He came in behind me and I brought him a drink, then mined his memory, but gained nothing. He was still full of the wrongs the old headmaster had suffered. “Why, he knew each lad in his care, and made certain if anything went wrong for them that he’d do what he could. Aye, a good man. This new one isn’t anything to him. He’s sly, in my opinion, don’t want to tell what he knows, and the school costs more since he come. I’d like a sight of his accounts, ’deed I would. A pity the headmaster is away from home until tomorrow else he might have aided you.”
None of which was anything to my purpose, and since I could not bespeak the earlier headmaster as I had hoped—even while thinking he would tell me little of his own free will—I left my acquaintance still muttering, to catch my train, which was later still than they had said. I resolved that I would return to Harlow to find the old headmaster, although he might say nothing to me.
I arrived home for a belated dinner, but it had been kept hot for me and I was soon devouring it hungrily. I heard Holmes come in and was for an instant downcast. I had little enough to tell him for all my two days in Harlow. I only confirmed what we had already known, learned some irrelevant scandal over a headmaster, investigated a train crash that involved no Bishops, and discovered an old lady with a few ideas about ‘Miss Gibson,’ which were unlikely to be of use.
Holmes greeted me and sat down to his own belated meal. While he ate I told him of my travels and discoveries. Once he was done eating, he considered the information. “Some of that may be more useful than you imagine, Watson. I see possibilities.”
“What?” I asked excitedly. “I saw nothing of use.”
“The old lady was helpful,” he said, “and don’t dismiss the new headmaster. It may be that he can yet tell us something.”
I snorted. “He is a nincompoop and likely dishonest, although I plan to find his predecessor and question him, for he was away from home when I was in the town. As for the old lady’s suggestions about ‘Miss Gibson,’ how does one go about finding a young lady of noble birth whose father disapproves of horrid novels? I daresay that applies to every noble father with a daughter of an age to read them.”
“Maybe,” was all that my friend said. I asked him of the case on which he had gone north. “I have heard what my client could say and I agree with him. It is possible that there have been murders, but there is no proof and it would require much time and money to find any evidence, since the first may have occurred more than thirty years ago. I said that he should be certain if he wished to do that. He is thinking it over and will write me if he decides to continue.”
“Do you think that he will?”
“I do not know, Watson. While I said nothing plainly to him, I did hint that such cases may uncover things that would have been better left alone. It is nine years since a murder occurred which could be connected. The killer may well be dead and all the expense for nothing. His godfather’s illness appears to be natural, and I am not convinced that it may be part of the series. Meanwhile, I have received a request to look into another case that is more urgent. If we can find young Master Bishop and uncover our poisoner within the next week then I shall accept the request. For now, I would wish to hear everything again while I ask you such questions as occur to me. That is, if you are willing to repeat all?”
I declared myself wholly willing and the inquisition commenced—although sadly, to the best of my belief, to no purpose. I reiterated all conversations, repeated my own observations, and even mentioned the theories of the men in the bar. Holmes listened intently and to my surprise, once I was done he fell into that attitude of his that betokens great concentration. Somehow I had delivered something on which his intellect could fasten. I waited patiently until he roused and spoke.
11
I waited a long time, but when at last he raised his head it was to utter words that brought me to my feet.
“I believe I know where the boy is, Watson. In the morning I shall obtain a letter from Lestrade’s superior, one that gives me the right to demand information and receive it on behalf of the authorities. With that we shall return to Harlow.”
“You think Bishop to be in hiding there, then?”
“I do,” he smiled at me. “Your own information leads me to that belief. You have done well.”
I was pleased at that but knew he would say nothing more and that again I would have to be patient. I was patient, in fact, all through obtaining the letter and our train journey to the town. We registered at the hotel and ate luncheon, after which Holmes vanished for an hour. When he returned we set out for the tutor’s cottage. She let us in and read the letter Holmes offered her, slowly and with attention, before ushering us into the parlor.
“You have the authority, as I see. What questions do you wish to ask?”
“You told Dr. Watson that you had not lived in this cottage before you inherited it twelve years ago. Where precisely did you live?” I would have spoken, but a slight movement of his hand halted me. “I know that you told my friend you had lived elsewhere. But that word may be interpreted in several ways. He understood you to mean that you had not lived in this town before. I think that you did. Am I right?”
“Certainly.” She was composed. “Nor did I say that I did not. I lived in a poorer area where I had rooms until I fell heir to this property.”
“And I think that you taught at the local school, in the primary classes perhaps?”
“Yes.”
“You are an old friend of John Cranbourne, the previous headmaster, and would want to say nothing that he would not approve,” Holmes said firmly.
“I—yes, that is so.”
“Then we shall ask him our questions.” And with that he stood, swept me from the room, out of the door, and down the street.
“Holmes, why are we in such haste?”
“She may send Cranbourne a message. I do not want him warned, or to have time to go on an urgent journey. Nor to think up some reason he cannot see us. I wish to take him unawares and get an honest reply to my questions.”
