Priorsfield House was huge and empty after a weekend party, the gardens were deserted and the patter of water spilling from a triton’s conche in the grand basin was audible across the main lawn. The housekeeper received us, in the temporary absence of her employer, and we were conducted at once to the north drawing-room. The windows had been orientated to avoid strong sunlight damaging the fabrics of furniture. With a small key she unlocked the display case.
“The piano too, if you please,” said Holmes courteously.
She puffed herself up, cock-robin style, and clasped her hands. One look at her had been enough to assure me that she would never let drop tittle-tattle about Lord Arthur Savile’s unorthodox visit to the house.
“Lord Blagdon left no instructions as to the piano.”
Sherlock Holmes sighed.
“I fear we shall have wasted his lordship’s time, as well as our own, if we are denied an opportunity to examine the keyboard. In that case, I must decline to proceed further with the investigation.”
There was only a brief pause before this contest of wills was decided. Our chatelaine walked across and unlocked the lid of the fine black-lacquered Bozendorfer grand piano, folding it back on its polished brass hinges and laying bare an immaculate keyboard.
“It seems,” said Holmes to me from the corner of his mouth, “that the housemaids here have been as careless as in most establishments when it comes to the matter of dusting. I daresay I should be so myself, in their situation. A good deal too much fuss is made about dust—which settles again almost as soon as it is brushed off.”
The housekeeper had walked silently from the room, though we could feel that her eyes were still upon us from some vantage point just beyond the door. Holmes turned to the piano. He had come equipped with a black Gladstone bag that might more properly have belonged to a doctor. From this he took an instrument case, laid it on the table and opened it. He chose two camel-hair brushes, such as a painter might have used for fine work. To these he added two small bottles. The first contained dark powder, which was graphite of much the kind used for lubricating locks. The second was his own preparation, two parts of finely powdered chalk and one part of metallic mercury. These little bottles were accompanied by two insufflators to allow each powder to be blown gently on to any surface. In his waistcoat pocket, as usual, a folded magnifying-lens was readily available.
For the next twenty minutes, Sherlock Holmes worked patiently and intently, his features drawn in a slight frown of concentration. He began with the light coloured powder of chalk and mercury, puffing it gently but accurately on to the black keys of the piano. Then he removed a little surplus with a camel-hair brush. When this was done, he took the graphite and the second insufflator, applying the darker powder to the white ivory of the piano keys. It settled like a thin drift of snow—and like snow it revealed the contours over which it lay, in this case those slight ridges imprinted by the exudations of the human skin.
He took a little mirror from his pocket and angled it to catch the light from the windows. Then there began his long examination of each piano key in turn. I knew better than to interrupt him. It was half an hour before his back straightened and he stood up, the sharp profile animated and eyes glittering. He put down the little mirror into which he had been staring, seeking the best angle. The powders had now left on the polished ivory of the keys what I can only describe as a slight and brittle encrustation which a sweep of the hand would remove.
“Of one thing we may be sure, Watson. The last person to touch this keyboard played upon it the ‘Préambule’ from the set of pieces entitled Carnaval, by the late and sublime Robert Schumann. It has not been dusted nor touched since then.”
He seemed a little too pleased with himself for my liking.
“How can you possibly say that?”
“Very easily, my dear fellow. To begin with, we are only concerned with the last person to touch the instrument. I can assure you that all these prints belong to the same pair of hands. Only one person has played upon it since it was last dusted.”
“Lord Arthur?”
He raised a finger.
“Look at the two topmost octaves of the keyboard in the right hand. No prints appear on the four highest keys. That is to say, G, A, and the raised notes of F and G. They are very often not required. We can safely forget them. But five other notes are also free of prints. Those are significant.”
“Of what?”
He sighed tolerantly.
“Significant in your case, my dear Watson, of hours wasted in concert halls, fighting back sleep when the air was shimmering with the genius of Rubinstein or Paderewski. Before our little outings to the Wigmore Hall, I like to read the scores of the pieces to be played. Consequently I may tell you that in the right-hand of Robert Schumann’s ‘Préambule’ there are only five other keys—black or white—which are not touched. All are in the same two topmost octaves. They include the upper D flat and, in both octaves, the keys of E natural and B natural. Now you may study the keyboard of this splendid instrument and tell me for yourself which of those five keys have produced no finger-prints.”
He was right, of course. I tried to salvage as much dignity as I was able.
“Hardly conclusive proof of anything but Lord Arthur playing Schumann. Not much to go on.”
“My dear fellow, I am nowhere near my conclusion yet. I promise you I have a good deal more to go on. Look at the lower half of the keyboard, by the way. Tell me what you see.”
“There are no prints on the lowest twelve keys, black or white. All the rest seem to have been touched.”
“Exactly. It will not surprise you to learn that those are the very notes not required in playing Schumann’s exquisite sketch.”
“But Holmes, there is no dispute that Lord Arthur played that piece on this piano.”
