Vine's people lived in a small place nearby, but since Holmes had not suggested I look for it, or accost them, I went round the lanes and returned.
My spirits were quite high from the refreshing air, by the time I came back among the fields. Keeping to the footpath, I looked all about. It was a peaceful winter scene, with nothing abnormal or alarming in it.
When I came in sight of the house, I had the same impression. The building looked gracious, set in the white of the snow, the chimneys smoking splendidly.
Indoors, I found Vine, Reynolds and Nettie engaged in decorating the dining room with fresh-cut holly, while a tree stood ready to be dressed.
Holmes and Miss Caston were in the side parlour and I hesitated a moment before entering. A fire blazed on the parlour hearth, and a coffee pot steamed on the table. Holmes was speaking of a former case, affably and at some length. The lady sat rapt, now and then asking a sensible question.
Seeing me, however, Holmes got up and led me in.
"I have been regaling Miss Caston with an old history of ours, Watson. It turns out she has never read your account of it, though nothing else seems to have escaped her."
We passed an enjoyable couple of hours before luncheon. I thought I had seldom seen Holmes so unlike himself in company, so relaxed and amenable. Miss Caston cast a powerful spell, if even he was subject to it. But presently, when he and I were alone, he changed his face at once, like a mask.
"Watson, I believe this interesting house is no less than a rat-trap, and we are all the rats in it."
"For God's sake, Holmes, what do you mean?"
"A plot is afoot," he said, "we must on no account show full knowledge of."
"Then she is in great danger?" I asked.
He glanced at me and said, coldly, "Oh, yes, my dear Watson. I do believe she is. We are dealing with high villainy here. Be on guard. Be ready. For now, I can tell you nothing else. Except that I have looked at the elder Miss Caston's papers myself, and made an obvious discovery."
"Which is?"
"The warning or threatening letter which was sent my client had all its words cut from various correspondence kept here. I have traced every word, save one. No doubt I would find that if I persisted. They were part of bills and letters, one of which was written in the early seventeenth century. Our enemy effaced them without a care. One other incidental. The footman, Vine, resents the dismissal of his sweetheart, Lucy, who was Miss Caston's former maid."
"His sweetheart?"
"Yes, Watson. You will remember how Vine spoke of his employer, saying that she was a hard mistress."
"But surely that was because she would not let him go off for Christmas."
"That too, no doubt. But when he mentioned her hardness, it was in the past tense, and in the same breath as Lucy's dismissal. He declared he 'should have left when Lucy did.'"
"She was not dismissed, Holmes. She went of her own accord."
"No. During our morning's friendly conversation, I put it to Miss Caston that she had perhaps sent Lucy away due to some misconduct with Vine. Our client did not attempt to deceive me on this. She said at once there had been trouble of that sort."
"That then furnishes Vine and Lucy with a strong reason for malice."
"Perhaps it does."
"Did she say why she had not told you this before?"
"Miss Caston said she herself did not think either Lucy or Vine had the wit for a game of this sort. Besides, she had not wanted to blacken the girl's character. Indeed, I understand she gave Lucy an excellent reference. Miss Caston expressed to me the opinion that Lucy had only been foolish and too ardent in love. She would be perfectly useful in another household."
"This is all very like her. She is a generous and intelligent woman."
Reynolds alone attended to us at lunch. The hall was by now nicely decked with boughs of holly. Miss Caston announced she would dress the tree herself in the afternoon. This she did, assisted by myself. Holmes moodily went off about his investigations.
My conversation with her was light. I felt I should do my part and try to cheer her, and she seemed glad to put dark thoughts aside. By the time tea was served, the tree had been hung with small gold and silver baubles, and the candles were in place. Miss Caston lit them just before dinner. It was a pretty sight.
That night too, Mrs. Castle had excelled. We dined royally on pheasant, with two or three ancient and dusty bottles to add zest.
Later, when Miss Caston made to leave us, Holmes asked her to remain.
"Then, I will, Mr. Holmes, but please do smoke. I have no objection to cigars. I like their smell. I think many women are of my mind, and sorry to be excluded."
The servants had withdrawn, Vine too, having noisily seen to the fire. The candles on the tree glittered. Nothing seemed further from this old, comfortable, festive room than our task.
"Miss Caston," said Holmes, regarding her keenly through the blue smoke, "the time has come when we must talk most gravely."
She took up her glass, and sipped the wine, through which the firelight shone in a crimson dart. "You find me attentive, Mr. Holmes."
"Then I will say at once what I think you know. The author of these quaint events is probably in this house."
She looked at him. "You say that I know this?"
"Were you not suspicious of it?"
"You are not intending to say that after all I believe Sir Hugh de Castone haunts me?"
"Hardly, Miss Caston."
"Then whom must I suspect? My poor servants? The affair with Lucy was nothing. She was too passionate and not clever enough. Vine was a dunce. They were better parted."
