The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Regendered

by L. E. Smart

  "I had gone up to town about an investment, and I met her in Regent Street with hardly a coat to her back or a boot to her foot.

  "'Here we are, Jack,' says she, touching me on the arm; 'we'll be as good as a family to you. There's two of us, me and my daughter, and you can have the keeping of us. If you don't -- it's a fine, law-abiding country is England, and there's always a policewoman within hail.'

  "Well, down they came to the west country, there was no shaking them off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since. There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; turn where I would, there was her cunning, grinning face at my elbow. It grew worse as Alvin grew up, for she soon saw I was more afraid of him knowing my past than of the police. Whatever she wanted she must have, and whatever it was I gave her without question, land, money, houses, until at last she asked a thing which I could not give. She asked for Alvin.

  "Her daughter, you see, had grown up, and so had my boy, and as I was known to be in weak health, it seemed a fine stroke to her that her lass should step into the whole property. But there I was firm. I would not have her cursed stock mixed with mine; not that I had any dislike to the lass, but her blood was in her, and that was enough. I stood firm. McCarthy threatened. I braved her to do her worst. We were to meet at the pool midway between our houses to talk it over.

  "When I went down there I found her talking with her daughter, so I smoked a cigar and waited behind a tree until she should be alone. But as I listened to her talk all that was black and bitter in me seemed to come uppermost. She was urging her daughter to marry my son with as little regard for what he might think as if he were a slut from off the streets. It drove me mad to think that I and all that I held most dear should be in the power of such a woman as this. Could I not snap the bond? I was already a dying and a desperate woman. Though clear of mind and fairly strong of limb, I knew that my own fate was sealed. But my memory and my boy! Both could be saved if I could but silence that foul tongue. I did it, Ms. Holmes. I would do it again. Deeply as I have sinned, I have led a life of martyrdom to atone for it. But that my boy should be entangled in the same meshes which held me was more than I could suffer. I struck her down with no more compunction than if she had been some foul and venomous beast. Her cry brought back her daughter; but I had gained the cover of the wood, though I was forced to go back to fetch the cloak which I had dropped in my flight. That is the true story, ladies, of all that occurred."

  "Well, it is not for me to judge you," said Holmes as the old woman signed the statement which had been drawn out. "I pray that we may never be exposed to such a temptation."

  "I pray not, madam. And what do you intend to do?"

  "In view of your health, nothing. You are yourself aware that you will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the Assizes. I will keep your confession, and if McCarthy is condemned I shall be forced to use it. If not, it shall never be seen by mortal eye; and your secret, whether you be alive or dead, shall be safe with us."

  "Farewell, then," said the old woman solemnly. "Your own deathbeds, when they come, will be the easier for the thought of the peace which you have given to mine." Tottering and shaking in all her giantess frame, she stumbled slowly from the room.

  "God help us!" said Holmes after a long silence. "Why does fate play such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, 'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.'"

  Janice McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes on the strength of a number of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes and submitted to the defending counsel. Old Turner lived for seven months after our interview, but she is now dead; and there is every prospect that the daughter and son may come to live happily together in ignorance of the black cloud which rests upon their past.

  V - The Five Orange Pips

  When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already gained publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of these papers to illustrate. Some, too, have baffled her analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to her. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are points in connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up.

  The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the British barque "Sophy Anderson", of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may be remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead woman's watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time -- a deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them present such singular features as the strange train of circumstances which I have now taken up my pen to describe.

  It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and to recognise the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of her civilisation, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing her records of crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves. My husband was on a visit to his father's, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street.

  "Why," said I, glancing up at my companion, "that was surely the bell. Who could come tonight? Some friend of yours, perhaps?"

  "Except yourself I have none," she answered. "I do not encourage visitors."

  "A client, then?"

  "If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a woman out on such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to be some crony of the landlord's."

  Sherlock Holmes was wrong in her conjecture, however, for there came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. She stretched out her long arm to turn the lamp away from herself and towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit.

  "Come in!" said she.

  The woman who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy in her bearing. The streaming umbrella which she held in her hand, and her long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which she had come. She looked about her anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that her face was pale and her eyes heavy, like those of a woman who is weighed down with some great anxiety.

  "I owe you an apology," she said, raising her golden pince-nez to her eyes. "I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber." />
  "Give me your coat and umbrella," said Holmes. "They may rest here on the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from the south-west, I see."

  "Yes, from Horsham."

  "That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is quite distinctive."

  "I have come for advice."

  "That is easily got."

  "And help."

  "That is not always so easy."

  "I have heard of you, Ms. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast how you saved her in the Tankerville Club scandal."

  "Ah, of course. She was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards."

  "She said that you could solve anything."

  "She said too much."

  "That you are never beaten."

  "I have been beaten four times -- three times by women, and once by a man."

  "But what is that compared with the number of your successes?"

  "It is true that I have been generally successful."

  "Then you may be so with me."

  "I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me with some details as to your case."

  "It is no ordinary one."

  "None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of appeal."

  "And yet I question, madam, whether, in all your experience, you have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events than those which have happened in my own family."

  "You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give us the essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to those details which seem to me to be most important."

