by John Heywood
“Let us move on to another part of the puzzle, and consider the question of our man’s name. Meredith, we call him, as does everyone. But as you discovered, that is not his name. Why did he change it?”
“We know that from Josiah Fitt, if you remember,” I replied. “It was mere convenience; he took that name from the name of the business he bought. It was already written over the shopfront.”
Holmes waved away my answer. “Come now, Watson, are we really to believe that? When you took over your present practice, did you adopt the name of its previous owner for the remainder of your life? Of course you did not. You did what anyone else would have done, and proudly put up a brass plate with your own name upon it. Here was Timney, if that was his name, making a new start in life, with enough ready money to buy the business outright; why did he not go to the signwriter, and have his own name, new and shining, over his shop, for all the world to see? Why did he leave the old peeling sign there, as if the shop had never changed hands, and even take the old name for his own. Why?”
“He wished to leave his old life behind him.”
‘Well, yes, so he did, but there was more to it than that, Watson. After all, a man may leave his old life behind him without going so far as to change his name. No, Timney’s behaviour was unmistakeably that of a man who not only wished to retire from his old life, but to hide it. He did all he could to ensure that Timney vanished from sight for ever, to be replaced by Meredith.
“Next comes a very strange episode. When the modest hero of the beach visits the recovering Meredith he is met with an astonishingly hostile reception. Meredith flings a lamp at him and cries out until help comes. Why did Brown’s visit strike such terror into Meredith’s heart? It was becoming harder than ever to believe in Brown’s bona fides as the well-meaning rescuer.
“It became harder yet to believe in them when the doctor told me of the injuries to Meredith’s head. How did he come by them?”
“Surely they were made when the waves dashed Meredith onto some rocks?”
“What rocks?” was my friend’s reply, as he indicated with a sweep of his hand the expanse of sand we were crossing. From Hyde to Whitsea, and from the distant sea on one hand to the grassy dunes that marked the margin of the beach on the other, there was not a rock to be seen.
I had one last question for my friend. “You seemed quite sure that Beasley would break into the chandlery last night. How could you be so certain? I will confess, Holmes, that many times last night I thought we had misjudged the situation, and Beasley would never appear.”
“My dear fellow,” he laughed, “you were not alone. I too was far from certain that Beasley would come; it was a gamble, and more than once last night I wondered if the gamble had failed. You are quite right, Watson: it was perfectly possible that, both his attacks on Meredith having misfired, Beasley had given up, and left Whitsea, so that while we lay in wait for him in the bedroom of the chandlery, he was far away, asleep in his bed. But, after all, the gamble was worth it. What did we stand to lose? A night’s sleep. And how likely was it that Beasley would give up and go home? His nature argued against it; he was a violent, vindictive man. His situation was against it too. He had twice attempted to murder Meredith; if he stopped now, he would be leaving alive and resentful the one decisive witness against him. Meredith was the one who knew his real name, knew his old haunts and comrades - knew enough to have him tracked down. While Meredith lived, Beasley was not safe. My instincts told me he was still here in Hyde, out there in the dark, desperate to break in and finish the bloody work he had started.
“Well, the gamble paid off, and I think we may be content enough with the outcome of our little adventure. Beasley may be a vicious dog, but even a dog, once thoroughly beaten, accepts defeat. He will slink away snarling with his tail between his legs, and leave Meredith to continue his quiet and useful life as the ships chandler of Hyde.”
We had come to the western end of Blore Bay. Ahead of us appeared the town of Whitsea, lit by the early sun, the spire of St Olaf’s rising above the roofs of the houses. Holmes and I turned back to look at the sands we had crossed, unearthly in the raking light, our footprints trailing away into the distance back towards Hyde. Soon they would be washed away by the incoming tide.
Holmes clapped me on the shoulder. “Come, Watson, our work here is finished. A well-deserved breakfast awaits us at the Swan Hotel, and then the train back to London.”