"Aside from your servants, some other may be at work here."
Just at that moment the most astonishing and unearthly screech burst through the chamber. It was loud and close and seemed to rock the very table. Holmes started violently and I sprang to my feet. Miss Caston gave a cry and the glass almost dropped from her hand. The shriek then came again, yet louder and more terribly. The hair rose on my head. I looked wildly about, and even as I did so, a scratching and scrabbling, incorporeal yet insistent, rushed as it seemed through thin air itself, ascending until high above our heads in the beamed ceiling, where it ended.
I stood transfixed, until I heard Holmes's rare dry laughter.
"Well, Watson, and have you never heard such a noise?"
Miss Caston in her turn also suddenly began laughing, although she seemed quite shaken.
"A fox, Watson. It was a fox."
"But in God's name, Holmes—it seemed to go up through the air—"
"Through the wall, no doubt, and up into the roof."
I sat and poured myself another glass of brandy. Holmes, as almost always, was quite right. A fox has an uncanny, ghastly cry, well known to country dwellers. "But then the creature exists?"
"Why not?" said Holmes. "White foxes sometimes occur hereabouts, so we have learnt from Mrs. Castle, and from Derwent's book. Besides, in this case, someone has made sure a white fox is present. Before we left London, I made an inquiry of Messrs Samps and Brown, the eccentric furriers in Kempton Street, who deal in such rarities. They advised me that a live albino fox had been purchased through them, a few months ago."
"By whom?" I asked.
"By a man who was clearly the agent of another, a curious gentleman, very much muffled up and, alas, so far untraceable." Holmes looked directly at Miss Caston. "I think you can never have read all the papers which your aunt left you. Or you would be aware of three secret passages which run through this house. None is very wide or high, but they were intended to conceal men at times of religious or political unrest, and are not impassable."
"Mr. Holmes, I have said, I never bothered much with the papers. Do you mean that someone is hiding—in my very walls?"
"Certainly the white fox has made its earth there. No doubt encouraged to do so by a trail of meat stolen from the larder."
"What is this persecutor's aim?" she demanded fiercely. "To fri
ghten me away?"
"Rather more than that, I think," said Holmes, laconically.
"And there is a man involved?"
"It would seem so, Miss Caston, would you not say?"
She rose and moved slowly to the hearth. There she stood in graceful profile, gazing at the shield above the fireplace.
"Am I," she said at last, "surrounded by enemies?"
"No, Miss Caston," I replied. "We are here."
"What should I do?"
Holmes said, "Perhaps you should think very clearly, Miss Caston, delve into the library of your mind, and see what can be found there."
"Then I will." She faced him. She was not beseeching, more proud. "But you mean to save me, Mr. Holmes?"
He showed no expression. His eyes had turned black as two jets in the lamplight. "I will save whomever I can, Miss Caston, that deserves it. But never rate me too highly. I am not infallible."
She averted her head suddenly, as if at a light blow. "But you are one of the greatest men living."
So saying, and without bidding us good night, she gathered her skirts and left the room. Holmes got up, and walked to the fire, into which he cast the butt of his cigar.
"Watson, did you bring your revolver?"
"Of course I did."
"That is just as well."
"Tomorrow is Christmas Eve," I said, "according to the story, the last day of the Gall."
"Hmm." He knocked lightly on the wall, producing a hollow note. "One of the passages runs behind this wall, Watson, and up into the attics, I am sure. The other two I have not yet been able to locate, since the plans are old and hardly to be deciphered. Just like the postmark on the letter sent to Miss Caston. Did you notice, by the by, Watson, that although the envelope had been wetted and so conveniently smudged, no moisture penetrated to the letter itself?"
I too tossed my cigar butt into the flames.
"Fires have the look of Hell, do you think, Watson? Is Hell cheerful after all, for the malign ones cast down there?"
"You seem depressed. And you spoke to her as if the case might be beyond you."
"Did I, old man? Well, there must be one or two matches I lose. I am not, as I said, infallible."
Leaving me amazed, he vacated the room, and soon after I followed him. In my well-appointed bedchamber, I fell into a restless sleep, and woke with first light, uneasy and perplexed.
5
I now acknowledged that Holmes was keeping back from me several elements of the puzzle he was grappling with. This was not the first occasion when he had done so, nor would it be the last. Though I felt the exclusion sharply, I knew he would have reasons for it, which seemed wise to him, at least.
However, I checked my revolver before breakfast. Going downstairs, I found I would eat my toast and drink my coffee alone. Miss Caston, as yesterday, was above, and Holmes had gone off, Vine grudgingly told me, on his own errands.
I amused myself as I could, examining the old swords, and finding a distinct lack of newspapers, tried the books in the library. They proved too heavy for my present scope of concentration.
