Mammoth Book The Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes (Mammoth Books)

by Smith, Denis O.

  “But is it possible, in such a case,” I persisted, “to seek a second opinion, as in medical matters, where one’s general practitioner can call upon a consultant?”

  “‘There is Mr Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street,’ said he after a moment, in a dubious tone. ‘No doubt he would provide you with a second opinion, but I very much fear that it would differ little from mine. Still, I understand your relation to the accused and appreciate that you would wish to clutch at any straw.’”

  “Why, the impudent scoundrel!” cried Holmes, rising to his feet. “I certainly shall give you a second opinion, Miss Greville. Would you care to accompany us, Watson?”

  “Most certainly.”

  “Then get your hat, my boy! We leave for Hampshire at once!”

  In thirty minutes we were in a fast train bound for the south coast, and two hours later, having changed at Basingstoke, we alighted at a small wayside halt, deep in the Hampshire countryside. I have remarked before on the singular ability of Sherlock Holmes to drive from his mind those things he did not for the moment wish to consider, and our journey that day provided a particularly striking illustration of this, for having spent the first part of the journey silently engrossed in his bundle of newspapers, he had then cast them aside, and passed the remainder of the time in cheery and incongruous conversation with Miss Greville, for all the world as if he were bound for a carefree day at the coast. As we boarded the station fly, however, and set off upon the final part of our journey, a tension returned to his sharp, hawk-like features, and there was an air of concentration in his manner, like that of a hound keen to be upon the scent.

  We had wired ahead from Waterloo, and upon our arrival at the house, as Miss Greville hurried off to find her mother, we were shown into a small study, where Inspector Lestrade was sitting at a desk, writing.

  “Mr Holmes!” cried the policeman, turning as we entered. “I was surprised to receive your telegram – I had not expected to see you down here so quickly!”

  “I felt obliged to match the speed with which you moved to an arrest,” returned Holmes. “You are confident you have the right man?”

  “There is no doubt of it.”

  “Then you will not mind if we conduct our own investigation of the matter.”

  “Not at all. Indeed, I will show you where the crime occurred, although, in truth, there is little enough to be seen there.”

  He led us along a corridor and out at a door which gave onto a paved terrace at the rear of the house. Several people were sitting there, taking tea. A large, clean-shaven, portly man stood up from a table as we passed, the rolls of fat about his jaw and throat wobbling as he did so.

  “Who are these men, Inspector?” he demanded of Lestrade.

  “Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, Sir George,” the policeman replied. “Miss Greville has engaged them to look into the matter on her behalf.”

  “You are wasting your time,” Sir George Kirkman remarked in a blunt tone.

  “A few hours spent in the pleasant Hampshire countryside is never a waste of time,” Holmes responded placidly.

  Sir George Kirkman snorted. “Still,” he continued, “if the young lady insists, there is nothing to be done about it. And I suppose you would not wish to turn down an easy fee, if times are slack.”

  I saw a spark of anger spring up in Holmes’s eye. “You must speak for yourself, Sir George,” said he at length, “and I will answer for my own work. Come along, Lestrade, there are clouds in the sky, and I should not wish to be hampered by rain!”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Kirkman. “It will be interesting to watch an expert at work.”

  We descended a steep flight of steps from the terrace to the lawn. There, Lestrade indicated a door immediately to the side of the steps, which gave access to a storeroom built under the terrace itself.

  “The archery equipment is kept in here,” said he, opening the door.

  Inside, hanging up behind gardening tools and similar implements, were a dozen or more longbows and quivers.

  Holmes took down one of the quivers and extracted an arrow. The shaft was stained dark green. For a moment he turned it over in his hands.

  “The murder weapon was crimson, I understand,” said he at length to Lestrade.

  “That’s right. From the quiver that Whiting had been using.”

  “It hardly proves that Whiting fired the shot,” remarked Holmes. “Surely anyone could have used one of the crimson arrows?”

