“Certainly, Mr. Holmes,” the vicar replied willingly, “and I will stay in the stalls until you are finished. The boys are probably becoming somewhat restive.”
The organist was a tall man of perhaps fifty years, with a gentle manner of which the boys no doubt took full advantage. He told us frankly and immediately that he had no explanation for the disappearance of the money. All he could be positive of was that his choir, men and boys, including Carmichael, had remained in their places from beginning to end of the service.
He added, with reason, that he was sure that the whole congregation would confirm his statement.
As for the solo, the organist agreed that young Carmichael had sung superbly and that that final note, a high E flat, had been quite a surprise.
“The key of the piece,” the master explained, “is C, with the concluding chord and final soprano note the same. Turning that note into an E flat meant a venture into a minor chord that was most interesting, almost a . . . a comment on the whole cantata, wasn’t it?”
“A most unusual one,” Holmes suggested.
“Well, yes, I agree. Of course the boy shouldn’t have made such a change on his own, and I shall certainly speak to him about it, but . . . He was showing off a little, and why not?” The organist was smiling. “He had sung like an angel, and it is Christmas.”
After him came a parade, one by one, of the choir, starting with the adult members. They only confirmed what we already knew.
Several had seen little Wilkins slip out of line during the choir’s return processional. The only other boy they had especially noticed was naturally Carmichael, whom they had congratulated in passing as they moved by the crowd of boys to the back of the room. He had kept his eyes down, with a nervous little smile on his face; if he had said anything they hadn’t noted it. The rest of the junior choir was “prancing around like Indians,” as one of the older tenors resignedly commented, in any case.
The boys followed, starting at Holmes’s request with little Wilkins.
The lad was quite on edge, obviously fearful that he was in for what he would doubtless have called a jawing for his leaving his place in line. Assured that we at least considered this a forgiveable sin, he told us that everything had gone “proper, like, sir” and that Carmichael had sung “jolly good.”
“At least,” the boy added in that judicious way of his age, “he did in the solo.”
“Not during the choir’s part?”
“He was awfully soft, sir; I hardly heard him at all. P’rhaps he was saving himself for that high note—it was ever so splendid, wasn’t it, sir?”
“It was indeed. You were the last boy to return to the music room, weren’t you? Where was Carmichael when you entered, did you notice?”
“Just sort of standing near the door, sir.”
“The cupboard door? Or the door at the room?”
“Both, sir, he was just inside the doorway. There was a terrible scrum going on, sir.”
“No doubt. Is that all you have to tell us, Wilkins?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Quite sure?”
“Yes, sir.” And he would say no more, though he shuffled his feet a great deal under Holmes’s continued questioning, and in a few moments was dismissed.
“That lad is holding something back,” Holmes remarked, “though quite possibly it is of consequence only to himself. Now for the rest of the boys. We will leave Carmichael to the last, I think.”
The young choir members dutifully paraded in, without adding much fresh information. A couple of those at the rear had noticed little Wilkins in his abrupt leaving of the procession; none could remember when he returned. They had been too anxious to get their robes off and be on their way home.
“It’s Christmas, sir,” they said pleadingly, one after the other. Holmes gave them apologies for their being kept at the church, but made no promises of a quick end to our common ordeal.
Finally only Carmichael was left.
“Have you any theory as yet, Holmes?” I asked before the boy entered.
“Oh yes, doctor, a very fine theory. The problem is that at the moment it appears impossible. After the choir left this room, only the verger came in until they returned at the service’s end, with the verger right behind them: true. But suppose there was someone in the room all the time, someone no one saw?”
“Not hidden in the cupboard!” I exclaimed.
Holmes nodded. “In that middle section, behind those old choir gowns.”
“Then where did he go? And how? He certainly isn’t still in here.”
“How do you know?”
“I . . .” I got up, marched to the cupboard door in the men’s section, pushed my way past the gowns and emerged from the boys’ area. “There is no one in there, Holmes.”
