by John Hall
‘H’mm. But I still cannot think that an investigation would produce any result satisfactory to Your Grace. Could you face the truth if your son were, indeed, guilty?’
The duke started to speak, but Holmes held up a hand, and went on, ‘If your son is innocent, and I am happy to accept your assertion that he is, then I think that the real thief has muddied the waters so effectively that the truth will never be known. And what if it were? What if I found the real thief ? True, your son might be reinstated, but he would face the charge of being a sneak, of making trouble with the authorities instead of accepting his punishment, justified or not, and there is no more serious charge that one schoolboy can level against another. His position would be unenviable, if not downright untenable. Guilty or not, your son can never hope to return to the Abbey School as if naught had happened. I can only repeat my advice. Find another school, and put this sad business out of your mind.’
The duke stood up. ‘Frankly, I had hoped for more, Mr Holmes. But I see that you are very likely correct in your reading.’ He held out his hand. ‘Thank you, sir. There merely remains the matter of your fee?’
Holmes waved a hand. ‘I have done no more than any friend would do, Your Grace, and that is give you my honest opinion. I trust your son’s future will not be too badly affected by this sorry affair.’
The duke shook Holmes’s hand a second time, then collected his coat and hat and went out. Holmes resumed his seat. He refilled his pipe, and smoked quietly for a time. Then he sighed, and said ‘Damnable!’ to himself. He stood up and took a large notebook from a shelf, found a pen amongst the debris on the table, and riffled through the book until he found a blank page. He thought for a ¬moment, then dipped the pen in the inkwell, and wrote at the top of the page, ‘The Abbey School.’
*
The room had been intended for three pupils, but the abrupt departure of Lord Whitechurch meant that it was temporarily occupied only by Edmonds and Watson ¬Minor. This should have created a cosier atmosphere, but Edmonds for one felt that it had the opposite effect. Matters were not helped by the fact that although it was now December there was no fire in the room. The moon, shining through the leaded window, lit the place up but the light was cold, cheerless, even sinister. Edmonds shivered, and nestled further down into his blankets.
‘Come on, you idle dog.’ Watson Major, fully dressed, pulled Edmonds’s blankets off him.
‘Oh, you don’t really mean to go outside tonight?’
‘I told you,’ said Watson Minor, ‘I know old Greville is planning something. He’s been muttering to himself all day, as he does, and I’m sure I heard him say, “Tonight’s the night”, as he passed me this morning.’
‘It was most probably a quotation from Shakespeare, or somebody,’ Edmonds pointed out, trying to retrieve his blankets.
‘Whereabouts in Shakespeare does it say, “Tonight’s the night”, then?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Macbeth, the scene with the witches.’
‘Does it? Anyway, I’m going out to see what happens.’
‘We’re in enough trouble as it is, you know. I don’t relish the notion of another whacking quite so soon.’
‘Oh, well. I don’t care. You stay there if you’re scared.’
‘Who says I’m scared? Who’s scared? I’m not scared. I’ll go, of course. Only I don’t think anything will happen,’ said Edmonds, cautiously lowering his feet on to the cold floor and reaching for his clothes.
The two boys made their way quietly to the door of the room. Silence was essential, for, although the room had no other occupant, a prefect slept on each landing and by tradition the door of the prefect’s room was left open at night, the better to alert the prefect to any emergency such as a fire, or – far more likely – some intended nocturnal adventure such at the present one.
Edmonds carefully opened the door, and the two went out into the corridor, closing the door behind them so that their absence was not quite so noticeable.
For almost an hour the room remained empty and silent. The moonlight that had shone on the door now shone on one of the three beds. Then the door opened slowly, and two small figures crept inside.
‘Well,’ said Edmonds, crawling back into bed with no attempt to change back into his pyjamas, ‘I’m so glad that I didn’t let you talk me into staying here. I really wouldn’t have missed that for the world.’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Watson Minor pointed out. ‘I honestly thought that something interesting would happen tonight. And Herbert, my brother, you know, he’s convinced that something’s wrong, and I thought – well. Sorry,’ he added lamely.
