Morse's Greatest Mystery

by Colin Dexter

  There being nothing, it seemed, of further value in the newspaper description, Holmes turned his attention to the letters, passing them to me after studying them himself with minute concentration.

  “Well?” he asked.

  Apart from the fact that the letters had been typed, I could find in them nothing of interest, and I laid them down on the coffee-table in front of the somnolent Mycroft.

  “Well?” persisted Holmes.

  “I assume you refer to the fact that the letters are type-written.”

  “Already you are neglecting your newly acquired knowledge of the method, Watson. Quite apart from the one you mention, there are three further points of immediate interest and importance. First, the letters are very short; second, apart from the vague ‘Leadenhall Street’ superscription, there is no precise address stated at any point; third, it is not only the body of the letter which has been typed, but the signature, too. Observe here, Watson—and here!—that neat little ‘Horatio Darvill’ typed at the bottom of each of our four exhibits. And it will not have escaped you, I think, how conclusive that last point might be?”

  “Conclusive, Holmes? In what way?”

  “My dear fellow, is it possible for you not to see how strongly it bears upon our present investigations?”

  “Homo circumbendibus—that’s what you are, Sherlock!” (It was Mycroft once more.) “Do you not appreciate that your client would prefer some positive action to any further proofs of your cerebral superiority?”

  It is pleasing to report here that this attempt of Mycroft to provoke the most distinguished criminologist of the century proved largely ineffectual, and Holmes permitted himself a fraternal smile as his brother slowly bestirred his frame.

  “You are right, Mycroft,” he rejoined lightly. “And I shall immediately compose two letters: one to Messrs Cook and Marchant; the other to Mr. Wyndham, asking that gentleman to meet us here at six o’clock tomorrow evening.”

  Already I was aware of the easy and confident demeanour with which Holmes was tackling the singular mystery which confronted us all. But for the moment my attention was diverted by a small but most curious incident.

  “It is just as well, Sherlock,” said Mycroft (who appeared now to be almost fully awakened), “that you do not propose to write three letters.”

  Seldom (let me admit it) have I seen my friend so perplexed: “A third letter?”

  “Indeed. But such a letter could have no certain destination, since it apparently slipped your memory to ask the young lady her present address, and the letters she entrusted to you appear, as I survey them, to be lacking their outer envelopes.”

  Momentarily Holmes looked less than amused by this lighthearted intervention. “You are more observant today than I thought, Mycroft, for the evidence of eye and ear had led me to entertain the suspicion that you were sleeping soundly during my recent conversation with Miss van Allen. But as regards her address, you are right.” And even as he spoke, I noted the twinkle of mischievous intelligence in his eyes. “Yet it would not be too difficult perhaps to deduce the young lady’s address, Mycroft? On such a foul day as this it is dangerous and ill-advised for a lady to travel the streets if she has a perfectly acceptable and comfortable alternative such as the Underground; and since it was precisely 3:14 P.M. when Miss van Allen appeared beneath my window, I would hazard the guess that she had caught the Metropolitan-line train which passes through Baker Street at 3:12 P.M. on its journey to Hammersmith. We may consider two further clues, also. The lady’s boots, ill-assorted as they were, bore little evidence of the mud and mire of our London streets; and we may infer from this that her own home is perhaps as adjacent to an Underground station as is our own. More significant, however, is the fact, as we all observed, that Miss van Allen wore a dress of linen—a fabric which, though it is long-lasting and pleasing to wear, is one which has the disadvantage of creasing most easily. Now the skirt of the dress had been most recently ironed, and the slight creases in it must have resulted from her journey—to see me. And—I put this forward as conjecture, Mycroft—probably no more than three or four stops on the Underground had been involved. If we remember, too, the ‘few minutes’ her wedding-carriage took from her home to St. Saviour’s, I think, perhaps … perhaps …” Holmes drew a street-map towards him, and surveyed his chosen area with his magnification-glass.

  “I shall plump,” he said directly, “for Cowcross Street myself—that shabbily genteel little thoroughfare which links Farringdon Road with St. John Street.”

  “Very impressive!” said Mycroft, anticipating my own admiration. “And would you place her on the north or the south side of that thoroughfare, Sherlock?”

  But before Holmes could reply to this small pleasantry, Mrs. Hudson entered with a slip of paper which she handed to Holmes. “The young lady says she forgot to give you her address, sir, and she’s written it down for you.”

