by David Marcum
“I can’t say where they went or what they did on those excursions. After my first question was answered with a blow, I never dared to ask. But for the next two years, there were burnings and murders all across our region. Negro politicians lynched, freed slaves driven from their farms, Northern sympathisers vanished. Even women were not safe. An acquaintance of mine in Greensboro, a young teacher, had her hair shorn off for instructing Negro children.[22] I knew my husband and his cronies well enough to believe that no crime was beyond them.
“At last, I could bear my life no longer.” Mrs. Adams, who was now inebriated, set down her glass unsteadily upon the table. “I told Alex that I was taking our baby and going back to Brighton. You cannot imagine the man’s fury. He swore that he would hunt us down and kill us both unless Constance was allowed to stay with him in Alabama. It was pure hate and selfishness; he’d hardly looked at her before that night. But never in our marriage had my lord and master made an idle threat. So, God forgive me, John, I left my daughter there and fled alone.”
In early April, after Constance had recovered fully, we journeyed back to Brighton, and Margaret Adams’s daughter was restored to her. From that afternoon, a balance shifted in our lives, and my young wife began to drift away from me.
There is no doubt that her condition was improved by the salubrious climate and mineral waters of the Sussex coast, nor that she regressed immediately whenever she returned to London. Accordingly, Constance spent much time in Brighton as the months advanced, interspersed with forays in her mother’s company to Bath, Cornwall, and other seaside resorts upon the Continent. I, meanwhile, stayed behind in Kensington, establishing the practice on which these costly trips depended. My wife had no resources of her own, for Colonel Adams left his fortune to found a Confederate soldiers’ home in Alabama.[23] In fairness, I should add that the Burke’s provided every financial assistance in their power. It was no sacrifice to those of us who loved poor Constance, for the benefits to her health - however transient - were undeniable.
Yet, as often as I returned to the Burke’s cottage, I saw that the benefits were not all upon one side. In their grandchild’s presence, life returned to the old couple, while the careworn Mrs. Adams bloomed anew. My own jealousy was perhaps at fault, but each time we met it seemed that they were more possessive of our angel. For her part, my wife had regained the object of her childhood love and loyalty. Constance believed she had come home, and that home lay in Brighton, not in Kensington. I, if not yet an intruder, was now no more than a welcomed guest. By late summer, my visits to Sussex had become infrequent, while hers to London had ceased altogether. After little more than half-a-year of marriage, my wife and I were leading separate lives.
Therefore, when not actively engaged in my medical practice, I had much time upon my hands. Our house in Kensington seemed sad and lonely without Constance, so occasionally I would visit Mrs. Hudson and spend a few days in my old quarters. Sherlock Holmes was often absent from Baker Street in the early months of 1887, involved in several cases of international importance that I have noted elsewhere.[24] By mid-April, when over-exertion led to a breakdown of his health, I was called upon to retrieve him from Lyons. Thereafter, Holmes and I were able to resume our friendship and detective partnership, almost as they had been before my time in San Francisco. A series of new investigations followed, the most consequential being the affair of Irene Adler and the King of Serbia.[25]
In truth, my participation in these cases provided a welcome relief from the uncertainties of my domestic situation. Holmes obviously could not fail to notice my wife’s lengthy absences, nor the element of guilt in my enjoyment of our renewed association. To the extent that we discussed such matters, my friend offered a more sympathetic ear than his emotional reticence would have led me to expect. Insofar as possible, however, I tried to keep my work with Holmes entirely separate from the issues of my marriage.
It was at the end of September that my two lives finally intersected, in a case I have recorded as “The Five Orange Pips.” For the great detective, it was a brief and inconclusive tragedy, a rare professional failure soon overcome by his next triumph. Its effect upon my marriage was far more lasting and severe.
