The Riddle of Foxwood Grange

by Denis O. Smith

  “How do you claim to know anything about my mother?” demanded Whitemoor, his voice raised in anger.

  “I have been to Towcester and made enquiries there.”

  “I suppose I should have expected that,” said Whitemoor in a sneering tone. “I knew that you would be sticking your nose into other people’s business when Blake hired you to solve Harley’s puzzle.”

  “You’re wrong, Whitemoor,” said Blake. “I didn’t consult Mr Holmes about Harley’s puzzle, but to find out who was spying on me, here and in London. I had no intention at all of even mentioning Harley’s puzzle to him. It was Mr Holmes’s own idea to look into that.”

  “I don’t believe you,” cried Whitemoor. “I knew you’d been working on the puzzle, but you hid all your workings from me and lied about it!”

  “That is nonsense,” retorted Blake. “My ‘workings’, as you call them, were all futile. I hid nothing from you, because there was nothing to hide. I had given up even thinking about Harley’s puzzle until Mr Holmes came here and expressed an interest in it.”

  “Just give me the pearls or it will be the worse for you,” said Whitemoor in a menacing tone, pointing the pistol at Blake.

  Reluctantly, Blake turned towards the table and made to pick up the pearls. Just as he did so, I seemed to see some slight movement, some shadow in the orangery outside the door of Harley’s secret chamber. Next moment, a dark figure appeared in the doorway, and as this figure advanced stealthily and in perfect silence, with a thrill of horror I recognized Professor Crook, a wild look upon his face, and a large evil-looking knife in his hand.

  “Look out!” I cried to Whitemoor.

  “Be quiet, you fool!” he shouted back at me.

  Blake had turned and looked up as I called out. “No, no,” he cried to Whitemoor. “It’s true! Look out!”

  This warning evidently had a ring of truth about it. Whitemoor hesitated just a fraction of a second longer, then turned to see what was behind him, but it was too late.

  With a terrible cry, Crook launched himself upon the young man and plunged the knife into his chest. “So, Hargreaves!” he cried. “I have caught you at last, you devil!” At the same moment, the pistol was discharged with a deafening crash which echoed round and round the stone walls of that strange chamber.

  Holmes sprang forward as Whitemoor and Crook tumbled to the floor in a heap and wrenched the pistol from the young man’s hand, but it was to no avail. The weapon had done its evil work: Crook had been shot through the heart and was stone dead. I rolled his lifeless body to one side and examined Whitemoor’s wound, but I was powerless to save him. Blood had poured from a terrible gash in his chest, and even as I struggled to find some way of stopping the bleeding, his heart gave out and it was clear that he, too, was dead.

  A moment later, alarmed by the noise, Caxton hurried into the orangery. In a few sentences, Blake explained to him what had happened and sent him to notify Jenkins, the local constable.

  I shall not weary the reader with a detailed account of all that occurred on that dreadful, tumultuous evening. A brief summary must suffice:

  Constable Jenkins duly arrived and we endeavoured with some difficulty to explain to him all that had happened and what it meant. On receiving news of the deaths from Caxton, he had at once communicated with Banbury police station, who, he informed us, were sending a senior officer and some men. I was meanwhile concerned at what the state of affairs might be in Crook’s household, so, while Holmes and Blake remained at the Grange, Constable Jenkins and I made our way over to Black Bank House. There, I was relieved to find that both Dr Taylor and Miss Dawes were still alive, although both were badly injured. Their cook had been locked in the cellar by Crook but was otherwise unharmed. Miss Dawes had been struck a vicious blow on the head with some heavy kitchen implement which had rendered her unconscious. Dr Taylor had received a serious knife-wound in the shoulder and had lost a lot of blood. I patched them up as best I could with Dr Taylor’s medical materials and told them what had happened at the Grange, then Jenkins and I set off back.