  Holmes glanced quickly at the address and a glint of pride gleamed in his eyes. “The answer to your question, Mycroft, is the south side—for it is an even-numbered house, and if I remember correctly the numbering of houses in that part of London invariably begins at the east end of the street with the odd numbers on the right-hand side walking westwards.”

  “And the number is perhaps in the middle or late thirties?” suggested Mycroft. “Thirty-six, perhaps? Or more likely thirty-eight?”

  Holmes himself handed over the paper to us and we read:

  Miss Charlotte van Allen

  38, Cowcross Street

  I was daily accustomed to exhibitions of the most extraordinary deductive logic employed by Sherlock Holmes, but I had begun at this point to suspect, in his brother Mycroft, the existence of some quite paranormal mental processes. It was only half an hour later, when Holmes himself had strolled out for tobacco, that Mycroft, observing my continued astonishment, spoke quietly in my ear.

  “If you keep your lips sealed, Dr. Watson, I will tell you a small secret—albeit a very simple one. The good lady’s coat was thrown rather carelessly, as you noticed, over the back of a chair; and on the inside of the lining was sewn a tape with her name and address clearly printed on it. Alas, however, my eyes are now not so keen as they were in my youth, and sixes and eights, as you know, are readily susceptible of confusion.”

  I have never been accused, I trust, of undue levity, but I could not help laughing heartily at this coup on Mycroft’s part, and I assured him that his brother should never hear the truth of it from me.

  “Sherlock?” said Mycroft, raising his mighty eyebrows. “He saw through my little joke immediately.”

  * * *

  It was not until past six o’clock the following evening that I returned to Baker Street after (it is not an irrelevant matter) a day of deep interest at St. Thomas’s Hospital.

  “Well, have you solved the mystery yet?” I asked, as I entered the sitting room.

  Holmes I found curled up in his armchair, smoking his oily clay pipe, and discussing medieval madrigals with Mycroft.

  “Yes, Watson, I believe—”

  But hardly were the words from his mouth when we heard a heavy footfall in the passage and a sharp rap on the door,

  “This will be the girl’s step-father,” said Holmes. “He has written to say he would be here at a quarter after six. Come in!”

  The man who entered was a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, about thirty years of age, clean-shaven, sallow-skinned, with a pair of most penetrating eyes. He placed his shiny top-hat on the sideboard, and with an insinuating bow sidled down into the nearest chair.

  “I am assuming,” said Holmes, “that you are Mr. James Wyndham and” (holding up a type-written sheet) “that this is the letter you wrote to me?”

  “I am the person, sir, and the letter is mine. It was against my expressed wish, as you may know, that Miss van Allen contacted you in this matter. But she is an excitable young lady, and my wife and I will be happy to forgive her for such an impulsive action. Yet I must ask you to have
nothing more to do with what is, unfortunately, a not uncommon misfortune. It is clear what took place, and I think it highly unlikely, sir, that even you will find so much as a single trace of Mr. Darvill.”

  “On the contrary,” replied Holmes quietly, “I have reason to believe that I have already discovered the whereabouts of that gentleman.”

  Mr. Wyndham gave a violent start, and dropped his gloves. “I am delighted to hear it,” he said in a strained voice.

  “It is a most curious fact,” continued Holmes, “that a type-writer has just as much individuality as does handwriting. Even when completely new, no two machines are exactly alike; and as they get older, some characters wear on this side and some on that. Now in this letter of yours, Mr. Wyndham, you will note that in every instance there is some slight slurring in the eye of the ‘e’; and a most easily detectable defect in the tail of the ‘t’.”

  “All our office correspondence,” interrupted our visitor, “is typed on the same machine, and I can fully understand why it has become a little worn.”

  “But I have four other letters here,” resumed Holmes, in a slow and menacing tone, “which purport to come from Mr. Horatio Darvill. And in each of these, also, the ‘e’s are slurred, and the ‘t’s un-tailed.”

  Mr. Wyndham was out of his chair instantly and had snatched up his hat. “I can waste no more of my valuable time with such trivialities, Mr. Holmes. If you can catch the man who so shamefully treated Miss van Allen, then catch him! I wish you well—and ask you to let me know the outcome. But I have no interest whatsoever in your fantastical notions.”

  Already, however, Holmes had stepped across the room and turned the key in the door. “Certainly I will tell you how I caught Mr. Darvill, if you will but resume your chair.”

  “What?” shouted Wyndham, his face white, his small eyes darting about him like those of a rat in a trap. Yet finally he sat down and glared aggressively around, as Holmes continued his analysis.