Having progressed thus far in the present tale, readers who recall “The Five Orange Pips” may wonder why my knowledge of the Lone Star, and night-riding ex-Confederates, was not enlisted in the aid of poor John Openshaw. It was quite true, as stated in the story, that the strange words “Ku Klux Klan” meant nothing to me, for Mrs. Adams had not linked her husband’s band of ruffians to any such society. I did apprise Holmes of the probable connexion between Colonels Openshaw and Adams, based on the latter’s association with the Lone Star. By then, unhappily, young Openshaw had met his doom, and my father-in-law was long past earthly retribution. The remaining culprits, though identified by Holmes, were lost at sea before they could be apprehended. When I later came to write “The Five Orange Pips,” my wife Mary was still living. I decided, for her sake, to omit any reference to my first wife’s past, as those facts ultimately had little impact on the solution of the case.
Would that I had employed such discretion with poor Constance! Unexpectedly, my wife returned to me early in October, soon after the Lone Star sailed from London. September’s equinoctial gales had damaged the Burke’s cottage, leaving her room uninhabitable. After a week in Kensington, Constance again developed chest congestion and a hacking cough. One evening as we sat together, desultorily reading and warming ourselves before the fire, my mind returned to the mysterious bark that was carrying John Openshaw’s murderers away from British justice.
“Constance, did your father ever mention a sailing vessel called the Lone Star?”
“I don’t believe so,” my wife answered, with a puzzled frown. Since arriving in England, she seemed more averse than ever to discussions of the colonel. “Papa never talked to me about his business, John. Why should you want to know?”
“Oh, just an odd coincidence. Calhoun, her captain, figures in a case that Holmes and I have been investigating. I remember Henry saying, back in San Francisco, that your father had had some connexion with the ship.”
“Oh, you and Mr. Holmes,” sniffed Constance peevishly. I had overheard more than one disparaging remark in Brighton about the time my “hobby” took from serious pursuits. Evidently, my wife had paid more attention to her mother than I realised.
“Well, I don’t know anything about it,” she insisted, “or - for that matter - why Papa’s shipping connexions should be any of your brother’s business. I’m sure one hears all kinds of rumours in a waterfront saloon!”
This remark was so unlike the woman I had married that I stared at her in consternation. Constance seemed caught between defiance and apology, a flush colouring her pallid face. As I saw the misery in those red-rimmed eyes, I felt a surge of anger and compassion that had become familiar over the preceding months. Now, for the first time, anger won.
“As it happens, my dear, these connexions of your Papa hounded our client and two other people to their deaths. They appear to be part of a society of murderers - something called the Ku Klux Klan - to which he himself belonged, from what your mother told me.”
“That’s ridiculous! How dare you?” Constance stifled a cough and rose unsteadily, her forgotten novel falling to the floor. “I’m going to bed now, John, and I hope that you’ll continue to sleep here so I can rest. Please send a telegram to Mama after breakfast. I want to know how soon I can go home.”
Sometime in the early-morning hours, I was awakened by a scream from my wife’s room. I rushed in to find Constance cowering against her pillows as she sobbed hysterically. Lighting the bedside lamp, I took her in my arms and tried to comfort her, as one would a frightened child. It was a long while before she calmed enough to tell me of her dream.
“It was as though I was a little girl again, alone in my room at Glenburn, and it
was darkest night. I woke up to the sound of hammering, and lights were flickering in the yard below my window. Oh, John, when I looked out, there were demons on the lawn! Robed and hooded demons, carrying torches that made shadows all around. The biggest one - dressed all in red - had stolen Shiloh, Papa’s horse. He sat there directing all the other demons, who were hammering big wooden crosses in the ground. Then two of the demons dragged out Cassie from the smokehouse. She was my nurse, John, after Mama left. Most nights, she slept in my room, but some nights she slept in Papa’s. Cassie had been gone for days, so at first I was glad to see her. I wanted to call out to her, but she was screaming, and I was afraid. The demons brought out another darkie, too, a man I didn’t know. They tied them to the crosses, John, and then they burned them both alive! I couldn’t stand to watch it, so I hid in my bed. But I could still hear Cassie screaming, and smell that awful smoke!