  Lestrade shook his head. “Each of the quivers contains twelve arrows of a single colour, and all the quivers are different – blue, green, crimson, purple and so on. Whiting took his bow and quiver off with him into the woods – to practise, he said – and did not return until much later, so it would have been impossible for anyone else to have used his arrows.”

  “I understand, however,” said Holmes, “that Whiting left early, before the competition was finished.”

  “That is so,” said Lestrade, “but I cannot see that that makes any difference to the matter.”

  “Only this,” said Holmes, “that if the competition was still in progress when he left, it would not have been possible for Whiting to retrieve the last arrows he shot, which I understand all missed the target, and would thus be lying on the ground. Once the contest was over, and the competitors had dispersed, anyone might have picked those arrows up from the ground and used them.”

  “It sounds a bit unlikely,” said Sir George Kirkman. “Of course, I realize that in murder cases, those acting for the defence must always do their best to contrive an alternative explanation, however far-fetched, to try to cast doubt on their client’s guilt.”

  “Unless it can be proved that the arrow which killed Woodforde Soames came from those still in the quiver, rather than those on the ground,” continued Holmes, ignoring the interruption, “then the colour of the arrow shaft is, it seems to me, of no significance whatever. Where did Whiting leave his bow and quiver when he returned from his walk?”

  “He dropped them on the ground near the targets,” said Lestrade, “on the archery field, where all the other equipment had been left at the end of the contest.”

  “Were they still there when you arrived?”

  “No. All the equipment had been collected up by Sir George’s servants and put away in this storeroom. I did ask them if they had observed anything unusual about the equipment – if any of it had been left in an odd place, for instance – but they said not. Some of the arrows had been lying on the ground, they said, and some had been in the quivers, but they could not remember any details.”

  “In other words,” said Holmes, “no one can say with any confidence where the fatal arrow came from, nor which bow fired it. It seems to me, then, Lestrade, that most of your case against Neville Whiting collapses. Did anyone other than Whiting leave the archery field before the end of the competition?”

  Lestrade shook his head. “Everyone else stayed until the end. Sir George presented a little trophy to Woodforde Soames, who had won, and then they all drifted away, some to the house and some to take a walk over the estate.”

  Holmes nodded. “Has anyone left today?”

  “Two Members of Parliament were obliged to return to London this morning.”

  “But everyone else who was present over the weekend is still here?”

  “All except Sir George’s secretary, Hepplethwaite,” Lestrade returned. “He left yesterday afternoon to visit a sick relative.”

  “Have you verified the matter?” Holmes queried.

  “I did not think it necessary,” Lestrade returned in surprise.

  “No? Surely it is something of an odd coincidence that this man Hepplethwaite should leave the house at the same time as Woodforde Soames is killed. I should certainly have felt obliged to satisfy myself as to the truth of the matter.”

  “No doubt,” responded Lestrade in a tone of irritation, “and no doubt I would have done so, too, had there been the slightest possibility that Hepplet
hwaite had been involved in the crime in any way. But he left the house only a few minutes after the archery competition finished, at which time Woodforde Soames was still very much alive, for he sat over a cup of tea on the terrace for some five or ten minutes at about that time, talking to various people – including Miss Greville and her mother, as it happens – before going off for his walk. That’s right, isn’t it, Sir George?”

  “Absolutely,” responded Kirkman. “I had just returned to my study, shortly after presenting the archery trophy, and Woodforde Soames and the others were taking tea, as you say, when Hepplethwaite entered with a telegram he had received. It informed him that his father was ill. He asked if he might leave at once, and I agreed to the request. As far as I am aware, he left the house a few minutes later.”

  “I see,” said Holmes. “Well, well. Let us now inspect the spot where Soames met his death.”

  Lestrade led us across the lawn and down another flight of stone steps to a lower lawn, surrounded on three sides by trees. Along the far side, a number of wooden chairs and benches were set out. It was evidently upon this lower lawn that the archery contest had taken place, for at the left-hand end stood two large targets. Behind them, a long canvas sheet had been hung from the trees to catch any arrows that missed the targets.