  We had only just reached the bottom of the track leading to the road from Black Bank House, however, when we saw someone stagger into the road from the track on the other side. We hurried over to see what was the matter and found it was Needham, who appeared battered and bruised. In answer to the policeman’s questions he told us he had been bound and gagged for several hours in his own house, after a violent quarrel with Whitemoor, and had only just managed to free himself.

  “I know he intends to go over to the Grange,” he said. “He has taken my revolver, and I am very worried about what he might do there. I have become increasingly concerned in recent weeks at the violent course of action he proposes.”

  “You are too late,” I interrupted. I told him briefly what had happened, and he covered his face with his hands in horror. Jenkins asked him if he wished to come with us, but he declined, and we left him there, standing in the road, shaking like a leaf.

  By the time we got back to the Grange, a police inspector by the name of Philips had arrived from Banbury in the company of three constables, and we were obliged to explain the whole business all over again. Eventually, when midnight had long since passed, and we had all provided detailed statements for Inspector Philips, the bodies of the two dead men were removed. Then Holmes, Blake and I sat in a stunned, exhausted silence in the drawing-room of Foxwood Grange, a tumbler of whisky and soda in front of each of us.

  “Whitemoor!” said Blake abruptly. “I simply cannot believe it! He always seemed such a placid, untroubled young man, a little youthful and naive in his thoughts sometimes, perhaps, but really no different from hundreds of other highly educated young men. And yet, all the time, he was secretly harbouring all these baseless grudges and grievances. It seems scarcely credible that he could be on the surface so cheery and helpful, while below the surface he was full of dark, poisonous thoughts. I really think, Mr Holmes, that you must tell us all you know about this business. I feel in a state of complete exhaustion, but I don’t believe I shall be able to sleep until I understand all that has occurred here, and what lies behind it all. Don’t you agree, Watson?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “For instance, Holmes, you showed no surprise when Whitemoor turned up this evening, but spoke as if you had expected all along that he would do so. How could that be? Even if you already suspected that he was behind some of what has happened recently, you could not really have been so sure that he would be here this evening.”

  “But you are forgetting,” said Holmes, “that I sent a telegram before I returned, in which I explicitly stated that I believed I had solved Samuel Harley’s riddle. I did so deliberately because I knew you would tell Whitemoor, and I was certain by then that Harley’s riddle was what interested him. I wished to ensure, you see, that he would reveal himself this evening - although I confess I did not expect he would come equipped with a pistol. But, really, if I am to explain to you my reasoning in this case, my glass will need recharging.”

  “Certainly,” said Blake. He took our tumblers to the sideboard and busied himself with the whisky decanter and the gasogene. While he was so engaged, the door opened and the maid entered. She asked if Blake would be requiring her any more that evening, or if she could now go to bed.

  “Oh, Ann, my dear,” said Blake in a contrite tone. “I had no idea you were still up. I thought you had retired some time ago, when the Caxtons went. I am aware that you have been working like a Trojan all evening, supplying people with coffee and so on, for which I am very grateful indeed! Now, you run along!”

  She turned and was about to leave the room when Holmes spoke. “May I ask Ann a question?” he said to Blake.

  “By all means,” returned Blake in a tone of surprise.

  “Yes, sir?” asked the maid, turning to Holmes with a slight look of apprehension on her tired fe
atures.

  “Are you friendly with Anthony Pearson?” he asked.

  She appeared somewhat taken aback by the question, as if unsure of its purpose, and a slight blush tinged her cheek. “Well, I do know him, sir.”

  “Was it he you had been speaking to at the back window the other night, when you pretended you had been in bed?”

  The maid hesitated. “Yes, sir,” she replied at length, her eyes cast down to the floor.

  “That is all right, Ann,” said Holmes. “No-one is annoyed with you. You may see whoever you wish, I am sure. There is no need to be secretive about it,” he continued, as Blake nodded his head agreeably, “but the other night, when Mr Blake heard a footstep in the house, your acting was so good that he was convinced that some dangerous intruder had got in.”

  “I am sorry, sir,” said the maid to Blake. “I thought I might get into trouble.”