‘Think nothing of it, old man. But please let me try to get an hour’s sleep, would you? There’s a good chap.’
Silence returned to the room for a further hour. Then Edmonds sat bolt upright in his bed. ‘What was that, Watson?’
‘Well, it wasn’t me.’ Watson Minor, half awake, struggled to a sitting position. ‘What’s the matter Edmonds? What was what?’
‘I thought I heard something. Sorry. Must have been all the excitement earlier, making me restless.’
‘Well, but what did you think you heard?’
‘I don’t know. A sort of bump.’
‘Oh, “things that go bump in the night”, was it?’
‘Now, that is from Macbeth.’ There was the sound of a match being struck, and a flare of light cast deep shadows.
‘What are you doing now?’
‘Just checking my watch. I want to know how much longer we’ve got before we have to get up.’
‘Go back to sleep, Edmonds.’
*
‘I say, have you heard about Mr Greville?’ asked Merton, stuttering with excitement.
‘What about him, then?’ asked Watson Minor, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
‘He’s dead!’
‘Dead? What rot! How can he be dead? Why –’ and Watson Minor broke off as the form room door opened.
It was not Mr Greville who entered, though, but Dr Longton, looking very grave. ‘Sit down, boys,’ he told them, as they got to their feet. He looked round the room, and sighed aloud. ‘Boys, I regret that I have some tragic news for you. Doubtless some of you will have heard a rumour, and in any case I shall be announcing it before the whole school at assembly, so you, being the Third, had best hear it from me now. There has been a tragic accident, a dreadful accident, late last night. Mr Greville –’ he broke off, as if overcome by some powerful emotion, and only recovered himself with a palpable effort. ‘I have to tell you that Mr Greville is dead. A tragic accident,’ he repeated.
There was a murmur of conversation, which Dr Longton, contrary to his usual custom, did not at once stop. It seemed that he understood their fears and confusion, and perhaps even shared them. But after a moment he held up a hand for silence, and went on, ‘Since the end of term is but a week or so off, I shall take over as form master for the Third, on a strictly temporary basis. I hope to have a replacement early next year.’ He took up the register and a pen, and began to call the roll.
At the back of the class, Edmonds and Watson Minor exchanged a glance that was full of meaning.
One
In the summer of 1902 I left the rooms at 221B Baker Street which I had shared for so long with Mr Sherlock Holmes, and moved into apartments in Queen Anne Street. It was not that Holmes and I were no longer friends, we had not quarrelled or anything silly of that sort. No, the fact was that after a decade of being a widower, I had at last met a lady who might be compared, in my opinion at any rate, to my dear departed Mary. After a lengthy acquaintance, I ventured to make my feelings known, and was delighted to find that they were reciprocated. I asked the lady if she would do me the honour of becoming my wife, and she agreed. As I say, I moved house in summer, a month or so before the wedding, and remarried in early autumn.
I had determined that I would not do as I had done in my first marriage, when I had spent half my time – or so it seemed – with Holm
es. Not, as I say, that I have anything against Holmes. He is the best friend I have in all the world, and I trust that he always will be. But his cases, always so intriguing and absorbing, had taken me away from Mary more times than I cared, or dared, to remember, and I did not wish to repeat the process with my second wife.
Moreover, if I am to be entirely honest, my second wife had intimated, albeit with great delicacy, that she would not take too kindly to being thus neglected for Holmes.
I therefore decided that the break with Holmes was to be complete and final. My home life would be my own, and I should not even mention my wife’s name in print. Those who know us socially know her name; and as far as those who do not know us socially are concerned, well, quite frankly it is none of their business.
I still saw Holmes occasionally, of course, but these occasions were few and far between. He attended the wedding, with a look of regret upon his face which might have cast a gloom over the event, but did not. And then I saw him perhaps two or three times before the end of the year. I enjoyed these infrequent meetings, and always asked for news of his current cases. I even ventured to give my opinion on some of them, although Holmes seemed not to attach too much weight to my words.
