by Ashton, Hugh
“Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson for Mr Chelmy,” Holmes announced firmly in resonant tones. “I rather fancy that he will see us.”
“If you will wait one minute, sir,” replied the maid, obviously in awe of Holmes’ manner. She returned. “The master was just going out, but he can spare a few minutes. I will take you to his study now.”
“I fancy he will spare us a little more time than that when he has heard what I have to say,” Holmes remarked to me as we were led through the house. “By the way, Chelmy never spoke of his wife, I take it?”
“His wife?” I replied in surprise. “I was under the impression that he was unmarried, and had always been so.”
Holmes said nothing, merely raising his eyebrows in response.
We were admitted to the study, where Chelmy stood waiting. He extended his hand in greeting, but Holmes kept his hands behind his back, gripping his cane, and pointedly rejecting the courtesy.
“To what,” asked Chelmy coldly, obviously more than a little discomfited by Holmes’ attitude, “do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“I am calling on behalf of Mrs Chelmy,” called Holmes. “I find your actions nothing short of despicable with regard to her, as I find your actions in so many regards.” Holmes had drawn himself up to his full height, and towered over the smaller man.
A sneer spread over the other’s face. “You have no proof!” he exclaimed.
“You think so?” replied Holmes cooly. “Give me ten minutes, and I can convince any twelve good men and true sitting in judgement on you of your nature and your deeds. My proofs are ready formed and fixed in here.” He tapped his forehead.
“And what of the precious Colonel Warburton?” asked Chelmy. “Would the exposure not ruin him?”
“I think that is a risk that he would be prepared to take,” replied Holmes.
“And his daughter?”
“She will be well rid of you and your evil ways.”
“Evil, you say? It is you who is evil, Mr Holmes. Snooping and spying on others, and making wild accusations without proof, and without the force of the law to back you, those accusations are worth nothing!”
I was completely baffled by this exchange, and watching the thrust and parry of the two adversaries left me more than a little confused. “In God’s name, Holmes, what do you mean by all this?”
“Behold the husband of Alice Warburton, or, to give her her married name, Alice Chelmy, though I fear, Joshua Hook, that a marriage contracted under a false name is no marriage at all.”
For the first time, the little man seemed staggered by Holmes’ words. He turned pale and gasped. “How..? When did you find this out?”
“Late last night. It is not so easy to assume a false identity, Hook, even when arriving in England for the first time. There are always the little things. For example...” He pointed to a dagger of Indian design hanging on the wall, with the initials JH embossed on the scabbard.
“That is no proof!” spat the other.
“To be sure it is not,” replied Holmes. “I merely point to it as an example of the trail that a careless man will leave behind him. And if you will permit me to observe, Mr Hook, you have been very careless indeed. The account at Armitage’s Bank and the other at the City and National, for example.”
“How the devil did you discover that?” replied Chelmy, who had now turned almost completely white.
For answer, Holmes pulled out the account-book that I had seen him remove from Colonel Warburton’s desk the previous day.
“Aha!” exclaimed the other. “That is your proof? If that book goes, then so does all your proof and so do all your accusations!” He pulled the dagger just mentioned from the wall and withdrew it from its sheath. “Now, Mr Holmes, you will give that book to me.” He moved towards Holmes, the dagger pointing at my friend. I started forward, but Holmes waved me back.
“I think not,” he said, grasping his cane in both hands and pulling his swordstick apart to reveal a shining slender rapier, the point of which now almost touched the other’s throat. “I believe that this blade would penetrate your body and the point would emerge on the other side before your dagger even started to scratch me. Do you wish to make the experiment?” His tone was icy.
Chelmy, or Hook, as I suppose I must now refer to him, dropped the dagger. “What do you want of me?”
“First, I want you to make a clean confession of all your crimes in writing. I then would like you to use the pistol you keep in the drawer there, and to which your hand keeps straying. To use it, I mean, in such a manner as is expected of a gentleman in your position. No, naughty!” he admonished, administering a flick of the rapier to the other’s wrist, drawing a little blood and eliciting a howl of fury. “The Doctor and I will wait outside. Come, Watson.”
He turned his back and left the room, and after a few seconds, I followed.
“What if he does not do as you suggest?” I asked, when we had closed the door.
“I have no confidence at all that he will carry out any of my requests. He is no gentleman, after all is said and done. I expect him to make a run for it out of the window. Ah, there he goes,” as the sound of a window being opened reached us.
“Are we to do nothing?” I asked Holmes.
“We will await developments here,” said Holmes with a smile.
I was puzzled, but trusted my friend’s judgement in the matter. However, in about five minutes’ time, there was a knock on the door, followed by the entry of Inspector Tobias Gregson of Scotland Yard and two constables, with Hook handcuffed between them.
“As you prophesied, Mr. Holmes,” said Gregson genially. “The thanks of the Yard go to you, sir. And a very good morning to you, sir,” addressing me. “Always glad to see you and Mr Holmes under these circumstances.”
-oOo-
“You had deduced, of course, that Chelmy, as he was known, was blackmailing Colonel Warburton?” We were seated in Holmes’ rooms in Baker Street, having returned from Guildford.