  “That is perfectly all right, Ann,” returned he. “I am glad it was only you, and not an intruder. No harm is done, so we can forget all about it now.”

  When the maid had left us, I asked Holmes how he had known that it was Anthony Pearson that she had been talking to at the window in the “long gallery”.

  “I did not know for certain,” replied Holmes, “but it seemed to me fairly likely. In your admirable reports of your recent activities, you mentioned your visit to the Pearsons at Lower Cropley Farmhouse. In the course of that, if you recall, you described an exchange between the two young men, James and Anthony Pearson, in which James said of his brother that he ‘was the one who was very interested in Foxwood Grange’, or words to that effect. This seemed to embarrass the younger brother, who proceeded to hit the other over the head with a rolled-up newspaper. It was apparent that James was teasing his brother, and what could be more likely to cause such embarrassment in a young man than an affair of the heart? As Ann Wallingford is the only possible focus here for young romance, the inference was not a difficult one to draw.”

  Blake laughed. “I suppose you are right,” he said. “Such a possibility had not struck me before. When one is wrapped up in one’s own work, it can be difficult to see things from another’s perspective.”

  “In my line of work, by contrast,” said Holmes, “it is often of the utmost importance that you can do so. There have been many cases which I should probably never have solved had I not been able to place myself, imaginatively speaking, in the position of the criminal. My recent travel arrangements, which you queried earlier, illustrate the point well. I reasoned, you see, that if I were Whitemoor - or anyone else - carrying a large telescope, whether in a case or not, and wished to leave the district by train but not be seen by anyone to do so, I should avoid the nearest station, where I might meet someone who knew me. The next stop on the line - Little Broadstone Halt - which is very little used, would be my choice.

  “That is therefore the way I went, hoping to strike up a conversation with the guard, to see if he could remember anyone answering to Whitemoor’s description boarding the train there. On the outward journey, I was out of luck. The guard had no recollection of such a person. But I learned from him that he and another guard roughly divide the duties between them, and on the return journey I was fortunate enough to coincide with the other man, who remembered Whitemoor and the case he was carrying very clearly. So you see, by putting myself in the place of the villain, I had managed to confirm my theory perfectly.”

  “That is an interesting illustration of your point,” I remarked. “But what had led you to suspect that Whitemoor was behind all the mysteries in the first place? On the face of it, at least, he strikes me as perhaps the least likely candidate for any such villainy.”

  Holmes nodded. “When we first arrived here, I had no particular suspicions, but regarded everyone in the district as an equally likely - or equally unlikely - suspect. Last Monday lunchtime, however, after we had been up to the ash spinney to view the tree with rungs, Whitemoor came very close to giving himself away. I believe he realized his mistake at once, and quickly corrected it, but not before I had made a mental note of it.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” I asked.

  “To explain, I must take you back to the murder in London of the enquiry agent, Wilson Baines. It did not, if you recall, appear to be premeditated. Baines had been struck on the head with a marble book-end from the shelf behind his desk. It seemed likely that he and his assailant had been having a quarrel and, in the heat of the moment, the other man had seized the first thing that came to hand - the book-end - and struck Baines with that. We speculated as to what they might have been quarrelling about, and one possibility was that Baines had demanded more money for what he was doing. I was reflecting on this possibility afterwards, and wondered if, in a sense, I might be to blame.”

  “You?” queried Blake. “How could you be to blame?”

  “Only indirectly. The second time that Mr Coleford, the checker from Paddington station, called upon us, on Saturday morning, he described how he had been accosted in the street by a man pretending to be a police officer. Coleford said he had not come directly to my chambers after this encounter so that the bogus policeman - who I knew, of course, must be Baines - would not learn where he was going and thus perhaps guess where he had taken your letter the day before. But for all Coleford’s efforts, I knew he was a novice in such matters, whereas Wilson Baines had a great deal of experience in following people about. It was possible, then, I thought, that, despite Coleford’s caution, Baines might well have followed him and discovered that I was the recipient of your letter. Now, Baines and I had never met, but I certainly knew of him and I have no doubt he knew of me. Could it be, I speculated, that it was because he had learned of my involvement in the matter, and believed that I might prove a somewhat more dangerous adversary than he had expected to face that he had demanded more money from his client, or had even refused to continue with the case at all? If so, this might have led to the quarrel between the two men, and so, indirectly, to Baines’s death.