He chuckled. “Not now, no. Ah, Carmichael.” Holmes’ tone became immediately very man-to-man. “I’m afraid the disappearance of the collection money is still a mystery; unfortunately most people are not particularly good observers. Did you by any chance notice anything out of the ordinary?”
“I don’t think so, sir. Of course I haven’t been a regular part of the choir since I’ve been at Garton.”
“Naturally. A good school, is it?”
“Ripping, sir!” There was no doubt about his enthusiasm.
“Strong in music, I suppose?”
“There’s a music master,” the boy replied quite indifferently, “and he helped me with the solo for today. But music really isn’t important, is it, sir?”
“I suppose you find sports of greater interest.”
“Not particularly, sir.”
“Then what do you most like about Garton?”
“Being among real gentlemen, sir” was the astonishing answer. “The upperclass fellows are super chaps, into everything. A couple of them asked me to go home with them for Christmas, but I had to come home because of the cantata. They couldn’t have put it on without me, you see.”
I longed to smack the conceited young ass.
“Why did you turn that final chord into a minor key?”
“I just thought I would, sir. A surprise, you know. For Christmas.”
Holmes said nothing for a moment, then abruptly asked, “Had your father picked out Garton for you before he died?”
“Oh no, sir, he was only a shopkeeper. I know that’s not the thing to say, but it’s true. It’s terribly good of the Upper Sixth to pay any attention to me at all; they’re awfully upper, you know. Is there anything else, sir?”
With which he left.
“Well, Watson?” Holmes leaned back in the rickety old straight chair in which he was seated.
“That boy is on the path to utter ruination,” I answered, disgusted, “and his well meaning mother and sister are hastening him on his way.”
“No doubt. As for the collection money, who do you think took it?”
“I could far more readily give you a list of everyone who couldn’t have,” I replied ruefully, “starting with the vicar. And going on to the organist, the whole choir, and the complete congregation.”
“Always excepting the verger?”
“Yes,” I had to admit, with heavy heart. “I’m afraid so.”
“Come,” Holmes rose, “let us look at the vestry.”
“Why?” I protested, though I too had risen. “After the vicar came out, no one else went near the place. We could see that ourselves.”
“Strictly speaking, Watson,” Holmes said judiciously, leading the way out, “I don’t think that is true. At the conclusion of the service, the whole congregation rose; as the vicar started toward the doors at the back of the church, we all turned to face him as he passed. Would you then have noticed small movement of some kind at the front?”
“Perhaps not,” I conceded, “though surely the choir would have as they filed out.”
“That might depend on what the movements were. Only those nearest him paid any attention to little Wilkins, for instance.”
We passed in front of the choir, silently sitting in their stalls; the men looked weary and resigned, the boys weary and subdued. The vicar was stalwartly sitting beside the verger, huddled in a corner of a front pew. Matters did not look good for that poor little man: I was sure that, if he were guilty (and it seemed that he must be), he had been driven to it by need.
The vestry was exactly as the vicar had described, a miserable place. Small, with arched windows at the left and back, admitting more gloom than light at this late hour of a short day. On the floor was more of the worn drugget; furnishings consisted of a much-chipped deal table and two sagging upholstered chairs, on one of which rested the vicar’s overcoat and hat. On a wall shelf perched a discoloured brass candlestick with a pair of half burned candles.
These Holmes lit and began to explore the room. “Clean,” he observed.
“Why not?” I agreed tiredly. “It’s so bare that it wouldn’t take even a rheumatic caretaker more than half an hour to do.”
“Quite so.” Holmes was stooping to look behind the chairs. “What do we have here?” He rose with two straight pins in his fingers.
“Perhaps the young ladies of the congregation hold drawing sessions here,” I suggested, “awful though this room is.”
“These aren’t artist’s pins, doctor, merely the ordinary variety that a seamstress holds between her teeth as she works.”
