I carried her at once into her own room and laid her on the bed. I then returned and shut the wardrobe door, and slipped the key into my pocket. My next deed was to summon Sir Henry.
“What is it?” he asked, springing upright in bed.
“Come at once,” I said, “your wife is very ill.”
“Dying?” he asked, in an agonised whisper.
I nodded my head. I could not speak.
My one effort now was to keep the knowledge of the ghastly discovery I had made from the unhappy husband.
He followed me to his wife’s room. He forgot even to question me about the apparition, so horrified was he at the sight which met his view.
I administered restoratives to the dying woman, and did what I could to check the haemorrhage. After a time Lady Studley opened her dim eyes.
“Oh, Henry!” she said, stretching out a feeble hand to him, “come with me, come with me. I am afraid to go alone.”
“My poor Lucilla,” he said. He smoothed her cold forehead, and tried to comfort her by every means in his power.
After a time he left the room. When he did so she beckoned me to approach.
“I have failed,” she said, in the most thrilling voice of horror I have ever listened to. “I must go alone. He will not come with me.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She could scarcely speak, but at intervals the following words dropped slowly from her lips:—
“I was the apparition. I did not want my husband to live after me. Perhaps I was a little insane. I cannot quite say. When I was told by Sir Joseph Dunbar that there was no hope of my life, a most appalling and frightful jealousy took possession of me. I pictured my husband with another wife. Stoop down.”
Her voice was very faint. I could scarcely hear her muttered words. Her eyes were glazing fast, death was claiming her, and yet hatred against some unknown person thrilled in her feeble voice.
“Before my husband married me, he loved another woman,” she continued. “That woman is now a widow. I felt certain that immediately after my death he would seek her out and marry her. I could not bear the thought—it possessed me day and night. That, and the terror of dying alone, worked such a havoc within me that I believe I was scarcely responsible for my own actions. A mad desire took possession of me to take my husband with me, and so to keep him from her, and also to have his company when I passed the barriers of life. I told you that my brother was a doctor. In his medical-student days the sort of trick I have been playing on Sir Henry was enacted by some of his fellow students for his benefit, and almost scared him into fever. One day my brother described the trick to me, and I asked him to show me how it was done. I used a small electric lamp and a very strong reflector.”
“How did you find out the secret door of the wardrobe?” I asked.
“Quite by chance. I was putting some dresses into the wardrobe one day and accidentally touched the secret panel. I saw at once that here was my opportunity.”
“You must have been alarmed at your success,” I said, after a pause. “And now I have one more question to ask: Why did you summon me to the Grange?”
She made a faint, impatient movement.
“I wanted to be certain that my husband was really very ill,” she said. “I wanted you to talk to him—I guessed he would confide in you; I thought it most probable that you would tell him that he was a victim of brain hallucinations. This would frighten him and would suit my purpose exactly. I also sent for you as a blind. I felt sure that under these circumstances neither you nor my husband could possibly suspect me.”
She was silent again, panting from exhaustion.
“I have failed,” she said, after a long pause. “You have discovered the truth. It never occurred to me for a moment that you would go into the room. He will recover now.”
She paused; a fresh attack of haemorrhage came on. Her breath came quickly. Her end was very near. Her dim eyes could scarcely see.
Groping feebly with her hand she took mine.
“Dr. Halifax—promise.”
“What?” I asked.
“I have failed, but let me keep his love, what little love he has for me, before he marries that other woman. Promise that you will never tell him.”
“Rest easy,” I answered, “I will never tell him.”
Sir Henry entered the room.
I made way for him to kneel by his wife’s side.
As the grey morning broke Lady Studley died.
Before my departure from the Grange I avoided Sir Henry as much as possible. Once he spoke of the apparition and asked if I had seen it. “Yes,” I replied.
Before I could say anything further, he continued:—
“I know now why it came; it was to warn me of my unhappy wife’s death.” He said no more. I could not enlighten him, and he is unlikely now ever to learn the truth.
