“My apologies, Mr Schell,” Holmes said smoothly. “I simply meant whether your wife might recall any small detail that had slipped your mind. We believe that Mr Salah died at some point between midnight and one this morning – if she could pinpoint exactly when you retired to bed, for instance, that would be very helpful.”
Schell tapped a bony finger on the table and repeated, “I have told you – we retired at a quarter after eleven!” As he did so, I noticed Mrs Schell give a tiny shiver and cast her eyes in my direction for just a moment.
“As you say,” replied Holmes. “Eleven fifteen it is, then.” He shifted in his seat and laid his own hands flat on the table. “I have only one more question, you will be pleased to hear. I wonder, did you or Mrs Schell speak to, or even see, Mr Salah after he went to his room on his return from the village yesterday?”
Schell shook his head violently. “We did not! And I can assure you that if I had, I would have taken a whip to the man!” Tiny drops of spittle flecked his mouth as he struggled to his feet. “Do not think I did not hear the filthy slander put about by that man! That he should… That…” His knees seemed to crumple and he swayed forward, resting the top of his thighs against the table. “If someone killed the man then he has my thanks, that is all I have to say. Now if you will excuse us…”
He held out a hand to his wife, and she was instantly on her feet, helping him to turn and leave the room. His short burst of fury had cost him dear, and he shuffled out, the laboured sound of his breathing audible even once he had left.
“He should not exert himself like that,” I remarked to Holmes, with a mental note that I should check up on Mr Schell in a medical capacity later on. “He is clearly not a well man.”
“But he is a rich man, Watson, and for some young wives the combination of the two is a potent one.”
There was little I could say to that, so I said nothing. Instead, I went out to find Mr Buxton, who had agreed to speak to Holmes next.
* * *
It quickly became clear that we would learn little more from anyone else than we had from the Schells.
Buxton had at least been awake after eleven, but as he had gone to his room immediately after leaving us, and had neither seen nor heard anything further, he was not in a position to shed light on anything that occurred later.
“I was copying out certain of the more important parts of my history, you see, Mr Holmes,” he explained. “The fair copy extends to two hundred and fifty pages and so is too large to copy in the short period of time before the sale of the estate, but I thought if I could save the key sections…” His shoulders slumped and he sighed. “Of course, it is not so pressing now…”
“No, it is not,” Holmes agreed. “Did you speak to Mr Salah at all last night or this morning?”
“Not since I passed him in the hallway upstairs, shortly after his argument with Captain Hopkirk. We did not speak, however. I had no desire to speak to him, to be frank, and so pretended to be engrossed in the book I was carrying.”
“And you did not see him after that? Not when he returned from the village, for instance?”
“I’m afraid not. I ate a sandwich and went straight to the library. I saw nobody.”
As Buxton spoke something clicked in the back of my mind, like a sudden terrible itch which cannot possibly be ignored. There was something that I was forgetting, something that Buxton had said, which had forced itself to the tip of my tongue.
“But did you not speak to him this morning, to ask if he wished to accompany us on our excursion?”
That was it! The question tumbled out of my mouth unbidden and without conscious thought. I expected the little historian to flush and colour in embarrassment, but instead he merely shook his head dejectedly. “As I explained to Mr Holmes when he asked me earlier, I was so vexed with Mr Salah over his unpleasant behaviour that I did not even knock on his door. Had I done so, we would at least have known that he was dead that much sooner.”
He seemed utterly crestfallen, and though Holmes assured him that it would have made no difference, it was clear that Salah’s death had affected him deeply. I wondered briefly if between the army and my time with Holmes I had become less sensitive to death than other men.
It was a thought for another time, though. Holmes had already risen and thanked Buxton for his frankness. After I had shown him to the door I turned to Holmes. “Why did you believe his story?” I asked. “That he did not attempt to wake Salah, I mean?”
