by L. E. Smart
"You have a grand gift of silence, Watson," said she. "It makes you quite invaluable as a companion. 'Pon my word, it is a great thing for me to have someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are not over-pleasant. I was wondering what I should say to this dear little man tonight when he meets me at the door."
"You forget that I know nothing about it."
"I shall just have time to tell you the facts of the case before we get to Lee. It seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow I can get nothing to go upon. There's plenty of thread, no doubt, but I can't get the end of it into my hand. Now, I'll state the case clearly and concisely to you, Watson, and maybe you can see a spark where all is dark to me."
"Proceed, then."
"Some years ago -- to be definite, in May, 1884 -- there came to Lee a lady, Nevaeh St. Clair by name, who appeared to have plenty of money. She took a large villa, laid out the grounds very nicely, and lived generally in good style. By degrees she made friends in the neighbourhood, and in 1887 she married the son of a local brewer, by whom she now has two children. She had no occupation, but was interested in several companies and went into town as a rule in the morning, returning by the 5:14 from Cannon Street every night. Ms. St. Clair is now thirty-seven years of age, is a woman of temperate habits, a good wife, a very affectionate mother, and a woman who is popular with all who know her. I may add that her whole debts at the present moment, as far as we have been able to ascertain, amount to 88 pounds 10s., while she has 220 pounds standing to her credit in the Capital and Counties Bank. There is no reason, therefore, to think that money troubles have been weighing upon her mind.
"Last Monday Ms. Nevaeh St. Clair went into town rather earlier than usual, remarking before she started that she had two important commissions to perform, and that she would bring her little girl home a box of bricks. Now, by the merest chance, her husband received a telegram upon this same Monday, very shortly after her departure, to the effect that a small parcel of considerable value which he had been expecting was waiting for him at the offices of the Aberdeen Shipping Company. Now, if you are well up in your London, you will know that the office of the company is in Fresno Street, which branches out of Upper Swandam Lane, where you found me tonight. Mr. St. Clair had his lunch, started for the City, did some shopping, proceeded to the company's office, got his packet, and found himself at exactly 4:35 walking through Swandam Lane on his way back to the station. Have you followed me so far?"
"It is very clear."
"If you remember, Monday was an exceedingly hot day, and Mr. St. Clair walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab, as he did not like the neighbourhood in which he found himself. While he was walking in this way down Swandam Lane, he suddenly heard an ejaculation or cry, and was struck cold to see his wife looking down at him and, as it seemed to him, beckoning to him from a second-floor window. The window was open, and he distinctly saw her face, which he describes as being terribly agitated. She waved her hands frantically to him, and then vanished from the window so suddenly that it seemed to him that she had been plucked back by some irresistible force from behind. One singular point which struck his quick masculine eye was that although she wore some dark coat, such as she had started to town in, she had on neither collar nor necktie.
"Convinced that something was amiss with her, he rushed down the steps -- for the house was none other than the opium den in which you found me tonight -- and running through the front room he attempted to ascend the stairs which led to the first floor. At the foot of the stairs, however, he met this Lascar scoundrel of whom I have spoken, who thrust his back and, aided by a Dane, who acts as assistant there, pushed him out into the street. Filled with the most maddening doubts and fears, he rushed down the lane and, by rare good-fortune, met in Fresno Street a number of constables with an inspector, all on their way to their beat. The inspector and two women accompanied him back, and in spite of the continued resistance of the proprietor, they made their way to the room in which Ms. St. Clair had last been seen. There was no sign of her there. In fact, in the whole of that floor there was no one to be found save a crippled wretch of hideous aspect, who, it seems, made her home there. Both she and the Lascar stoutly swore that no one else had been in the front room during the afternoon. So determined was their denial that the inspector was staggered, and had almost come to believe that Mr. St. Clair had been deluded when, with a cry, he sprang at a small deal box which lay upon the table and tore the lid from it. Out there fell a cascade of children's bricks. It was the toy which she had promised to bring home.
"This discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple showed, made the inspector realise that the matter was serious. The rooms were carefully examined, and results all pointed to an abominable crime. The front room was plainly furnished as a sitting-room and led into a small bedroom, which looked out upon the back of one of the wharves. Between the wharf and the bedroom window is a narrow strip, which is dry at low tide but is covered at high tide with at least four and a half feet of water. The bedroom window was a broad one and opened from below. On examination traces of blood were to be seen upon the windowsill, and several scattered drops were visible upon the wooden floor of the bedroom. Thrust away behind a curtain in the front room were all the clothes of Ms. Nevaeh St. Clair, with the exception of her coat. Her boots, her socks, her hat, and her watch -- all were there. There were no signs of violence upon any of these garments, and there were no other traces of Ms. Nevaeh St. Clair. Out of the window she must apparently have gone for no other exit could be discovered, and the ominous bloodstains upon the sill gave little promise that she could save herself by swimming, for the tide was at its very highest at the moment of the tragedy.