“I had guessed something of the sort, from the reactions of the Colonel and his daughter. What was the Colonel’s crime that put him in the other’s power?”
“It was not so much a crime as a deplorable error in judgement. As you saw, Hook, to call him by his proper name, had been in India at the same time as the Colonel, but not during your period of service, and obviously not at the time that your friend Purcell served there, otherwise you would probably have recognised him. You mentioned that the Colonel enjoyed gambling, and you witnessed Hook’s skill in billiards for yourself. I have no doubt that he is equally skilful in other recreations, possibly including card-sharping, but in any event, the Colonel found himself in debt to Hook, and unable to repay. Hook proposed a monstrous bargain by which he would accept the hand of the Colonel’s daughter in lieu of the money owed, and the Colonel, to his shame, accepted the offer. Hook therefore married Alice Warburton, in his new identity, when he returned to England.”
“How did you know this? And why was Alice Warburton living at her father’s house when she was married to the other?”
“I suspected it when I first met the lady. I noticed, when I kissed her hand, the imprint of a ring on the fourth finger of her left hand – a ring which had been worn with sufficient frequency and recently enough to leave its mark. I also noticed, as we were being led to meet Hook in his study, a lady’s parasol and a pair of lady’s walking boots in the hallway. Clear indication that a lady had indeed been present in the house, leaving some attire behind. When I then noticed some flowers in a vase, arranged in a fashion that could only have been achieved by one of the fairer sex, and which was placed on a lace mat – hardly the taste of a man like Hook, you will agree – it bespoke a more or less permanent female presence in the house.”
“So Alice Warburton lived as a married woman in that house, except when visitors came to call, when she returned to her father?”
“I fear so. The Colonel would hardly wish to acknowledge a man such as Ho
ok as a son-in-law, and he would have had to provide some explanation to friends as to why a girl like his daughter had married the wretch. I also feel that although Hook had the Colonel in his power by reason of the shameful marriage, the Colonel likewise had some hold over Hook – the fact of his false name, perhaps, and that allowed his daughter to escape Hook’s clutches at regular intervals.”
“His servants must have been aware of the anomaly – indeed, I feel they were, as they addressed her as ‘madam’, when I would have expected them to address her as ‘miss’,” I added. “At any event, she is well rid of him.”
“Well rid indeed. Maybe you failed to note the bruises on her arm that I observed as her sleeve rode up when I raised her hand to kiss it. I have no doubt that they were Hook’s doing.”
“But,” I objected, “surely the Colonel must have known that the marriage under a false name was no marriage at all?”
Holmes shrugged. “Maybe so, but that would make the arrangement with Hook even more shameful, and provide even more of an inducement for Warburton to keep the matter hidden.”
“I agree. And what of the account-book?”
“The late Mrs Warburton came of a wealthy family, and the family estate had passed to her as the only heir of her parents. When she died, the money passed to the Colonel, who was thereby able to move to England and live in comfort. Hook, at that time unmarried, pursued the Colonel back here, and forced him to keep the bargain that had been made in India – that of marrying Miss Warburton – under a false name. After that, he continued to extort money from the Colonel at regular intervals. The sordid details are all listed in the account-book.”
“And the chloral? Why did Hook administer that?”
“I fear that was a clumsy attempt to encompass the Colonel’s death and make it appear an accident. My guess – remember, I did not see everything clearly – is that the Colonel had the bottle on the desk in front of him while they talked and Hook, while the Colonel’s attention was distracted, added a generous dose to the whisky and soda. Remember, the Colonel was not accustomed to the drug, and its effects, especially when taken with whisky, could easily have caused an accident more serious than the one that actually transpired. There are several reasons why the Colonel’s death would have been desirable to Hook. First, the whole of his wife’s estate would then have devolved upon his daughter, and hence upon Hook. And also, given that the Colonel had some sort of hold over Hook, any possible menace would have been removed. And lastly, Alice Warburton would then have been his, and his alone.”
“But what of the Colonel’s madness, if we may term it so? The midnight skipping, the egg through the window, and the farcical parade-ground incident?”
Holmes laughed. “I had dismissed those almost as soon as you described them. What was the common feature of all of them?”
“I cannot say.”
“But I can tell you. They all occurred when Warburton and Purcell were alone together, or in the last case, when you and Warburton were together, and there were no other witnesses. Not only that, there were was very little possibility of any other person witnessing these actions.”
“I see what you mean. But they were so varied in their form.”
“And that is another point that occurred to me. The skipping is a form of mania, the egg incident argues a form of persecution, and the parade-ground a form of delusion. Tell me, is it likely that a patient would suffer from all three forms of insanity?”
“I agree with you that it is unlikely.”
“I would go further. I would say that it is impossible. When I further add that no damage was caused to persons or property – the Colonel actually opened the window to dispose of his egg, and carefully closed it afterwards, according to your friend’s account – these do not sound like the actions of a lunatic.”
“But to what end?”
“Surely it is obvious.”
“Not to me.”