The Glebe House Affair
In storing the many documents relating to the career of my friend Sherlock Holmes I have been assiduous enough, but in organising this mass of material I have been less thorough. The contemporaneous reports, the mementoes, and the press cuttings are all flung into the strong-box until such time as they may be reduced to order; but, inevitably, that time seldom comes. The demands of daily life will not be ignored, and as the days and weeks pass into years, these papers lie unsorted and forgotten. It is a state of affairs with which Holmes himself seems to be entirely contented. He has never evinced the least interest in his old cases for their own sake, a nostalgic regard for the past being entirely foreign to his cold and unsentimental nature. Indeed, I am convinced that he would be happy enough entirely to abandon his past cases to oblivion, were it not for two considerations: the first being a certain egoistical pride in his work, and the second, the usefulness of these records; for it has sometimes happened that the circumstances of a past case have cast light upon a present enquiry. One such occasion arose only yesterday, when Holmes, busy on a case of great urgency, asked me to find for him the records of an enquiry he had conducted long before into the Jenny Lind and its unusual cargo. I went upstairs, delved deep into the box, and eventually dredged up from its depths the case-papers he had demanded. As I drew them out, a foolscap envelope that had become entangled with them fell out. I picked it up from the floor. The words GLEBE HOUSE were written upon it; it was another case entirely, unconnected with the mystery of the Jenny Lind, but something prevented me from immediately dropping it back into the box. ‘Glebe House’ - the name brought back memories of an adventure I had shared with Holmes many years ago. Once I had handed Holmes the records he had requested, I returned to my desk with the Glebe House envelope. There I untied it and carefully pulled out its contents: a small sheaf of notes in my own hand, two yellowing newspapers, and a dried rose-petal. These meagre relics, now lying before me on my desk as I write, tell the story of the African adventurer Hugo Mayne, found murdered at the edge of a lake in Suffolk.
The case began one quiet morning in Baker Street. Death having brought my marriage to a premature end some years previously, I had relinquished my private practice and moved back into the flat that I had shared with Holmes in my bachelor days. If I was less inclined to be sociable than of old, and sometimes found conversation irksome, Holmes, with his monkish silences and aloof manner, was a most congenial companion to me; in difficult times, I discovered, an old friend is the best friend. We had breakfasted together that morning, and now that breakfast was over, had made ourselves comfortable, I reading a medical journal, and Holmes deep in the newspapers of the past several days. It was quite like the old days before my marriage. Two hours had passed in silence when our tranquillity was interrupted by the sound of the door-bell and steps upon the stair.
“Expecting a visitor, Holmes?” I asked. He shook his head.
There was a smart rap at our door. “Come!” called Holmes, and a gentleman of middle age, dressed in mourning, entered the room. He glanced at us uncertainly, from one to the other.
“Mr Sherlock Holmes?”
“Good-morning, Mr Edward Ayres,” answered Holmes with a bow. “I am afraid the weather in London this morning is less favourable than in Suffolk. Be seated, I beg you.”
So taken aback was our visitor that for some seconds he stood staring open-mouthed in silence.
“You have my sympathies for the death of
your brother-in-law,” continued Holmes. “It is his death, I take it, that has brought you here?”
Our visitor found his tongue at last. “Mr Holmes, you surpass your reputation. You are right in every respect. How in the name of Heaven do you know who I am and what has brought me here?”
Holmes acknowledged the compliment with a slight nod of the head. “Merely through observation, Mr Ayres, and a few simple inferences from what I observe. Your dress and bearing proclaim you to be a gentleman, and your complexion proclaims you a country gentleman. On the newspaper you carry, though its title is folded away, I see an advertisement for a Corn-chandlers of Bury St Edmunds, from which I presume that you come from Suffolk. Your complete mourning tells me that you have recently lost a close family member, and the fact that you have come to consult a specialist in crime suggests that the death is criminal. If I add to this information what I have read in the newspapers about Mr Mayne, murdered in the grounds of his brother-in-law’s place in Suffolk, who might you be, but Mr Mayne’s unfortunate brother-in-law, Mr Edward Ayres?”
