The rain had abated a little now, but still cast its slanted streaks across the carriage-windows and dripped through the crack around the door. The country outside was a dark, waterlogged green, with here and there, a daub of the sad tints of autumn, brown and gold and red.
‘How can you tell?’ I asked. ‘I see nothing that indicates the coast is near.’
‘You do see,’ said he, ‘but you do not observe. Your mind is not trained to read the books in the running brooks, the sermons in stones, as Shakespeare puts it.’
‘Pray tell me, then.’
‘The trees, my dear fellow. See how they bend towards us as one. There is no surer sign that the coast is near. It is the rude sea-wind that bends and stunts them so, the harsh easterlies and north-easterlies that blow upon this fair coast.’
I saw at once that what he said was true. The isolated trees which dotted the margins of the fields were twisted and deformed, and seemed to reach out to us in silent and grotesque supplication.
‘Perhaps there is yet another tree which has felt the blast of these east winds,’ added my friend after a moment, in a thoughtful tone.
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘I refer to the family-tree of the Davenokes,’ said he.
‘They are certainly a singular people.’
‘More than that,’ said he; ‘there seems a streak in them that is difficult, stiff and unbending; as if, in learning for so long to resist the winds of these parts, they forgot, in the end, that occasionally everyone must bend a little. You must have been struck, Watson, by their knack of supporting losing causes – the Catholic side at the Reformation, the Royalist side in the Civil War. Depending on one’s point of view, they are either very loyal, or simply stubbornly resistant to change of any sort. Well, well, we are nearing our destination,’ he continued in a brisker tone; ‘let us review the case!’
‘That, at any rate, should present no great difficulty.’
‘Why so?’ said he, an expression of curiosity upon his features.
‘Simply because what we know amounts to virtually nothing.’
‘Well,’ said he amiably. ‘State the little we do know, then, and let us see how matters stand.’
‘We know,’ I began, ‘that Edward Davenoke left Shoreswood the day before his wife returned. He has apparently gone to London, although no one can suggest any reason why he should do so. He has written to his wife from there, stating that he is staying in some small hotel or other, but all your resources have failed to find him. Other than that, all we have are on the one hand, the anonymous note you received, telling you in so many words to mind your own business, which may, however, have nothing whatever to do with the case, and, on the other, a young woman who has got herself into an emotional and fearful state over the squeaks and creaks of an ancient house.’
‘Capital!’ cried my friend, his eyes shining with amusement. ‘A very illuminating exposition of the matter, my dear fellow!’
‘But if you agree with me,’ I protested, ‘then what earthly good can be achieved by our running down to Suffolk?’
‘None whatever,’ said he, shaking his head.
‘What!’ I ejaculated.
‘Fortunately, however, I do not agree with you. When I described your exposition as illuminating, I meant merely that you summarised accurately all the false assumptions which one might make about the matter.’
‘Pray, tell me your own views, then,’ said I somewhat tartly, for there seemed to be in his voice a tone of superiority which irritated me.
‘In the first place,’ said Holmes, after a moment, ‘you state that we know: a, that Davenoke left Shoreswood the day before his wife returned; b, that he has apparently gone to London; and c, that he wrote to her from there; but in truth we know none of these things. The butler, Hardwick, drove him to the station, but we do not know for certain that he caught a train; and if he did catch a train, we do not know where he went. Lady Davenoke had only the butler’s word for it that her husband had gone to London, if you recall her account; no one else knew anything of it.’
‘The letter she received came from London,’ I remarked. ‘The postmark could not have been forged and she recognised her husband’s own handwriting.’
‘Certainly,’ said he; ‘I do not doubt that he wrote it. But you had a demonstration the other day that he who writes a letter and he who posts it are not necessarily one and the same.’
‘You believe that Davenoke wrote the letter elsewhere and had a confederate post it for him?’
‘It is a distinct possibility.’
‘Why should he do that?’
‘Because he does not wish anyone to know where he is. He would have succeeded in his deception, too, were it not for our intervention.’