“There would have been a great deal of dispute if we had asked Lord Blagdon, or indeed Lord Arthur himself, for a set of our subject’s finger-prints as though he were a common criminal. He is a young man of excellent family and as yet unblemished reputation. Therefore he is likely to resist being treated as a suspect. None the less, we now have what we want: a set of his finger-prints is essential if our investigation is to be successfully carried out.”
There was little point in arguing. In any case I must either concede that Holmes was right or, at least, suspend my judgment. He left the lid of the keyboard open and turned instead to the display case with its magnificent collection of Sèvres porcelain. It was the most remarkable example of eighteenth-century craftsmanship. Its vases, cups, tableware, and bonbon dishes were fit for a royal drawing-room.
He carefully opened the unlocked glass doors.
“I think we shall find very few finger-prints of any kind here, Watson. The servants in great houses are taught to dust such treasures, on the rare occasions when they do so, by holding them in a cloth without allowing their fingers to touch the polished surface. It would not do for a housemaid’s or even a butler’s greasy thumbprint to blemish the display.”
“Lord Arthur used no duster.”
“No. Curious is it not that a man who wore gloves on most occasions—except when playing the piano which he could hardly do with gloves on—should have left them off while practising the art of burglary. That may be the answer to everything.”
“He cannot have expected to be caught.”
“He cannot have expected to be seen, rather,” said Holmes with quiet emphasis.
“Then why play the piano without gloves in front of others?”
“We shall have an answer to that without leaving these rooms. For the moment, I should value your assistance in taking the pieces of porcelain as I hand them to you and putting them gently on the table behind you. Please avoid marking them with your own fingers and preserve the prints already there. We shall not need to look far. We have it on Lord Blagdon’s authority that whatever interested his cousin was comfortably within his reach as he stood at the opening of the cabinet
doors, where we are now. I doubt whether we need examine more than a dozen items.”
As it proved, we required eight. Four of these were a fine set of Sèvres vases with gilt handles and ornament, each bearing a garden scene set in royal blue lustre, taken from a painting by Fragonard. Holmes tested all four with dark powder. They had been dusted some time ago but not marked since. A satin-pink gilt-edged dessert plate bore the signs of the zodiac but no finger-prints. Two Meissen vases decorated in blue on white with a pattern of Indian flowers required both light and dark powder but yielded no prints. Holmes was evidently correct that all these had been dusted, polished and then put away without the fingers of the servants touching their surfaces once the cleaning had been completed.
Then my friend took a dainty Sèvres bonbonnière. It was in richly enamelled porcelain, a rectangular chocolate-box, some six inches across. Edged by a motif of golden fleurs-de-lys, its centrepiece was a golden knob by which the lid was lifted. On each of its sides, the face of one of the winds was painted in natural tones, Boreas for the North, Auster for the South, Eurus for the East and Zephyr for the West. Sherlock Holmes handled it so that none of his finger-tips touched the polished surface.
“A little out of place among the vases, I should say,” he remarked as he set it safely on the table, “An afterthought to the display, and therefore most interesting. On such light surfaces as these, I believe our graphite powder will suffice.”
He positioned it on the window-table where the sunlight would fall as he required it. With his insufflator he puffed a light drift of the darker powder on to the outer surfaces. Judiciously, he blew off a small amount of the powder and applied his enlarging glass to the golden knob at the centre of the lid, as well as to the left-hand side of the box itself. Presently he straightened up, offering me the glass.
“We must make a more detailed inspection presently, Watson. However, it seems the only prints to be seen are exactly where I had anticipated. There are two complete and two partial prints on the golden knob at the centre of the lid, as well as four finger-prints on the left-hand surface and a separate thumbprint on this side. Let us suppose they are the prints of someone who has steadied the box with the left hand while lifting its lid with the fingers of the right. I believe you will find these prints are exact replicas of those on the piano keyboard.”
I am no expert in the matter of finger-prints but the similarities in the papillary ridges in every case, as Holmes now demonstrated, were certainly striking. In the case of the left index-finger, the manner in which three of the ridges forked prematurely in an upward direction and two in a downward direction were identical on the porcelain and the piano keys. There were also two short independent ridges which seemed to me a carbon copy. I also noticed an identical small feature known as an island or a lake. Conclusive, in my opinion, was the slight disfigurement of a minor cut or abrasion, such as we all suffer from time to time. It had long ceased to trouble the man whose finger sustained it, yet it had not quite vanished on either surface.
Taking the lid of the exquisite bonbonnière by its edges, Sherlock Holmes lifted it gently and put it on one side.
“I think we may say that the box was dusted and put away behind glass some time ago, untouched by the servant’s fingers. Since then, one person has touched it and removed the lid. Even if we had not the prints on the piano keyboard, the evidence points to Lord Arthur Savile.”
He peered into the interior of white glazed china.
“As one might expect, Watson. Out of sight, out of mind! The servant who dusted the exterior of the box did not think it worth the trouble to open it and clean the interior!”
He showed it to me. The glazed white china which formed the little floor of the interior was marked by two caramel-stained deposits, each about the size of a postage-stamp.
