“So it was that the next morning, I took the early train to Manstone Green. My first stop was a newsagent, where I purchased a local paper. Smith had been correct when he had told me there had been no reports of a death. My attention, however, was caught by a report of a man missing since the morning of the 5th November. Mr. Charles Winslade had left his home in Fluxton Avenue at eight o’clock, caught the train into London, and had seemingly vanished into thin air. No word had been heard from him since. Confirming the address with the one Smith had given me was a mere formality, for I was certain I had my man.
“It also served to dispel any doubts I had about Smith’s story. He would not have been the first to report a crime he had committed in the hopes of turning attention away from himself. One should exercise caution before jumping to conclusions, however, and the question remained as to how a man allegedly found dead on the night of the 4th had been seen alive on the morning of the 5th.
“The local public house is always a good source of information and, on the basis that latitude is given to the newly-wedded, I posed as a prospective bridegroom, seeking information as to suitable lodgings after my nuptials. As expected, the regulars of the Red Lion were most forthcoming, at least until I touched on the question of crime in the area.
“There was a long pause before a lean man with a weather-beaten face at the bar spoke up. ‘If you’d asked me that last week, I’d have said there was no place safer for a young family than Manstone Green. But now...’
“He clenched his pipe between his stained and chipped teeth and glanced at the landlord. ‘Now, I’d have to say there were some rum doings about these parts. A lot of strangers wandering about in the dead of night. Why, only a couple of nights ago, Mrs. Higgins saw a man in Fluxton Avenue, and we all knew what he were up to.’
“‘Now, Jem,’ said the landlord disapprovingly, ‘we don’t know nothing of the sort. By all accounts, he weren’t no grey-beard. Stocky, Mrs. Higgins said, with a furtive look about him.’
“If, as I suspected, Mrs. Higgins had sighted Smith, it added strength to his story at the expense of casting doubt on his abilities as a burglar.
“‘T’were a nice neighbourhood, once,’ Jem continued. ‘If you ask me, he’s the reason Mr. Winslade took off.’
“Naturally, I pressed them on the subject and soon had details beyond which the press had divulged. The Winslades had taken lodgings in Fluxton Avenue several weeks before. Mr. Winslade was a commercial traveller, away from home a good deal, so that it had been Mrs. Winslade who had made their domestic arrangements. She kept to herself, seen only occasionally in the local shops, and once a week at the church service. That is, until the night of the 4th, when Mr. and Mrs. Winslade had attended the recital in the church hall. It was the first time many of the locals had seen Mr. Winslade, and he was described to me as dark, handsome man of about forty years of age, somewhat about six foot in height, with a fresh, clean-shaven appearance, although that night it was noted he had a rash upon his chin.
“Mrs. Winslade was younger than her husband by fifteen years and more, and was slim, fair, and petite in stature, with the trace of an accent. It was the general consensus of the Red Lion clientele that she had more than a few admirers in the neighbourhood. Most of these were from afar, but speculation centred around one man, tall, grey of hair and beard, whom the neighbours had noticed loitering outside the Winslades’ lodgings before finally being given admittance a week or so previously. Mrs. Higgins, the Winslades’ landlady, would later testify in court that Mrs. Winslade had introduced this man to her as her father. She said there was something unnerving about him, as though they had met before, and he had the eyes of a devil.
“Such fanciful notions did not interest me. I placed more value upon the reports that Mr. and Mrs. Winslade, undoubtedly a handsome couple, were ill-at-ease at the recital. Add that to Mrs. Higgins’s testimony of how the father had been visiting on the night of the 4th when Mr. Winslade came home, how she had heard the muffled voices of two men engaged in an argument and the sound of a window slamming shut, and I began to see how an elaborate crime had taken place.
