It was on a fine May morning in 1901 that Holmes and I first made the acquaintance of Raymond Ashley Savile, 3rd Earl of Blagdon. The Earl was in his mid-forties at the time of our meeting.
His grandfather, the 1st Earl of Blagdon, had gained a fortune and a title as the founder of Savile’s Commercial Bank in the City of London in 1839. In the heyday of Victoria ’s England, Savile’s Bank had been a name to conjure with. Plain old John Savile, before he acquired his earldom, made his first million in the railway boom of the 1840s. He then sold his shares in the Great North Eastern Railway and its rivals shortly before the bubble burst. Whatever his profit, he doubled it-and doubled it again-through his stake in Ocean Coal, as well as in several of the new “department” stores which graced London’s West End in the later decades of the nineteenth century.
The old man died in 1897 and was succeeded by his eldest son who outlived him only for a few months. It was old John Savile’s grandson who then became the 3rd Earl of Blagdon. By that time, as Sherlock Holmes remarked acidly, the aristocratic title had passed through three generations and had been washed clean of the whiff and taint of “trade.” In the House of Lords and elsewhere, Raymond Ashley Savile stood equal with the descendants of Plantagenet knights and Elizabethan statesmen.
The name most closely associated with the Savile family and its title as Earls of Blagdon was that of their country house, Priorsfield. It had been built no more than forty years before Holmes and I first saw it. Infinite pains had been taken to suggest that a 16th century chateau of the Loire had been whisked up and set down in a valley of the River Thames, half way between Oxford and London.
Priorsfield was soon brought to our attention and I must say a word about it. It was best seen from a distance, as passengers on the Oxford train glimpsed it across the Berkshire meadows beyond Windsor. Despite the best efforts of the architect and the builders, its French Renaissance design had too much of the “new” in its appearance to be anything but the plaything of commercial success. The dome between its round towers with their conical roofs might as easily have graced the Winter Gardens Pavilion or the Grand Hotel of a popular seaside resort.
Other stately homes might be known for suits of armour or the banners of chivalry. Priorsfield’s fame came from glass cases of Sèvres porcelain, from gold lustre centrepieces with fresh flowers down the length of polished dining tables and overblown garden scenes painted in oils. The Earls of Blagdon walked on flower-decorated carpets ordered by Louis XIV for the halls of Versailles.
Raymond Ashley Savile came to see Sherlock Holmes by appointment. He was a tall rather gaunt man, perhaps in his prime but already with a pronounced stoop. It was not only this stoop which made the fair-complexioned and clean-shaven aristocrat appear to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. He glanced at me, uneasily as I thought, swept his long morning-coat about him and sat down. He turned to my friend.
“Mr Holmes, what I have to tell you must remain between ourselves.”
“Of course, my lord,” said Holmes courteously, “However you may speak as freely before Dr Watson as to myself. Indeed, it is advisable that you should do so. The resolution of most difficulties benefits from a second opinion. It is far better that my friend and colleague should hear of the matter from your own lips. Indeed, I would consider it essential.”
In this polite but inflexible manner, Sherlock Holmes had laid down the law to the aristocracy on many occasions. Lord Blagdon paused, as if he might even now stand up and take his leave. Then he sighed and began his explanation.
“Mr Holmes, you are probably aware that my father’s youngest brother was Lord Frederick Savile who together with his young wife was killed in the Clapham train crash of 1879.”
“Indeed, my lord,” said Holmes quietly.
“He left a five-year-old son, Lord Arthur Savile, who was brought up by my father as if he had been my younger brother rather than my cousin. We were not close, of course, because there was a gap of almost twenty years between us. However, I have always behaved towards him as though he were more than a young cousin. He will only carry the courtesy title of Lord Arthur Savile and therefore cannot inherit. However, I have seen to it that he need not want for money. He left Oxford without a degree but, curiously, he had the makings of a budding pianist. Were he not otherwise provided for-and had he the persistence-1 daresay he might have made a career in that way.”
“I take some interest in concert music,” said Holmes casually, “and have heard of Lord Arthur’s remarkable talent. I am sorry he has not cultivated it. His private impromptu performance at Priorsfield of Chopin’s C sharp minor study, several years ago, was described to me by the great Vladimir de Pachmann himself as a tour de force. It might not have done for him to play in public but he was a most accomplished performer.”
The Earl inclined his head in acknowledgement.
“It is a matter of character, Mr Holmes. Unfortunately it is not his accomplishments which are the subject of my present visit. To speak frankly he is better known in certain outlandish and Bohemian areas of London society than I should care to be. As for his music, he plays less and less, except occasionally in the company of his family. Let me be plain. I am attached to Lord Arthur and I have helped him, from time to time, as I have been able. But his conduct is become a matter of concern.”
Holmes raised one eyebrow.
“I cannot presume, my lord, to take your cousin’s conduct in hand.”
The Earl of Blagdon reassured him with a lift of the hand.
“I do not suggest that he is vicious or wild. There is nothing of drink, or gambling, or womanising. Rather, he is not merely eccentric but he seems to collect eccentricities for their own sake, if you follow me.”
