Holmes said, ‘I, too, find it irritatingly difficult to predict what the Nepcotes might do, or indeed what their servants might have done in their absence. They may be entirely blameless in this matter, since employing a hereditary enemy of one of their acquaintances would be a minor coincidence compared with some others we have encountered in this case. Or it may be that Ernest Moncrieff was not the only person whom Durrington was attempting to blackmail. I would prefer to resolve the matter as soon as possible, in any case.’
We found Gregson in his office, having evidently found little of further interest at Lord Illingworth’s house. He was, however, deep in conversation with Constable Northbrook, the policeman who had been guarding the door at the Moncrieffs’ house when we first arrived there, which the two of them broke off as Holmes and I arrived.
‘Tell Mr Holmes and Dr Watson what you’ve just told me, Northbrook,’ the inspector suggested after greeting us.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Constable Northbrook. He informed us that he had been interviewing Dora Steyne, the maid at the Moncrieffs’ house who had claimed to have seen a woman on the balcony, speaking to the man we now knew was Durrington. Since her arrest the maid had stuck determinedly to her story, until the constable let her know that the police had evidence against Lord Illingworth, and suggested that the peer was very probably on the run.
She had changed her tune quickly enough then, and confessed that, just as Gregson had suspected, she had been given Lady Goring’s shawl by the earl, and had thrown it down from the window of her room to hang in the tree opposite the balcony. Northbrook’s first inclination had been to place a disagreeable construction on the maid’s relationship with His Lordship, but Dora was resolute that nothing more had occurred between them than a simple act of bribery.
‘This looks like the evidence we’ve been wanting, gentlemen,’ Gregson concluded. ‘Illingworth was involved in the murder plot, right enough.’
‘It is evidence of underhand behaviour on his part,’ Holmes allowed, ‘and given the undoubted presence of the brooch and part of the shawl in the deceased’s hand, it is quite suggestive.’
‘And best of all, we can discount the girl’s testimony about seeing Lady Goring on the balcony,’ I added.
‘Actually, Dr Watson, sorry, sir, but we can’t,’ the constable informed me apologetically. ‘Dora’s been straight with us about the business with the shawl, and she expects to be dismissed without a character reference after what she’s done, so she’s got no reason to lie to us now. But she insists on her testimony about the woman on the balcony. She says she knows what she saw.’
‘Was it while she was disposing of the shawl that Dora saw this woman?’ Holmes asked sharply.
‘That’s right, sir,’ Northbrook reported. ‘She went up there about half past ten, just like she said, except she didn’t tell us why. Lord Illingworth had just given her her orders – he’d bought her off on a previous visit to the house. That’s why Dora got so scared later on, when we asked her if the woman she saw was wearing a shawl – she didn’t know if she’d be giving something away if she said no.’
‘She noticed that the shawl was torn, of course?’
‘Yes, sir, she mentioned that particular. She took it up the stairs to her room that she shares with another of the maids, opened the window, and saw the bloke and the woman down on the balcony, but they were talking and didn’t notice her. So she threw the item into the tree, shut the window, and got on with her duties as quick as she could.’
What did it mean that the shawl had been put in place before Durrington was even murdered, I wondered? It suggested a callous degree of forethought, at least, and a willingness to take risks. How would it have looked if something had gone wrong and the murder had not taken place as planned?
‘But how do you explain this, Gregson,’ Holmes wondered, ‘if Lord Illingworth was the murderer? The lady’s presence on the balcony hardly seems to support that theory, unless you propose that the earl changed into a blue satin ballgown for the purpose of committing the crime.’
Gregson sighed at the pleasantry. ‘We need hardly go that far,’ he said. ‘We know that Cecily Moncrieff is friendly with Lord Illingworth, ignorant as she is of his true relationship with her, and that he’s encouraged her in that. I don’t suggest that any blame lies with her, but it might be that His Lordship suggested she step into the library and have a word with Bunbury, as a way of scouting out the territory, so to speak. She and Mabel Goring are both blonde, similar in height and build, and you said yourself that her teal dress might be mistaken for a dark blue one in the moonlight.’