‘You speak as if you know his true whereabouts,’ I remarked in surprise.
‘Oh, there is no mystery about that,’ said he. ‘He is at Shoreswood, of course.’
‘What!’ I cried. ‘You astound me, Holmes! I had no idea—’
‘Really? Nevertheless, the indications were there, Watson. Indeed, it has seemed the most likely solution from the very beginning. What business could Sir Edward’s father have in London, when, aside from his relatively brief period as a Member of Parliament, he seems to have had nothing to do with the place? Certainly the solicitor knew of none and he has handled the family’s affairs for over a quarter of a century. That does not, of course, render it impossible, but it does seem fairly unlikely, to say the least. Then there are the singular circumstances surrounding Davenoke’s leaving: why should the butler drive him to the railway station, when a groom is employed at the Hall? Taken along with the butler’s subsequent odd and evasive manner, it is a most suggestive point. You will recall also, no doubt, the curious business of the dog. Lady Davenoke was given a singularly unconvincing explanation of his being chained up away from the house; evidently the true reason for his confinement is that if he were left free to roam where he would, he could not have failed to sniff out his master’s whereabouts, and so reveal the whole deception for what it is.’
‘You have suspected all along, then, that Davenoke had not left Shoreswood?’
Holmes nodded his head. ‘But I could not at first be certain,’ said he. ‘Given the initial data, there were, it seemed to me, seven possible explanations of what was really afoot, some of them, I might mention, taking it as a fact that Davenoke was dead. However, the circumstances surrounding Lady Amelia’s visit to us, her return to Shoreswood, and the letters which we both received, served to clarify the matter.’
‘How so?’
‘In the first place, as you observed a moment ago, Lady Davenoke certainly recognised her husband’s handwriting upon the letter she received. This I took as an indication that he was still alive, for it is by no means as easy as it might be supposed to counterfeit someone’s hand throughout a letter of some length, especially when it is to be read by one who is very familiar with the true hand. But if the hand were true, the contents of the letter manifestly were not. His explanation of why he had no address at which she could reach him must rank as the feeblest lie I have ever encountered. Indeed, the only rival which springs to mind is the butler’s explanation for his presence at Wickham Market station when Lady Davenoke returned there with Miss Strensall. His story of an ailing brother in Yoxford, or wherever it was, was clearly the purest poppycock.’
‘How could you be so sure?’ I asked.
‘Taken with what we already suspected, it was simply too much of a coincidence to swallow. It seemed very evident that Hardwick had travelled down on the same train as the ladies and alighted quickly at Wickham Market before they themselves did so. If this were so, then no doubt it was Hardwick we saw in Baker Street, following Lady Davenoke. Her familiarity with his features accounts, of course, for his anxiety to keep them concealed beneath his unseasonal muffler. No doubt, also, it was Hardwick who posted in London the letter from Edward Davenoke, which his wife received after her return
to Shoreswood, and, incidentally, the anonymous note we received at the same time. He probably enquired my name and business of some bystander, while he was waiting outside our rooms in Baker Street, and guessed his mistress’s purpose in consulting me. Whatever Edward Davenoke is up to, Hardwick is evidently his trusted lieutenant, fully conversant with the matter and able to act upon his own judgement, for the decision to write the warning note to me – presumably from the post office in the City where he posted his master’s letter – must have been his alone.’
‘It is certainly plausible, so far as it goes,’ I remarked.
‘It is the only theory that fits the facts,’ returned my colleague. ‘Davenoke’s presence at Shoreswood – in hiding – will of course go a considerable way to explain all the strange nocturnal comings and goings which have so distressed our client.’
‘But how could Sir Edward Davenoke be at Shoreswood and his wife not know of it?’ I protested.
‘You forget that he has lived there all his life, Watson. He must know of many places where he could remain hidden from view. In fact, however, I believe that he is in the secret chamber which we have heard so much about.’