  “It was as selfish and as heartless a trick as ever I encountered. The man married a woman much older than himself, largely for her money. In addition, he enjoyed the interest on the not inconsiderable sum of the stepdaughter’s money, for as long as that daughter lived with them. The loss of such extra monies would have made a significant difference to the lifestyle adopted by the newly married pair. Now the daughter herself was an amiable, warm-hearted girl, and was possessed of considerable physical attractions; and with an added advantage of a personal income, it became clear that under normal circumstances she would not remain single for very long. So he—the man of whom I speak—decided to deny her the company and friendship of her contemporaries by keeping her at home. But she—and who shall blame her?—grew restive under such an unnatural regimen, and firmly announced her intention to attend a local ball. So what did her step-father do? With the connivance of his wife, he conceived a cowardly plan. He disguised himself cleverly: he covered those sharp eyes with dully tinted spectacles; he masked that clean-shaven face with bushy side-whiskers; he sank that clear voice of his into the strained whisper of one suffering from the quinsy. And then, feeling himself doubly secure because of the young lady’s short sight, he appeared himself at the ball, in the guise of one Horatio Darvill, and there he wooed the fair Miss van Allen for his own—thereafter taking the further precaution of always arranging his assignations by candlelight.”

  (I heard a deep groan which at the time I assumed to have come from our visitor, but which, upon reflection, I am inclined to think originated from Mycroft’s corner.)

  “Miss van Allen had fallen for her new beau; and no suspicion of deception ever entered her pretty head. She was flattered by the attention she was receiving, and the effect was heightened by the admiration of her mother for the man. An ‘engagement’ was agreed, and the deception perpetuated. But the pretended journeys abroad were becoming more difficult to sustain, and things had to be brought to a head quickly, although in such a dramatic way as to leave a permanent impression upon the young girl’s mind. Hence the vows of fidelity sworn on the Testaments; hence the dark hints repeated on the very morning of the proposed marriage that something sinister might be afoot. James Wyndham, you see, wished his step-daughter to be so morally bound to her fictitious suitor that for a decade, at least, she would sit and wilt in Cowcross Street, and continue paying her regular interest directly into the account of her guardian: the same blackguard of a guardian who had brought her to the doors of St. Saviour’s and then, himself, conveniently disappeared by the age-old ruse of stepping in at one side of a four-wheeler—and out at the other.”

  Rising to his feet, Wyndham fought hard to control his outrage. “I wish you to know that it is you, sir, who is violating the law of this land—and not me! As long as you keep that door locked, and thereby hold me in this room against my will, you lay yourself open—”

  “The law,” interrupted Holmes, suddenly unlocking and throwing open the door, “may not for the moment be empowered to touch you. Yet never, surely, was there a man who deserved punishment more. In fact … since my hunting-crop is close at hand—” Holmes took two swift strides across the room; but it was too late. We heard a wild clatter of steps down the stairs as Wyndham departed, and then had the satisfaction of watching him flee pell-mell down Baker Street.

  “That cold-blooded scoundrel will end on the gallows, mark my words!” growled Holmes.

  “Even now, though, I cannot follow all the steps in your reasoning, Holmes,” I remarked.

  “It is this way,” replied Holmes. “The only person who profited financially from the vanishing-trick—was the step-father. Then, the fact that the two men, Wyndham and Darvill, were never actually seen together was most suggestive. As were the tinted spectacles, the husky voice, the bushy whiskers—all of these latter, Watson, hinting strongly at disguise. Again, the type-written signature betokened one thing only—that the man’s handwriting was so familiar to Miss van Allen that she might easily recognize even a small sample of it. Isolated facts? Yes! But all of them leading to the same inevitable conclusion—as even my slumbering sibling might agree?”

  But there was no sound from the Mycroft corner.

  “You were able to verify your conclusion?” I asked.

  Holmes nodded briskly. “We know the firm for which Wyndham worked, and we had a full description of Darvill. I therefore eliminated from that description everything which could be the result of deliberate disguise—”

  “Which means that you have not verified your conclusion!” Mycroft’s sudden interjection caused us both to turn sharply towards him.

  “There will always,” rejoined Holmes, “be a need and a place for informed conjecture—”

  “Inspired conjecture, Holmes,” I interposed.

  “Phooey!” snorted Mycroft. “You are talking of nothing but wild guesswork, Sherlock. And it is my opinion that in this case your guesswork is grotesquely askew.”

