by Marvin Kaye
“No ghosts need apply,” he murmured, turned, and walked past me out of the room.
I suppose I stood with my mouth open a good ten seconds, and then I swallowed. There was the chest; there, the key. Stealthy moonlight pooled about it on the floor, and a breath of air sighed through the broken window. The strands of pale hair stirred . . .
I ran down the treacherous stair after my friend, in danger of adding one more ghost to the house by slipping.
Below, the dining hall had filled with shifting moonlight and shadow. I paused in the hall doorway, searching the walls not for the painted smile of a “da Vinci” or an icon’s baleful glare, but for those two white blurs in the corner, forever side by side. They were not there. Something outside the window caught my attention. There the two dead children stood, white frocks glimmering among the moon-silvered birch, watching, waiting . . . for what, or whom? Their pale, unblinking eyes gazed upwards, as though toward the window of a second-storey bedroom.
Cold water dripped on my head. I started and looked up. Above me hung the mistletoe, that filthy parasite, each bare twig glistening with a drop of condensation like so many sparkling poison berries.
When I looked out the window again, I cursed my gullibility. Not children but two small, white tombstones leaned toward each other in the family plot, almost touching.
We reached Bagshot in time to catch the last train. Holmes slept all the way to London.
We have never spoken of that evening again.
Was the whole adventure a practical joke—Holmes’s attempt to cure me by surfeit of my foolish romanticism? I want to think so, but I can not shrug off the story. It haunts me. In my dreams, I wander through endless, dusty rooms, sometimes hearing distant song, sometimes distant laughter. Last night, all too close, there was a muffled voice crying and the sound of nails breaking against wood as hard as iron . . .
Let me out, let me out, let me out . . .
Thus, I have felt compelled on this Christmas Eve to make what sense I can of that strange night four months ago. Perhaps I have read more into my friend’s words and especially into his silences than he ever intended. Perhaps he is waiting for me to publish this fantastic tale to have the last laugh. Perhaps, in the beginning, that was his only goal.
I believe, however, that he found himself telling a deeper story than he intended, digging up the buried horror that poisoned his sleep. What he can not endure is the inexplicable, the irrational. Mere ghosts will never bother him, for he does not believe in them. For him, the mystery is solved. That is enough.
In that, he is more the detective than I have proved the story-teller. Before that sullen, silent chest, my courage faltered, and the story’s end remains untold.
[1902]
ADDENDUM
Story-tellers die, but do stories ever really end? If you are reading this, then perhaps I, too, am dead, and the guardianship of these hitherto unpublished accounts passes to you.
Whatever my other failings, I have found myself too much both the story-teller and the detective to destroy evidence. At the bottom of this old tin dispatch-box is the last stanza of “The Mistletoe Bough,” wrapped around a key—two keys, as it were, to a single mystery. The dispatch-box itself sits upon an oblong chest made of age-blackened oak, bound with iron, with a crude mistletoe carved into its cracked lid. Without telling Holmes, I had carters convey it unopened from Morthill Manor to the vaults of Cox & Company.
Here, then, are the ballad and the key; there is the chest. As my dear friend once said of another case, “It can’t hurt now.” Do what you will.
At length an oak chest that had long laid hid
Was found in the castle, they raised the lid
When a skeleton form lay mouldering there
In the bridal wreath of that lady fair.
Oh sad was her fate, when in sportive jest
She hid from her lord in the old oak chest,
It closed with a spring and a dreadful doom
And the bride lay clasped in a living tomb,
Oh, the mistletoe bough!
[1929]
Considerable historical detail corroborates the truth of the following manuscript, a case that Watson alluded to in “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.” In the words of its editor, Roberta Rogow: “The Duchess of Marlborough’s jewels were indeed stolen in a daring ‘snatch-and-grab’ at Victoria Station en route to Sandringham. The jewels were never recovered. William Henry Vanderbilt’s appearance is accurate, a conclusion I base on a photograph taken at the time of the Vanderbilt Will trials, a scandal about equal to the O.J. Simpson case. As for Alva Smith Vanderbilt, later Belmont, she really deserves a book to herself! Her determination, aggressiveness and sheer chutzpah got the Vanderbilts into Society.”