Holmes shrugged. “Had he killed him he would have said that Salah was not in his room at all. After all, what was the purpose of the missing clothing, if not to suggest that he had left the manor of his own free will?”
As ever, it seemed painfully simple when explained by Holmes. I nodded my understanding, and opened the door. Hopkirk was pacing up and down outside and I asked him to come in.
* * *
Like the Schells, Hopkirk had been in bed and asleep well before midnight. He too had not laid eyes on Salah after he had stormed upstairs after their fight. Holmes, of course, quizzed him about that altercation.
“I should be more comfortable if we could allow that occasion to fade into the past, Mr Holmes, if you don’t mind,” he said, with a smile. “Of course, if the police chap who’s on his way insists on dredging it up, I’ll tell him what I can, but in the circumstances…” He allowed his voice to tail off, implying that any further enquiry by Holmes would be in the poorest taste. “One doesn’t wish to speak ill of the dead…”
“Even so, Captain…” Holmes was at his most conciliatory, but it was obvious even to Hopkirk, who did not know him, that he would not be satisfied with anything less than a full answer. He shrugged and lit a cigarette, then leaned across the table towards us, dropping his voice as he did so.
“The suggestion he made was one which related to Mrs Schell and myself and the… honourable nature… or otherwise of our friendship.” He grimaced. “I believe I mentioned to Dr Watson at dinner the other night that I have known the Schells for several years, and have spent each of the past three summers in their company. Obviously, in that time, I have become very close to them both, though Freddie’s poor health means that I have spent more time with Mrs Schell than would otherwise have been the case. It seems that Salah saw that closeness and drew entirely the wrong conclusions from it.” He gave a tired shrug, as though this little speech had exhausted him. “He mentioned those incorrect and hurtful conclusions to Mr Reilly and, there being no love lost between those two, Reilly passed them on to me. And… well, you saw what happened afterwards.”
“Of course, there is no truth to anything Mr Salah said.” Holmes framed the sentence as a statement of fact, but Hopkirk treated it as a question nonetheless.
“Of course not. Even were I not an officer and a gentleman, Freddie Schell is a good friend. It was he, in fact, who suggested that I might wish to come here this weekend. I was left a considerable sum by another friend,” he explained, “and Freddie knew that I wished to put down roots back home.”
“He suggested that you might wish to bid on a property in which he himself had an interest? That is a good friend indeed.”
“He is a good friend. But I do not believe he thought my little inheritance great enough to make me a serious contender should he decide that Thorpe Manor suited his purposes. And, in truth, it probably is not. But it would be handy to have me on hand to keep Mrs Schell company.
“Do not be fooled, Mr Holmes. Freddie Schell is a good man, and a good friend, but he did not become a rich man by being overly generous in business. He is physically not what he was, but in his mind, he is as sharp as ever.”
“I had noticed that, Captain Hopkirk,” Holmes assured him. “But to return to Mr Salah, I worry that, had I not intervened, you might have done him serious injury during your fight.”
Hopkirk nodded, his face colouring. “I might at that, and nobody would be sorrier afterwards. It does me no credit, as an experienced soldier, to lose my te
mper and become involved in something little better than a street brawl with a civilian.” He looked up and held Holmes’s gaze steadily. “I am greatly ashamed of my behaviour in that regard. I should have warned the man off, not resorted to fisticuffs. And I should never have lost myself so much that I almost descended into brute savagery.”
A silence followed which neither man seemed keen to break.
“Very well, Captain Hopkirk,” Holmes said finally. “And you saw no one else before you went to sleep?”
For a second, Hopkirk hesitated, and I wondered if he were about to recall something. But he simply shook his head. “No, nothing. I had a glass of whisky already in my room, and saw nobody until this morning when Buxton knocked on my door.”
He allowed his eyes to slide across to me. “I wanted to ask, is it established how Salah died, Dr Watson?” he asked. “Was it the blow to his head after all?”