  We crossed the lawn at an angle, and followed Lestrade through a gap in the trees, immediately to the right of the canvas sheeting, from where a narrow path curved away into the woods. After a short distance this path was joined by another, and we followed it to the left, crossing several other smaller paths, until we came presently to a wider, well-used path which ran at right-angles to our own. Lestrade turned right onto this path and we followed its winding course for some twenty or thirty yards. The trees in this part of the wood grew very close together, and there was an air of shaded gloom about the place. Coming at last round a sharp turn to the left, we arrived at a place where the path stretched dead straight for some twenty yards ahead of us. Lestrade stopped before a small cairn of pebbles which had been placed in the middle of the path.

  “I have marked the spot,” said he. “These paths wind about so much that one could easily become confused as to where one was in the wood.”

  “Very good,” said Holmes in approval. Then he squatted down upon the ground and proceeded to examine with great care every square inch of the path for fifteen feet in either direction. Presently he rose to his feet, a look of dissatisfaction upon his face.

  “Found what you were looking for?” asked Kirkman in an undisguised tone of mockery.

  “The ground is very hard, so it is unlikely that there would be much to be seen in any case,” replied Holmes in a placid tone, “but so many feet have passed this way in the last twenty-four hours that the little there may have been has been quite obliterated.” He looked about him, peering into the dense undergrowth on either side, then walked up and down the path several times. “Soames was found face-down, stretched lengthways on the path, I take it,” he remarked at last to Inspector Lestrade.

  “That’s correct, Mr Holmes,” the policeman replied. “He had been shot in the back, as you’re no doubt aware, an inch or two left of centre. The local doctor who examined the body said that the arrow had penetrated quite deeply, and he thought that death would probably have occurred within a few seconds.”

  He broke off as there came the sound of footsteps behind us. I turned as a stocky, middle-sized man appeared round the bend in the path. His sunburnt face was clean-shaven, save for a small dark moustache, and there was a military precision in his manner as he stepped forward briskly and introduced himself as Captain Blake, the former companion in adventure of Woodforde Soames. He had, he said, just heard of our arrival, and asked, as we shook hands, if he might accompany us in our investigation.

  “By all means,” said Holmes. “In which direction was Soames facing when he was found?” he continued, addressing Lestrade.

  “With his feet pointing back the way we have come, and his head towards the straight section of the path in front of us,” Lestrade replied. “The path we are now on begins near the kitchen gardens, by the side of the house. It is evident, therefore, that he was coming from the house, or somewhere near it, and heading deeper into the woods.”

  Holmes stood a moment in silence, then he shook his head.

  “I disagree,” said he at length, in a considered tone.

  “Why so?” asked Lestrade in surprise.

  “The disposition of the body is, in this case, of less consequence than the disposition of the path,” said Holmes.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” demanded Kirkman.

  “I think that when struck, Soames must have turned before he fell,” Holmes continued. “The force of the blow, just below the left shoulder blade, would probably have been sufficient by itself to spin him round. But he may also have tried to turn as he fell, to see who it was that was attacking him.”

  Sir George snorted dismissively, but Lestrade considered the suggestion for a moment. “It is certainly possible,” he conceded at length. “But what makes you think so, Mr Holmes?”

  “See how thickly the trees are growing just here, and how dense and tall the undergrowth is. It is scarcely conceivable that anyone could have forced a passage through that, or could have had a clear sight of Woodforde Soames if he had done so. Therefore, whoever fired the shot must have been standing upon the path at the time.”

  “That seems certain,” said Captain Blake, nodding his head in agreement.