‘I said that it could be, were it not for her condition. If she had been seen from behind then perhaps, but from Dora’s window above, her outline would have been quite clear.’
‘Besides, Cecily Moncrieff swore that Durrington was a stranger to her,’ I reminded him. ‘I feel sure that she would have never been so blasé about the death of a man to whom she had spoken.’
‘Well, what we feel isn’t evidence, Dr Watson, and it’s a good thing too, most of the time. But who is this Durrington?’
‘Durrington is Major and Mrs Nepcote’s undergardener,’ Holmes replied coolly. ‘He is also the son of the man who conspired with the Moncrieffs’ nursemaid to abduct the child Ernest in 1867, but you know him best as the late Mr Bunbury.’
Gregson whistled. ‘It sounds like there are some matters you haven’t apprised me of, Mr Holmes.’
‘It was to do so that we came here, but time has become somewhat pressing,’ Holmes said. Efficiently, and with admirable economy, he sketched out what he had learned from police records of Sergeant William Durrington and his legacy, omitting to say by whom we had had the information confirmed. He went on to describe the letters received by Ernest Moncrieff, that we had every reason now to believe had come from Timothy Durrington. He added that Major and Mrs Nepcote had been kind enough to identify their servant’s body, and that they were awaiting us in the lobby and doubtless growing rather restive, while their servants had ample opportunity to hide Durrington’s personal effects.
He said, ‘In my experience, blackmailers almost invariably keep written records of their victims and the evidence they hold against them. Their power relies upon the ability to prove wrongdoing on the part of another. Paper records are almost as important in their profession as in yours, Gregson.’
I said, ‘But if the fellow was a gardener, would he be able to read and write?’
‘It would be unusual, but hardly unheard of. It is an important question, certainly, since Ernest Moncrieff’s blackmailer was either literate enough to pen a letter and to read its reply, or had a close confederate who was.’
Gregson took a moment to absorb this. ‘And you will be wanting to search the place for this blackmail material?’
‘It would be most irregular to do so on our own,’ Holmes agreed demurely. He spoiled the effect by adding, ‘And since we were in the building, it seemed only polite to invite you along.’
The inspector said irritably, ‘I can send a man with you, but I cannot spare the time myself. This Durrington fellow’s dead, but Lord Illingworth’s alive and at liberty. Knowing who his victim was will be invaluable, of course, and I’m glad you have found it out for us, but searching the Nepcotes’ house at the moment seems like a distraction to me.’
Holmes said, ‘I believe that Durrington’s recent activities may be most relevant to the question of why he was killed, and therefore of who killed him.’
‘Oh, it must be done, of course,’ Gregson agreed. ‘Northbrook, you’d better go along with Mr Holmes and Dr Watson.’
Constable Northbrook looked delighted to have been assigned the duty, and to have the opportunity to observe Holmes’s work. The three of us joined Mrs Nepcote, who was twittering with impatience, and her stoical husband, the major. The lady at once set about attempting to forestall our mission, her first objection being that she had been a keen observer of her gardener’s private l
ife and knew it to be a blameless one, into which she could countenance no such prurient intrusion. She then insisted that the feelings of the other servants, who had not yet been told of his death and would be distraught about it, must be respected; and finally, that she had not expected visitors that day and that it would take some time to set the house, which was always scrupulously immaculate, in order. Holmes sternly overrode her absurd protests, with Northbrook’s deferential but equally firm support, and at length we set off in the Nepcotes’ carriage.
The constable rode above with the coachman, leaving Holmes and myself little alternative but to travel inside with the couple and listen to Mrs Nepcote’s interminable monologue, which ranged freely from the horror of her employee’s untimely and violent death to the menu for her dinner party with the Marchioness of Ferring on the next Saturday but one.
