He opened the French windows and we followed him into the garden. To the left, near the back of the house, a small single-storey extension protruded from the house wall at right angles. Just above its tiled roof was a small square window.
“As you see,” Ranworth continued, leading us along to the wall of the pantry, “it would not be too difficult to climb onto the pantry roof. Once there, to get into the dressing-room window would be very easy.”
Holmes crouched down and examined the ground by the pantry wall. “There are no marks here,” said he after a moment, rising to his feet.
“I suppose the intruder took special care not to leave any,” responded Ranworth. “I observed earlier, however, that one of the tiles on the pantry roof is cracked,” he continued, directing our attention to the tile in question, “but, of course, it may have been cracked for some time.”
“It does appear rather ancient damage,” remarked Holmes, squinting up at the pantry roof. “The broken edges of the tile are discoloured with age. But, come! It sounds as if the others have arrived. Let us return to the library and proceed with matters.”
In the library we found Holmes’s client, his father, and the secretary, Northcote, standing together in awkward silence.
“Well?” said Colonel Reid to Holmes as we entered through the French windows. “We are all here as you requested. Now let us get this nonsense over with as quickly as possible.”
Before Holmes could reply, there came the sound of a horse and carriage on the drive outside.
“Now what?” cried Colonel Reid irritably. “Who in Heaven’s name is this?” His question was answered a moment later, when the butler opened the door and announced the arrival of Admiral Blythe-Headley, accompanied by his son and daughter. “What!” cried Colonel Reid in a tone of stupefaction.
“This is not a social call, Reid,” said Blythe-Headley loudly, in a tone of distaste, as he strode into the room. “It gives us as little pleasure to be here as I imagine it gives you to see us. But I have been persuaded to come against my will and, I might add, against my better judgement, in order to hear what this gentleman has to relate.” He inclined his head slightly in the direction of Sherlock Holmes, and everyone turned to see what my friend would say.
“I have requested this meeting,” said Holmes after a moment, “to acquaint you all with certain facts.”
“Pah! Facts!” cried Admiral Blythe-Headley with a snort. “What facts, pray?”
“Facts which I have good reason to believe are not known to you,” responded Holmes. “In so doing, it is my hope that I might help to right the most grievous wrong that has been done to Captain Reid.”
Blythe-Headley snorted again, and Colonel Reid sighed in a sceptical manner, but Anthony Blythe-Headley held up his hand.
“One moment,” said he. “Let us hear what Mr Holmes wishes to say. We have already wasted enough time in coming here. Let us not waste further time in prolonging the nonsense!”
“When Captain Reid returned recently from India,” Holmes continued when the room had fallen silent once more, “he was met with a hostility for which he could think of no explanation.”
“Well, he obviously did not think hard enough,” snapped Colonel Reid.
“Over the course of the following days,” Holmes continued, ignoring the interruption, “incidents occurred which he found equally inexplicable. He received a white feather in the post, for instance, and was accused of damaging a garden bench at Topley Grange. Finally, brought to a very low ebb by these unpleasant events, he consulted me. I have therefore spent the last few days conducting a thorough enquiry into the matter, and am now in a position to lay the full facts before my client, and before all those who know him. It will be apparent when I do so that Captain Reid has been the victim of a most serious miscarriage of justice.”
“You are trying our patience,” interjected Anthony Blythe-Headley, taking his watch from his pocket in an ostentatious manner. “You have not yet told us anything we did not already know. Unless you do so within the next three minutes, I for one shall bid you adieu!”
“My enquiries quickly led me to the death in this parish, three years ago, of one Sarah Dickens,” Holmes continued. “Although this matter will be a familiar one to most of you, it was completely unknown to Captain Reid.”
“Humbug!” muttered Colonel Reid.
“It soon became apparent to me that Captain Reid was widely regarded as having treated this girl shamefully. In a fit of melancholy, it was supposed, this girl had taken her own life, or, at least, had been so careless of it that she had lost it accidentally.”
The room had at last fallen silent, as Holmes described the tragedy that had cast such a shadow upon the parish. I stole a glance at the faces of those assembled there, and it was clear that all were recalling the events of three years previously. After a moment, Holmes continued:
“There seemed, despite the verdict of the inquest, to be some doubt as to whether the girl’s death was the result of an accident or suicide. I therefore determined to look into the matter myself and form my own opinion.”
“What possible difference can that make now?” demanded Admiral Blythe-Headley.
“As it has turned out, it makes a great deal of difference,” responded Holmes. He thereupon described in detail the investigations he had conducted at the Willow Pool, the testimony of Mr Yarrow concerning the discovery of the girl’s body and the conclusions he had reached from this information. As he worked his way methodically through his account, a hush fell upon the assembly, and it was evident that all present were impressed by the painstaking care with which he had conducted his investigation.
“So what you are saying,” said Anthony Blythe-Headley at length, as Holmes finished speaking, “is that, in your opinion, it is impossible for the girl’s death to have been an accident?”
“I am morally certain of it.”