“This box has merely been used for its original purpose of holding chocolates,” I said, “Heat of some kind, perhaps a fire in the background or the sun through the window, has warmed the interior sufficiently to melt the chocolate or even the contents of one of the bonbons.”
“Two of them, I think,” said Holmes quickly, “and quite recently.”
He touched his forefinger to his tongue and then to one of the marks. He mimed a disappointed face and shrugged. Then he repeated the process with the second caramel deposit. This time he stood still, his features immobile for several seconds. Very suddenly, as if he were about to vomit, he drew his handkerchief, stuffed it to his lips and spat into it with all his strength. In a few strides, he crossed to a small table on which stood a siphon of soda water. Like a singer lubricating his tonsils, he squirted the water into his mouth, crossed to the window, flung it up, and spat again, unceremoniously into the flower-bed.
I stooped over the box and sniffed its interior. There was a mustiness of stale sugar and condiments of some kind but nothing more. Very carefully, I touched my finger to the same deposit.
“Before you go further, Watson, the word ‘aconite’ may give you second thoughts. Unless I am very much mistaken, the terms Indian aconite, or Aconitum ferox, or the so-called Bish poison would be a more accurate description here—to judge by the speed with which it affects the tongue. I believe there has been poison in this box, and it would hardly have been introduced without murder in mind. I tasted the minutest quantity but my lips and the tip of my tongue are still tingling and a little numb. Concealed in a bonbon, of course, it would have done its worst before there was any suspicion.”
“And Lord Blagdon?”
“For the moment, we shall say nothing. I lowever, in case we should require to verify his lordship’s account of Lord Alfred’s visit, I should like to take one more finger-print sample from the sill of the library window. I do not think our client has misled us but this case now takes on a graver complexion.”
3
We took the print from the library sill. By the time that we returned to the north drawing-room, it was occupied by the tall and stooping figure of Lord Blagdon who turned from the oriel window to greet us.
“Well, Mr Holmes,” he said uneasily, “I see that you have been at work. To what conclusion have you come?”
“To little more than I had already come,” said Holmes crisply. “In playing Schumann on the grand piano, your cousin left a perfect set of his finger-prints. Those prints also appear on the window sill of the library, corroborating your version of events.”
“When I came to you, I was not aware that my version would require corroboration,” said Lord Blagdon reproachfully.
“But you have it none the less, my lord,” Holmes replied, yielding no ground. “The same finger-prints appear on the Sèvres bonbonnière near the front of the cabinet. So far as we can establish at the moment, that was the object of Lord Arthur’s visit.”
Lord Blagdon seemed genuinely taken aback.
“What possible interest could he have in it? He certainly did not attempt to steal it. Indeed, I should have made him a present of it, if his heart was set upon the thing. It is not of great value, compared with the other pieces.”
“I do not think he ever wanted to steal it. Perhaps, however, you would not mind giving me an account of its recent history.”
Holmes had gained the initiative and Lord Blagdon now looked a little perplexed.
“It has no recent history to speak of, Mr Holmes. It is only as a matter of convenience that it appears in the display. During her lifetime, it was the possession of our father’s cousin, Lady Clementina Beauchamp. Lady Clem, as we all called her. Like so many of our more distant family, she was never well off but we all cared for her as best we could. She had inherited a few items like the bonbon dish from our grandfather and she left them to us when she died.”
“What did she leave to Lord Arthur?”
Lord Blagdon raised his eyebrows.
“To Lord Arthur? Why, nothing. She had no reason to. He had no expectations from her. It was my own side of the family from which she had received kindness. She was fo
nd enough of my cousin, of course, as I have always believed he was of her. But then, Lady Clem was fond of everyone because it was in her nature. I do not think she and Lord Arthur were more closely acquainted.”
“They were on visiting terms, however?”
“Oh, to be sure, we all were. To what extent, in his case, I cannot say.”
“When did Lady Beauchamp die?”
The expression on Lord Blagdon’s face suggested that this line of questioning had gone on long enough but that he would indulge his hired detective a little more.
“Almost exactly two months ago.”
“And where was Lord Arthur then?”
“Lord Arthur had been in Venice for a week or two with my wife’s brother. He was unable to return in time for the funeral. Now if that is all for the present....”
“I fear, my lord, that it is not nearly all.”
The tone of this stung our host.
“Mr Holmes! On the recommendation of a close friend I have invited you to investigate a most sensitive family matter. You now inquire into things which I cannot see are in the least necessary. I am anxious to benefit from your advice but I am bound to say that there is a point beyond which I shall feel compelled to do without it!”
Holmes did not even blink.
“I trust not, my lord, for if I am compelled to relinquish the case, the advice which you will receive is likely to be that of the Metropolitan Police. Most probably, as matters stand, it will come in the person of Chief Inspector Lestrade or Inspector Tobias Gregson, both of the Criminal Investigation Division of Scotland Yard. My lord, I cannot afford to be party to compounding a felony.”
It is a cliché to say that a man looks stunned but that was exactly how Lord Blagdon appeared. Holmes allowed him no retreat.
Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective Page 2
