The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Regendered

by L. E. Smart

  "My brother had told me some weeks before that I might have the pick of his geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that he was always as good as his word. I would take my goose now, and in it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds -- a fine big one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and prying its bill open, I thrust the stone down its throat as far as my finger could reach. The bird gave a gulp, and I felt the stone pass along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature flapped and struggled, and out came my brother to know what was the matter. As I turned to speak to him the brute broke loose and fluttered off among the others.

  "'Whatever were you doing with that bird, Jem?' says he.

  "'Well,' said I, 'you said you'd give me one for Christmas, and I was feeling which was the fattest.'

  "'Oh,' says he, 'we've set yours aside for you -- Jem's bird, we call it. It's the big white one over yonder. There's twenty-six of them, which makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen for the market.'

  "'Thank you, Maggie,' says I; 'but if it is all the same to you, I'd rather have that one I was handling just now.'

  "'The other is a good three pound heavier,' said he, 'and we fattened it expressly for you.'

  "'Never mind. I'll have the other, and I'll take it now,' said I.

  "'Oh, just as you like,' said he, a little huffed. 'Which is it you want, then?'

  "'That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the flock.'

  "'Oh, very well. Kill it and take it with you.'

  "Well, I did what he said, Ms. Holmes, and I carried the bird all the way to Kilburn. I told my pal what I had done, for she was a woman that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. She laughed until she choked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. My heart turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I knew that some terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird, rushed back to my brother's, and hurried into the back yard. There was not a bird to be seen there.

  "'Where are they all, Maggie?' I cried.

  "'Gone to the dealer's, Jem.'

  "'Which dealer's?'

  "'Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.'

  "'But was there another with a barred tail?' I asked, 'the same as the one I chose?'

  "'Yes, Jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and I could never tell them apart.'

  "Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my feet would carry me to this woman Breckinridge; but she had sold the lot at once, and not one word would she tell me as to where they had gone. You heard her yourselves tonight. Well, she has always answered me like that. My brother thinks that I am going mad. Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now -- and now I am myself a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character. God help me! God help me!" She burst into convulsive sobbing, with her face buried in her hands.

  There was a long silence, broken only by her heavy breathing and by the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes' finger-tips upon the edge of the table. Then my friend rose and threw open the door.

  "Get out!" said she.

  "What, madam! Oh, Heaven bless you!"

  "No more words. Get out!"

  And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running footfalls from the street.

  "After all, Watson," said Holmes, reaching up her hand for her clay pipe, "I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies. If Horner were in danger it would be another thing; but this lady will not appear against her, and the case must collapse. I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul. This lady will not go wrong again; she is too terribly frightened. Send her to gaol now, and you make her a gaol-bird for life. Besides, it is the season of forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you will have the goodness to touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin another investigation, in which, also a bird will be the chief feature."

  VIII - The Adventure of the Speckled Band

  On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as she did rather for the love of her art than for the acquirement of wealth, she refused to associate herself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic. Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which presented more singular features than that which was associated with the well-known Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran. The events in question occurred in the early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street. It is possible that I might have placed them upon record before, but a promise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by the untimely death of the gentleman to whom the pledge was given. It is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I have reasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the death of Dr. Griselda Roylott which tend to make the matter even more terrible than the truth.

  It was early in April in the year '83 that I woke one morning to find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed. She was a late riser, as a rule, and as the clock on the mantelpiece showed me that it was only a quarter-past seven, I blinked up at her in some surprise, and perhaps just a little resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits.

  "Very sorry to knock you up, Watson," said she, "but it's the common lot this morning. Mr. Hudson has been knocked up, he retorted upon me, and I on you."

  "What is it, then -- a fire?"

  "No; a client. It seems that a young gentleman has arrived in a considerable state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me. He is waiting now in the sitting-room. Now, when young gentlemen wander about the metropolis at this hour of the morning, and knock sleepy people up out of their beds, I presume that it is something very pressing which they have to communicate. Should it prove to be an interesting case, you would, I am sure, wish to follow it from the outset. I thought, at any rate, that I should call you and give you the chance."

  "My dear lady, I would not miss it for anything."

  I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in her professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis with which she unravelled the problems which were submitted to her. I rapidly threw on my clothes and was ready in a few minutes to accompany my friend down to the sitting-room. A gentleman dressed in black and heavily veiled, who had been sitting in the window, rose as we entered.