“I hid from the demons for the longest time. The next morning, Papa came to find me. He held me in his arms and told me it was all a dream - only a bad dream - and when we looked out my window, there weren’t really any crosses in the yard. Papa promised we would go away from Glenburn and live someplace else. It was after that night that we left for San Francisco. But when Papa was hugging me that morning, I could smell the wood smoke on his shirt! It must have been real, John. It must have been real!”
She burst into a fresh torrent of weeping, and there was little I could say to reassure her. Knowing what I did, it seemed certain that Constance had indeed witnessed the Klan’s execution of her father’s escaped concubine. The wonder was that her childish mind had managed to suppress such memories, until my angry accusation of the Colonel brought back the “demons” of that evil night.
To my dismay, however, my wife’s fears were no longer buried in her childhood. She was irrationally convinced that the murderers of Cassie and the Openshaw’s would mark her as a victim. (“Those men - the ones who killed your client - they’ll come for me now. They know what I’ve done!”) I could fathom neither this strange reference nor the reason for her fear. In vain, I assured Constance that the men aboard the Lone Star had sailed far away, that soon they would be brought to justice. My words gave her no comfort. From that October morning, the demons who had haunted Colonel Adams’s daughter would be with her always, even unto death.
The last months of our marriage are soon told. Despite her shock and illness, Constance insisted upon an immediate return to Brighton. We lodged at a nearby seaside inn until her room at the Burke’s cottage was repaired. Naturally, my wife’s mother and grandparents were distressed by her mental state, and I received much blame for “upsetting” her. Had it been legally possible, I would have been banished by my in-laws.[26] As matters stood, I visited twice more during the autumn, only to find that Constance had recovered neither her physical health nor her equilibrium. I urged her to see a specialist in Harley Street, or at least to spend the winter in San Remo with her mother. Although sweetly patient with my pleas (for she was always loving while in Brighton), my wife refused both courses. “I’m safe,” she told me with a child-like faith, “as long as I stay here.”
So there I was compelled to leave her, while I remained in London with my patients, my writing, and my detective work with Sherlock Holmes. Fortuitously, the last months of 1887 provided us with a succession of interesting cases. I also oversaw the publication of A Study in Scarlet, which Doyle and I had completed earlier that year. Thus, although I greatly missed my wife, I was usually kept busy during the hours my medical duties left me free.
On December twenty-second, I received a letter in which my mother-in-law discouraged me from joining the family for Christmas. Constance, she said, had lately been less well than usual, so they planned a quiet observance of the holiday. In compensation, I was invited to come to Brighton for the New Year. Having learned that the Burke’s wishes were likely to prevail in any contest, and knowing their local physician to be thoroughly competent, I sadly acquiesced.
Instead, I accepted a belated invitation from my old commander, Colonel Hayter, to keep Christmas at his house in Surrey. Returning to London on the morning of the twenty-seventh, I stopped in Kensington to retrieve a copy of my memoir, then called at my old lodgings to wish Sherlock Holmes the greetings of the season. My friend was less pleased to receive A Study in Scarlet than I might have wished.[27] He did, however, inveigle me into his latest case, which involved a Christmas goose, a stolen carbuncle, and - in the end - an act of mercy proper to that season of forgiveness. It was late when the reprieved James Ryder fled our sitting-room, so I spent the remainder of the night in Baker Street. Only at mid-morning did I return to Kensington, to find the telegram left at my home the day before:
Constance dangerously ill with diphtheria. Come at once.