‘But there is no evidence that such a chamber even exists in reality,’ I argued; ‘it may be mere myth!’
‘Possibly,’ replied Holmes; ‘but there are features about Shoreswood – or its occupants, at least – that make the existence there of a secret chamber rather more likely. The Davenokes were well-known recusants during the religious troubles of the sixteenth century and were often suspected of harbouring Catholic priests. From what we know of the family, I think it more than likely that they did so, and that they had some hidey-hole constructed for the purpose, if one did not exist already. Such priest-holes are a common feature in houses of the period, and the proximity of Shoreswood to the east coast would make it an ideal first staging-post for anyone arriving secretly from the Continent. Then there is the later tradition that Charles II was hidden at Shoreswood for a night: whilst that seems unlikely to be true, it may well be that one of the other Royalist leaders was sheltered there on his way to follow Charles abroad and that it was this which gave rise to the rumour.’
‘It is possible,’ I conceded. ‘What a dark, confusing business it is! What is the purpose of it all? What is happening at Shoreswood? It seems to me that we have learnt nothing that can shed any light upon it at all.’
‘There is one thing,’ said he. ‘But, come! We approach our station! We can continue this interesting discussion later.’
Holmes had sent a wire from London and the Shoreswood trap was waiting for us at the station. We sprang in, the driver whipped up the horse and we rattled off at a great speed. The rain had quite stopped now and the sky was clearing, as the rags and tatters of the storm-rack were hurried on their way by a fresh breeze. We passed at a clatter through the outskirts of a village, then down a series of narrow, sodden lanes, where the arching trees met high overhead in a translucent green canopy and the golden rays of the afternoon sun sparkled upon the damp hedgerows.
After a drive of perhaps five miles, we turned in abruptly at the gates of the Shoreswood estate, where the close ranks of colossal beeches cast a dark and dismal shade. For some time, the drive wound between the trees and passed beside a quiet mere, thick with weeds; then the ground on either hand rose up steeply in banks of crumbling, bare earth, from which gnarled tree-roots protruded forlornly. All at once, we emerged from this gloom, rounded a small hillock and crossed an old stone bridge over a stream, and there before us lay Shoreswood Hall, grey and forbidding, its recesses in deep shadow. But for a curtain flapping from an upstairs window, I should have taken it for an ancient and long-uninhabited ruin.
At the centre of this grim pile, a low flight of crumbling and lichen-blotched steps led up to a dark oak door and, as we approached, this door was opened and a man in the garb of a butler stepped out. He had reached the foot of the steps and was about to speak to us when a second, slighter figure appeared in the doorway and ran with great haste down the steps. To my surprise, I saw that it was Lady Davenoke herself, clearly in a state of great distress.
‘That will be all right, Hardwick,’ said she, in a breathless voice. ‘These gentlemen are guests of mine. You may return to your duties.’
A look of acute surprise came over his features and he made as if to speak, but she paid him no heed and turned to us.
‘Please come with me, gentlemen,’ said she, her breast heaving violently with emotion. ‘I have much to tell you.’ She set off at once with short, quick steps, across the lawn, away from the house and towards a dense thicket of trees, one hand clutching her straw bonnet to her head, the other gathering the hem of her light-blue dress above the wet grass. We followed her along a narrow overgrown path which wound about the woods for some twenty or thirty yards, until we reached a small clearing, in which an old and weather-worn stone seat stood in picturesque isolation. All around, and upon the seat itself, the fallen leaves of the previous autumn lay in thick profusion.
‘We shall not be overheard here,’ said Lady Davenoke breathlessly, casting an anxious glance back the way we had come.
‘We are at your disposal,’ said Sherlock Holmes in a comforting tone. ‘When you have collected yourself, perhaps you could let us have the details of what has occurred.’
‘Edith and I returned here full of hope,’ responded the other after a moment, ‘but we were soon dispossessed of that foolishness. Upon the second night, I was roused from sleep by a tapping at my bedroom door and found Edith there in the darkness, weeping with fright at the strange noises she had heard.’