“You make it sound quite logical. And I suppose there is some simple sign telling you that it was not raining in Suffolk when I left?”
“Very simple signs indeed. You stand before me in a linen coat, lightweight boots, and no cape or great-coat. Is that how you dress to go out into the rain? Now, sir,” Holmes continued, “this is entertaining, but we have more important matters to discuss. Please make yourself comfortable in the easy chair, and tell us all that you can about the murder of Hugo Mayne. My information at present is limited to what has appeared in the newspapers. You may speak freely before my friend Dr Watson. He has been an invaluable ally in many of my cases.”
Our visitor took his seat, put his papers and hat upon the table, and plunged straight into his story.
“It is a dreadful thing that has happened, Mr Holmes, quite dreadful. My wife’s peace of mind has been shattered by it. Naturally the police have been investigating the murder, but my wife and I are both of the opinion - but I find that I am running ahead of myself. Forgive me, gentlemen; my mind has been in a turmoil these last four days. I shall begin again.
“It was on Monday last, and my wife and I were in the library of Glebe House, my place in Suffolk. The lamps were lit, but shutters were still open, for the sun had not long set. We were in our usual places, and at our usual past-times of that hour: Mary busy at her embroidery-work, and I reading. Suddenly in the quietness we heard a sharp report. We looked at each other. I rose and went over to the window, and looked out towards the lake, whence the noise had seemed to come. Nothing was to be seen in the thickening light. I resumed my seat, and my reading, and Mary resumed her embroidery. A branch snapping, perhaps; we thought no more of it, and soon after we went in to dine. Hardly had we taken a mouthful of soup when we were interrupted by the entry of Mottram, muddy and breathless.”
“Mottram?”
“The groom. He begged for a word with me alone. I knew at once from his manner, and indeed from the mere fact of his interruption, that something grave had occurred. He and I went into the hall, where he whispered to me in a shaking voice his news; he had found Mr Mayne dead down by the lake, his skull crushed.
“I gave orders for the maid to come with sal volatile and sit with my wife, and for the boy to go to the village and fetch the police. That done, Mottram and I hurried down to the lake. As we ran through the meadow in the twilight I harboured some hope that my brother-in-law’s injuries were not fatal, and that he might still live. It seemed to me that if any man could cheat death, that man was Hugo Mayne, for he had already done so once. But my first sight of the body, even in the failing light, was enough to dash my hopes. It lay on its back, the legs and his one arm flung out in the mud, and the head twisted so far round as to be facing almost upwards. The back and top of the head were staved in. I dare say you two gentlemen are accustomed to violent death in many forms, but I am not. I hope never to see such a sight again.
“I covered Hugo’s remains with my coat, and we waited beside the body, Mottram and I. It grew quite dark among the trees. After what seemed a long time we saw a point of light like a star, near the village, twinkling on and off; little by little it approached; when it reached us it was revealed as a policeman with his lantern, come to stay by the body until morning. Mottram and I left him to his lonely task and returned across the field to the house.
“Upon my arrival there I was met with the news that Hugo’s rooms had been burgled. I gave orders that nothing there was to be touched until the police came.”
“Mayne lived in a suite of rooms in your house, I believe?”
“That is so, Mr Holmes.”
“Pray proceed.”
“The next morning some half-a-dozen policemen arrived at Glebe. Two of them talked with me and my wife, and then with the staff, finding what they could from us - which was little enough. The other policemen were at the lake, by Hugo’s body - ‘the scene of the crime,’ as they called it. Once I had finished speaking to the sergeant I went down to the lake again and watched the activities of the officers there. They were busy enough; measurements were taken, the ground examined, the body sketched, and samples of I know not what put into little envelopes. I am sure you two gentlemen know a good deal more than I about what was done there. So it went on, for two hours or so. The final task, when all else was done, was to lift poor Hugo’s body onto a stretcher and carry it away. Since then we have not seen the police at Glebe House.”
