by Mike Ashley
“And I by you,” said Kat Oliver.
Her master sank to the hallway bench, wringing his hands and crying: “O Annet, Annet, why did you not admit me? I might have saved you!”
“Come, sir,” soothed his maid, “be easy, you could do nothing.”
We left them fallen silent on the bench. Instead of following the others into the dining room, Dr. Johnson led me back into the inner chamber, where two bodies lay coldly blown upon from the broken window panes.
Johnson There’s more in this, Mr. Boswell, than meets the eye.
Boswell Did not the Sanders do it?
Johnson And got out through a door locked and barred, and left it so? Biddy saw no hocussing of the lock, and I question whether they knew how to do it.
Boswell Mudge knew how. Were they in it together? I ask myself, sir, what is this guardian of the Temple peace, that carries a picklock in his pocket, and knows how to shoot a bolt from without? I smell Newgate on him.
Johnson You may be right, sir. They are a queer lot, the Temple watch. But this one is no wizard, he could neither, in the event, pick the lock nor shoot the bolt.
Boswell Then how was it done? This seems an impossible crime.
Johnson ’Twas all too possible, sir, for it happened.
Boswell The women are right, the Devil did it.
Johnson A devil did it indeed, but in human form.
Boswell One who got in through bolts and bars, and got out again leaving all locked and barred behind him?
Johnson There was a way in, for someone got in, and a way out too, that’s plain to a demonstration. We must find it.
Boswell I am at a loss, sir. Where must we look?
Johnson We must look where all answers are found, sir, in our own heads. Perpend, sir. Murder in a locked dwelling, and no murderer there to take – ’tis a pretty mystery, and this one the more complex because it is triple. Let us consider the problem at large. Many answers are possible.
Boswell (ruefully) In my head, sir, I don’t find even one.
Johnson Well, sir, here’s one: Perhaps there is no murderer there to take, because there is no murder, only accident that looks like murder.
Boswell Two old women simultaneously strangle themselves by accident, while the young one accidentally falls afoul of a hammer? Come, sir, this is to stretch coincidence and multiply impossibilities!
Johnson Granted, Mr. Boswell. Then is it perhaps double murder and suicide behind bolted doors?
Boswell Suicide by the hammer? Unheard of!
Johnson And nigh on impossible. Well, then, sir, was the tragedy engineered from without, and no murderer ever entered at all?
Boswell The nooses were tightened and the hammer wielded, by someone on the wrong side of the door? This is witchcraft and sorcery, nothing less.
Johnson Then suppose there is no murder, the victim is only stunned or stupefied, until the person who breaks in commits it?
Boswell Three murders, sir, and the third a noisy one, all in the one minute while we listened at the door? Come, sir, these conjectures are ingenious, but none fits this case.
Johnson Then there must be a way in, and a way out. Think, Mr. Boswell: all is not so locked and sealed, but holes exist.
Boswell I have it! The keyhole!
Johnson A keyhole that not even a picklock could penetrate? Think again, sir. What else?
Boswell Nay, I know not, sir. There is no scuttle to the roof.
Johnson There is not, sir.
Boswell And the chimneys are narrow, and stuffed with soot undisturbed.
Johnson So we saw. Not the chimneys. Good. We progress.
Boswell How, progress?
Johnson When one has eliminated all impossibilities, then what remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Boswell What truth?
Johnson Nay, sir, I have yet to test it. Come with me.
In the passage-way Annet lay still under the reddened blankets. Grisley and his maid sat as still on the settle, he with his face in his hands, she at his shoulder regarding him with a countenance full of concern. A blackened old chair with high back stood opposite. Dr. Johnson ensconced himself therein like some judge on the bench, and I took my stand by him like a bailiff.
“Mistress Oliver,” he began, “pray assist our deliberations.”
“As best I can, sir,” she answered readily.
Grisley did not stir.
“Then tell us, in your airy peregrination, in what condition did you find Mrs. Duncom’s casement window?”