About noon, Holmes returned, shaking the snow off his coat and hat. A blizzard was blowing up, the white flakes whirling, hiding the lawns, trees and fields beyond the windows. We went into the dining room.
"Read this," said Holmes, thrusting a telegram into my hands. I read it. It came from the firm of Samps and Brown, Furriers to the Discerning. A white fox had been purchased through their auspices on 15th October, and delivered to the care of a Mr. Smith.
"But Holmes, this was the very information you relayed last night."
"Just so. It was the information I expected to get today. But the telegram was kept for me at Chislehurst Village."
"Then why—"
"I gambled for once on its being a fact. I dearly wanted to see how Miss Caston would take it."
"It frightened her, Holmes, I have no doubt. What else?"
"Oh, did it frighten her? She kept a cool head."
"She is brave and self-possessed."
"She is a schemer."
He shocked me. I took a moment to find words. "Why on earth do you say so?"
"Watson, I despair of you. A lady's charms can disarm you utterly. And she well knows that, I think."
"She speaks more highly of you," I angrily asserted.
"I am sure that she does, which is also a way of disarming you, my dear fellow. Sit down, and listen to me. No, not there, this chair, I suggest, away from the fire."
I obeyed him. "You believe someone listens in the secret passage behind the wall there?"
"I think it possible. But this is a peculiar business and certainly its heroine has got me into a mode of distrust."
We sat down, and Holmes began to talk: "Miss Caston came to us, Watson, well-versed in all your tales of my work, inaccurate and embellished as they are. She brought with her the legend of the Caston Gall, which legend seems to be real enough, in as much as it exists in Derwent and elsewhere. Four Caston women, widows or spinsters, have apparently died here on one of the five days before Christmas. But the causes of Miss Caston's recent alarm—the writing in the snow, the number on the wall, the warning letter, the white fox—all these things have been achieved, I now suppose, by the lady herself."
"You will tell me how."
"I will. She had easy access to the letters and documents of her aunt, and herself cut out the words, using different implements, and pasting them on a sheet of cheap paper which may be come on almost anywhere. She was impatient, it is true, and used the word 'our' where 'out' eluded her. In her impatience, too, she hired some low person of no imagination to procure the fox and bring it here—Mr. Smith, indeed. Then she herself took cold meat from the larder to lure the animal to a tenancy inside the passageway, where it has since been heard scratching and running about. The door of the kitchen was found—not forced, nor tampered with, I have checked—but unlocked, twice. And if unlocked from the outside, why not from the inside? Again, her impatience perhaps, led her to this casualness. She would have done better to have left some sign of more criminal work, but then again, she may have hoped it would be put down to the carelessness of her staff. The letters in the snow she scratched there herself, then stood over them exclaiming. Hence her footsteps mark the snow, but no others. The abbreviation of her name and the use of the Roman five are not uningenious, I will admit—she has been somewhat heavy-handed elsewhere. In the study, she herself wrote the number five upon the wall. Standing on the librarian's steps, I had to lean down some way, the exact distance needed for a woman of her height, on those same steps, to form the number. You noticed the five, though drawn carefully, was also three times abruptly smeared, particularly on the lower curve. This was where her blue topaz ring, which at that time did not properly fit her, slipped down and pulled the ink, just as it had on her note to me. The ivy she herself disarranged from the window, with an almost insolent lack of conviction."
"Holmes, it seems to me that this once you assume a great deal too much—"
"At Baker Street I watched her in the window as she looked at me. My back was turned to her, and in her obvious unease, she forgot I might see her lamplit reflection on the night outside. Her face, Watson, was as predatory as that of any hawk. I fancied then she was not to be trusted. And there is too much that fits my notion."
"When the fox screamed, I thought she would faint."
"It is a frightful cry, and she had not anticipated it. That one moment was quite genuine."
"Vine," I said, "and Lucy."
"I have not decided on their role in this, save that the boy is obviously disgruntled and the girl maybe was not sensible. As for the letter Lucy is said to have written to Miss Caston, that first warning which so unfortunately was thrown away, being thought at the time of no importance—it never existed. Why should Lucy, dismissed from her employment and her lover, desire to warn the inventor of her loss?"
"Perhaps Lucy meant to frighten her."
"An inte
resting deduction, Watson, on which I congratulate you. However, you must look at the other side of the coin. If the inventor of Lucy's loss received a sinister warning from her, would she too not conclude it was an attempt to frighten?"
"Very well. But the deaths, Holmes. I too have read Derwent. The elder Miss Caston undeniably died here. The other three women certainly seem to have done."
"There is such a thing as coincidence, Watson. Mistress Hannah Castone choked on a chicken bone. The French lady slipped on the icy stair. Maria Caston was shot by a spurned and vengeful suitor. The aunt was apoplectic and terrified out of her wits by having to remain in the house at Christmas. You as a doctor will easily see the possibility of death in such a situation."
The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Page 67