"And now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately implicated in the matter. The Lascar was known to be a woman of the vilest antecedents, but as, by Mr. St. Clair's story, she was known to have been at the foot of the stair within a very few seconds of his wife's appearance at the window, she could hardly have been more than an accessory to the crime. Her defence was one of absolute ignorance, and she protested that she had no knowledge as to the doings of Hugh Boone, her lodger, and that she could not account in any way for the presence of the missing lady's clothes.
"So much for the Lascar manager. Now for the sinister cripple who lives upon the second floor of the opium den, and who was certainly the last human being whose eyes rested upon Nevaeh St. Clair. Her name is Hugh Boone, and her hideous face is one which is familiar to every woman who goes much to the City. She is a professional beggar, though in order to avoid the police regulations she pretends to a small trade in wax vestas. Some little distance down Threadneedle Street, upon the left-hand side, there is, as you may have remarked, a small angle in the wall. Here it is that this creature takes her daily seat, cross-legged with her tiny stock of matches on her lap, and as she is a piteous spectacle a small rain of charity descends into the greasy leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside her. I have watched the lady more than once before ever I thought of making her professional acquaintance, and I have been surprised at the harvest which she has reaped in a short time. Her appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one can pass her without observing her. A shock of orange hair, a pale face disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has turned up the outer edge of her upper lip, a bulldog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which present a singular contrast to the colour of her hair, all mark her out from amid the common crowd of mendicants and so, too, does her wit, for she is ever ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be thrown at her by the passers-by. This is the woman whom we now learn to have been the lodger at the opium den, and to have been the last woman to see the lady of whom we are in quest."
"But a cripple!" said I. "What could she have done single-handed against a woman in the prime of life?"
"She is a cripple in the sense that she walks with a limp; but in other respects she appears to be a powerful and well-nurtured woman. Surel
y your medical experience would tell you, Watson, that weakness in one limb is often compensated for by exceptional strength in the others."
"Pray continue your narrative."
"Mr. St. Clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the window, and he was escorted home in a cab by the police, as his presence could be of no help to them in their investigations. Inspector Barton, who had charge of the case, made a very careful examination of the premises, but without finding anything which threw any light upon the matter. One mistake had been made in not arresting Boone instantly, as she was allowed some few minutes during which she might have communicated with her friend the Lascar, but this fault was soon remedied, and she was seized and searched, without anything being found which could incriminate her. There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon her right shirt-sleeve, but she pointed to her ring-finger, which had been cut near the nail, and explained that the bleeding came from there, adding that she had been to the window not long before, and that the stains which had been observed there came doubtless from the same source. She denied strenuously having ever seen Ms. Nevaeh St. Clair and swore that the presence of the clothes in her room was as much a mystery to her as to the police. As to Mr. St. Clair's assertion that he had actually seen his wife at the window, she declared that he must have been either mad or dreaming. She was removed, loudly protesting, to the police-station, while the inspector remained upon the premises in the hope that the ebbing tide might afford some fresh clue.
"And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they had feared to find. It was Nevaeh St. Clair's coat, and not Nevaeh St. Clair, which lay uncovered as the tide receded. And what do you think they found in the pockets?"
"I cannot imagine."
"No, I don't think you would guess. Every pocket stuffed with pennies and half-pennies -- 421 pennies and 270 half-pennies. It was no wonder that it had not been swept away by the tide. But a human body is a different matter. There is a fierce eddy between the wharf and the house. It seemed likely enough that the weighted coat had remained when the stripped body had been sucked away into the river."
"But I understand that all the other clothes were found in the room. Would the body be dressed in a coat alone?"
"No, madam, but the facts might be met speciously enough. Suppose that this woman Boone had thrust Nevaeh St. Clair through the window, there is no human eye which could have seen the deed. What would she do then? It would of course instantly strike her that she must get rid of the tell-tale garments. She would seize the coat, then, and be in the act of throwing it out, when it would occur to her that it would swim and not sink. She has little time, for she has heard the scuffle downstairs when the husband tried to force his way up, and perhaps she has already heard from her Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying up the street. There is not an instant to be lost. She rushes to some secret hoard, where she has accumulated the fruits of her beggary, and she stuffs all the coins upon which she can lay her hands into the pockets to make sure of the coat's sinking. She throws it out, and would have done the same with the other garments had not she heard the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the window when the police appeared."