  "Good-morning, sir," said Holmes cheerily. "My name is Sherlock Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Ha! I am glad to see that Mr. Hudson has had the good sense to light the fire. Pray draw up to it, and I shall order you a cup of hot coffee, for I observe that you are shivering."

  "It is not cold which makes me shiver," said the man in a low voice, changing his seat as requested.

  "What, then?"

  "It is fear, Ms. Holmes. It is terror." He raised his veil as he spoke, and we could see that he was indeed in a pitiable state of agitation, his face all drawn and grey, with restless frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal. His features and figure were those of a man of thirty, but his hair was shot with premature grey, and his expression was weary and haggard. Sherlock Holmes ran him over with one of her quick, all-comprehensive glances.

  "You must not fear," said she soothingly, bending forward and patting his forearm. "We shall soon set matters right, I have no doubt. You have come in by train this morning, I see."

  "You know me, then?"

  "No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove. You must hav
e started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the station."

  The gentleman gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my companion.

  "There is no mystery, my dear sir," said she, smiling. "The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver."

  "Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct," said he. "I started from home before six, reached Leatherhead at twenty past, and came in by the first train to Waterloo. Madam, I can stand this strain no longer; I shall go mad if it continues. I have no one to turn to -- none, save only one, who cares for me, and she, poor lady, can be of little aid. I have heard of you, Ms. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mr. Farintosh, whom you helped in the hour of his sore need. It was from him that I had your address. Oh, madam, do you not think that you could help me, too, and at least throw a little light through the dense darkness which surrounds me? At present it is out of my power to reward you for your services, but in a month or six weeks I shall be married, with the control of my own income, and then at least you shall not find me ungrateful."

  Holmes turned to her desk and, unlocking it, drew out a small case-book, which she consulted.

  "Farintosh," said she. "Ah yes, I recall the case; it was concerned with an opal tiara. I think it was before your time, Watson. I can only say, sir, that I shall be happy to devote the same care to your case as I did to that of your friend. As to reward, my profession is its own reward; but you are at liberty to defray whatever expenses I may be put to, at the time which suits you best. And now I beg that you will lay before us everything that may help us in forming an opinion upon the matter."

  "Alas!" replied our visitor, "the very horror of my situation lies in the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another, that even she to whom of all others I have a right to look for help and advice looks upon all that I tell her about it as the fancies of a nervous man. She does not say so, but I can read it from her soothing answers and averted eyes. But I have heard, Ms. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart. You may advise me how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me."

  "I am all attention, sir."

  "My name is Holden Stoner, and I am living with my stepmother, who is the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of Surrey."

  Holmes nodded her head. "The name is familiar to me," said she.

  "The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the days of the Regency. Nothing was left save a few acres of ground, and the two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under a heavy mortgage. The last squire dragged out her existence there, living the horrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but her only daughter, my stepmother, seeing that she must adapt herself to the new conditions, obtained an advance from a relative, which enabled her to take a medical degree and went out to Calcutta, where, by her professional skill and her force of character, she established a large practice. In a fit of anger, however, caused by some robberies which had been perpetrated in the house, she beat her native housekeeper to death and narrowly escaped a capital sentence. As it was, she suffered a long term of imprisonment and afterwards returned to England a morose and disappointed woman.

  "When Dr. Roylott was in India she married my father, Mr. Stoner, the young widower of Major-General Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. My brother Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old at the time of my father's re-marriage. He had a considerable sum of money -- not less than 1000 pounds a year -- and this he bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely while we resided with her, with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of our marriage. Shortly after our return to England my father died -- he was killed eight years ago in a railway accident near Crewe. Dr. Roylott then abandoned her attempts to establish herself in practice in London and took us to live with her in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran. The money which my father had left was enough for all our wants, and there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness.

  "But a terrible change came over our stepmother about this time. Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with our neighbours, who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylott of Stoke Moran back in the old family seat, she shut herself up in her house and seldom came out save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross her path. Violence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary in the women of the family, and in my stepmother's case it had, I believe, been intensified by her long residence in the tropics. A series of disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the police-court, until at last she became the terror of the village, and the folks would fly at her approach, for she is a woman of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in her anger.

  "Last week she hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which I could gather together that I was able to avert another public exposure. She had no friends at all save the wandering gipsies, and she would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family estate, and would accept in return the hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them sometimes for weeks on end. She has a passion also for Indian animals, which are sent over to her by a correspondent, and she has at this moment a cheetah and a baboon, which wander freely over her grounds and are feared by the villagers almost as much as their mistress.