“At this point, Watson, I should make it clear that the father left at approximately a quarter-past-seven. Mrs. Higgins heard a thump outside her door and found this grey-bearded gentlemen in the act of picking up his cane, which he had dropped down the stairs. She was certain it was him; it was the eyes, so she said. At ten to eight, Mr. and Mrs. Winslade left for the recital. They returned at ten past ten, and that was the last Mrs. Higgins saw of them until the husband left for work the next morning.
“And that was how matters stood. Jem, the self-appointed opinionist of the Red Lion, was convinced Mrs. Winslade had been having an affair with the man she had claimed was her father, and the husband, having confronted the pair, packed his bags and left. As the landlord said, however, if that was the case, why did they bother to attend the recital? There was some argument for keeping up appearances, although surely there are easier ways to accomplish a separation than for the wronged party to go missing.
“I had the advantage of Smith’s information. It seemed to me the argument that night had resulted in the death of one of the men involved. The bang heard by Mrs. Higgins was almost certainly a pistol shot. That would have left them the problem of the body.
“I put myself in their situation and took a turn about the town to see if I could locate a suitable place for the disposal of a body. Manstone Green is a small town, with a High Street boasting the usual variety of shops, and residential areas surrounded by common land. At present, the open land between the town and neighbouring Richmond is a bar to the latter’s expansion, but not a permanent one. In time, I dare say the larger shall subsume the smaller. For the present, however, the residents have attempted to retain their sense of community by the maintenance of their traditions. One is these is the construction of a large bonfire to be burned on Guy Fawkes’ Night. My eye was caught by its charred remains, which had yet to be raked over. A grisly possibility suggested itself. Sure enough, prodding through the blackened embers with my cane, I discovered what was left of the dead man.
“The local constabulary, with a missing man on one hand and body on the other, came to the obvious conclusion. The skull revealed the man had been shot in the head, the trajectory suggesting that the gun had been held above. The local detective, a saturnine and unimaginative man by the name of Jarvis, theorised that Winslade had been waylaid by thieves on the morning of his death. A struggle had ensued and he had been shot in the process. His body had later been placed in the bonfire under cover of darkness and burned by the unsuspecting organisers.
“So might the case have remained had I not interfered”
At this point in his narrative, Holmes sighed deeply and with, so I thought, what sounded to me like a touch of frustration.
“I raised the question as to timing of the fellow’s death,” said he at length, his gaze diverted to the busy streets of Cheapside as we continued on our way. “I convinced Jarvis that the time between dusk and the burning of the bonfire at seven o’clock would not have afforded an opportunity for the thieves to conceal the body as they did, since the stacked wood had been attended, lest any children attempt to hide in it. Furthermore, with the deed done, why would the thieves have remained in the area with a body which would have incriminated them? I suggested to the inspector that he should speak to the neighbours about the grey-bearded man and pointed to the significance of the rash on Mr. Winslade’s face that night.
“Despite his dislike of ‘meddlers’, as he called me, he took my advice and soon had formulated another theory, namely that the husband had died earlier in the evening at the hands of the father. To conceal the true nature of the crime, the father had shaved off his whiskers and applied boot polish to his hair to achieve the necessary look and had attended the recital in the guise of the husband. This was confirmed by my discovery
of short grey hairs on the window sill of the Winslades’ lodgings, where the wife had attempted to dispose of the evidence of her father’s beard-shaving by shaking the cloth on which the hairs had fallen out of the window.
“Mrs. Winslade was challenged to produce her father. Instead, she chose to flee and was arrested at Southampton on suspicion of murder. More facts became known at the trial. Someone recognised her picture in the press and identified her, not as Mrs. Winslade, but as Anna Jarrow, the wife of Anthony Jarrow, sometimes Lord Jarrow, other times as Sir Anthony Jarrow, as the mood took him. Little about the man’s personal history was known. He seems to have been a man of indeterminate private means, with something of a reputation as a libertine and a thoroughly bad lot. It was discovered the couple had lived the high life around Europe. Both had suddenly disappeared, leaving considerable debts, three years before the lady’s appearance in England. All we ever got from Anna Jarrow was a confirmation as to her true identity; she would admit to nothing else.