By late afternoon, I arrived at the Burke’s cottage, where a heavy snow had fallen.[28] My wife was in a serious, but not yet critical, condition. According to the family physician, Dr. Hargrove, Constance had been sick for nearly a fortnight. Her complaints - sore throat, cough, and a low fever - were by now so chronic that at first they caused no real alarm. The classic symptoms of diphtheria had been slow to manifest themselves, but they were unmistakable by the time that I examined her. My wife was very breathless; her throat and neck were swollen; and a grey membrane of dead tissue had settled on her tonsils. The heart rate was more elevated than the level of her fever justified. Hargrove and I discussed tracheotomy should her breathing become more obstructed, but so dangerous a procedure was at best a last resort.[29]
This bald and clinical account is written from my perspective as a doctor. As a husband, it was a time of agony. My delayed arrival had been met with outrage by my in-laws, which I recriminated for their neglect to notify me sooner when Constance became ill. Naturally, we did not air these grievances before our invalid. Mrs. Adams, to her credit, maintained a brave face and an outwardly cheerful disposition, while I employed my best “bed-side manner” in an effort to keep Constance from despair. Poor child. She had been ill so long that she seemed to have accepted illness as her lot in life. There was no longer any censure from that quarter; instead, my wife responded to my care with all the sweetness that had been her hallmark when in health.
Constance’s condition remained stable through the night. On the morning of the twenty-ninth, she seemed improved, and I cautiously allowed myself to hope. However, in the afternoon her fever rose and she became delirious, thrashing about restlessly and calling for her Papa. Mrs. Adams and I exchanged a startled glance, but the paroxysm soon ended. Our patient sank rapidly thereafter, for no compelling reason that Hargrove and I could discern.
By nightfall, Constance was very weak but quietly sleeping. My colleague departed, and the elder Burke’s soon went to bed. Only her mother and I kept vigil in that dark-beamed, dreary bedroom. Near half-past-ten, Mrs. Adams slumped wearily upon the window seat, gazing out on the still-virgin snow. I sat staring at the dying fire, reflected in a standing mirror slanted towards the open door into the hall. When I turned back to my wife’s bed, I saw that Constance was awake and watching me. I took her hand, and she smiled with gentle wistfulness.
“Oh, John,” she whispered, “why did you leave San Francisco? We could have been so happy there.” At last the censure I deserved had come, but more in sorrow than in anger. “Papa was so sick... he couldn’t have stopped us. We wouldn’t have... needed his consent to marry. We could have lived... just as we liked.” Each clause emerged as a breathless gasp; I had to lean close to understand her.
“We can go back,” I told Constance brokenly. “You must get well, my darling, and we will go back.” It was a hopeless promise to make then, knowing I would never be required to keep it. Already my wife had travelled far from me, reliving the long months of our separation.
“But then you left me, and I was so lonely, John. The time went by... day after day.... He just lay there... and he wouldn’t die
! John, I missed you so. I knew that you were never coming back to San Francisco.... Finally, I just had to, don’t you see? He was never going to let me go, John... so I had to-”
“Hush, child!” Rushing to the bedside, her mother placed a trembling hand on my wife’s lips. “Hush, now, and rest. You mustn’t speak of this.”
“No, Mama, I must confess my sins... or go to Hell. That’s what Teresa says... I’m dying, Mama, and I-”
Suddenly Constance sat bolt upright, her face stricken with terror as she pointed to the standing mirror. “Oh, PAPA!” she screamed hoarsely, and fell back against her pillows, silent. One look into those shocked blue eyes informed me that the light in them had fled.
There was no one in the hallway. In a kind of daze, I turned back to reassure my wife, when I felt my wrist clasped in a frenzied grip. Ashen-faced, Mrs. Adams stared into the mirror that had been her daughter’s final sight on Earth.
“John,” she uttered, in a quiet but deadly monotone, “I saw him, too.”
Was it a ghost, or only a final, shared delusion by two victims of a mortal demon? Even now - despite my long relationship with the most rational of men - I cannot answer that question in my mind with certainty. Yet, I never doubted that believing she had seen her father’s spectre caused Constance’s demise, not “heart failure due to diphtheria” as I wrote upon her death certificate. Whether by supernatural intervention or her own guilt-ridden conscience, Colonel Alexander Adams had reclaimed his daughter in the end.
I did not oppose the Burke’s request to have Constance buried in the family churchyard. She was interred there on the first day of 1888, a fortnight past her twenty-fourth birthday. After the funeral, I returned to Kensington and - with no desire to linger where fond hopes had turned to bitter memories - put my house and practice up for sale.