The Adventure of Vanderbilt and the
Yeggman
BY ROBERTA ROGOW
There are very few times I have ever seen my friend Sherlock Holmes refuse to help a prospective client. I was present at our lodgings in Baker Street when such an occasion arose. It led to a revelation so shocking in its implications that I have never set it down before. I only do so now in the interests of completing the record of the cases undertaken by my famous friend.
It was November of the year 1896. Holmes and I were preparing to leave London, in pursuit of one of the most elusive criminals we ever encountered, when the bell rang, and Mrs. Hudson announced that a “Mrs. Churchill” and a “Mrs. Jerome” wished to speak with the famous detective.
Before we could stop them, two women strode past our faithful landlady; a tall, slender lady, in a fashionable morning-suit of blue velvet entered, followed by a shorter, stouter woman in an equally striking dress of dull rust color. Both wore the huge hats common to that year, with veils that were supposed to conceal their features. The piercing eye of Sherlock Holmes penetrated the veils, and he bowed to the taller veiled woman.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” he said.
The woman lifted her veils to reveal the delicate features made famous by the illustrated newspapers the year before, upon her marriage to His Grace, the Duke of Marlborough. The other woman shrugged and lifted her veil also.
“I told you, Consuelo, he can tell everything at a glance,” she said, in an unmistakably American accent. I recognized Lady Randolph Churchill, known to London Society as Jenny. Like Her Grace the Duchess, Lady Randolph’s face had been photographed and popularized in the Press.
Her Grace turned to Holmes. “Was I so obvious?” she asked, in clear but timid tones.
Holmes restrained a smirk, but his lips twitched as he said, “If you wish to be anonymous, Your Grace, you should not go about carrying a handkerchief with the Marlborough crest on it, like the one I see in your reticule.”
“Of course.” The duchess looked about her. “May I sit down?”
“We were about to leave . . .” Holmes said. I bustled forward with a small chair. The young duchess looked quite faint, whether with fatigue or fear I could not say.
“It is quite important,” Lady Randolph said, with the air of one who is usually obeyed instantly. “Consuelo . . . that is, Her Grace’s jewels have been stolen.”
Holmes strolled to the fireplace where he took his familiar stance, leaning against the mantelpiece. “Indeed. A burglary . . . ?”
“No, not at all. It was when Marlborough and I were invited for the shooting at Sandringham last month. A man came out of the crowd at the railroad station, grabbed my jewel case as it was being loaded, and ran off. The police have not been able to find him and I thought . . .” Her voice trailed off, as she looked at Holmes. Even seated, she retained the noble posture of one trained from birth to a Position in Society.
Holmes frowned. “Not a burglary,” he muttered to himself. “A vulgar snatch-and-grab. In this case, Your Grace, I must defer to the efforts of Scotland Yard. They are the experts in petty thievery, not I.”
“Petty thievery!” Lady Randolph exclaimed. “Those jewels were worth several thous
and pounds!”
Holmes’s eyes never left the young duchess. “For you, Your Grace, that would be a mere bagatelle. The Vanderbilt fortune will surely make up the difference.”
I suddenly remembered that the Duchess of Marlborough had been Miss Consuelo Vanderbilt, the daughter of the American multi-millionaire. The marriage had been the subject of lewd gossip and surmise in the clubs for months, both before and after the event.
Her Grace rose in one graceful motion. “Come, Jenny. I am sorry I troubled you, Mr. Holmes. Good day.” She took a hesitant step towards the door. “Mr. Holmes,” she said, a slight frown marring the porcelain perfection of her features, “you seem familiar to me. Have we ever met before?”
Holmes face was still as marble. “It is not likely,” he said slowly. “If we did, Your Grace, it was long ago, and in another life.”