At the speed with which we moved it would have taken a swift messenger indeed to bring word of our arrival ahead of us. I saw at once when Holmes knocked upon the door and it was opened, that the man we sought had no knowledge of us.
Holmes said nothing but handed him the letter, which he read while we stood on the doorstep. Once read, he folded the paper, handed it back and sighed. “Since I now have no choice in the matter, I shall cooperate. Come in.” He led us into a pleasant parlor, waved us to chairs, and sat down, to consider us intently. Holmes began.
“You began teaching at Harlow School when you were twenty. In time you rose to become headmaster. Having lived in this town all your life, you know the people, their secrets, and what is known but unspoken. Your mother’s family is a large one. You have friends in high places, but also friends who are not, perhaps, of the better class. You are held in high esteem, and you will be restored as headmaster next year should those who work for you be successful, as I believe they shall be.”
Mr. Cranbourne’s eyes widened. “You have not wasted your time here, it seems.”
“It is not my habit,” Holmes agreed. “I shall tell you what I know and you will then answer any questions.” Cranbourne nodded. “Well enough. A couple named Emily and Benjamin Hislop were killed in the train crash, which occurred outside of this town thirteen years ago. They did not live in Harlow, but were visiting relatives. With them at the time were their son, Michael, and their daughter, Frances, his senior by five years. He was unscathed by the crash, but she was severely injured and remains crippled. Despite this she is of quick mind and intelligent, and was taken in by her mother’s aunt, a spinster who possesses a small cottage, a smaller personal income, and a liking for her own company.”
Mr. Cranbourne’s mouth opened in amazement. “How could you know all this?”
“It is sufficient that I do know,” Holmes said sharply. “I know, too, that the aunt, deeply and sincerely emba
rrassed not to be in a position to take in more than one child, approached you. She lives just outside the town, and having a different name was not generally known to be related to the Hislops. This lady is also distantly related to you, and approached you to ask advice.”
Here Holmes turned to me. “He told her, Watson, that to avoid unpleasant gossip and the attacks of the self-righteous, she should place the boy in the local orphanage—which was then and still is run by his cousin. To facilitate this he changed the boy’s name and it was impressed upon the lad that he was now Michael Bishop, not Hislop. When first you mentioned the coincidence of a couple of the right age having died in the crash, I was struck by the similarity of the names. I saw how easy it would be to alter records, and I investigated to find that this was so. So easily did an ‘H’ become a ‘B’ and an ‘l’ become an ‘h.’”
I was astounded. “Holmes, then Michael Bishop is really Michael Hislop?”
“Exactly, Watson.” He looked at Mr. Cranbourne. “Frances remained with her aunt, was informally educated by that good woman, and she managed to eke out sufficient from her income each year to put a small amount by. Once Michael turned twelve, you saw that this amount was quietly paid to the orphanage to continue supporting the boy for a further two years bed and board there, and for his further education. Michael, understanding how straitened were the circumstances of his crippled sister and great aunt, worked hard, took a job as early as possible, and progressed to an apprenticeship, still aided in this by his relative. Once he attained this position he began to remit sums home to her and his sister, and for this purpose he had a bank account.”
I gasped. I had forgotten that. My friend must have made further enquiries and discovered the truth. That, too, would have led him to this town. And, as I understood the banking system, on police authority he could then have discovered to whom that money was regularly remitted.
“This girl, Frances,” I said, suddenly realizing a possibility. “Do you say that she is ‘Miss Gibson,’ Holmes?”
“Indeed she is. Did I not say she was a bright, intelligent girl, Watson? What else is a crippled girl to do to amuse herself? She cannot run about and play, and lying upon her bed most hours of the day, year by year, becomes boring to such a mind. She reads instead, at first all the books her great-aunt has, then books that her relative’s friends may bring her. And finally, do you see, Watson? To amuse herself she begins to write instead. Trying perhaps to copy some of her most recent reading. At first she writes only to fill her empty days, then the fervor grips her and with practice she improves. Still, it does not seem to her that her work is of great merit until….” Here he stared at Mr. Cranbourne, who took up the tale.
“You have it right, sir. Until Michael, while on a visit—he stayed with me at such times—read one of her manuscripts and said that her book was as good as any other horrid novel that they publish.” He smiled suddenly. “It was a conspiracy, I daresay. Frances, Michael, her great-aunt Eliza, and I. We created ‘Miss Gibson.’ The writing was all Frances’s, although I lightly edited the works, but for errors only. The first sold—how it sold! It brought in far more than we had ever supposed. Michael took away three other manuscripts on his next visit and they too have sold and sold. We might have been open then, but for—”
“But for the fact that you had falsified official records, that there will always be the ill-natured who would have vilified Miss Eliza that she had not also taken Michael into her home, uncaring that it had not been possible, and that the good lady shrank from such wagging tongues,” Holmes stated. “Also that ‘Miss Gibson’ is a crippled girl of the middle class, daughter of a merchant, whose family was neither old nor noble. Once that was known, her readers might fall away, deeming themselves to have been cheated in some way. It would be untrue, for they purchased books they greatly enjoyed, but some would still have seen it in this way. Then, too, there would be the newspapers.”