Major and Mrs Nepcote lived, inevitably, in Belgravia. In its size and grandeur, its pale stone and its porticoed entrance, there was little to choose between their address in Eaton Square and Ernest Moncrieff’s house a few streets away. The Nepcotes did, however, possess a considerably bigger garden than the one in which their servant had met his end, with rose beds and herbaceous borders laid out neatly in a concentric pattern, justifying, if not strictly necessitating, their engagement of both a gardener and an undergardener.
During the journey Northbrook had been speaking with the coachman, whose name was Highdown. ‘He was quite chatty, sirs,’ he told us. ‘Said Durrington was friendly enough, but he tended to keep himself to himself. Spent most of his evenings off, and most of his wages, taking classes at the Working Men’s College. Highdown says he wanted to better himself.’
‘It’s a more admirable ambition than becoming a blackmailer,’ I observed.
‘Yet one of the first things he would have learned, if he were not already able, would be how to read and write,’ noted Holmes. ‘This is very useful information, Northbrook.’ The constable blushed.
Beyond the garden was the mews containing the stables and coach house. The groom and coachman shared a long room built across the very rear of the building, while the two gardeners had smaller garrets facing the house.
It was in Durrington’s tiny room that we started our search. The undergardener had slept on a pallet, his clothes hung from a rail or folded in a tiny chest of drawers that was, along with the pallet and an elderly wicker chair, his only furniture.
The three of us stood at the door, gazing in at the cramped space. The room seemed clean enough, and in the winter I imagined that it might feel rather snug, assuming that there were no draughts. Living above horses always tends to provide a comfortable warmth.
Even so, the fact that Ernest Moncrieff and his wife now enjoyed the full benefit of a luxurious townhouse, a few hundred yards from this tiny box of a room in which Timothy Durrington had lived out his private existence, starkly illustrated the disparity which Durrington’s father had observed between the two boys’ circumstances.
‘Well, it doesn’t look like this will take us long,’ Northbrook observed.
‘We should search the rest of the mews, at least,’ I said, knowing that the senior gardener and groom, and probably any other of the servants who had so wished, would have had every opportunity to purloin their colleague’s property while their employers were with us at Scotland Yard. For now, the other inhabitants of the mews were being given cups of tea in the kitchen; we had been introduced to them briefly as we arrived. ‘Perhaps also the house,’ I added doubtfully. I could not imagine the major, or more pertinently his wife, readily giving their permission for such an intrusion, nor Gregson, as things stood at the moment, treating the issue of a warrant as a priority.
‘The house is a long shot, Watson,’ said Holmes. ‘The probability is that the material we seek will be in this room, or failing that, elsewhere in this outbuilding. To a gardener, the house is foreign territory to which he would not routinely have access.’
‘That’s true, sir,’ Northbrook agreed. ‘My uncle’s a gardener for a family in Surrey, and he only gets asked into the house for the servants’ Christmas dinner, and one time after my auntie died. Been there twelve years, he has, and only set foot inside those thirteen times.’
Suggesting firmly that we observe his work from the doorway so as not to disturb the scene, Holmes proceeded to inspect every inch of Timothy Durrington’s garret, from the wooden beams of the ceiling to the bare boards of the floor.
He first checked the pockets in the various items of clothing, which were empty, and the bedclothes, which were likewise unproductive. He moved on to the chest of drawers, in one of which he found a box of pencils and a sheaf of papers.
The top sheet, though blank, bore the impressions of recent writing having imprinted a sheet above it, and Holmes was able, by careful, light shading of the pencil, to reconstruct the wording. It proved to be nothing more interesting than a written order to a market gardener for seedlings and fertiliser.
The rest of the pile held nothing of an incriminating nature, though Holmes turned up some competently executed landscape drawings, some notes on the history of music and some French vocabulary. ‘A man of eclectic interests,’ he observed. ‘And not altogether practical ones. Durrington would have done more to further himself had he studied botany or horticulture, to which his experience would be relevant.’