“Bolted fast, sir, I was forced to break the glass that I might reach in and turn the catch.”
“I know, we heard it shatter. You broke the glass and reached in. With both hands?”
“Certainly not, sir, I held on with the other hand.”
“Then why did you break two panes?”
“I don’t know. For greater assurance – ”
“Nonsense! I put it to you, my girl, you found the window broken.”
“Then why would I break it again?”
“Because you knew at once who had been there before you, and thought only to shield him. So you broke the second pane, that we might hear the crash of glass, and think you had been forced to break in. The broken window would else tell us that the murderer came from Mr. Grisley’s casement.”
“He never!” cried the woman, on her feet before her master as if to shield him. “Would he kill Annet, that he lusted after?”
“Would he not, if she resisted him? These violent passions have violent ends. No, no. I pity him, but justice must be done. Think, Mistress Oliver, this is the man that slunk around the parapet at dead of night, a hammer in his pocket. With it he breaks a pane, turns the bolt, and enters. The two helpless old women fall victim to his string, lest they hinder his intent. When Annet resists him, in his fury he batters her to death, and so flees as he came. May such a creature live?”
This harangue slowly penetrated the mind of the unhappy Grisley, and he rose to his feet.
“Bucket!” called Dr. Johnson sharply. The watchman appeared. “Take him in!”
“No! No!” cried the woman. “He is innocent!”
“Who will believe it?” countered Johnson. “No, ma’am, he’ll hang for it, and justly too. Did you ever see a man hanged, Mr. Boswell? It is a shocking sight to see a man struggling as he strangles in a string, his face suffused, his limbs convulsed, for long horrible minutes. Well, he has earned it. Take him, Bucket.”
As Bucket collared the unresisting Grisley, we found we had a fury on our hands. With nails and teeth Kat Oliver fell upon Dr. Johnson. I had her off in a trice; but I could not have held her had not Bucket come to my aid.
“I thank you, Mr. Boswell,” said Dr. Johnson, settling his neckcloth and staunching his cheek, “your address has saved me a mauling. A woman’s a lioness in defence of what she loves.”
“In my belief she’s mad,” said I angrily, as the wiry little woman wrenched against our pinioning arms.
“That may also be true. A thin line divides great love and madness. Give over, ma’am, let justice take its course. So, that’s better – let her go, Mr. Boswell. As to Mr. Grisley, Bucket, to Newgate with him, and lock him in the condemned cell.”
“You shan’t! You shan’t!” sobbed Kat Oliver wildly. “It was I that killed them, it was I, it was I!”
“You, ma’am? A likely story! Why would you do such a thing?”
“Why would I destroy that prim little bitch, that was destroying him? For his sake, gladly. Yet I never meant to use the hammer, that I carried only to break the glass – ”
“But,” I objected, “Biddy had the hammer!”
“You are deceived, Mr. Boswell. To disclaim the hammer, this woman did not scruple to lie. Well, then, Mrs. Oliver, if not to use the hammer, what was your intent?”
The little woman’s eyes looked inward, and she spoke with a kind of horrid relish:
“When I knew the people lay bound and gagged – ”
“I heard the talk on the landing. I could not sleep for thinking of – I could not sleep, and the boys were drunk and loud. I opened the door and listened. I saw my opportunity. How I entered you know. The old women I finished neatly, with their own curtain cords. The young one – ”
“Yes, the young one?”
“The young one I reserved for a more dreadful fate. It was I who shot the front-door bolt, intending to leave her locked in with murder, and see her hanged for it.”
“Who could think she did it, when she lay bound?” I demanded.
“Of course I did away with the bonds,” said the woman contemptuously.
“Yet you killed her, how was that to your purpose?”
“I meant only to stun her, but she got loose and fought me. I saw red. I killed her. Then I returned as I came.”
“And when the people became alarmed and would break in,” Dr. Johnson supplied, “you saw it must be you, and no one else, to break the window and effect an entrance there, lest the broken window be observed by others, pointing directly at the folk from Mr. Grisley’s.”
