Sherlock Holmes--The Red Tower

by Mark A. Latham

  “Charmed to make your acquaintance,” Holmes said, stepping into the hall and blocking their path. “I am afraid I must deliver some more bad news, for no one may leave this house while an investigation is ongoing—isn’t that right, Constable Hardacre? We don’t want Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard to turn up, only to find his eyewitnesses departed.”

  Hardacre looked up from his notebook, eyes darting from Holmes, to Langton, to Crain and back to Holmes. “Scotland Yard? Um… Yes, sir. I suppose that is only proper.” He cleared his throat, but said nothing else.

  “Lord Berkeley,” Holmes said, summoning his most charming manner. “You were about to tell me whether or not I may conduct a private investigation into these matters. If you wish me to stay, I shall do my utmost to clear the innocent and discover the guilty. If you wish me to go, simply say the word and I shall take the very next train back to London. I am, of course, your servant.”

  Crain stood thoughtfully, his brows gathering as though the very process of thinking were painful. And then he replied, rather weakly, “If Watson swears by your methods, then I am glad to have you, naturally. You have my permission, Mr Holmes. You are in charge of this… ‘investigation’, if that is what you think is necessary. I shall give the servants the necessary instructions that you might face no impediment.”

  “Your lordship is too kind. Now, Mr Langton, Mr Cavendish: I shall need to speak to both of you before the day is through.”

  “Now look here, Mr Holmes,” Langton said, straightening. “I am in mourning at the loss of my cousin, and my uncle, and I have little wish to return to the grindstone of work, but I must be in Exeter before the day is out.”

  “Your business is in Exeter?”

  “No, Poole, if you must know. But I have an appointment in Exeter I should like to keep.”

  “I see. And what about you, Mr Cavendish? Are you set for a long journey also?”

  “No, Mr Holmes. I am quite local—Farnborough. I suppose my clerk can take care of things if I must be delayed.”

  “I am afraid you must. Gentlemen, might you arrange for a servant to send telegrams on your behalf? Besides, in lieu of the presence of a police inspector, Constable Hardacre here is in charge, and given that I am investigating the possibility of a murder, I am sure he will insist on all the weekend guests remaining here until the matter is cleared up. Isn’t that right, Constable?”

  Again, the constable looked thoroughly out of his depth, and the repetition of the word “murder” brought him visibly to a state of mild panic. “I suppose that’s right, sir, yes,” he said.

  “Capital. Now if you’ll find some way to amuse yourselves, I shall come to you in good time. Constable Hardacre, when I say none of the guests are to leave, I mean it. I want everyone accounted for. Lord Berkeley, would you be so good as to give the constable here a list of the guests and their whereabouts?”

  “I shall, Mr Holmes. You will find the Reverend Parkin absent already, however. I saw him leave this morning. Probably some church business.”

  Holmes nodded. “Very well. Perhaps I shall pay him a visit later. Might I also ask the number of domestic staff, so that I may account for them all?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Crain said, looking a little embarrassed. I wondered if perhaps it was true that he had no head for the business of running things, as his father had said.

  “An estimate, then,” Holmes smiled.

  “Sixteen… seventeen, or thereabouts. Ask Eglinton—the butler. He runs a tight ship.”

  “Thank you, I shall.” With that, Holmes handed his coat and hat to the nearest footman with a flourish, but kept a close hold of his bag. “Come along now, Watson. Show me this Red Tower.”

  “That’s a rather small bag you brought,” I mused as I led Holmes towards the staircase. “Are you not expecting to stay long?”

  “Not at all, if I can help it. It is what you might call my ‘bag of tricks’. It was rather hastily thrown together, I can tell you, so we can only hope I remembered everything. Tell me, the Langtons—you say they are cousins of the Crains?”

  “Yes, though not close.”