In all honesty, I was as sure as I could be that that was the cause of death, but I thought it best not to commit myself to a definitive answer yet. “Perhaps,” I replied. “It is impossible to say for certain until an autopsy is carried out, however.”
“Of course.” Hopkirk took a silver cigarette case from his pocket and offered it around. I took one, but found it a rather harsh blend and wished I had not. “I wish I could be of more assistance. Is it certain that Salah’s watch was broken at the time he died?” he asked suddenly. “I admit that it seems something better suited to the cheap novels my batman reads than to real life!”
“Such things do happen in real life, Captain, though I agree that it is convenient for us.”
“And for the police when they arrive. Will that be in the morning, do you think? I do wonder how their presence will affect the estate auction.” He had leaned back in his seat, but now he glanced round then hunched forward again. “I don’t mind telling you that I do not intend to bid. I know that Freddie Schell thinks Salah’s death will attract adverse reporting, and if that ridiculous outfit of Reilly’s is any measure, he’s not too keen on our English weather. But even so, the estate’s a bit too rich for my blood, now that I see it!”
He grinned and stubbed out his cigarette. “But is there anything further I can help you with, gentlemen?” he asked.
Holmes shook his head. “Not at the moment, Captain Hopkirk. You have been very helpful as it is.”
Hopkirk stood and offered his hand, then marched briskly to the door. He stopped for a second with the handle in his hand. “Remember, if there’s anything at all I can do, just say the word. I’ve not read any of your books, Doctor, but I know who you are, and it’d be something to tell the grandchildren to be included in one of them!”
The movement of Holmes’s head in reply was not quite a nod, and not quite a shake of the head, but it was enough for Hopkirk. He grinned again, turned smartly on his heel and was gone.
“Do you think he was telling the truth?” I asked Holmes. “He’s a likeable chap, but there was something not quite right about him. You saw his hesitation when you asked if he had been downstairs for a nightcap?”
Holmes nodded. “I did. And the way he immediately changed the subject.” He stubbed out the cigarette Hopkirk had given him and reached into a pocket for his pipe. “I am not sure if he is exactly likeable, Watson, but he is certainly keen to be liked,” he said, as he pressed a plug of shag into the bowl. “But he will bear watching.” He picked a shred of tobacco from his tongue and grimaced. “I am never too trusting of man with such appalling taste in cigarettes.”
* * *
The testimony of Amicable Watt proved disappointing. Though he was obviously keen to become involved in any way he could, he claimed to have switched off his bedroom light at 10 p.m. and to have known nothing further until almost the same hour the following morning.
“I’d tell you different if I could,” he declared despondently, “in fact, I wish I could. I like a mystery as much as I like a secret, and I’d no love for the late Mr Salah, so it’s no skin off my back if he’s dead. But I’m a heavy sleeper, and that’s the truth.”
He looked crest-fallen at making such an admission, but as there was nothing more he could tell us, Holmes thanked him for his time and sent him on his way.
* * *
If the other guests – Pennington excluded – had proven to be a mixed but generally compliant bag in terms of their willingness to co-operate with Holmes’s enquiries, Reilly proved utterly obdurate in his refusal to do so.
Hopkirk had mentioned that he had seen the older man in the corridors of the east wing just before his own appointment, and so I had expected him to be waiting outside the door when Hopkirk left, but to my surprise there was no sign of him. I looked in his room, but he was not there, nor was he in the main hall or the dining room. It was only as I made my way back to the east wing, where Holmes still sat, that I literally bumped into him as he came out of one of the empty rooms that made up the abandoned wing.
“I do apologise,” I said before I recognised him then, doing so, went on, “but this is a fortuitous meeting, for I am looking for you, as it happens. Mr Holmes is ready to speak to you, if you have a moment.”
I turned away and began to walk towards Holmes’s room, in every expectation that he would follow, and had taken half a dozen steps before I realised that he had not moved.
