“He and Edgar Dobson had entered into a conspiracy with Blackthorn to get that land from you, one way or another. I regret to say this, Mrs. Ascott, but the conspiracy may have existed more than a year ago, even before your marriage.”
A sob caught in her throat at his words. “You mean he married me to gain control of that piece of worthless property?”
“It was not worthless to him. Blackthorn was offering a good deal of money for the land. But William learned to his sorrow that even in the case of your death the land would pass to your sister’s children in America.”
“Do you believe he would have killed me for it?”
“Thankfully, we never had to face that question.”
“But how did you know the butler was really my husband?”
“There were a number of things. Chief among them was my observation that he frequently averted his face when in your presence. Even with the false hair and makeup he used in his days as an amateur actor, he feared recognition. Then there was the obvious fact that he was left-handed, demonstrated when he was cutting the meat and when he grabbed Blackthorn with his left hand. In the photograph of your husband that you showed us, he was tall like Samuels and he was firing a pistol with his left hand.”
“If Blackthorn was in league with them, why was he killed?” I asked.
“Dobson said it was because they were taking too long to complete the transaction. Blackthorn had been patient for a year, and now his orders were to force you to sign the contract by any means possible. Your husband opposed that. This evening when he forcibly removed Blackthorn from our presence, instead of showing him to the door he took him to that sitting room and stabbed him, using the pillow to protect himself from bloodstains. Then, of course, he had to replace the pillow for the Father Christmas costume.”
“But why was William disguised as a butler in the first place?”
“I believe he’d grown truly fond of you during the year of your marriage. As I indicated, he opposed the use of any force against your person, and insisted on being present while you were at Dobson’s house. The butler disguise seemed most practical for his purpose and indeed he did protect you from Blackthorn.”
“Why were they so anxious to buy that worthless land from me?” Elvira Ascott wanted to know.
“It wasn’t worthless to Dobson. It provided him with a connecting link to the sea. Any boats bringing men to Dobson’s estate needed that strip of land to deliver the men without raising a premature alarm.”
“Boats?”
“Blackthorn was an agent of the German government. He carried a list of the boat numbers in his notebook. The word boot means boat in German.”
“You mean Germans would have been landing here?” I asked.
Sherlock Holmes nodded. “In large numbers. Our dinner companion tonight, Mr. Childers, suggested that very thing. He was more correct than he knew. But here, I believe our train is approaching at last!”
Ascott and Dobson were convicted of murder and conspiracy, and the German angle to the investigation was never made public. It was not until three years later that our dinner companion Erskine Childers wrote a fictionized version of his suspicions involving a German invasion, titled The Riddle of the Sands. It became his most successful novel.
THE MUSIC OF CHRISTMAS
L. B. Greenwood
As I am sure many of my readers know, my wife and I have not been blessed with children. Perhaps this is why we have always chosen to spend Christmas Day alone together, with our own little ritual. We breakfast late, attend church in the afternoon, and then dine out at some more luxurious restaurant than we would ordinarly patronize.
Usually we attend St. John’s, convenient as it is to our Bayswater home. For the Christmas of which I write, however, we were going to St. Goddard’s because of the pressing invitation of a young patient of mine.
The Carmichaels live half a dozen roads from us, and five years ago I attended the father during his last illness. Mrs. Carmichael was left with a daughter of ten and a son of nine years and very limited finances.
The boy, Hampton, had always been his mother’s favourite, and after his father’s death he quickly became quite the lord and master of the household. Local schooling was decreed quite insufficient, and Hampton was sent to Garton, to mix with sons of the well-to-do. This necessitated stringent conditions at home for both mother and Emily, willingly made. Hampton had new school uniforms, Emily gowns made from her mother’s old garments; both children had excellent voices, but I never heard of Emily’s having lessons.
So matters stood in the spring of the year of which I write when Emily contracted typhoid fever. She had inherited her father’s weak chest, and for a month I was seriously concerned. Her recovery was slow, her body frail, her spirit weary.
Accordingly, when at Michaelmas she asked my wife and me to attend St. Goddard’s for evensong on Christmas, I couldn’t refuse. The girl’s thin cheeks were glowing with excitement, for Hampton was coming home! Not because of his mother and sister: He would have much preferred to spend his holidays with one of his numerous friends in the Upper Sixth, two forms above his own. He was coming home because the vicar himself had written to ask him to sing a solo in the special music that was being presented, with the collection to go toward a badly needed new organ.
For this, the organist had searched out a nearly unknown cantata from the sixteenth century, “God the Father, Christ the Son.” Very moving, I was told by Mrs. Carmichael, yet simple, well within the capabilities of St. Goddard’s choir except for the concluding solo by a boy soprano. None of the regular eight boys could sustain this part; for this only Hampton would do.
So, on this Christmas afternoon, Mary and I were attending evensong at St. Goddard’s in order to hear Hampton sing.
* * *
St. Goddard’s is a structure of a kind common in London. Of grey stone in a modified Gothic style, not large and without a single outstanding feature, St. Goddard’s has been left behind by history and now serves a congregation that ordinarily does little more than half fill it.