The following day I left Studley Grange. I took with me, without asking leave of anyone, a certain long black cloak, a small electric lamp, and a magnifying glass of considerable power.
It may be of interest to explain how Lady Studley in her unhealthy condition of mind and body performed the extraordinary trick by which she hoped to undermine her husband’s health, and ultimately cause his death.
I experimented with the materials which I carried away with me, and succeeded, so my friends told me, in producing a most ghastly effect.
I did it in this way. I attached the mirror of a laryngoscope to my forehead in such a manner as to enable it to throw a strong reflection into one of my eyes. In the centre of the bright side of the laryngoscope a small electric lamp was fitted. This was connected with a battery which I carried in my hand. The battery was similar to those used by the ballet girls in Drury Lane Theatre, and could be brought into force by a touch and extinguished by the removal of the pressure. The eye which was thus brilliantly illumined looked through a lens of some power. All the rest of the face and figure was completely covered by the black cloak. Thus the brightest possible light was thrown on the magnified eye, while there was corresponding increased gloom around.
When last I heard of Studley Grange it was let for a term of years and Sir Henry had gone abroad. I have not heard that he has married again, but he probably will, sooner or later.
The Tragedy of a Third Smoker
C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne (1866–1944) is not widely remembered in the twenty-first century, certainly as far as readers of crime fiction are concerned. In his day he was a well-known author, more of a rival to H. G. Wells than to Doyle, given that his most successful novel was The Lost Continent: The Story of Atlantis (1900). He was also the creator of Captain Owen Kettle, who appeared in a long series of short stories for the magazines as well as in novels. Kettle, a much-travelled seaman, spent time as a riverboat pilot in the Congo, and it has even been suggested that Joseph Conrad was influenced by Hyne’s work in writing his classic novel Heart of Darkness (1899).
Hyne was born in Gloucestershire but raised in Yorkshire and educated at Cambridge University. A prolific writer under his own name, he also wrote as Weatherby Chesney. “The Tragedy of a Third Smoker” first appeared in the Harmsworth Monthly Pictorial Magazine in 1898, at a time when Hyne was dabbling in crime stories with an ingredient of elementary forensic science. He did not make a sustained contribution to the genre, but this is an enjoyable railway mystery with a pleasingly provocative opening line. Interestingly, the storyline anticipates that of a very early Dr Thorndyke story, “The Blue Sequin,” written by R. Austin Freeman a decade later.
* * *
“I ABOMINATE detective stories,” said the Q.C., laying down his cue along the corner of the billiard-table and going across to the shelf where the cigar-boxes stood. “You see, when a man makes a detective story to write down on paper, he begins at the butt-end and works backw
ards. He notes his points and manufactures his clues to suit ’em, so it’s all bound to work out right. In real life it’s very different,”—he chose a Partaga, looking at it through his glasses thoughtfully—“and I ought to know; I’ve been studying the criminal mind for half my working life.”
“But,” said O’Malley, “a defending counsel is a different class of animal from the common detective.”
“Oh, is he?” said the Q.C.; “that’s all you know about it.” He dragged one of the big chairs up into the deep chimney corner and settled himself in it, after many luxurious shruggings; then he spoke on, between whiffs at the Partaga.
“Now I’ll just state you a case, and you’ll see for yourself how we sometimes have to ravel out things. The solicitor who put the brief in my hands was, as solicitors go, a smart chap. He had built up a big business out of nothing, but criminal work was slightly out of his line. He had only taken up this case to oblige an old client, and I must say he made an uncommonly poor show of it. I never had such a thin brief given me in my life.
“The prisoner was to be tried on the capital charge; and if murder really had been committed, it was one of a most cold-blooded nature. Hanging would follow conviction as surely as night comes on the heels of day; and a client who gets the noose given him always damages his counsel’s reputation, whether that counsel deserves it or not.