I intended that my days were to be spent in work, but this time I had not returned to medicine, for life had left me with no illusions about my abilities or experience. I knew that I had been out of practice, in every sense of the phrase, for a very long time, and that although I was, or so I flattered myself, a competent family practitioner, I had no special expertise. And I had to confess to myself that I was now too old to take over a run-down practice and work it up, as I had done years before at the time of my first marriage. True, I might have bought a practice in a more fashionable quarter and relied upon my reputation, a reputation which writing about Holmes had brought me, to attract wealthy patients, but that smacked of fraud. And there was another, a more powerful reason. The success which I had enjoyed with my accounts of Holmes’s cases had convinced me that my real talents lay not in medicine but in writing, and I accordingly determined to devote my days to the production of books which would truly count as Literature, with a capital ‘L’.
I very soon found that this was much easier said than done. After some weeks of that contemplation which the cynical might call idleness, I decided that historical fiction would be my choice. I then had to narrow down the vast field, electing finally to deal with English history in the medieval period; more specifically still, the period of Agincourt and the stirring deeds of chivalry and bravery performed by the courtly knights. My knowledge of this period being somewhat limited, I began by reading up as many books as I could find in the libraries. Rather like Mr Jabez Wilson on another occasion, I soon knew all that had been written on Archers, and Battles, and Castles, and I promised myself that I should make a start on my magnum opus early in the new year.
Christmas came, and we held a modest celebration, my wife and I, just the two of us. We saw in 1903, and I stocked my desk with paper and pencils, pens and ink, and tried to settle down to make a start. Now, I have never had the least trouble with writing about Holmes, I simply think back to what happened, and set it down on paper. But this was different. I knew that once I had the introductory paragraph finished, the rest would be easy, but for some absurd reason that first paragraph simply would not let itself be written.
For two days I sat at my desk, writing a word or two, perhaps as much as a whole sentence, then rolling the foolscap sheet into a ball and hurling it into the waste paper basket. Early on the morning of the third day, I settled down, determined that today I should make a proper start. For an hour I stared at the blank sheet. Two hours. I lit my pipe, and stared out of the window, turning with a start when the maid tapped at the door and looked in.
‘Beg pardon, Doctor, but there’s Mr Holmes here to see you.’
Never was I more glad to see a man in all my life. ‘My dear Holmes,’ I cried, ‘come in and sit down! A cigar? Brandy?’
‘Thank you, I will have a cigar,’ said Holmes, ‘though I fear that your literary habits are a little too fast for me. Ten in the morning is just a trifle early for brandy.’
‘Well, I was merely being hospitable,’ I told him, with a sad glance at the decanter. ‘Too early for me too, of course. Now, what is the case upon which you wish to have my opinion?’
‘Remarkable, Watson!’ he said with a laugh. ‘How did you know I wanted your opinion on a case?’
‘It is an elementary deduction,’ I told him. ‘Even your bohemian outlook cannot possibly see ten in the morning as being the correct hour for a social call. And besides, there is an indefinable look about you, Holmes. Like an old foxhound which sees the huntsman raise the horn, and knows the chase is about to begin.’
He laughed again. ‘You are right, Watson.’ He leaned forward, and grew serious. ‘Now, my boy, have you ever heard of the Abbey School?’
‘The name is not entirely unfamiliar. A private school, one of the more exclusive, is it not?’
‘One of the most exclusive. Then you have not heard of the tragedy which took place at the school quite recently?’
I shook my head.
‘It was kept out of the press,’ said Holmes, ‘although the local newspaper had a short report of the inquest. One of the masters, a young man named Greville, who had charge of the Third form, went out late at night, climbed to the top of a tower affair which overlooks the school quadrangle, and apparently threw himself off into space. His head was dreadfully injured, as you would expect, so that death must have occurred more or less instantaneously as he hit the ground.’
‘Good Lord! Suicide?’