She made no answer, but turned to her master.
“I did it for you, Edward.”
With a blind gesture, Grisley turned away.
“All for nothing, then.”
Dining together the next day at the Mitre, we naturally turned our talk to the exciting hours we had spent in Bayfield Court the day before.
Boswell Were you not surprised, sir, when Katty Oliver confessed her guilt?
Johnson Not at all, sir, I knew it all along. What did she care if the door was battered in? Only the strongest of motives would suffice to set her on that precarious circuit she traversed. She must have known what would be found at the end of it. Nay, more, how did she know it was an easy way around the parapet, if she had not traversed it before?
Boswell Yet how eloquently you depicted the unhappy Grisley’s crime and his imminent fate.
Johnson Thus I put her to the torture, for I could see how much he meant to her; and when I turned the screw with talk of the horrors of hanging, she confessed to save him, as I foresaw she would.
Boswell What will become of her? Surely she’ll hang?
Johnson In the ordinary course, sir, yes. But I had the curiosity to inquire this morning, and by what I learn, she will not hang. It appears that, as Aunt Moll said, she was ever subject to fits, no doubt she committed her terrible crimes in an unnatural phrenzy. Well, sir, when she saw the cells last night she fell into a dead catalepsy and was carried insensible to Bedlam, where ’tis clear she belongs.
Boswell And Biddy, what of her?
Johnson The Sander brothers, that delivered over the old women bound to be murdered, have made good their escape, leaving Biddy to pay for their crime.
Boswell This seems unfair, sir.
Johnson Why, sir, receiving of stolen goods is a hanging offence, Miss Biddy cannot complain. But the Temple watchmen are not incorruptible, and the Temple watch-house is not impregnable. Moreover, Mr. Geegan, the son of an Irish Peer, has well-lined pockets. In short, sir, he has spirited away Miss Biddy, who knows whither. And so ends the affair of murder lock’d in.
Boswell (boldly) Which I hope I may one day narrate at large when, as I mean to do, I record for posterity the exploits of Sam: Johnson, detector!
AUTHOR’S COMMENT
The hardest thing about writing this story was making it probable. I suppose this is because it actually happened. Real events don’t necessarily bother about probability.
It happened, and I tell it as it happened, except of course for the intervention of Dr. Sam: Johnson. The solution is my own. In actual fact the Irish girl was hanged, which seems hard for only keeping watch and accepting a silver tankard; but such was justice in those inhuman days.
In analyzing the “locked-room mystery” and its possible solutions, with singular prescience, Dr. Johnson seems to have anticipated John Dickson Carr’s “locked-room lecture” in THE THREE COFFINS; though the solution that detector Sam: Johnson arrives at is not among those considered by Carr.
The classic “string trick” for bolting a door from outside, here explained by the watchman, was actually demonstrated at the Irish girl’s trial, when they brought the door into open court and performed the trick upon it to the amazement of all beholders. You may read all about it in George Borrow’s CELEBRATED TRIALS, II, 536–571.
CAPTAIN NASH AND THE WROTH INHERITANCE
Raymond Butler
A trained chef, market researcher and language teacher, Raymond Ragan Butler has written over a hundred radio plays and further stage and television plays, including scripts for a soap opera. Captain Nash and the Wroth Inheritance (1975) was his first full-length novel, and a fascinating attempt at establishing the world’s first private detective. There is a sequel, Captain Nash and the Honour of England (1977).
AN INTRODUCTION
When I first began to investigate crime in England, the profession of detection did not exist. The Parish Constable, the Informer, the Bow Street Runner – these were the only agents of the Law. Yet England was a lawless place in those days.
It was in 1771 (in my thirtieth year) that I first conceived the idea of a scientific system of detection and, like all original ideas, it was received with no great degree of enthusiasm. With the exception of my cousin Scrope, who was employed in the Commissioners’ Office, I was largely ignored by the Authorities.