  “I see they’ve experienced a dip in fortunes, that is all.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “As we passed Mrs Langton, I noticed her dress has been repaired several times. There are marks where the lace ruffs around the collar have been removed and stitched, to make last season’s fashion acceptable for this one. Her hat, however, was certainly out of style, and her gloves, though expensive, have been allowed to become somewhat worn. Mr Langton, on the other hand, is well attired and groomed; the importance he places on business might suggest that his wife’s wardrobe suffers in order that he make a favourable impression on colleagues and clients. And, of course, they are travelling with very little luggage, and have neither valet nor lady’s maid in tow. Strange, for such a moneyed family.”

  “The Langtons are self-made, Holmes. But you must be mistaken about their fortunes—Langton was telling me only yesterday how he doesn’t need his inheritance. He seemed rather proud of the fact.”

  Holmes merely nodded.

  As we ascended the stairs, we were met by Madame Farr, Judith standing meekly behind her. The medium froze, and gazed down upon Holmes haughtily.

  “Madame Farr, I presume?” Holmes said.

  “Sherlock Holmes. No introduction is necessary. Your coming was foreseen as soon as these tragic events were set in motion.” Madame Farr’s commanding presence met its match in Holmes, and indeed her measured speech and theatrical aspect—which had so cowed me at times these past days—now looked rather ridiculous in the face of Holmes’s immutable scepticism.

  “A simple deduction,” Holmes said. He took a few steps further. Thanks to his height, even though several stairs separated him from Madame Farr, they stood eye to eye. “I shall be interviewing everyone in this house in good time, madam. I must impress upon you the importance of remaining at Crain Manor at least for the remainder of today.”

  “I would not dream of leaving while Lord Berkeley requires my counsel.”

  “I think perhaps Lord Berkeley has already sought solace elsewhere. Nevertheless, I shall see you presently. I have many questions for you, be sure of it.”

  Madame Farr scowled, and as we proceeded past her, I fancied there was something else behind her eyes. Whether her overbearing attitude was practised or natural, her mask now slipped, for but a moment.

  She was afraid.

  * * *

  Holmes stood for some time, motionless, in the centre of the tower room, beside the very spot where I had found Lady Esther. I had described to him the events leading up to her death, from the voices I had heard near my room, to the note slipped beneath my door, and then the scene I had witnessed in this very room. I described with no small difficulty the horrific expression on Lady Esther’s face; the red-ringed eyes and swollen throat; the blue fingernails and mottled rash; finally, the old needle marks on her arm.

  Holmes had paced the perimeter of the octagonal room as I spoke, taking great interest in the locked door to the rooftop. Now he seemed to absorb the atmosphere of the room, recording every minute detail in that great brain of his.

  “Who was first to the body?” he asked at last.

  “I was. No… Melville was, but only for a moment. I asked him to withdraw at once, and he did.”

  “Did he touch the body?”

  “Yes, but briefly.”

  “Long enough to conceal something, or tamper with evidence?”

  “Unlikely, but possible. His back was to me, my view obscured. But it was a matter of seconds.”

  “Very good. Who else was present?”

  “Everyone but the spiritualists, I think. No, wait a moment—Cavendish was still in his room. Madame Farr arrived later, and she seemed already to know Lady Esther’s fate.”

  “And other than the prescient Madame Farr, they all seemed duly surprised?”

  “Constance Langton
fainted, so I’d say so. There was one thing… All of us were hastily dressed in robes, although some of us men had pulled on trousers and slippers pretty quickly. Madame Farr was fully dressed; beshawled and bediamonded, her hair immaculate. As I said, she arrived much later to the scene, so perhaps she had taken the time to dress. Or perhaps she had never been to sleep. Either way it is odd.”

  “Let me see… You said Lady Esther had been ill recently?”

  “Yes. Several times I noted she seemed a little breathless, and pale, too—but she was recovering from some chill or other. Come to think of it, her brother commented that she had lost weight recently.”

  Holmes ruminated for a moment, and then said, “Tell me about the writing desk. You said there was ink on Lady Esther’s fingers?”