‘The coroner’s verdict was “accidental death”, but I gather that the general consensus is that he was trying to spare the young man’s family any further distress. Suicide is the general opinion, and I confess that I can see no satisfactory alternative.’
‘And the cause? Had he any financial worries? A failed romance, perhaps?’
‘You anticipate, Watson.’ Holmes sat back in his chair. ‘The Abbey School first came to my attention early in December last year, when I was consulted by the Duke of Greyminster, whose son had recently been expelled.’
‘But what has that to do with the young man’s death?’ I asked, puzzled.
Holmes cast an impatient glance at me. ‘That is one of the points which I find intriguing, Watson. But please bear with me. The duke’s son, Lord Whitechurch, had been expelled after being accused of theft, and theft of Bank of England notes at that, in odd circumstances.’
‘That is odd.’
Another impatient glance from Holmes silenced me. ‘Well, there seemed nothing I could do, and so I advised the duke to find another school for the boy, and put the matter out of his mind.’
‘But you did not put it out of yours, I gather.’
Holmes laughed. ‘Indeed not. The odd, the unusual, always appeals to me. I made a note of the matter, then, against such time as I should hear of the Abbey School again.’
‘Which you thought likely?’
‘Where there is one odd occurrence, there may well be others. And I was right, you see, for this other curious business, the death of young Greville, occurred a mere week or so later.’
‘You intrigue me,’ I said, leaning forward.
‘The second matter came to my attention when the young man’s sister, Miss Greville, came to see me. She was naturally upset at her brother’s death, but more particularly since the circumstances seemed to her to be so very curious. To begin with, there was no obvious reason why he should wish to kill himself. His father is manager of a branch of the Capital and Counties Bank, and the family, although not excessively wealthy, is in very comfortable circumstances. In fact, his father had given young Greville a present of three hundred pounds two years ago, when the young man took up his post at the school. Some two hundred and fifty pounds remain in that account, and the bills for clothing, golf clubs, and the like, all bought
at the start of his time at the school, explain all but ten or twelve pounds.’
‘Fitting himself out for his new career, then?’
‘As you say. Once he was earning money from teaching, he appears to have lived on that, and even managed to save a few pounds each quarter, which he deposited into another account, his intention apparently being to save enough for a lengthy visit to the Continent in the summer holidays. He has never made a withdrawal from this second account. Money troubles, therefore, may be safely ruled out.’
‘Romance, then?’
‘He had formed some attachment with the daughter of a friend of his father’s and they were to announce their engagement later in the year.’
‘H’mm. No obvious reason why he should wish to kill himself, then.’
‘Another thing which puzzled Miss Greville was that the body had a strong smell of whisky.’
‘Nerving himself up for the task? Nothing odd in that, if he did kill himself.’
‘An obvious reading, Watson. But apparently whisky did not agree with him, and he never drank it. Indeed, Miss Greville assures me that he seldom touched spirits of any kind, and then only brandy and soda, very weak.’
‘Ah, but that doesn’t follow,’ I said. ‘Even a man who never drinks at all may well feel the need of fortification if he is contemplating some serious enterprise. And you don’t get much more serious than suicide, after all.’
‘Oh, I agree. It is inconclusive, but it is odd, none the less.’ Holmes leaned forward again and stared at me. ‘There is one last oddity, Watson. I have said that the young man fell from a tower in the school yard. Miss Greville told me that, from being a boy, he was afraid of heights! What do you say to that?’
‘Well,’ I said doubtfully, ‘if he were contemplating making away with himself, and he had settled on that method, that might explain the whisky?’
Holmes shook his head. ‘It is all very puzzling,’ he said.
‘What about this? This young man is scared of heights, and feels ashamed of his fears, so he decides to face them by climbing this tower. He does so at night, so that nobody will see him if he succumbs to his terrors, but at the last minute he loses his nerve, and seeks courage from the bottle. Thus fortified, he does indeed climb the tower, but is overcome by vertigo at the top, or perhaps the whisky has deprived him of his sense of balance? That might be the answer.’