“It’s my turn to apologise, Doctor, but I have decided that there is nothing to be gained by speaking to Mr Holmes. He said himself that he has no official standing, and I see no reason to repeat myself by relating the same facts to him and then to the police, when they arrive. I think my time would be better spent looking around the house, as I always intended to do today.” He laughed. “The climate may not be to my liking, but I have travelled a great distance to visit Thorpe Manor and it would be a shame to return home without seeing it all.”
He was correct, of course. Holmes was acting at the request of the Thorpe family solicitor only and, had he not been trapped in the house by the snow, might not have become involved at all. Even so, I tried to argue that Reilly should speak to him.
“I understand your reasoning,” I said, “but Holmes’s talents are viewed with the utmost respect by Scotland Yard and any preliminary investigation he carries out is likely to cut down the amount of time the police need before they can release everyone, and we can all go home.”
Reilly’s hand was on the door of the next room in the corridor, evidently keen to continue his impromptu tour, but at this, he stopped and turned his attention fully on me.
“Release us?” he said. “Do you mean to say that the police will keep us here until they have decided what happened to that blasted man?”
“Until they are satisfied that we each of us had nothing to do with his death, certainly,” I clarified.
“Why, that is outrageous!” he snapped. “I have tickets booked on a steamer to take me back home for the day after tomorrow. Mr Buxton told me that the trains should be running again tomorrow, and if they are not, I will hire someone in the village to drive me. It is imperative that I leave by the afternoon at the latest!” He banged a fist against the wall in anger. “This would not happen back home, I can tell you, Dr Watson. The police there would never dream of keeping gentlemen hostage in so high-handed a manner.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Things are done differently in England nowadays, I’m afraid. Perhaps when you left for the Orient, the police were less diligent, but much has changed in the past few decades.”
“So it would seem,” grumbled Reilly. “Well, I still intend to leave tomorrow. I shall be sure to be the first to speak to any policeman who arrives before I depart. And if one arrives after that, well, they can contact me via the local police at home.”
I would have warned him that he would be best served by staying where he was, but there was obviously no point. He gave a small nod of farewell and stalked past me in the direction of the main part of the house. I returned to Holmes, and told him what Reilly intended.
“He will not be allowed to leave the county, far less the country, of course. I informed Inspector Fisher of the names of everyone present at the house, and should the trains be up and running again tomorrow, he will have taken steps to ensure nobody leaves here on one.”
“Still, I am surprised he would not speak to you. He must know how it will look that he was the only guest unwilling to give any account of himself.”
“An account only to me, Watson, only to me. I doubt that the inspector, when he arrives, will hold it against Reilly that he preferred to wait to speak to him. Police inspectors are a vain lot, in my experience, and it will certainly appeal to his vanity.”
I was not so sure, but we would know soon enough. I had just remembered something else that Reilly had said.
“The inspector will be here tomorrow, Holmes. Buxton told Reilly that the trains will be running in the morning.”
He nodded, and closed his eyes. “In which case, I have a great deal to consider and not much time in which to do so. I need peace to think for a short while,” he murmured. “If you could come back for me just before dinner, that would be splendid.”
Thus dismissed, I made my way downstairs and poured myself a drink. There was nobody else around, so I wandered through to the library, and though most of the shelves were empty, I found a beautifully illustrated copy of Dean Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and settled down to spend a pleasant hour in the land of the Lilliputians.
* * *
As it happened, I nodded off while reading the book, and only awoke when Alice the maid loudly coughed by my ear and said that Buxton had asked her to find out whether anyone wished to eat. In truth, I was not hungry, but Holmes had mentioned dinner, and so I replied on both our behalves that we would appreciate a hot meal.
“But Mr Holmes has gone out,” Alice protested mildly. “He said that he wouldn’t be wanting anything for dinner. He said he was going to The Silent Man and would get something there.”
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--Sherlock Holmes and the Crusader's Curse Page 10