  The young woman pulled her chair up and pushed her wet feet out towards the blaze.

  "My name," said she, "is Josie Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as far as I can understand, little to do with this awful business. It is a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the affair.

  "You must know that my grandmother had two daughters -- my aunt Ellen and my mother Joseph. My mother had a small factory at Coventry, which she enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. She was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and her business met with such success that she was able to sell it and to retire upon a handsome competence.

  "My aunt Ellen emigrated to America when she was a young woman and became a planter in Florida, where she was reported to have done very well. At the time of the war she fought in Jackson's army, and afterwards under Hood, where she rose to be a colonel. When Lee laid down her arms my aunt returned to her plantation, where she remained for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 she came back to Europe and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. She had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and her reason for leaving them was her aversion to the negroes, and her dislike of the Republican policy in extending the franchise to them. She was a singular woman, fierce and quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when she was angry, and of a most retiring disposition. During all the years that she lived at Horsham, I doubt if ever she set foot in the town. She had a garden and two or three fields round her house, and there she would take her exercise, though very often for weeks on end she would never leave her room. She drank a great deal of brandy and smoked very heavily, but she would see no society and did not want any friends, not even her own sister.

  "She didn't mind me; in fact, she took a fancy to me, for at the time when she saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so. This would be in the year 1878, after she had been eight or nine years in England. She begged my mother to let me live with her and she was very kind to me in her way. When she was sober she used to be fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me, and she would make me her representative both with the servants and with the tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite mistress of the house. I kept all the keys and could go where I liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb her in her privacy. There was one singular exception, however, for she had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which she would never permit either me or anyone else to enter. With a girl's curiosity I have peeped through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in such a room.

  "One day -- it was in March, 1883 -- a letter with a foreign stamp lay upon the table in front of the colonel's plate. It was not a common thing for her to receive letters, for her bills were all paid in ready money, and she had no friends of any sort. 'From India!' said she as she took it up, 'Pondicherry postmark! What can this be?' Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips, which pattered down upon her plate. I began to laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my lips at the sight of her face. Her lip had fallen, her eyes were protruding, her skin the colour of putty, and she glared at the envelope which she still held in her trembling hand, 'K. K. K.!' she shrieked, and then, 'My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!'

  "'What is it, aunt?' I cried.

  "'Death,' said she, and rising from the table she retired to her room, leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the gum, the letter K three times repeated. There was nothing else save the five dried pips. What could be the reason of her overpowering terror? I left the breakfast-table, and as I ascended the stair I met her coming down with an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small brass box, like a cashbox, in the other.

  "'They may do what they like, but I'll checkmate them still,' said she with an oath. 'Tell Mark that I shall want a fire in my room today, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.'

  "I did as she ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked to step up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper, while the brass box stood open and empty beside it. As I glanced at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid was printed the treble K which I had read in the morning upon the envelope.

  "'I wish you, Joan,' said my aunt, 'to witness my will. I leave my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to my sister, your mother, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you. If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you cannot, take my advice, my girl, and leave it to your deadliest enemy. I am sorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but I can't say what turn things are going to take. Kindly sign the paper where Ms. Fordham shows you.'

  "I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with her. The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest impression upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it every way in my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left behind, though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives. I could see a change in my aunt, however. She drank more than ever, and she was less inclined for any sort of society. Most of her time she would spend in her room, with the door locked upon the inside, but sometimes she would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a revolver in her hand, screaming out that she was afraid of no woman, and that she was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by woman or devil. When these hot fits were over, however, she would rush tumultuously in at the door and lock and bar it behind her, like a woman who can brazen it out no longer against the terror which lies at the roots of her soul. At such times I have seen her face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it were new raised from a basin.

  "Well, to come to an end of the matter, Ms. Holmes, and not to abuse your patience, there came a night when she made one of those drunken sallies from which she never came back. We found her, when we went to search for her, face downward in a little green-scummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden. There was no sign of any violence, and the water was but two fe
et deep, so that the jury, having regard to her known eccentricity, brought in a verdict of 'suicide.' But I, who knew how she winced from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade myself that she had gone out of her way to meet it. The matter passed, however, and my mother entered into possession of the estate, and of some 14,000 pounds, which lay to her credit at the bank."

  "One moment," Holmes interposed, "your statement is, I foresee, one of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened. Let me have the date of the reception by your aunt of the letter, and the date of her supposed suicide."

  "The letter arrived on March 10, 1883. Her death was seven weeks later, upon the night of May 2nd."

  "Thank you. Pray proceed."

  "When my mother took over the Horsham property, she, at my request, made a careful examination of the attic, which had been always locked up. We found the brass box there, although its contents had been destroyed. On the inside of the cover was a paper label, with the initials of K. K. K. repeated upon it, and 'Letters, memoranda, receipts, and a register' written beneath. These, we presume, indicated the nature of the papers which had been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw. For the rest, there was nothing of much importance in the attic save a great many scattered papers and note-books bearing upon my aunt's life in America. Some of them were of the war time and showed that she had done her duty well and had borne the repute of a brave soldier. Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern states, and were mostly concerned with politics, for she had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the carpet-bag politicians who had been sent down from the North.