“As my brief put it, the case fined down to this:
“Two men got into an empty third-class smoking compartment at Addison Road. One of them, Guide, was a drain contractor; the other, Walker, was a foreman in Guide’s employ. The train took them past the Shepherd’s Bush and Grove Road Hammersmith stations without anything being reported; but at Shaftesbury Road Walker was found on the floor, stone dead, with a wound in the skull, and on the seat of the carriage was a small miner’s pickaxe with one of its points smeared with blood.
“It was proved that Guide had been seen to leave the Shaftesbury Road station. He was dishevelled and agitated at the time, and this made the ticket collector notice him specially amongst the crowd of out-going passengers. After it was found out who he was, inquiries were made at his home. His wife stated that she had not seen him since Monday—the morning of Walker’s death. She also let out that Walker had been causing him some annoyance of late, but she did not know about what. Subsequently—on the Friday, four days later—Guide was arrested at the West India Dock. He was trying to obtain employ as coal trimmer on an Australian steamer, obviously to escape from the country. On being charged he surrendered quietly, remarking that he supposed it was all up with him.
“That was the gist of my case, and the solicitor suggested that I should enter a plea of insanity.
“Now, when I’d conned the evidence over—additional evidence to what I’ve told you, but all tending to the same end—I came to the conclusion that Guide was as sane as any of us are, and that, as a defence, insanity wouldn’t have a leg to stand upon. ‘The fellow,’ I said, ‘had much better enter a plea of guilty and let me pile up a long list of extenuating circumstances. A jury will always listen to those, and feeling grateful for being excused a long and wearisome trial, recommend to mercy out of sheer gratitude.’ I wrote a note to this effect. On its receipt the solicitor came to see me—by the way, he was Barnes, a man of my own year at Cambridge.
“‘My dear Grayson,’ said he, ‘I’m not altogether a fool. I know as well as you do that Guide would have the best chance if he pleaded guilty; but the difficult part of it is that he flatly refuses to do any such thing. He says he no more killed this fellow Walker than you or I did. I pointed out to him that the man couldn’t very conveniently have slain himself, as the wound was well over at the top of his head, and had obviously been the result of a most terrific blow. At the P.M. it was shown that Walker’s skull was of abnormal thickness, and the force required to drive through it even a heavy, sharp-pointed instrument like the pickaxe must have been something tremendous.
“‘I tell you, Grayson, I impressed upon the fellow that the case was as black as ink against him, and that he’d only irritate the jury by holding out; but I couldn’t move him. He held doggedly to his tale—he had not killed Andrew Walker.’
“‘He’s not the first man who’s stuck to an unlikely lie like that,’ I remarked.
“‘The curious part of it is,’ said Barnes, ‘I’m convinced that the man believes himself to be telling the absolute truth.’
“‘Then what explanation has he to offer?’
“‘None worth listening to. He owns that he and Walker had a fierce quarrel over money matters, which culminated in a personal struggle. He knows that he had one blow on the head which dazed him, and fancies that he must have had a second which reduced him to unconsciousness. When next he knew what was happening, he saw Walker lying on the floor, stone dead, though he was still warm and supple. On the floor was the pickaxe, with one of its points slimy with blood. How it came to be so he couldn’t tell. He picked it up and laid it on a seat. Then in an instant the thought flashed across him how terribly black things looked against himself. He saw absolutely no chance of disproving them, and with the usual impulse of crude minds resolved at once to quit the country. With that idea he got out at the Shaftesbury Road Station, and being an ignorant man and without money, made his way down to the Ratcliff Highway—beg its pardon, St. George’s High Street. Using that as a centre, he smelt about the docks at Limehouse and Millwall trying for a job in the stokehold; but as that neighbourhood is one of the best watched spots on earth, it is not a matter for surprise that he was very soon captured. That’s about all I can tell you.’
“‘I’m afraid it doesn’t lighten matters up very much.’
“‘I never said it would. The gist of this is down in your brief, Grayson. I only came round to chambers because of your letter.’
“‘Still,’ I persisted, ‘you threw out a hint that Guide had offered some explanation.’