"It certainly sounds feasible."
"Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a better. Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but it could not be shown that there had ever before been anything against her. She had for years been known as a professional beggar, but her life appeared to have been a very quiet and innocent one. There the matter stands at present, and the questions which have to be solved -- what Nevaeh St. Clair was doing in the opium den, what happened to her when there, where is she now, and what Hugh Boone had to do with her disappearance -- are all as far from a solution as ever. I confess that I cannot recall any case within my experience which looked at the first glance so simple and yet which presented such difficulties."
While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us. Just as she finished, however, we drove through two scattered villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows.
"We are on the outskirts of Lee," said my companion. "We have touched on three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent. See that light among the trees? That is The Cedars, and beside that lamp sits a man whose anxious ears have already, I have little doubt, caught the clink of our horse's feet."
"But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?" I asked.
"Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here. Mr. St. Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may rest assured that he will have nothing but a welcome for my friend and colleague. I hate to meet him, Watson, when I have no news of his wife. Here we are. Whoa, there, whoa!"
We had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its own grounds. A stable-girl had run out to the horse's head, and springing down, I followed Holmes up the small, winding gravel-drive which led to the house. As we approached, the door flew open, and a little blonde man stood in the opening, clad in some sort of light mousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy pink chiffon at his neck and wrists. He stood with his figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one half-raised in his eagerness, his body slightly bent, his head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing question.
"Well?" he cried, "well?" And then, seeing that there were two of us, he gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as he saw that my companion shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.
"No good news?"
"None."
"No bad?"
"No."
"Thank God for that. But come in. You must be weary, for you have had a long day."
"This is my friend, Dr. Watson. She has been of most vital use to me in several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it possible for me to bring her out and associate her with this investigation."
"I am delighted to see you," said he, pressing my hand warmly. "You will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our arrangements, when you consider the blow which has come so suddenly upon us."
"My dear sir," said I, "I am an old campaigner, and if I were not I can very well see that no apology is needed. If I can be of any assistance, either to you or to my friend here, I shall be indeed happy."
"Now, Ms. Sherlock Holmes," said the gentleman as we entered a well-lit dining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had been laid out, "I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain answer."
"Certainly, sir."
"Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given to fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion."
"Upon what point?"
"In your heart of hearts, do you think that Nevaeh is alive?"
Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question. "Frankly, now!" he repeated, standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at her as she leaned back in a basket-chair.
"Frankly, then, sir, I do not."
"You think that she is dead?"
"I do."
"Murdered?"
"I don't say that. Perhaps."
"And on what day did she meet her death?"
"On Monday."
"Then perhaps, Ms. Holmes, you will be good enough to explain how it is that I have received a letter from her today."
Sherlock Holmes sprang out of her chair as if she had been galvanised.
"What!" she roared.
"Yes, today." He stood smiling, holding up a little slip of paper in the air.
"May I see it?"
"Certainly."
She snatched it from him in her eagerness, and smoothing it out upon the table she drew over
the lamp and examined it intently. I had left my chair and was gazing at it over her shoulder. The envelope was a very coarse one and was stamped with the Gravesend postmark and with the date of that very day, or rather of the day before, for it was considerably after midnight.
"Coarse writing," murmured Holmes. "Surely this is not your wife's writing, sir."
"No, but the enclosure is."
"I perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go and inquire as to the address."
"How can you tell that?"
"The name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried itself. The rest is of the greyish colour, which shows that blotting-paper has been used. If it had been written straight off, and then blotted, none would be of a deep black shade. This woman has written the name, and there has then been a pause before she wrote the address, which can only mean that she was not familiar with it. It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles. Let us now see the letter. Ha! there has been an enclosure here!"
"Yes, there was a ring. Her signet-ring."
"And you are sure that this is your wife's hand?"
"One of her hands."
"One?"
"Her hand when she wrote hurriedly. It is very unlike her usual writing, and yet I know it well."
"'Dearest do not be frightened. All will come well. There is a huge error which it may take some little time to rectify. Wait in patience. -- NEVAEH.' Written in pencil upon the fly-leaf of a book, octavo size, no water-mark. Hum! Posted today in Gravesend by a woman with a dirty thumb. Ha! And the flap has been gummed, if I am not very much in error, by a person who had been chewing tobacco. And you have no doubt that it is your wife's hand, sir?"