  I can only report that never have I seen Holmes so taken aback; and he sat in silence as Mycroft raised his bulk from the chair and now stood beside the fireplace.

  “Your deductive logic needs no plaudits from me, Sherlock, and like Dr. Watson I admire your desperate hypothesis. But unless there is some firm evidence which you have thus far concealed from us …?”

  Holmes did not break his silence.

  “Well,” stated Mycroft, “I will indulge in a little guesswork of my own, and tell you that the gentleman who just stormed out of this room is as innocent as Watson here!”

  “He certainly did not act like an innocent man,” I protested, looking in vain to Holmes for some support, as Mycroft continued.

  “The reasons you adduce for your suspicions are perfectly sound in most respects, and yet—I must speak with honesty, Sherlock!—I found myself sorely disappointed with your reading—or rather complete misreading—of the case. You are, I believe, wholly correct in your central thesis that there is no such person as Horatio Darvill.” (How the blood was tingling in my veins a
s Mycroft spoke these words!) “But when the unfortunate Mr. Wyndham, who has just rushed one way up Baker Street, rushes back down it the other with a writ for defamation of character—as I fear he will!—then you will be compelled to think, to analyse, and to act, with a little more care and circumspection.”

  Holmes leaned forward, the sensitive nostrils of that aquiline nose a little distended. But still he made no comment.

  “For example, Sherlock, two specific pieces of information vouchsafed to us by the attractive Miss van Allen herself have been strongly discounted, if not wholly ignored, in your analysis.” (I noticed Holmes’s eyebrows rising quizzically.) “First, the fact that Mr. Wyndham was older than Miss van Allen only by some five years. Second, the fact that Miss van Allen is so competent and speedy a performer on the type-writer that she works, on a free-lance basis, for several firms in the vicinity of her home, including Messrs Cook and Marchant. Furthermore, you make the astonishing claim that Miss van Allen was totally deceived by the disguise of Mr. Darvill. Indeed, you would have her not only blind, but semi-senile into the bargain! Now it is perfectly true that the lady’s eyesight is far from perfect—glaucopia Athenica, would you not diagnose, Dr. Watson?—but it is quite ludicrous to believe that she would fail to recognize the person with whom she was living. And it is wholly dishonest of you to assert that the assignations were always held by candlelight, since on at least two occasions, the morning after the first meeting—the morning, Sherlock!—and the morning of the planned wedding ceremony, Miss van Allen had ample opportunity of studying the physical features of Darvill in the broadest of daylight.”

  “You seem to me to be taking an unconscionably long time in putting forward your own hypothesis,” snapped Holmes, somewhat testily.

  “You are right,” admitted the other. “Let me beat about the bush no longer! You have never felt emotion akin to love for any woman, Sherlock—not even for the Adler woman—and you are therefore deprived of the advantages of those who like myself are able to understand both the workings of the male and also the female mind. Five years her superior in age—her step-father; only five years. Now one of the sadnesses of womankind is their tendency to age more quickly and less gracefully than men; and one of the truths about mankind in general is that if you put one of each sex, of roughly similar age, in reasonable proximity … And if one of them is the fair Miss van Allen—then you are inviting a packet of trouble. Yet such is what took place in the Wyndham ménage. Mrs. Wyndham was seventeen years older than her young husband; and perhaps as time went by some signs and tokens of this disproportionate difference in their ages began to manifest themselves. At the same time, it may be assumed that Wyndham himself could not help being attracted—however much at first he sought to resist the temptation—by the very winsome and vivacious young girl who was his step-daughter. It would almost certainly have been Wyndham himself who introduced Miss van Allen to the part-time duties she undertook for Cook and Marchant—where the two of them were frequently thrown together, away from the restraints of wife and home, and with a result which it is not at all difficult to guess. Certain it is, in my own view, that Wyndham sought to transfer his affections from the mother to the daughter; and in due course it was the daughter who decided that whatever her own affections might be in the matter she must in all honour leave her mother and step-father. Hence the great anxiety to get out to dances and parties and the like—activities which Wyndham objected to for the obvious reason that he wished to have Miss van Allen as close by himself for as long as he possibly could. Now you, Sherlock, assume that this objection arose as a result of the interest accruing from the New Zealand securities—and you are guessing, are you not? Is it not just possible that Wyndham has money of his own—find out, brother!—and that what he craves for is not some petty addition to his wealth, but the love of a young woman with whom he has fallen rather hopelessly in love? You see, she took him in, just as she took you in, Sherlock—for you swallowed everything that calculating little soul reported.”