The duchess shook her head, disguised herself once again, then swept out, leaving Lady Randolph to turn her disapproving gaze on my friend.
“Randolph thought the world of you, Mr. Holmes. He said you could do anything. He had his faults, but he was rarely wrong about people. I wouldn’t have talked Consuelo into coming here if I didn’t think you could help her.”
Holmes flinched under that cool disdain. “Under other circumstances, Lady Randolph, I would be able to assist. In this case, I would recommend that the pawnbrokers and receivers of stolen goods be examined. If there had been a burglary, I would have been of more use, but in this case . . .” He shrugged.
With a toss of her head, Lady Randolph Churchill followed her young niece-in-law down to Baker Street. Holmes watched from the window as their carriage trotted away.
“Come, Watson,” he said. “Our train awaits, and we are already late. Let us hope we are on time, or our bird will have flown, and we shall have to lay our traps all over again.”
We were lucky enough to get a cab, and caught the train with seconds to spare. Once we were settled into our carriage, and I could breathe again without difficulty, I asked Holmes the question that had been nagging at me all during the interview.
“Holmes,” I began, not liking to take my friend to task, “you were almost rude to Her Grace the Duchess this morning. Could you not have given her some sign of hope? I know we are not free to assist her at the moment, but . . .”
Holmes held up a hand. “I know, Watson. I was abominably brusque with her. She is not more than a child, barely out of her teens, and she is not to blame for the sins of her elders, but I have my own reasons for avoiding the Vanderbilt family, and their connections. I believe I once mentioned the case of Vanderbilt and the Yeggman?”
“I have seen the name on your files,” I admitted.
“It was not one of my finer moments, Watson. However, the telling of it will while away the time until we get to Sussex, but I must request that you not reveal what I am about to tell you to anyone. It is a matter of personal honour.”
I was much mystified by this, and readily swore not to do more than jot down notes for my files. Holmes drew out his pipe, filled it, lit it, and leaned back to make himself comfortable before he chose to speak.
I believe I have told you (Holmes said) that I spent my youth in restless pursuit of some employment that would suit my talents. I finished University, and was somewhat at loose ends when a chance meeting led me to a brief career as an actor. I played in Shakespeare, as Cassius in Julius Caesar and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet but I modestly admit my greatest role was as Malvolio in Twelfth Night. It was in this character that I appeared in New York City in the season of ’79–’80, and it was during that period that I encountered both Vanderbilt and the Yeggman.
I played under the nom de théâtre of William Escott, and it was as “Mr. Escott” that I was addressed by the young woman playing Maria, Miss Margaret Magill, a petite Irish beauty, of great verve, and a talented comedienne. She was later to become a great favourite in the United States. This was her debut, and she had made a great hit. Her dressing-room was always crowded with flowers, and her “stage-door Johnnies” filled the Green Room after each performance.
One would think that such a charming young woman would have no troubles, but I could not but notice that on a particular evening during our run, in the middle of January, she was in difficulties. During the performance of Twelfth Night, she missed cues and nearly forgot her lines. Since my effectiveness as Malvolio depended in large part on her liveliness as Maria, I felt constrained to ask what was wrong, in hopes that it might be corrected before the next performance. I therefore approached her in her dressing-room.
“Are you decent?” I asked (this being the accepted greeting in the Profession).
She had obviously been crying. Her eyes were red, and several crumpled linen squares (usually used for removal of stage-paint) littered her dressing-table. “I’m sorry for what happened during the letter scene,” she apologized. “It’s just that I got a note from my brother. He’s been taken up and he’s in the Tombs. Here’s his note. They let him get word to me, so I can find him a lawyer, but I don’t understand the American system of law . . .” She began to cry again. I took the note, written on coarse paper with a pencil that had obviously been sharpened with a knife:
Maggie, I’m in the Tombs, they say I cracked Vanderbilt’s safe, but I swear on Ma’s dear soul, I never did! Get a shyster, and get me out! I won’t go down for something I didn’t do.—Mike
“It seems your brother has gotten himself into a pickle,” I said. “Why would he be accused of cracking Vanderbilt’s safe? And which Vanderbilt? There are a number of them, as I recall: Mr. William Henry Vanderbilt and his sons, Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt and Mr. William Kissam Vanderbilt. I have seen their names on the list of patrons using boxes at our performances.”