‘What sort of noises?’ interrupted Holmes sharply.
‘Just as I had heard previously: the soft opening and closing of doors and creeping footsteps upon the stairs. Poor girl! She had come to me for comfort, but that I could not give her, for my blood was as chilled as her own. For twenty minutes we sat together upon my bed, but we heard nothing further. The following day I had her bed moved into my room and since then we have at least had each other’s companionship in the night-time. But the evil, secret movements of the night have not abated and our sleep has scarcely been improved. One night we both saw a faint light by the river. I knew then that it was no mere product of my imagination. On another occasion, Edith swore that she saw a stooping figure in the chapel ruins, although I could not myself make it out.
‘Even in sleep I am tormented and have had the most terrible nightmares imaginable.’ She shook her head quickly as a shudder of revulsion passed through her body. ‘Upon the fourth night, Edith was wakened by a noise and saw to her surprise that my bed was empty. Fighting against her fears, she ventured out into the corridor. There, she says, she found me, at the head of the stairs in my nightgown, my eyes staring with horror. Yet believe me, Mr Holmes, when I say that I have no recollection of how I came to be there. It was as if I had been summoned in my sleep by some evil power. Oh, thank God that Edith was there to lead me back gently to the safety of my own room and bed!’
‘Has your letter to the Royal Suffolk Hotel been returned to you?’ queried Holmes as Lady Davenoke paused.
‘About two days after my return from London,’ she answered, nodding her head slightly. ‘The manager had been obliged to open my letter in order to see who had sent it, that he might return it to the correct address. He had then placed the letter, envelope and all, together with a note from himself, in one of the hotel’s own large envelopes, which had been sealed. However, as I came to open this envelope, it was immediately obvious to me that someone had steamed open the flap and attempted, not entirely successfully, to re-secure it. I said nothing, but at once recalled the look of guilt I had seen in Hardwick’s eyes as he brought in the mail that morning.
‘The following day, to take our minds from the dark conspiracy which seemed to encircle us, we decided to plant a few daffodil bulbs by the edge of the woods. The fresh air, and thoughts of spring flowers, would be a tonic to us both. We
found trowels and a small sack of bulbs, and I brought out a couple of old newspapers for us to kneel on. Newspapers and journals which are no longer required are kept in a cupboard near the kitchen, and I had taken a small pile from there at random. As we were engaged in our bulb-planting, Edith chanced upon a humorous item in the newspaper upon which she was kneeling and began to read it aloud.
‘“What a preposterous story!” I cried, laughing. “And when did all that nonsense take place, Edith?”
‘“Why, just last Monday, believe it or not!” said she gaily, joining her own laughter to my own.
‘“One moment,” said I, as a sudden thought caused the laughter to die in my throat. “Let me have a look at that paper, Edith.” I took it from her and saw that it was the Globe, published on the very afternoon of the day I called to see you, Mr Holmes. “Does this newspaper belong to you, Edith?” said I to Miss Strensall. She shook her head. She had not, she said, had any newspaper with her the day we left London, but she remembered that I had purchased one at Liverpool Street railway terminal just before we caught our train.
‘“It was not this one,” said I, “but the St James’s Gazette – which is still where I left it, in my bedroom. So how, then, came a London evening newspaper to be in Shoreswood Hall, if we did not bring it?”
‘Her face fell grave as she saw my meaning. Instinctively, without thought, we both looked quickly over our shoulders, towards the Hall. Blank, dark windows stared back at us from its drab grey walls, but it seemed to me as I looked that a face had rapidly withdrawn from one of the upper windows even as we had turned.
‘The discovery of the newspaper brought home to me afresh the horror of my position, all ignorant of the hidden deeds about me. We had sought to distract our thoughts from such things in the garden, but instead had made a discovery that we could not have imagined. What the significance of it was, I could not see; but I impressed upon Miss Strensall that she must not speak a word on the matter and vowed to communicate with you at the first opportunity.
The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes Page 42