True, I thought. If they unearthed this story, the newspapers would have made it into a scandal. Whichever way they sold it, as a young crippled girl becoming a famous writer of horrid novels, or as a young cheat, tricking her devoted readers, they would still have descended upon the town, besieging Miss Eliza’s cottage and spying on Frances. They would have ferreted out all of the details, bruited them abroad, shamed Miss Eliza, and they would have printed lies and slander and the febrile imaginings of every reporter or loose-tongued fool they could persuade to speak.
“Yes, there was that,” Cranbourne said quietly. “Michael had foreseen the trouble that could come if any knew his sister were the author. He did not wish trouble to be brought down on them, and he chose, in great distress of mind and with much reluctance, I swear to you, to come here on leave granted him by his employer. He wanted to speak in court for Miss Mary, whom he esteemed, but he was afraid that if he did so, there would be questions asked about him, and his relatives’ secret might be exposed. He was sure the girl was innocent, and would be found so. When she was convicted and sentenced he was distraught, but having been ill with a putrid cold since the day he arrived and only just risen from his bed, he was in no fit state to return to London.”
“And so,” Holmes said, “he came here, not knowing that Miss Mary had asked several times for him to be called to give evidence that might have gone some way to clearing her.”
A young man strode into the room. Holmes eyed him sternly. “I thought you were hereabouts. Yes, I speak the truth. Mary is innocent and twice she begged the court to call you to speak, not just for her, but on questions of fact where you could corroborate her own evidence. Instead they called Jonathan Turner, who lied to blacken her name out of spite, and perhaps for other reasons.”
On that last comment I saw a strange expression flit across the lad’s countenance. I could not identify it but Holmes spoke softly.
“So!” And to Mr. Cranbourne. “Michael must return to London with my friend and me. I regret if this exposes Frances and her great-aunt to scandal, yet the alternative is that an innocent girl is hanged. Which would you rather?”
Michael stepped forward. “I will come with you, sir. My great-aunt is old and fearful of publicity, Frances is shy and timid and does not wish any to know who she is, but I tell you that rather than be the cause of another’s unjust death, they would step naked into the road for all to see. I will fetch my possessions if you will wait but a moment.”
“One moment,” Holmes said, gesturing him to wait. “Sit down and listen to me. Mr. Cranbourne was careful in what he did thirteen years ago. Your sister is known by all here in the town as Frances Hislop, great-niece to Miss Eliza. You are known as Michael Bishop, and any blood-connection of yours to them is unknown. Nor does your employer know where ‘Miss Gibson’ lives. Her money is paid into an account in that name in your bank, where you transfer it by letter of credit in the right name to the Harlow bank where your sister and Miss Eliza may draw upon it.”
Michael looked startled. “That is true.”
“There is no reason why any should connect you with your relatives if you are careful.”
The boy smiled hesitantly. “I have grown used to that.”
“Continue the habit. I am told that the letters of credit you use are given to you with no receiver’s name, and that you are free thereafter to fill in whatever name is desired before they are sent to your family?”
“Taken, sir,” the boy said quickly. “A publisher pays his authors annually. On the money being deposited into ‘Miss Gibson’s’ account in London, I withdraw it as the letter of credit and take my annual leave to stay here with my old headmaster. It is he who deposits it in my great-aunt’s account.”
“Mentioning, when I do,” Mr. Cranbourne added, “that the monies are part of a family trust over which I have some authority. I think it unlikely the money could be traced.”
Holmes looked at him. “I fear you are much mistaken, sir. Such methods would prevent an ordinary man from discovering your secrets, but reporters are not o
rdinary men. If a sufficient bribe is offered, it would take little exertion for an employee of the bank to follow the trail.”
“How?”
“He has only to note the number of the letter of credit. That letter will, in time, return for filing to the bank of origin. He may then look up the returned document and discover though what bank it was passed for deposit, and from that in turn, into what account it was paid.”
Michael looked horrified. “Then at any time all could have been known?”
“It could. However,” he eyed the lad sternly, “if you return with me, I shall speak to the bank manager. It may be that I can see to it that none but he has access to your documents, and I shall point out that if your secret becomes known, it can only be with his connivance, and I shall see him dismissed.”
I nodded. “Believe me, Holmes is able to do this,” I assured the distressed lad. I could have added that some years ago the owner of the bank had approached Holmes over a damaging incident within the family. Holmes had solved the case, a solution entirely to the banker’s liking, and any favor he could do for my friend would be swiftly done.
“Then it will take me only a moment to gather my possessions, sir, and I will be ready to come with you.” He paused. “I have no right to ask, but how does Mary? I have not done well by her it seems, and if she reproaches me, she is justified.”
“She does not so badly,” I told him. “She knows we believe her innocent, and she is sure we will find proof. She did not understand why you were not called as she asked, but she is aware this error was not because you refused her. Say only that once we told you, you came with all haste, and I think her forgiveness is certain.”
Michael seized my hand and wrung it. “Thank you, thank you, sir. I shall return immediately.”
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