Miss Magill controlled herself long enough to repair the damage wrought to her complexion. Then she turned to me and explained: “Mike came over long ago, when I was just a wee thing. He was the eldest of us, you see, and when Pa died, he was to go to America and make his fortune, and send for Ma and the rest of us.”
“I presume he did not make his fortune,” I said.
“Oh, but he did, at first. He sent money back home, enough to let Ma send me and my brothers to the school, to learn to read and write and speak genteelly. Once my brothers Patrick and Antony were out in the world, they could take care of Ma and me, and a good thing, too, for the money from Michael stopped coming, and no word did we have from him at all.” In the press of her emotion, Miss Magill’s brogue emerged from hiding.
“He seems to have surfaced again,” I noted, tapping the letter.
“That he did! He saw Magill on the stage-bills and came around to see if it was one of his own, and it was me! Oh, Mr. Escott, there’s nothing like knowing you have family nearby!” Her face was radiant. I prudently kept my own thoughts on family connections to myself.
“Evidently, your brother has made some unsavoury friends,” I said, “or he would not refer to a lawyer as a ‘shyster’ nor would he refer to a prison sentence as ‘going down.’ That is thieves’ cant. If you insist on seeing your brother, then I insist on accompanying you. The Tombs is the New York City jail, where prisoners are held before being arraigned before the magistrate. As I understand the American system, according to their Constitution every prisoner has a right to see a lawyer. Of course, this may be more honour’d in the breach than in the observance, but I will be glad to assist you in any way I can.”
“Oh, Mr. Escott . . . William!” She leapt from her chair and threw her arms around me. “I know it’s very late, but will you come with me now, and see Mike? I have to know he’s all right! You hear awful things about American jails.”
I permitted the embrace (she was an extraordinarily pretty young woman, and I was quite young), but evaded the kiss she was about to plant on my cheek. We bundled up against the cold of January in New York City, where the wind sweeps over the island of Manhattan with a fury known only on the Steppes of Russia, and made our way from
the Theatre District of Broadway downtown to the Tombs, a massive brick pile that dated from before the notorious Tweed Ring’s depredations on the New York City treasury.
The Tombs was not only the City Jail but the Police Headquarters as well. We were forced to run a veritable gauntlet of uniformed warders and guardians of Public Safety before we were allowed into a barren cell, brick-walled and lit only with one flaring gas jet, containing two wooden chairs and nothing else.
A massively built policeman shoved Mike Magill into the room, and announced, “Yer got fifteen minutes!”
The accused burglar was not more than forty years old, small and wiry, with Miss Magill’s quirky eyebrows that she used to such effect as Maria. On her brother, they appeared to be pasted on. There was enough of a family resemblance that I put aside the unworthy thought that he had imposed upon the successful young actress for his own ends. No, this was indeed a family reunion, and I had to make my presence known with a cough before the brother and sister would acknowledge that a third party was there.
“Mr. Magill,” I asked, “why should the police light on you as the one who, as you put it, cracked Vanderbilt’s safe?”
He looked at the floor. “I was in the house,” he admitted. “On business,” he added. “I’m a trained locksmith.” He turned to Miss Magill. “When I come over, there was a man aboard who saw that I was clever with me hands, always making little toys and such for the children down in steerage with us. So, when we landed, he said he’d take me on as a ‘prentice, like. Only, it was a terrible temptation, seeing all that money going into those safes, locked up with my keys.”
“And you fell,” I said.
“I did. I was able to take a little here and there, not much, just to send to Ma and the rest of you.”