“You will understand, Watson, this put a different complexion on the case. The police alleged the pair had fled to escape their debts, and after travelling extensively, had come to rest in Manstone Green, taking the name Winslade. Their past had caught up with them in the shape of the grey-bearded man, who perhaps had recognised the couple and was trying to extort money from them. They had conspired to kill him, and so Mr. Jarrow came home with a gun that night, intent on doing the blackmailer harm. At the operative moment, the two men had struggled and Mr. Jarrow had been killed. The blackmailer had then taken his place to prevent discovery of the crime until he had a chance to escape.”
Holmes paused and glanced over at me. “You do see the problem, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Why would Mrs. Jarrow assist a blackmailer who had killed her husband?”
“Quite so,” said Holmes. “If we give the spokesman of the Red Lion his due and cast the grey-bearded man in the role of her ally, then the events of that night begin to make sense. Mrs. Jarrow has a lover. When Jarrow returns home that night, he minds the pair in flagrante delicto. A confrontation takes place and one or the other produces a gun, the husband most likely, given their circumstances. During the struggle, the lover kills the husband by shooting him through the head. The pair then concoct a means of providing them both with alibis. The lover leaves, making sure he has a witness. He returns moments later, possibly by the same route taken by Smith. He shaves off his beard, darkens his hair, and takes Jarrow’s place at the recital - the only time the couple had been seen in public, mark you! - secure in the knowledge few in the neighbourhood have directly encountered the man. Even the landlady Mrs. Higgins said she only caught a few glimpses of his face, although by her evidence, she claimed to be familiar with the shape of his back and shoulders. That night, the lover takes the body to the bonfire which has been built ready for the next evening. He returns to the house and, still in his disguise as Mr. Jarrow, leaves the next morning and disappears.”
Holmes sat back in his seat, his features relaxing somewhat after the exertion of telling his tortuous tale. “I put this theory to the prosecution and that is the line they followed. Anna Jarrow pleaded not guilty, but offered no defence save that she was innocent of the death of the man who had been known as Charles Winslade. You can imagine the effect this had on the jury. The judge was obliged to give her the maximum sentence as an accessory after the fact, given her refusal to name her accomplice. I was able to dissuade them from a charge of murder, for the preceding argument suggested spontaneity. Nor could I support the theory that Mrs. Jarrow had executed the crime herself. The lady was scarcely five-feet-two, and would not have had the reach necessary to achieve the downward shot.”
“Unless Jarrow was sitting down at the time,” I ventured.
“I had considered that. The evidence of the landlady placed what was presumed to be the fatal shot at the time she heard the two men arguing. In addition, the wound was towards the front of the cranium; even a man comfortable in his wife’s presence would have felt some alarm at seeing her coming towards him with a pistol. No, my dear fellow, there was no doubt as to her being an accessory. But...”
Holmes thumped his fist on the side wall of the hansom in frustration.
“But what has always eluded me is the reason for her continued silence. Even now, after a lengthy incarceration, she refuses to give up his name. Hamlet may have considered a woman’s love brief, but he never met Anna Jarrow. I confess, my dear fellow, I find her loyalty to the fellow admirable, if misplaced. The motives of women will ever be a mystery to me, Watson.” His face took on a brighter aspect and a smile twitched at the sides of his mouth. “Or perhaps not. Well, we can but try, my dear fellow.”
The rest of the journey passed in silence. The time-stained walls of The Tower of London slid by, brooding over the soldiers in the barracks and visitors to its gloomy dungeons, a silent witness now to the jousts of kings and the deaths of queens in days of yore. Turning northwards, we wended our way through the busy streets, passing the shops of booksellers and clockmakers, into the area of Portsoken, bounded by Spitalfields to the east and Bishopsgate to the north. Our destination was a small court off the Minories, where red-bricked terraced houses slumped against each other like drunken men and sagged from every parapet and window ledge. Our cabman stopped in the main road, and we made our way on foot, passing lounging men and idle women outside a tavern on the corner, their faces mingling both curiosity and hostility.