“But nor do you believe,” interjected Captain Ranworth, “that her death could have been suicide?”
“That, also, is practically impossible.”
“But what, then, is your opinion?” queried Northcote in a tone of puzzlement.
“There are only three possibilities,” replied Holmes in a dry tone, “and it is an axiom of mine that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth.”
“Then?”
“Sarah Dickens was murdered.”
“Absurd!” cried someone. “Nonsense!” cried another.
“You may call it absurd if you wish,” responded Holmes in a calm, authoritative voice, “but it is the truth.”
Anthony Blythe-Headley appeared greatly disturbed by what Holmes had said. A variety of emotions passed in rapid succession across his agitated features.
“You are overlooking the note, sir!” cried he at length in a hot tone. “The girl left a note. The inquest did not regard it as a suicide note, but everyone else with half a brain does so. Are you suggesting that the girl composed her note, which clearly implied that her life was not worth living, and then, by chance, encountered someone who obligingly put an end to her life? That would be an absurd coincidence!”
“I agree. I am not suggesting that.”
“Then what? You cannot deny that the note implies that the girl was considering taking her own life!”
“It might imply that, under certain circumstances,” responded Holmes in a calm tone.
“What circumstances, pray?” interrupted the other.
“The circumstance, for a start, that the girl actually wrote the note.”
“What! What do you mean?” demanded the admiral.
“Sarah Dickens did not write the note that was found in Jenkin’s Clump. It is a forgery, left there deliberately by her murderer to throw any enquiries off the true scent.”
There was a general cry of incredulity at this pronouncement.
“What fantastic nonsense is this!” cried Colonel Reid in a tone of disbelief.
“
It is the truth.”
“How can you know?” demanded the colonel. “What possible reason can you have for supposing such a thing?”
“Because the forger has made a mistake. I have seen the note, and I have seen an exercise book of poems that Sarah Dickens had written, and the handwriting, although very similar, is not the same.”
“Everyone else considers the note to be in the girl’s own hand.”
“Everyone else is wrong.”
“Why should you be the only one to detect this difference?”
“Because I am the only one who has examined the writing with sufficient care.”
“But even her own family accepted that the note was genuine, and no one could have been more familiar with her hand than they were.”
“Well, of course, the two samples of handwriting are very similar. If you were writing a note, but wished it to appear to be the work of another, you would obviously take great pains to make the letters appear as much like those of the other person as possible. There would be little point in attempting the task otherwise. That the note found by the Willow Pool was taken to be the work of Sarah Dickens is thus no more than one would expect, under the circumstances. The dead girl’s hand was neat and regular. She had evidently learnt her handwriting lessons at school very well. Her style did not deviate to any significant extent from the copybook style she had been taught, and displayed few of those idiosyncrasies to which an older person’s hand is prone. This would have made it uncommonly easy to imitate, and it cannot be denied that the murderer – for the murderer’s hand it must be – made a good job of it. However, he made a little slip. He missed the one variation that Sarah Dickens had introduced into her hand – the formation of the letter ‘f’. There are, as I recall, three instances of this letter in the note that was found, and not one of them is formed in the same way as those in her book of poetry. It was almost the very first thing that struck me when I saw the two samples of writing.”
“But surely everyone’s hand varies a little, each time pen is put to paper,” protested Admiral Blythe-Headley in a sceptical tone.
“That is true, but such trivial and transient variations are not important. There are certain letters, however, those, generally speaking, which are more complex in structure, which are especially liable to idiosyncratic formation, and are thus of particular importance in identifying the author of a piece of writing. Of these letters, although ‘b’ and ‘g’ may also be of significance, ‘f’ is generally the most reliable guide.”
“That is amazing!” cried Captain Ranworth.
“On the contrary,” returned Holmes, “it is perfectly elementary; but like everything else in this woeful case, it is an issue that was overlooked or misjudged by those whose duty it was to establish the truth of the matter. The girl did not write the note, and thus it is of no direct relevance to her death. It has, however, been of immense importance to the case as a whole.”
“What on earth do you mean?” demanded Admiral Blythe-Headley in a tone of bewilderment. “Stop speaking in riddles, man!”
“I mean simply this,” replied Holmes in a calm voice, “that everyone at the inquest was at very great pains to declare that the note in question did not constitute a suicide note. It is perfectly clear, nevertheless, that it was the existence of the note that planted the idea of suicide so firmly in the general mind, conjuring up so vividly as it did the picture of a sad and forlorn young lady, who, it appeared, had been pining for a lost love. Had there been no note, perhaps the people of this parish would not have been so blind as to what really occurred that afternoon at the Willow Pool. The note also served, by its use of the phrase ‘you have gone away and left me’ to confirm what many had suspected concerning Captain Reid: that he had at least been trifling with Sarah Dickens, and had perhaps seriously abused her affection, for at the time of the girl’s death, of course, when the note was discovered, Reid had indeed ‘gone away’ less than two weeks previously. In sum, the note was one of the very foundation stones of the terrible obloquy that has been heaped so unjustifiably upon the head of this unfortunate young man.”