“Colonel Warburton was well aware of the affectionate relations between his daughter and Purcell. I have no doubt that in the normal course of events, your friend would have been regarded as an eligible suitor. But since the daughter had supposedly been married secretly, it was obviously impossible for her to have any such claimant for her hand. How to dispose of Purcell without exposing the secret? The Colonel’s method was to feign lunacy, in the hope that this would sufficiently dissuade Purcell from any thoughts of an alliance with the family.”
“As it very nearly did, and but for your intervention, might well have done.”
“I am glad to have been able to play Cupid in this instance,” smiled Holmes. “I have no doubt, that once Hook has been brought to trial and his full villainy exposed, Alice Warburton and Philip Purcell may be legally joined together in holy matrimony with her father’s blessing.”
“I believe that to be a very probable event,” I replied. “However, given her previous history, and her past attachment to Hook, Purcell was hesitant to pursue his suit with Alice Warburton further. Additionally, the young lady herself believed that marriage to him was out of the question as a result of her past. Although the couple were obviously very much attached to each other, the problem was to reconcile the unseemly past to a happy shared future.”
“A task more in your line than mine, I would imagine,” suggested Holmes as he refilled his pipe. “How did you accomplish it?”
“Once I had caused Purcell to understand that Miss Warburton had had no choice in the matter, having been a minor when the marriage was contracted, he began to look on a future alliance in a more favourable light. I also pointed out that the matter had not been noised abroad, and that the so-called marriage to Hook was not only invalid, but was not a matter of public knowledge. This further persuaded him in the direction of matrimony. I advised him to look on the whole sordid affair as if she had contracted an imprudent marriage to a man who had died shortly after the wedding. Although his regard for the Colonel has somewhat diminished, he accepted the force of my arguments. As for the bride, I used similar reasoning to persuade her that she was worthy of Purcell’s hand.”
“And this was sufficient to bring them together?”
I smiled broadly. “My dear fellow, you are without doubt the greatest analytical detective that has ever lived, and when it comes to matters of pure reason and deduction, you have no peer. In affairs of the heart, though, you must confess that I am your superior.”
“I freely admit it,” he chuckled. “Pray tell of the presumably vital part of the story that you consider eludes this cold reasoning machine seated before you.”
“The vital part, Holmes, is that these two young people loved each other sincerely and passionately. The point that tipped the scale for both parties was my suggestion that they would never find true happiness with any other partner. On considering this, the two flew – I speak metaphorically, of course – into each other’s arms. Both of them expressed their sincere gratitude through me to you for your role in exposing Hook and bringing them together.”
“It was a relatively trivial affair, once I had visited the house and seen for myself how things lay.” He picked up his newspaper, and commenced scanning the agony column, while I continued to ponder the events of the past few days.
“One last question, Holmes. When I encountered the Colonel skipping down the passage, he turned to meet me, even though his back was turned. How did he accomplish this?”
Holmes threw back his head and laughed. “That, my dear Watson, is something I am surprised you have not deduced for yourself. Think back to the night in question. Imagine yourself looking down the corridor at Colonel Warburton’s retreating back. What is in front of him and you?”
“A window, without the curtains drawn.”
“Quite so. And what were you wearing?”
“That bright green Chinese dressing gown I showed you the other day.” I smote my brow. “Of course! He saw my reflection as in a mirror. I should have realised that.”
Holmes smiled tolerantly
. “Maybe you should have done so, Watson, but do not belabour yourself for it. I have to confess that without your active cooperation and assistance, this case would have taken longer to solve than it did. Indeed, without the assistance you provided, it is questionable whether it would have been solved at all.”
At this, which ranked among the highest praise that Holmes ever bestowed on me, I felt a glow of not unjustifiable pride, which was renewed some months later when I attended the wedding of Philip Purcell and Alice Warburton in the capacity of best man.
>>>---<<<
The Mystery of the Paradol Chamber
Editor's Notes
The events described in this case, alluded to elsewhere but not described by Watson, show an interesting interplay between Holmes and the official police in the shape of Inspector Tobias Gregson, one of the more capable Scotland Yard detectives, according to Holmes.
Even given that Holmes’ appraisal of members of the official force was largely dependent upon their willingness to listen to him and take his advice, it does appear in this instance that Holmes was correct in his judgement. Gregson shows himself at his best here, but it is no surprise, given the final result of the case, that Watson suppressed the release of the details of the case (the manuscript in the deed box was contained in a sealed envelope) – they could well have led to an official reprimand or worse for Gregson. Holmes also shows a sympathy and human side to his nature that is not commonly encountered in Watson’s accounts, as well as an irritability that so often seemed to infuriate Watson. Here, then, is the Mystery of the Paradol Chamber.
-oOo-
My good friend, the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, was blessed with an almost perfect memory, which allowed him to collect facts and arrange them in such a way that he was able to recall them almost instantly when the occasion demanded. This had been brought home to me in a number of instances, but I had never fully appreciated the force of his mind until the day that brought the business that I have termed the “Mystery of the Paradol Chamber” to his attention.