The address proved to be a lodging house for destitute women recently released from prison, run by a charitable organisation for discharged prisoners. A painted board by the door listed the rules of the establishment: No gambling, no drunkenness, and no male visitors, to name but a few. This last I considered might be our stumbling block, but the matron in charge of the establishment was so suitably impressed by having a famous detective on the doorstep that she was inclined to wave the rule on this occasion.
Anna Jarrow had a room on the second floor, sparsely furnished with the bare essentials and embroidered religious quotations in frames on the walls. We found her seated by a table at the window, with a basket of clothes beside her chair and several garments spread out before her. She rose at our entrance, her expression registering recognition. She was thin, sallow, and hollow-eyed, the long years in prison ageing her before her time, but still there remained the shadow of the handsome woman she had once been.
“Mrs. Jarrow,” said Holmes severely. “Do you remember me?”
“How could I forget the man who had me sent to prison?” said she, the slight trace of the accent Holmes had described in her speech still detectable after all these years.
“Your actions, madam, did that.”
“As you say.” She gestured to the other chair in the room. “Won’t you sit?”
“This will not take long.”
She smiled. “It may take longer than even you can imagine, Mr. Holmes. I can guess why you are here.”
“Then perhaps you could save us all time by telling me what I want to know, Mrs. Jarrow. I see you are a busy woman.”
She glanced over at the basket of clothes. “It is meagre employment, but I am grateful for the work.” She took her own seat again. “Very well, let me hear what you have to say.”
“I erred at your trial,” Holmes asserted.
I confess I was taken aback to hear him admit such a thing. Mrs. Jarrow, however, maintained an admirable calm.
“I thought, as did many, that the man you were protecting was your lover,” he continued. “That you should protect him then, as you protect him still, made little sense. Had you provided the court with a name, leniency might have been granted.”
“Had I provided a name, he might have hanged. The crime was mine and mine alone.”
“Ah, Mrs. Jarrow,” said Holmes, shaking his head, “you did not fire the fatal shot that killed your husba
nd.”
She nodded. “But it was my fault he was there. Allow me some portion of blame. To have named him would have been to condemn him. I was not innocent. If someone had to answer for the crime, better than it was me. As your Lord Byron once said: ‘They never fail who die in a great cause’.”
“It is your concept of the ‘noble sacrifice’, madam, and your enduring silence, which has led me to one inescapable conclusion as to the real identity of the grey-bearded man.” Holmes paused for effect. “He was your brother, was he not?”
Anna Jarrow stared at him for a long time. “I have no brother,” said she evenly.
“Not one I have been able to trace, admittedly,” agreed Holmes.
“That is because he does not exist. I grew up an only child in Antwerp.” She lowered her gaze and plucked listlessly at the pieces of cloth on the table. “I will concede, however, that he was not my lover.”
“Then who?”
“After all, this time, what does it matter? I have paid for my crime, Mr. Holmes.”
“It matters, Mrs. Jarrow, because a man died.”
“A worthless man!” she cried, with sudden emotion. She stared at us, her eyes blazing, and then, as if making up her mind, she nodded and looked away. “I should hate you, sir, but in truth, I pity you for your ignorance. Leave now. I have nothing more to say.”
And so we had no choice but to do as the lady said. No entreaty would sway her, and Holmes was forced to admit to Gregson that he had failed to extract the truth from Mrs. Jarrow. Over the next few months, other cases came to occupy us, and life at Baker Street settled back into our old routine. But still, as one after another came to a successful conclusion, I would see that faraway look come into his eye and he would fall to brooding on the Jarrow case. The reports from the Irregulars he had instructed to follow the lady petered out, and the case file was closed and consigned to the depths of his tin box.
The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part IX Page 34