“They could have been here for weeks.”
“I think not: the carpet has been recently well swept, and these pins were lying right on top of the pile—it is somewhat longer behind the chairs. I cannot see what importance the pins have, yet I shall keep them.” Holmes dropped them into one of his ever ready small envelopes and pocketed it. “Now I think we must have another talk with little Wilkins. There is something more he could say, I am sure.”
On our way back to the music room Holmes called the boy to follow. Once the door was shut behind us, Holmes said seriously, “I think, Wilkins, you have something else to tell us.” The boy looked quite wretched. “Come, tell us.”
“I don’t want to get anybody into trouble, sir.”
“Does your secret have something to do with the missing money?”
“Oh no, sir. I don’t know anything about that. I don’t, really, sir.”
“Then what have you to tell me?” Holmes’s tone was kindly, even fatherly.
“Just that . . . while I was coming back here after the service, sir, somebody said . . . ‘damn,’ sir. I wasn’t more than inside the room, sir.”
“Shocking. Who was it, do you know?”
The boy shook his head. “I didn’t see anybody, sir, not separate. We were all pushing and bumping around, trying to get to the cupboard to get our gowns off first. It must have been one of them, sir, because there wasn’t anybody else near.”
“Not the verger? You bumped together getting into the room, didn’t you?”
“Only for a second, like, sir, and then he was off toward the music cabinet. It was after that, right after, that I heard it. And the verger wouldn’t swear, sir. Not in church he wouldn’t, anyway.”
“You mentioned before seeing Carmichael. Could this terrible word have been said by him?”
“Oh no, sir. He was right in front of me, and the . . . the word came sort of to my left.”
“Was the voice that of a man or boy?”
“I don’t know, sir. It was just a whisper. Sort of under your breath.”
Holmes thanked the boy, let him out, and returned to the old chair against the wall. He sat teetering there, frowning.
“Holmes,” I said finally, “I must ask that Mrs. Carmichael be allowed to take Emily home. The girl is still far from strong, and a long confinement in this chill could seriously worsen her condition.”
Holmes was staring at me. “Hampton’s sister has been ill?”
“I was seriously concerned for her life last spring. Typhoid fever, and her recovery has been very slow. I fear the household finances are so stringent now that Hampton is going to school that Emily is not receiving as much nourishing food as she needs. Mary takes fruit and other—”
Holmes had let the front legs of the chair drop to the floor with a thud. He sat so for several seconds, silent and still. “Typhoid,” he murmured. “Dust in the gown cupboard. Pins on the vestry carpet. Of course. And that concluding E flat . . . I have been much puzzled by that.”
He rose, opened the music room door and called. “Carmichael! Would you bring your sister in here for a moment.”
Poor Emily looked like a ten-year-old waif, so thin and pale was she, clutching around her the folds of that hideous houndstooth mantle. Hampton escorted her correctly enough and, at Holmes’s gesture, took a chair at her side, but his eyes were wary and his mouth sullen.
“I hope we will not have to keep you long, Miss Carmichael,” Holmes began, courteously. “Would you tell me if you came to church with your mother this afternoon?”
“No sir,” she murmured, “I came early. With Hampton. Because of the choir.”
“Was there anyone here then? Ah. When the rest of the choir came, where did you go? To sit with your mother?”
“No sir.” She added, looking down, “Mother was sitting with a lot of people, and . . . I haven’t been out since I was ill last spring, you see, and I didn’t want . . . People stare and fuss so, and I hate it.”
“Most understandable. Where did you sit?”
“At the front.”
“Just where, Miss Carmichael?”
“By that left pillar.”
“How strange, for I didn’t notice you. Did you see Miss Carmichael, doctor? Her red costume would show up well even under the church’s poor lighting.”
“I wasn’t looking for her,” I temporised, for I had not noticed the girl until after the verger had called out. Then she had been hovering near the centre aisle, as if uncertain where to go.