“Thank you, Mr Ayres,” said Holmes. “There are one or two small matters I should like to clear up. How long elapsed between you and your wife hearing the gun-shot and the groom Mottram telling you of Mayne’s death?”
“I should say about four minutes.”
“Thank you. You mention that Hugo Mayne was clutching in his hand a revolver.”
“That is so.”
“Did he normally carry it with him?”
“No. It was normally kept locked in his desk.”
“Did he often go to the lake, or walk the grounds?”
“He was a great walker in the grounds, and beyond them, but the lake was not one of his favourite haunts. A damp, gloomy place, he called it, fit only for poets. He preferred the open fields.”
“And was that the usual hour for his walk?”
“As to the hour, he was not a man of very regular habits; he walked whenever the fancy took him.”
“Even at dusk or in the dark?”
“Even so.”
Holmes gave a sharp nod of his head to our visitor. “You have made the circumstances of your brother-in-law’s death very clear. I see you are a smoker, by the way. Would you care to try one of these Abdullas?” He pushed the cigarette-box towards our visitor.
“Thank you.” Ayres lit one and blew out a fragrant cloud of tobacco-smoke.
“Mr Mayne had lived with you at the Glebe house for a long time, had he not?”
“He had been with us for twenty years.”
“Were you and he friends before your marriage?”
“No, Mr Holmes, I married before I met Hugo. That was twenty-two years ago. Mary Mayne, as she then was, had no sisters and but one brother, Hugo, whom I had not met, for he lived in Africa. Mary and I had been in my place in Suffolk for a year and a half. We were happily settled there and our first child had not long been born when we received news that Hugo was returning to England. Mary was fond of her brother, but her pleasure at the prospect of being reunited with him was subdued by the sad circumstances that forced his return. He had been mauled by a lioness; one arm was already taken off, and a leg so severely bitten that it was in doubt whether he would ever walk again.”
“Poor fellow!” I exclaimed. During my time in India I had seen such injuries caused by tigers. They usually proved fatal.
“Indeed. It must have been a ghastly bu
siness. It was on a lion-hunt; his gun jammed, and the brute was on him in an instant. His fellow hunter shot her, but terrible damage had already been done. Mayne’s arm required immediate amputation. When he was sufficiently recovered to travel, he was brought back to England. Naturally I invited him to stay at Glebe House until he should recover his health. That at least is how I expressed it to my wife; but having heard the extent of his injuries I privately thought it as likely that he would be coming to Glebe to die in the old country. In either case, I thought, he was welcome to come to us. Come he did, and we were all astonished at how quickly his health returned. Within a few weeks was hobbling around the grounds at a great pace, nothing daunted by his horrific injuries. When he had gained as much of a recovery as he ever could, and begun to set his business affairs in motion, my wife and I decided to invite him to stay on as a tenant. It seemed a natural step to take; Hugo liked the place, Mary was pleased to have her brother close to her, and I liked the fellow, and was pleased to have an addition to the estate’s income; and so it was agreed. He became a permanent resident of Glebe House, and so he remained until the dreadful events of last week.”
“You say that Mayne had only one arm, and one leg severely damaged.”
“That is correct.”
“I am surprised, then, that he was such an enthusiastic walker.”
“Mr Holmes, we were all surprised. As I say, we expected an invalid, a broken man, come home to die. Nothing could have been further from the truth. His resilience astonished us all.” Sir Edward shifted his look away from us and he slowly shook his head. “Poor Hugo! I can see him still, stumping across the fields on his stick, his chin foremost.”
“He walked alone?”
“Not always. He often walked accompanied; by a guest, or a friend. Often by the Mottram the groom or by the dog.”