Today, however, was quite evidently to be different: Though Mary and I arrived early, we yet had to look for places near the front.
“Good afternoon, Doctor, Mrs. Watson.” There was Holmes, sitting near the left of the two pillars, three pews from the altar.
We exchanged seasonal greetings as Mary and I took seats next to him. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” I remarked.
“I have never heard this cantata performed before,” Holmes explained. “In fact, I am sure few have, for it is one of the neglected treasures of the Church. Do you think this young Hampton Carmichael is capable of the demands of the solo? It is considerably more intricate than the choral section.”
“His mother and sister assure me that he is,” I said, a trifle sourly. “I haven’t myself heard him for over a year; certainly the spoilt young coxcomb had a glorious voice then.”
While we were speaking, all the seats around us had been claimed, by a well dressed and expectant throng. Obviously Holmes was not the only one attracted by the special music.
The organ began a processional (the instrument was indeed in poor condition), the vicar entered from the door to the left of the altar, and the black-gowned choir from the door to the right. Twelve men and nine boys mounted the three steps to the dais, young Carmichael’s sleek, fair head gleaming briefly as he passed under the flaring lamp on the organ.
“Let us pray,” the vicar began, and proceded to lead us through the traditional celebration of the holy day. The Gospel According to St. Luke was read, “God Rest Ye Merry” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” were sung, and the collection taken up. I was pleased to see that both plates carefully carried by the verger into the music room were well heaped, with coins peeking out from a large number of notes. The vicar gave a short address, inviting us to unite in the precious beauty of the day, and took his seat. The rest of the service was up to the choir.
The basses began a solemn ode
to the love of the Almighty, and the tenors added joyous praise of Christ’s sacrifice. The two great themes were then woven together in a harmony that was not elaborate yet was strangely haunting.
Briefly a hush fell, and then from the centre of the front row young Carmichael’s voice lifted in glorious praise. It filled the nave and rose to caress the vaulted beams above, sweet, clear and effortless. I could not help thinking that his mother and sister’s darling knew little of either love or sacrifice, yet there was no doubt that he could sing.
As the concluding note rang forth, I felt Holmes abruptly stiffen, felt too a tingle of surprise touch here and there among the audience. Even I could tell that that final sound, held perilously long and yet true, dying away under perfect control to the very end, was unexpectedly sombre in resonance. It was at once sad, even tragic, frail as black crystal, and left behind a momentarily stunned audience.
“Let us pray.”
The vicar had stepped back into the pulpit and gave the benediction. The organ renewed the processional, and we all stood and ceremoniously turned toward the aisle as the vicar made his way between us toward the main doors. Behind him the choir marched back to the music room. By the clatter, the boys’ decorum had begun to break down before they had even left the dais. Well, I thought tolerantly, after all it was Christmas, with supper and the evening’s festivities ahead.
“Here, you young varmints, what’ve you been up to?”
This yell, strident and, after that music, sacriligous in its effect, had come from the music room. “Where’ve you hid the money? None of you is going anywhere until you cough it up. Now then!”
Some of the congregation had already left the church, the rest were in a throng that had been jovial near the doors. A shocked silence fell on us all, and, as my startled gaze turned back toward the music room, for the first time that afternoon I noticed Emily.
She must have been sitting somewhere at the front, I thought, as of course she would be, as close as she could get to her beloved brother in his moment of triumph. She was now hesitating at the beginning of the main aisle, the dark red plush of her dress and bonnet draining all colour from her thin face. The garments were worn and too small, the skirt hardly covering her ankles or the sleeves her gloved wrists, and the voluminous mantle was a houndstooth drapery that obviously belonged to her mother.
“Vicar!”
That gentleman had already started back down the aisle; this renewed shout from the verger brought him to near running. As he hastened by us, Mary asked in bewilderment, “Whatever can have happened, John? What do you think, Mr. Holmes?”
The last word instantly halted the vicar. “Mr. Holmes! How providential! We have never met, sir, but of course your reputation . . . If you could possibly be so good as to wait a moment? No doubt there is some simple mistake, yet . . .”
“I’ll come with you, shall I?” Holmes suggested with a resigned sigh. “And you too, doctor, if Mrs. Watson will permit.”
That best of wives agreed at once. I insisted on escorting her to sit with Mrs. Carmichael and Emily, promising to return as soon as I could with news.
Events prevented me from fulfilling this vow.
By the time I caught up with Holmes, the organist had left his instrument to join the choir in the music room, and the vicar had held a hasty conference with the verger. He turned to us with tight face.
“Mr. Holmes, I fear this is indeed serious, very. A matter for the police, in fact, only . . . Surely we can avoid that!
“Simply put, the whole contents of the collection plates have vanished. Vanished somehow during the latter part of the service from the music room. It seems impossible, yet here are the empty plates,” (these the verger was holding with shaking hands) “and abundant witnesses that they were empty when the choir re-entered the room.
“I’m sure you both saw, as the whole congregation did,” the vicar went on, his voice trembling, “the verger carry the full plates into that room—that empty room—at the conclusion of the offertory. He did, as he says (and there is no reason to doubt him, none), as he always does, placed the plates on top of the music cabinet in the corner.