There was silence for a moment in the room, and it was evident that Holmes’s careful and detailed exposition of the case had made a very profound impression upon everyone there.
“I can hardly credit my ears,” said Admiral Blythe-Headley at length. “You have argued your case very well, young man, but I am still not entirely convinced. What about our garden bench? You will be telling us next that John Reid was not responsible for that, either!”
“That is correct. He had nothing to do with it.”
“What! Of course he did!” the admiral retorted. “It could be no other but he! Why, he was seen to be loitering in the garden pavilion earlier in the afternoon! We certainly had no other visitors that day.”
“It was not a visitor that caused the damage.”
“One moment!” Ranworth interrupted. “Where has Reid himself vanished to?”
I turned to see. The last time I had glanced in his direction, Captain Reid had been standing by the open door of the room. Now he was nowhere to be seen; he had evidently slipped away while the attention of everyone else had been upon Sherlock Holmes. There were general expressions of surprise and perplexity; Holmes alone appearing unperturbed by his client’s disappearance.
“He will be back in a few moments,” was his only remark.
Captain Ranworth appeared momentarily confused, but at length he spoke. “I was about to remark,” said he, “that it is a great misfortune that three years have passed since these events of which Mr Holmes has been speaking. I, for one, am sure that all that you say is correct, Mr Holmes; but now, after so much time has elapsed, there must be very little likelihood of our ever discovering who was really responsible for the death of Sarah Dickens.”
“On the contrary,” returned Holmes in a firm voice, “I am confident that I could very quickly lay my hand upon the man responsible.” He turned to Colonel Reid. “You expressed some doubt earlier when I stated that your son returned home from India perfectly ignorant of what was alleged against him.”
The colonel nodded his head vigorously. “I have kept my peace until now,” said he in a firm voice, “and have allowed you to state your case at some length. But you must know that everything you say is vitiated by one simple consideration: if my son is as innocent of any involvement in this affair as you claim, why, then, did he not take the opportunity I offered him to deny the allegations?”
“You wrote to him on the matter when he was in India?”
“Yes, of course I did. I described to him the rumours that were circulating following the death of that girl, and asked him to assure me that they were utterly false. He did not respond to my request. I then wrote to him again, stating that if he did not clearly deny the rumours to me, I would take it that he could not, because they were true. Again, he did not respond. Only one conclusion was possible.”
“Colonel Reid,” said Holmes, “your son never received the letters you sent. That is why he did not respond to the rumours and accusations.”
“There you are quite wrong, Mr Holmes,” returned the other. “There is no doubt whatever that he received them, for in the letters that he wrote to me he responded to one or two other trivial matters that I had mentioned in my letters, but not to my questions about Sarah Dickens.”
“I say again,” Holmes persisted, “that your son never received the letters you wrote to him. They were intercepted by someone else, someone who did not wish your son to have the opportunity to deny the rumours and thus clear his name.”
“What!” cried the colonel. “Do you seriously expect me to believe such nonsense? If that were so, how came he, then, to respond to the other matters included in my letters?”
“Because he that intercepted your letters substituted compositions of his own, which repeated all the remarks you had made on other matters, but omitted every reference to Sarah Dickens. These were the letters that your son re
ceived. He did not respond to any questions about Sarah Dickens because he was not aware that you had asked any.”
“That is an utterly fantastic theory!” cried Colonel Reid. “What could anyone hope to gain by such a deception? It would be bound to come to light eventually.”
“Not necessarily. India is never the most peaceful spot in the world, and the north-west provinces in particular have been in uproar. He that interfered with your post no doubt thought it possible that your son would lose his life during his service there, and that the deception would thus never be discovered.”
“And does your theory suggest anyone in particular?” asked Colonel Reid in an ironic tone. “Or is it merely of a general nature?”
“The man responsible is your secretary, William Northcote.”
“What!” cried the colonel.
“How dare you!” said Northcote, his voice trembling with emotion. “That is an outrageous suggestion! I am aware that Reid has employed you to effect a reconciliation between himself and his father, but I could never have imagined that you would stoop so low as this! You seek to achieve your aim by blackening my name without justification!”
“Even if Reid were not killed in India and returned home,” continued Holmes, speaking in a calm voice and ignoring the protests of the other man, “your scheme might still prove successful, you considered, so long as father and son remained estranged, so that the discrepancies between the letters written by the one and those received by the other did not come to light.”
“Nonsense!”
“Fortunately for Captain Reid, he consulted me, and I have been able to discover the truth. After you spoke to us yesterday evening, at the White Hart, you feared that exposure was at hand, which is why you arranged the supposed burglary last night. It was you that broke the window, North-cote, when everyone else in the house was asleep, to make it appear that the theft was the work of an intruder from outside. But there was no intruder. It was you that stole Reid’s private papers, for you wished to prevent his showing the letters to his father.”
Mammoth Book The Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes (Mammoth Books) Page 42