  “Yes, but there was nothing on the desk. I am certain the ink was of the same sort used to write the letter I received.”

  “Your mysterious letter,” Holmes muttered. “It is a crying shame it was destroyed. The handwriting alone may have revealed much. Tell me again what it said, as closely as you can remember.”

  I recited it from memory. Holmes queried my recollection where it differed from my earlier statement, and I tried my hardest to get it right.

  “‘Remember the opinion of your friend Mr Holmes in this matter’,” he repeated. “You’re sure those were the very words? It is good to see that my name was conjured to ward against the spirits. If you had been able to show the letter to the police, perhaps we would have an inspector here by now. Instead, we shall have to rely on Lestrade. Still, you could hardly oppose Lord Berkeley more than you did—his behaviour is erratic, but he is also the authority here. I wonder what possessed him to burn the letter.”

  “Men do strange things from grief,” I muttered.

  “I wish I could have examined the body, Watson—the impression on Lady Esther’s finger would have revealed much about when she was writing, and the implement she was writing with. We know that your note was written at some period before Lady Esther was interred in this room, wherefore you believe she sat at the desk there and wrote something else. But there is no sign of any writing material. Melville arrived upon the scene with you, and could not have confiscated it upon entering; so whom? More importantly, when? The door was locked from the inside, and Lady Esther had the only key. She could have admitted someone, and given them the note. Or that person could have been the murderer, and taken the note for some reason. If what we call a note was actually a diary, or some other document that might point the finger at a certain party, that would be reason enough to take it—they would not have known that she had already accused the spiritualists in a secret letter to you. But of course, there would have been insufficient time between Lady Esther’s scream and your arrival to make away with ink and pen and paper.”

  “What if she never wrote anything at the desk?” I asked. “That is an even more obvious explanation for the missing implements. The ink spots I found could well have been left over from the note she wrote to me.”

  “It is unlikely that a lady would allow such marks to remain on her person after washing and preparing for bed. Unlikely but not impossible. Moreover, it seems a trifle strange that someone so weak would have gripped the pen so hard that it caused a lasting embrasure—unless of course you were correct the first time, in that she was writing only very recently before her death. You said that lamp on the desk had been moved?”

  “Yes, Holmes.”

  “Presumably to provide light for writing the missing letter, you see. Where was it originally?”

  “It stood on the nightstand over there when I first saw it.”

  “And when was that?”

  “The first night. Madame Farr and Crain brought me in here for… for a reading. I was rather ambushed, actually.”

  “These spiritualists again—they are at the heart of everything. Remember back in London I promised that I’d look into this Madame Farr? I am true to my word, Watson, and let me tell you what I found: precisely nothing. A lesser brain would have abandoned the search, but for me, the lack of any mention of Madame Farr prior to her arrival in Berkshire was in itself suspicious. And so I turned to the few published papers by the Society for Psychical Research, and found something most intriguing. A story from Newcastle, of a ‘Mrs Mellinchip’—a disgraced and wholly fraudulent medium, whose tricks were only discovered after the revelation of her part in an alleged scheme to poison a client’s husband. She fled the city before charges could be brought against her, although the investigators heard sightings of her later in the Home Counties. That was around a year and a half ago, Watson—barely two months before Madame Farr conducted her first séance in Swinley, to wide acclaim.”

  “You think they are the same person?”

  “Without photographic evidence or eyewitnesses, it is impossible to say. I made a few notes regarding Mrs Mellinchip’s known tricks, and later we shall see if there is a correlation.”

  “But poisoning, Holmes! If it is true, then we have our culprit, though I attest I cannot say how it was done.”

  “I almost fancy it would be too easy to accuse them immediately and have done with it, but I must have evidence. I shall have to interview Madame Farr presently, but not before I have gathered as much intelligence as possible. I imagine she will be prepared for questioning. This ‘reading’, Watson—was there anything to it?”

  I hesitated, feeling suddenly embarrassed, not just about the reading, but about what had come after.