“Ordinarily he would wait until the service was over and the choir dispersed before he would attend to the monies—count and record them and give the whole to me. Today, because of its being Christmas, he naturally wished to leave more promptly, and asked if he could take the plates at once into the vestry and finish his work there.”
“The vestry is . . .”
“On the left side of the altar. I leave my coat and hat there. It’s a miserable hole,” the vicar added, “not much used otherwise.”
Holmes stared into space for a thoughtful moment, then took up the lamp from the organ and moved slowly through the choir stalls, the shadows jumping around him in haunting fashion. “I can see nothing of interest,” he commented. “If you will be so good, vicar, ask the choir members to take their seats here again so that I can examine the music room.”
The organist quickly led in his twelve men and nine boys, all looking serious, most puzzled, the boys apprehensive. Hampton Carmichael was scowling. No doubt he feels that his merited triumph is being spoiled, I thought, and the sprig is right. Even the glory of his voice seemed to mean little at that moment.
The music room was a mere frame cornering off a prepatory space for the choir, no windows and only the one door. On the floor was very worn drugget; numerous straight chairs were pushed helter-skelter around a battered stand near the walls. In the far corner was the music cabinet, five feet high, with six interior shelves overflowing with piles of sheet music.
To the immediate left of the entry was a large cupboard for the choir gowns. The door facing us opened onto the boys’ section, that near the music cabinet onto the men’s. Only some old gowns hanging at the back of the rod marked the division between the two.
Holmes made a close survey of the room, spending several minutes in the cupboard. “The carpet is quite dusty in the middle area,” he observed as he emerged.
“I don’t suppose anyone has gone that far inside for years,” the vicar apologized, “and our caretaker is rather rheumatic.”
“Like the organ,” Holmes observed, wiping his hands on his handkerchief. “Now if the choir would come in one at a time, starting with the organist—”
“Mr. Holmes . . .”
The hesitant voice had come from the doorway: the verger, a small thin man with desperate eyes and haggard face.
“If you’ll all excuse me for pushing myself forward like this,” he began in a tremulous voice, “there’s something I’ve got to tell Mr. Holmes. It’s this, sir: You mustn’t pay any attention to what I said at first. What I . . . well, shouted, sir.”
“You mean, ‘Here, you young varmints, what’ve you been up to? Where’ve you hid the money?’”
The verger gulped, though he answered promptly and stoutly. “Yes sir. Because I’d no right to have said any such thing. It was just . . . I was that upset, sir. My head had been so high, you see, because those plates were full. Piled up, you might say.
“This is what you might call a sixpenny congregation ordinarily, sir, but they’d done their church proud today. And there was a lot of visitors of the better-off kind too. Come for the special music, no doubt, and they got their money’s worth, for that boy sang a treat.”
“How much money was there in total, do you think?”
“I’d say a hundred pounds, easy, sir. Why, there were fivers sticking out all over.”
“Well worth stealing, in other words.”
I shrank at the suggestion behind Holmes’s blunt words, for who else except the verger had been in the music room since the choir left? And there was only the one door, no windows.
The man didn’t hesitate. “Well worth stealing, sir. But the boys didn’t do it, sir, none of ’em. They were larking about like they always do, only more so, this being Christmas, and so I yelled what I did. But it was only the shock that made me s
ay it, sir, nothing else.
“Well, you saw things for yourself, sir. The boys were all out of the room—and the rest of the choir too—before I even took up the collection, much less put the plates on the music cabinet.
“And, just for the sake of argument, say they were all in some plot to make away with the money afterward, they didn’t have time to do it. I was right on their heels going back into the room, you see, and they wouldn’t have expected me so soon, either.”
“Did you notice anything unusual during the whole service?”
“Not that would matter, sir. Just little Wilkins—he’s only nine, the youngest of the boys—slipped out of the line on the way back into the room, and ran to his grandmother for a quick hug. She was sitting at the front to the right there, no doubt on purpose. He came running back so fast that he quite barged by me in the doorway.”
“On which side was the boy?”
“Why, on my left, sir.”
“I see. Thank you.”
“Thank you, sir. I only hope . . .”
“We’ll do our best,” Holmes replied. Was that assurance or threat?
After the little man had gone, Holmes turned a questioning look on the vicar. “Your verger: What kind of man is he?”
“An unfortunate one, Mr. Holmes. A sick wife, a son injured in an accident, a daughter who is . . . not living as she should. And I won’t deny that the man had the opportunity to have stuffed the collection money into his coat while he was alone in the music room, and to have hidden it goodness knows where since.
“But for all that he is innocent, Mr. Holmes. I would stake more than the contents of the collection plate on that.”
“Certainly,” Holmes said reflectively, “I have myself evidence of his truthfulness in a small matter. I noticed little Wilkins dash up to an elderly woman in black, exchange a quick hug and rush back. And as he scrambled by the verger, the boy was indeed on his left.
“Well, we must continue. If the organist would be so good as to come in, and ask the choir to follow one at a time.”
More Holmes for the Holidays Page 14