“‘Oh, yes; but such a flimsy, improbable theory that no sane man could entertain it for a minute. In fact, he knew it to be absurd himself. After pressing him again and again to suggest how Walker could have been killed (with the view of extorting a confession), he said, in his slow, heavy way, “Why, I suppose, Mr. Barnes, someone else must ha’ done it. Don’t you think as a man could ha’ got into the carriage whilst I was lying there stupid, and hit Walker with the pick and got out again afore I come to? Would that do, sir?”
“‘I didn’t think,’ added Barnes, drily, ‘that it was worth following that theory any deeper. What do you say?’
“I thought for a minute and then spoke up. ‘Look here, Barnes; if in the face of this cock-and-bull story Guide persists in his innocence, there may be something in it after all; and if by any thousand-to-one chance we could bring him clear, it would be a red feather in the caps of both of us. Do you object to my seeing the man personally?’
“‘It’s a bit irregular,’ said Barnes, doubtfully.
“‘I know it is bang in the teeth of etiquette. But suppose we compromise, and you come with me?’
“‘No, I won’t do that. My time’s busy just now; and besides, I don’t want to run up the costs of this case higher than necessary. But if you choose to shove your other work aside and waste a couple of hours, just go and interview him by yourself, and we’ll waive ceremony. I’ll get the necessary prison order, and send it round to you tomorrow.’
“Next afternoon I went down to see Guide in the waiting-room at the Old Bailey. He was a middle-aged man, heavy-faced, and evidently knocked half stupid by the situation in which he found himself. He was perhaps as great a fool to his own interests as one might often meet with. There was no getting the simplest tale out of him except by regular question-and-answer cross-examination. What little he did tell seemed rather to confirm his guilt than otherwise; though, strange to say, I was beginning to believe him when he kept on assuring me between every other sentence that
he did not commit the murder. Perhaps it was the stolid earnestness of the fellow in denying the crime which convinced me. One gets to read a good deal from facial expression when a man has watched what goes on in the criminal dock as long as I have done; and one can usually spot guilt under any mask.
“‘But tell me,’ I said, ‘what did you quarrel about in the first instance?’
“‘Money,’ said Guide, moodily.
“‘That’s vague. Tell me more. Did he owe you money?’
“‘No, sir, it was t’other way on.’
“‘Wages in arrear?’
“‘No, it was money he had advanced me for the working of my business. You see Walker had always been a hard man, and he’d saved. He said he wanted his money back, he knowing that I was pinched a bit just then and couldn’t pay. Then he tried to thrust himself into partnership with me in the business, which was a thing I didn’t want. I’d good contracts on hand which I expected would bring me in a matter of nine thousand pounds, and I didn’t want to share it with any man, least of all him. I told him so, and that’s how the trouble began. But it was him that hit me first.’
“‘Still, you returned the blow?’
“Guide passed a hand wearily over his forehead. ‘I may have struck him back, sir—I was dazed, and I don’t rightly remember. But before God I’ll swear that I never lifted that pick to Andrew Walker—it was his pick.’
“‘But,’ I persisted, ‘Walker couldn’t very conveniently have murdered himself.’
“‘No, sir, no—no, he couldn’t. I thought of that myself since I been in here, and I said to Mr. Barnes that perhaps somebody come into the carriage when I was knocked silly, and killed him; but Mr. Barnes he said that was absurd. Besides, who could have done it?’
“‘Don’t you know anybody, then, who would have wished for Walker’s death?’
“‘There was them that didn’t like him,’ said Guide, drearily.
“That was all I could get out of him, and I went away from the prison feeling very dissatisfied. I was stronger than ever in the belief that Guide was in no degree guilty, and yet for the life of me I did not see how to prove his innocence. He had not been a man of any strong character to begin with, and the shock of what he had gone through had utterly dazed him. It was hopeless to expect any reasonable explanation from him; he had resigned himself to puzzlement. If he had gone melancholy mad before he came up to trial, I should not have been one whit surprised.
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