‘The coachman said he wanted to better himself, not further himself,’ Northbrook observed diffidently. I understood his nervousness at finding himself correcting Sherlock Holmes, but my friend acknowledged the point with a thoughtful nod. However deceived Durrington might have been about his true birth, it seemed that he had little interest in making himself more useful as a gardener. Instead, he had been making attempts, however crude, to cultivate the character of a gentleman.
Holmes swiftly exhausted the overt possibilities of the room, and moved on to considering its hidden spaces. ‘It is reasonable,’ he said, ‘to suppose that Durrington was aware of the risk he took, in going to blackmail Ernest Moncrieff in person. Were Moncrieff to be uncooperative, he stood a real chance of being arrested, and this room searched. In that case he would hardly want his records recovered, yet it seems unlikely that he would be willing to destroy them. Ergo, we will find them in the best hiding place he was able to contrive.’
The drawers were easily removed from the small chest, but there was nothing hidden behind them. The linings of the clothes, when slit open, held no secrets, and although there was a small hole in the pallet from which the straw was leaking, enlarging it with a penknife and rummaging vigorously amongst the stuffing uncovered nothing of interest. Through careful probing Holmes discovered a loose floorboard, but when the constable helped him pry it up the floor cavity was equally bereft of useful items.
‘He must have hidden it somewhere else,’ I noted, rather redundantly.
The room of the senior gardener, Heene, was better furnished, but, when searched, had nothing more to interest us than Durrington’s. Nor did the larger room that the groom shared with Highdown, the coachman. When we went downstairs it quickly became clear that both the stable and the coach house were bare rooms, with little in them beyond the usual clutter of such places. I suggested the carriage itself, but Holmes had already satisfied himself during our journey that it contained nothing of interest. ‘It was hardly to be supposed that it would,’ said Holmes. ‘He would have placed his dossier somewhere where it would remain reliably at hand.’
Frustrated, we trooped outside and stood contemplating the beautifully tended flower beds, evidence of Durrington’s skill in his job, if not his devotion to it.
‘Do you suppose one of the others has taken it, then?’ I asked. ‘The other gardener, or the groom?’
‘Or Highdown,’ the policeman pointed out. ‘There’s nothing to say it was taken while the coach was out, rather than before.’
‘If any of them took it, the question of where it is hidden remains much the same as it did before,’ said Holm
es. ‘On the other hand, any thief need not have been one of the servants who sleeps in this building. A set of keys will be kept in the house.’
‘Durrington might have posted it to himself at his post office box,’ I suggested. ‘Or given it to a friend among the household staff for safekeeping.’
‘Or a friend who lives somewhere else altogether,’ Northbrook noted gloomily. ‘Someone he met at the college, maybe.’
The three of us stared morosely across the garden to the house, then Holmes laughed suddenly and slapped his forehead. ‘What an imbecile I am!’ he cried. ‘The answer is so obvious a child could have seen it. Northbrook, please step into the kitchen and ask Mr Heene to join us.’
‘Do you think he has it?’ I asked as the constable went about this errand. ‘The other gardener, I mean?’
Holmes sighed. ‘Watson, if you were a gardener and wanted to hide something, where would you think of putting it?’
I frowned. ‘Well, I suppose—’ I began, and was probably about to say something terribly foolish when Northbrook returned with the senior gardener.
‘Ah, Heene,’ Holmes said affably. ‘Would you tell us, please, where in the garden Durrington was working immediately before his recent disappearance?’
I saw the realisation enter Constable Northbrook’s eyes just as it must have done mine.
Five minutes later, after much complaining, Heene was digging up the herbaceous border that Durrington had laid down during his final afternoon at his job. He was watched by the three of us, Major and Mrs Nepcote, and, through various windows, by most of the house’s complement of servants.
‘Durrington would have known exactly where he buried it,’ Holmes was explaining, ‘and could have retrieved it with minimal fuss. We do not have the luxury of that knowledge.’
‘But this is no good for the plants, sir,’ Heene told Holmes. ‘No good at all.’
Sherlock Holmes--The Spider's Web Page 17