As a result, I was forced to work in a private capacity – that is, outside the protection of the Law. I became a “Private Detective”, the first in modern Europe, I believe.
An advertisement in The Daily Courant, July 5th, 1771 A Gentleman of considerable abilities is able to provide a service for the gathering of information and the detection of crimes. If any have suffered the attentions of thieves and miscreants and are not happy with the Law’s performance, let them come to me and I shall restore their property and apprehend the villains. My original scientific approach to the art of detection ensures the success of my endeavours. Those who come to me are assured that investigations will be made with all honour and secrecy imaginable.
For further particulars inquire of Captain George Nash, late of His Majesty’s 5th Regiment of Dragoons, at Mr Trygwell, Bookseller, Greek Court, Soho.
I
For my first case, I took the one which looked to be the most intriguing and which promised the most reward financially, for the Wroth family was one of the richest in England.
Accordingly, I presented myself, as requested, at Stukeley Hall upon the following Thursday. I had taken some trouble with my appearance, realizing that since my new profession would seem dubious even to my employers, I would have to make a good impression from the first. I wore a plain green coat, which although no longer in the fashion still had a certain style. My waistcoat, though faded in places, looked bravely enough from the front; and my breeches, though they were as unfashionable as my coat, showed off my legs to great advantage. My buckled shoes were low-at-heel, but I have always worked on the principle that most people look keenest at one’s neck, so I wore my best lawn cloth. I left my hair unpowdered, though wig-style, and I buckled on my sword, to let the Dowager Lady Wroth see that she had to deal with a gentleman.
At all events, my appearance seemed to pass muster with the servants. As I rode up to the porte-cochere a lurking groom came forward, touched his forelock civilly enough and led my roan away to the stables. The ancient retainer who admitted me to the house did so without a hint of that insolence he would have used had he been more certain of my true station in life. He merely regarded me with the same hauteur he would have turned upon a Duke. After crossing a cavernous hall, he showed me into a reception room.
“If you will wait in here, Sir, her ladyship will be free directly.”
The door gently sighed to behind him.
I looked about me with interest. Considering the legend of their wealth, I was somewhat disappoi
nted with their display of it. This room was ponderously magnificent in its weighty “Roman” way, with a tastelessly painted ceiling and a tiled floor. It was furnished in the style of the Second George, opulent but demodé. The woodwork was profusely carved and ornamented, looking absurd yet brave against the dank austerity of the gloomy walls.
Stukeley itself was a dilapidated relic of the Thirteenth Century, a moated grange built upon the ruins of an old castle. To my eye, it seemed almost unfit for civilized living. Most of the building was well on the way to ruin again and I could see from the exterior that only a few rooms remained habitable. Apparently this was one of them. I found it odd that the family refused to spend their vast wealth on the property. Their neglect seemed almost wilful.
I was drawn to the window by the clash of steel upon steel and the shrill cries of what I, at first, took to be a peacock. I looked through the window.
A fine lawn ran down to the river; green, smooth, and quite deserted. Somewhere behind a mossy wall sword rang on sword and the peacock’s cries became almost intolerable.
Then the duellists came into sight and my mouth fell open in blank astonishment. Two young women danced onto the lawn, fencing furiously. They were dressed in the height of French fashion, that is, with too much rigging and wearing monstrous hooped skirts, with ruching and pleating much in evidence. Their hair was greased, powdered, curled and dressed high over enormous cushions and surmounted by imitation fruits, flowers and ships. The size of fashionable heads in those days was notoriously vast, but these were grotesquely so.
They moved like ships in full sail. It was hard to imagine they were made in God’s image, for He that made them would never have recognized them with their plumes, their silken vizards, their ruffs like sails, and the feathers in their hats like two flags in their tops to tell which way the wind blew. They looked almost deformed, capering about upon the green lawn.
When the initial shock had faded, I found myself admiring the dexterity with which they handled the foils. Despite their towering plumes and the stiff, unmanageable brocade of their gowns, they moved like professional duellists.