  “Now, when Watson and I arrived here, we were described, as we had arranged, simply as friends of yours, Blake, and fellow-journalists. Yet, upon our return from our first visit to the ash spinney, it was noteworthy that Whitemoor initially directed his questions about it to me. Why me? Why not Watson, or you? It seemed to me to suggest that he knew more about me than simply what you had told him when you introduced us. Of course, his questioning of me could have been simply a matter of chance, but it did not seem that way to me. He appeared to recognize that he had made a little slip - perhaps he read something in my facial expression - and endeavoured to correct it by addressing questions to you and Watson, but the slip had already been made, and I had duly noted it.

  “That afternoon, I returned alone to the ash spinney. My intention, although I did not announce it publicly, was to examine the ground there more thoroughly. I had already made a mental note of your footprints and Watson’s, and also of Whitemoor’s, which I had seen in the garden here, so that I could eliminate them from consideration when I came across them. In the ash spinney, however, I made an interesting discovery. Although the ground around the tree with rungs was too scuffed up to provide much useful information, further along the path through the wood the situation was quite different. There, the footprints were much fewer, and I was able to identify what I believed were Whitemoor’s prints, all the way along the path to the other end.

  “Even more interestingly, I found a place where the footprints left the path altogether and wandered off through the undergrowth until they came to a small clearing. There the ground was disturbed, and it looked to me as if someone had spent some time there, possibly even passed the night there. This suggested that the person who had been spying on the Grange, if these were his prints, was not a local, who would presumably have returned to his own house when he had finished his spying activities, but someone who did not live in the district or, at least, w
as believed to be elsewhere at the time. You will understand that this only strengthened my suspicions of Whitemoor.

  “I might also mention that I was forced to the same conclusion by my consideration of the death of the unfortunate Mr Brookfield. whose body was found in the quarry. For various reasons, some of which I have explained to Watson, I did not believe this death was an accident. I conjectured that Brookfield had encountered someone on the Thuxton road late one evening as he was returning home, and this person, knowing that Brookfield was likely to mention the encounter to others, had decided to silence him permanently. But if the person Brookfield met had been a local man - say, Pearson or Needham - such violence would scarcely have been necessary. After all, there is nothing very unusual in a man taking an evening walk near his own home. This suggested that the man Brookfield met was not a local man, or, if he was, then he was someone who was not supposed to be there at that time. Again, then, I was led to speculate that the man in question was Whitemoor, the only man, to my knowledge, who was believed to be away from home on the evening in question.

  “But if it was Whitemoor, as the footprints in the wood certainly suggested, why on earth, I wondered, was he spying on the Grange - presumably when he had pretended to go home to Towcester - when he already spent the greater part of every week here?

  “For some time I wrestled with this conundrum. Then I considered again the small branches that had been cut off up the tree by the viewing platform, to provide a clear view for the telescope. I had already noted that the clipping of the foliage made it possible to see not only your study window, but also the yard and outbuildings behind the house. We had not really considered the latter, which seemed incidental and irrelevant, but now I wondered if we had not perhaps got the whole business back to front and it was the view of the orangery and the puzzle it contained that was important to the spy and the view of your study window largely irrelevant. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that this was so, and that the recent mysteries that had surrounded you were intimately connected with the century-old mystery concerning Samuel Harley and the puzzle he had left behind him. The valuables that Harley was supposed to have hidden somewhere here at Foxwood would certainly provide a strong motive for anyone who believed the story to pursue the matter relentlessly.