth to my Naomi but you stretch my good-will and patience to the point of breaking. Pay attention, Watson, I demand you take my assumptions seriously. Throwing down that Tropical hat was a challenge worthy of a Professor Moriarty. From it they knew I would infer their deadly hand. Their dare to me is - ‘Great Consulting Detective, put together proof!’
Panic seeped through my brain like fungus through dead wood. Even as Holmes’ heated words fled from the carriage, a most remarkable thing took place. Both of us watched in the greatest astonishment. Like a ouija board in motion, summoning up the spirits, a hand was rising of its own accord before our eyes. It proceeded upwards whilst we stared, mesmerised, then arched backward over our heads and rapped against the carriage wall like a spirit from the other side. A commanding voice which, like the hand, turned out to be mine, though I did not recognise either, so feverish had I grown from trepidation, yelled ‘Cabman, halt the horses - at once!’
With a sharp pull of the reins and a musical jangling sound, the greys halted, their heads turning back like pointers on the leash, looking upward at the driver. The cabman leant forward, his face half upside-down, and stared in at us expectantly.
‘Holmes,’ I said, dropping my voice to an urgent whisper, my words coming in sharp, jerky outbursts, ‘I
f this carriage contained a bell-pull to a psychiatric unit I would use it to summon six strong men in white apparel. In our time together we have had the good fortune to bring peace to many troubled souls. Now I beg you to bring some to mine. Let the cabman await a while. You have issued a farrago of unconnected facts guised as proof. We must talk in confidence - and now!’
Holmes sat in startled silence, staring at me with amazement.
A Rabbit’s Tail
Taken aback by such vehemence from a usually diffident companion, Holmes waved the cabman to a triangle of grass at the intersection of two lanes some thirty yards ahead. The coach moved forward and we came to a halt by a stream. Head whirling, the setting sun a blur, I sprang out and walked to the bridge. In the twilight of the early-summer evening, the Sussex landscape glowed golden and wonderful in the slanting rays of the setting sun. The shadow of a white signpost moved across an open field, one finger pointed southward to Wood’s Corner on a ridge three miles beyond, another westward to Crick’s End, less than a quarter-mile down the lane.
I threw a backward glance at Holmes. He bore the angry, aspersive look of a disturbed cock-pheasant. Like a quarry cornered, I turned to confront his glowering countenance. ‘My dear and singular friend,’ I began, keen to pre-empt his wrath, ‘I speak with the deepest trepidation. You know it is my greatest joy and privilege to serve you. I am look-out, decoy, accomplice, messenger and whetstone for your mind and willingly accept my drummer-boy status. It has always been my habit to go along with you, clinging on if only to your little finger or large toe while you leap the yawning crevice. It is my custom to take up distant ground, to be disposed to avoid all pretext for collision. I realise full well I am at my highest value in the role of an interested student observing a surgeon at work or seated quietly in a corner while you think aloud. Even to hardened members of Scotland Yard or the Paris Sûreté the sight of Sherlock Holmes in majestic action has an especially vivid appeal, like the trill of a pipe to a cobra.’ I paused. With as much emphasis as I could muster, I added, ‘but in this instance I feel the stakes are much too high.’