Holmes had turned to the boy. “Once you were in your place in the choir stalls, Carmichael, did you see your sister sitting by the left pillar?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, that settles the matter, doesn’t it? Did your mother press your trousers for today, Carmichael?”
This startled him. “Yes, sir.”
“I was sure she would have. Isn’t it odd that she didn’t also brush them.”
“Of course she did!” This indigant explosion had come from Emily.
“Then what has your brother done since he left home to cause dust to cling to his trouser bottoms?”
The boy had convulsively jerked his feet under his chair, but not before I had seen that there was indeed dust on the bottoms of his trouser legs.
“The walk was a little dirty,” he muttered, eyes going everywhere.
“Yet your boots are not soiled,” Holmes returned sharply, “and your trouser bottoms are covered with grey fluff, not dirt. The only area I have found in the front of the church that is dusty is the centre of the cupboard that holds the choir gowns. Between the part for the boys’ gowns and that of the men, the carpet is thick with dust. Dust that has been recently crushed, as if someone had been standing there.
“And in the vestry, lying behind the chairs, I found these.” Holmes brought out the two pins that he had picked up. “Ordinary pins, you will observe, the kind any household has.”
Holmes stopped, and the silence gathered.
Emily was parchment white, blazing eyes fixed on her brother.
“If we asked Mrs. Carmichael to come in,” Holmes’ voice had become very distant, “to ascertain what her daughter is wearing under her dress at the moment, what would we find?”
Only an instant, and Emily was on her feet. She dropped the mantle to the floor, snatched something from her bodice and flung it at her brother. The violence of her actions had pulled up the already short skirt a little: underneath was a pair of boy’s trousers, unevenly pinned up, and showing at her throat was the collar of a white shirt. And on the worn drugget between her and her brother no
w lay a sock full of money.
“Your brother asked you to join him in a prank, didn’t he?” Holmes pressed gently. “He told you that you sing as well as he, which is most certainly true, yet I doubt that he had said so before. Last spring when you had typhoid fever your head was shaved; your hair has not grown enough to make you comfortable going out, but it was of perfect length for you to take your brother’s place in a poorly lit church, among people who have not seen either of you for several months.”
“He said we would look like twins,” the poor girl whispered.
“You both came early so that no one would see what you did: leave your dress, bonnet and gloves in the vestry, let down the legs of the trousers you wore underneath, and don your brother’s choir gown. He hid himself in the cupboard, the choir gathered, you took his place.
“When did you learn the truth, Miss Carmichael, that you had aided your brother in a theft, not a prank?”
“I heard him,” she replied, very low, “just after the verger had left the music room. The sounds weren’t very loud, not enough for anyone else to notice, but I guessed. I know him too well, you see.
“You’re in debt, aren’t you, Hamp?” She had swung her accusing young gaze onto her shrinking brother. “What do you think those Upper Sixth fellows want except to get money from a fool cub? Card games and probably horse races too, while mother and I are eating dry bread for tea.”
“You didn’t expect the verger to go into the room as soon as he did.” Holmes added his attack to hers. “You thought that, in the general confusion in this small room, your sister could take off the gown and slip out to the vestry unnoticed, pin up the trouser legs, put on her own clothes again, and join your mother in the company leaving the church.
“As soon as she was out of the room, you would emerge from the cupboard as if you’d just been hanging up your gown, but when you started to step out the verger was right in front of you, heading for the music cabinet where he would find the empty plates. No wonder you said ‘damn’—all your plans were shattered.
“All you could think of was to grab your sister before she had escaped, ram the sock—and how keen-witted of you to take an old one with you to hold your loot—into the jacket of yours that she wore, and hustle her out. Your actions would look like part of the scrambling that was going on among all the boys, and you were sure she wouldn’t betray you. You were right there.
More Holmes for the Holidays Page 15