  “Now, behind us, in the direction of the house,” Holmes continued, “the path is very winding, whereas ahead of us, away from the house, it is fairly straight for some considerable distance. Whoever fired the shot must have had a clear view of Woodforde Soames’s back. From the direction of the house that is impossible. Immediately before this spot there is a right-angled bend in the path, and before that there are more twists and turns. From the other direction, however, the archer would have had a clear and uninterrupted view. Therefore, Woodforde Soames was shot when returning to the house from somewhere ahead of us. Where does this path lead to?”

  “I do not know,” Lestrade admitted. “I saw no reason to explore the path further, as I didn’t believe that the murdered man had been any further along it than the spot we’re now standing on.”

  “Does this path go anywhere in particular, Sir George?” queried Holmes.

  “Not really,” Kirkman replied. “It meanders on for a mile or so, and comes out by the water-meadows near the river.”

  “I understood that this was the way to the folly,” Captain Blake interjected.

  “Oh, that old thing!” said Kirkman in a dismissive tone. “It is meant to look like a Roman ruin, so they tell me, but it looks just like a pile of old bricks to me.”

  “Let us follow the path a little distance, anyway,” said Holmes, “and see if we can turn up anything of interest.”

  “Oh, this is a complete waste of time!” cried Kirkman in an impatient voice. “I shall leave you to it,” he continued, turning on his heel and walking rapidly back towards the house as we followed Holmes further along the path.

  At the end of the long straight section, the path again turned sharply to the left, and there, just a few yards further on, on the right-hand side of the path, was the mouldering, ivy-covered ruin to which Kirkman had referred. It appeared little greater in size than a small shed, but it was so smothered in creepers and brambles that its shape was difficult to discern. It was clear, however, that there was a wide arched doorway at the front, and a dark, sepulchral chamber within.

  Holmes frowned as we approached this singular structure.

  “Halloa!” said he. “Someone has been in here very recently!”

  “How can you tell?” asked Blake.

  “The cobwebs across the doorway have been recently broken. Let us have a look inside.”

  He pushed aside the trailing fronds of ivy, which hung like a curtain across the entrance, and made his w
ay into the gloom within. Captain Blake held the ivy aside, and we watched as Holmes struck a match and looked about him. Then he bent to the floor, where mounds of dead leaves and other vegetation had accumulated. A moment later, he looked round and gestured to us.

  “I think you had best all see this,” said he in a grave voice.

  We squeezed past the tangle of ivy and dusty cobwebs as Holmes struck another match. There on the floor, partly hidden under the dead leaves and with a longbow lying beside him, was the body of a man.

  “Who the devil is it?” cried Lestrade in astonishment.

  “My God!” cried Blake. “I know that man! It is Hepplethwaite, Sir George Kirkman’s secretary!”

  We lifted the body from its dark resting place and laid it upon the path outside. A brief examination was enough to tell me that he had been killed by a severe blow to the back of the head, where the hair was thickly matted with blood.

  “What can it mean?” said Lestrade in a tone of utter stupefaction. “When did he return from visiting his sick relative? What was he doing here in the woods? And why has he got a bow with him?”

  “I should say he has been dead at least twenty-four hours,” said I, looking up. “Where is Holmes?” I added in surprise, for he was nowhere to be seen. Even as I spoke, however, he emerged from a narrow gap in the vegetation at the side of the folly.

  “There is a way through here to another path, which runs along behind this little building,” said he, “and it is clear that someone has spent some time standing there fairly recently.”

  “What does it mean?” said Lestrade again.

  “I rather fancy that Hepplethwaite’s sick relative does not exist,” returned Holmes.

  “He lied about it?”

  “No, not he; Sir George Kirkman.”

  “What!”

  “I think I know what’s happened here,” said Captain Blake in a tone of sudden enlightenment. We turned as he continued. “You have probably heard,” said he, “that the Zambezi expedition nearly foundered when many of our stores were washed away by the flooding river. As far as it goes, that is true, but it is only half the story. There had never been sufficient provisions in the first place, and when we returned to our base camp the replacement stores that should have been awaiting us were not there. Although we eventually managed to reach the coast, it was a close-run thing, I can tell you.