  “I can see by your reaction that there was something to it. Out with it, Watson. Every detail could be of great importance.”

  I sighed. “Holmes, Madame Farr knew things about Mary that could only have come from me, or perhaps from Crain, though I have his word as a gentleman that he said nothing. And then, afterwards when I retired… I saw something.”

  “Something?”

  “A trick of the light. A dream induced by too much brandy and stirred memories.”

  “What did you see, Watson?”

  “I saw… Mary. In my room.”

  “Think very hard,” Holmes said, his voice quiet and his manner as serious as ever I saw it. “Did you see a spirit in your room, or was it a trick of the light? A stirred memory?”

  I took a very deep breath this time. “I think… I saw her, Holmes.”

  A thunderous look clouded Holmes’s sharp features, and abruptly he stormed from the room.

  “Come, Watson!” he shouted from halfway down the stair. “Villainy does not rest, and nor shall I!”

  * * *

  I half expected Holmes to hunt down Madame Farr, such was his anger, but instead he asked to be directed to my room. Once there, he bade me be quiet while he swept about with his magnifier, studying every inch. Once or twice he paused, muttering to himself, before continuing. If he found anything of note, he did not relate it. After a while, his temper and restlessness subsided.

  “You said you were awoken by voices in the early hours?” Holmes said eventually.

  “Yes. Whispers.”

  “Whispers clear enough and loud enough to be heard from your bed. But when you investigated, you heard nothing further?”

  “Nothing. They were quieter when I went to the passage, and gone entirely when I returned to my room.”

  “Who inhabits the adjoining rooms?”

  “The left-hand room is empty. The door was locked that night. To the right is a bathroom, and beyond that is Crain’s room. Lord Berkeley—the late Lord Berkeley, that is—has a study opposite. That was also locked.”

  “And behind—that is the tower stair, is it not?”

  “It is.”

  “And yet the distance from here to the tower door seems greater than the inner dimensions of the tower rooms, don’t you think?”

  “It had crossed my mind,” I said. “But as you can see from the exterior, the tower is ancient, and the walls incredibly thick.”

  “Let me tell you something, Watson, about my journey to Crain Ma
nor. I hired a cab from Bracknell, rather than venture out to the wayside station that I presume you used. And the reason for that was very simple: I made enquiries at the station, and found a coachman who was born and raised in Swinley. I drew greatly upon his local knowledge en route.”

  “The significance of this, Holmes?”

  Holmes smiled. “He told me of several legends regarding this house that he had heard since he was a boy. I know all about this red woman you supposedly saw. I know, too, about a secret passage, apparently last used during the Civil War, and forgotten about ever since. The locals used to say that there was treasure hidden within the house, and that even the family could not find it. Others say the passage contains the bones of royalist spies, bricked up in the walls by parliamentarians. There are other fanciful tales also, mostly regarding mad ancestors and wronged women, but all reference a secret passage as a point of commonality. If the passage exists, many things would be explained.”

  “I have twice searched for passages, Holmes, and have found nothing.”

  “If it were easy to find, then it would not be such a mystery. Be so good as to draw the curtains, would you? And then light a candle.”

  Frowning, I did as I was bidden, whereupon Holmes crouched to one knee, and took his magnifier to the carpet near the bedroom door.

  “Look here, Watson.”

  I went over to Holmes, and got down on all fours to see what he was peering at. A small, silvery crescent shone from the pile of the carpet.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “A heel-print, I would imagine.”

  I gasped. “So it was a human intruder! What is it? Phosphorus?”

  “It is too dim for that, and I fancy an actress would baulk at the thought of covering herself in so foul a chemical, not to mention the difficulty of acquiring large amounts. No, this is something less efficacious, but suitable for the effect. Something that requires a modicum of light to work its magic.”

  “My curtains were open a crack that night,” I muttered. “Now that I think on it, I’m sure they were fully drawn before I retired.”