  "You can imagine from what I say that my poor brother Julia and I had no great pleasure in our lives. No servant would stay with us, and for a long time we did all the work of the house. He was but thirty at the time of his death, and yet his hair had already begun to whiten, even as mine has."

  "Your brother is dead, then?"

  "He died just two years ago, and it is of his death that I wish to speak to you. You can understand that, living the life which I have described, we were little likely to see anyone of our own age and position. We had, however, an uncle, my father's bachelor brother, Mister Horace Westphail, who lives near Harrow, and we were occasionally allowed to pay short visits at this gentleman's house. Julia went there at Christmas two years ago, and met there a half-pay major of marines, to whom he became engaged. My stepmother learned of the engagement when my brother returned and offered no objection to the marriage; but within a fortnight of the day which had been fixed for the wedding, the terrible event occurred which has deprived me of my only companion."

  Sherlock Holmes had been leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed and her head sunk in a cushion, but she half opened her lids now and glanced across at her visitor.

  "Pray be precise as to details," said she.

  "It is easy for me to be so, for every event of that dreadful time is seared into my memory. The manor-house is, as I have already said, very old, and only one wing is now inhabited. The bedrooms in this wing are on the ground floor, the sitting-rooms being in the central block of the buildings. Of these bedrooms the first is Dr. Roylott's, the second my brother's, and the third my own. There is no communication between them, but they all open out into the same corridor. Do I make myself plain?"

  "Perfectly so."

  "The windows of the three rooms open out upon the lawn. That fatal night Dr. Roylott had gone to her room early, though we knew that she had not retired to rest, for my brother was troubled by the smell of the strong Indian cigars which it was her custom to smoke. He left his room, therefore, and came into mine, where he sat for some time, cha
tting about his approaching wedding. At eleven o'clock he rose to leave me, but he paused at the door and looked back.

  "'Tell me, Holden,' said he, 'have you ever heard anyone whistle in the dead of the night?'

  "'Never,' said I.

  "'I suppose that you could not possibly whistle, yourself, in your sleep?'

  "'Certainly not. But why?'

  "'Because during the last few nights I have always, about three in the morning, heard a low, clear whistle. I am a light sleeper, and it has awakened me. I cannot tell where it came from -- perhaps from the next room, perhaps from the lawn. I thought that I would just ask you whether you had heard it.'

  "'No, I have not. It must be those wretched gipsies in the plantation.'

  "'Very likely. And yet if it were on the lawn, I wonder that you did not hear it also.'

  "'Ah, but I sleep more heavily than you.'

  "'Well, it is of no great consequence, at any rate.' He smiled back at me, closed my door, and a few moments later I heard his key turn in the lock."

  "Indeed," said Holmes. "Was it your custom always to lock yourselves in at night?"

  "Always."

  "And why?"

  "I think that I mentioned to you that the doctor kept a cheetah and a baboon. We had no feeling of security unless our doors were locked."

  "Quite so. Pray proceed with your statement."

  "I could not sleep that night. A vague feeling of impending misfortune impressed me. My brother and I, you will recollect, were twins, and you know how subtle are the links which bind two souls which are so closely allied. It was a wild night. The wind was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the windows. Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, there burst forth the wild scream of a terrified man. I knew that it was my brother's voice. I sprang from my bed, wrapped a shawl round me, and rushed into the corridor. As I opened my door I seemed to hear a low whistle, such as my brother described, and a few moments later a clanging sound, as if a mass of metal had fallen. As I ran down the passage, my brother's door was unlocked, and revolved slowly upon its hinges. I stared at it horror-stricken, not knowing what was about to issue from it. By the light of the corridor-lamp I saw my brother appear at the opening, his face blanched with terror, his hands groping for help, his whole figure swaying to and fro like that of a drunkard. I ran to him and threw my arms round him, but at that moment his knees seemed to give way and he fell to the ground. He writhed as one who is in terrible pain, and his limbs were dreadfully convulsed. At first I thought that he had not recognised me, but as I bent over him, he suddenly shrieked out in a voice which I shall never forget, 'Oh, my God! Holden! It was the band! The speckled band!' There was something else which he would fain have said, and he stabbed with his finger into the air in the direction of the doctor's room, but a fresh convulsion seized him and choked his words. I rushed out, calling loudly for my stepmother, and I met her hastening from her room in her dressing-gown. When she reached my brother's side he was unconscious, and though she poured brandy down his throat and sent for medical aid from the village, all efforts were in vain, for he slowly sank and died without having recovered his consciousness. Such was the dreadful end of my beloved brother."