“I believe I do, my lord.”
“I certainly could not say that he is insane. A man may believe that character can be determined through phrenology by reading the bumps of the skull, as he has done in extremes, and yet he is not insane. He may enlist in the ranks of those Rosicrucians known as The Magicians of the Golden Dawn; yet no alienist would lock him up in Bedlam. He may swear to the appearance of apparitions of the dead at the command of a spiritualist medium, yet that is his freedom of belief. It is when he becomes-shall I say a collector of such oddities?-that I am concerned for him.”
“Unless there be fraud or coercion of some kind,” said Holmes gently, “I doubt whether I am the right person to approach. Dr Watson, on the other hand…”
“What if it should touch upon crime?”
“That, of course, is a quite different matter.”
“What if he should burgle, by night, the houses of his own family? What if he should do it to no purpose? It is not only his eccentricities, though they are bad enough, but a growing oddity and perhaps criminality of conduct which brings me here.”
Holmes straightened in his chair.
“I think, my lord, that you had better explain that a little.”
Lord E3lagdon seemed to bow increasingly under the weight of his concern.
“Last Friday, Mr Holmes, a week ago precisely and in the middle of the night, Lord Arthur came secretly to the grounds of Priorsfield. He opened a sash-window of the library on the ground floor, pushing back the catch with a blade of some kind. He must than have climbed over the sill, which is easy enough, and walked through the lower level of the house to the north drawing-room. The chief feature of this room is a full-size Louis Phillippe display-case, containing the finest items of porcelain in the Priorsfield collection. One of the housekeepers had heard the window being opened and had gone to investigate. She was in time to see Lord Arthur entering the drawing-room. He did not see her. Because he is sometimes a visitor to Priorsfield, she did not challenge him at once but alerted my valet, who in turn woke me.”
“I take it that your brother was a regular guest at Priorsfield but not on this occasion? If he wished to visit the house, he had only to ask?”
“Of course. He could treat it as his home for, in a sense, it was. That is why such incidents have made his conduct so disturbing for some time. I came downstairs quietly in order to observe him without attracting his notice. I watched him open the cabinet. It took him a moment or two and I cannot tell you whether he picked the lock or merely turned a key which he had had made. He may have taken an impression on one of his visits and had a key cut.”
“We shall be able to determine that,” I said quickly but Holmes frowned me into silence.
“He did not need to turn on the electric light,” Lord Blagdon continued, “having chosen a night of full moon through open curtains. I could not see precisely what he was doing for his back was towards me. However he was facing the display of Sèvres vases, jardinières, dishes and boxes, with the door of the cabinet partly open. These items are glazed in royal blue or pink, picked out in gold, inset with garden scenes of fetes galantes or Classical mythology. He struck a match very briefly, as he stood there, and seemed to find what he wanted at once. His movements were quick, though quiet. Indeed, I heard nothing all the time he was there and I cannot tell you whether he moved or opened any of the pieces, though I believe he must have done.”
“What did he take?” I asked.
Lord Blagdon swung round to me.
“Nothing, Dr Watson! Nothing! If the housekeeper had not heard the library window being opened, we should never have suspected that he had been there.”
“Whereupon,” Holmes interposed, “he closed and locked the display cabinet, passed from the drawing-room to the library, left by way of the window, closed it after him, but could not lock it?”
“Quite correct, Mr Holmes. I was dismayed when I first saw him because I feared he had got himself into money trouble and was robbing his own family to pay off his debts. What if he was in such trouble and was robbing us at the command of criminals? You see?”
“Indeed I do. But has the window been found unlocked since then?”
“Never. It has been examined every morning.”
“Excellent. And where did he go when he left the house on the night in question?”
“I can only assume that he walked across the garden, along the road to the village and waited for the first morning train from Priorsfield Halt.”
“That is good to know. It suggests that he had no accomplices and was probably not working on the orders of anyone else. Of course, he might have been examining the objects in order to facilitate a robbery by some other person. However, I think not. He could have done that more easily while he was a guest in the house. In any case, he has not returned in the past week.”
“I lad I known that he wanted to, he would have been welcome to come to the house and examine the porcelain to his heart’s content. That is what makes it so disturbing. As it is, he did no harm that I could see. I thought it best to observe but say nothing.”
“You did quite right, my lord” said Holmes reassuringly.
“The curious thing is that he did not wear gloves that night.”
“Surely he had no need to,” I said, “Chief Inspector Henry at Scotland Yard can read finger-prints like a book. But who would look for prints without evidence of a crime? Had the housekeeper not seen him, there would have been neither evidence nor suspicion.”
Lord Blagdon shook his head.
“You misunderstand. For the past six months, Lord Arthur has worn gloves, invariably out of doors and frequently at other times. He says nothing of this, will not discuss it, but we infer that he suffers from a rash or some such ailment.”
There was a note of scepticism in Holmes’s reply.
“Does he wear gloves when he plays the piano?”
Lord Blagdon bridled a little at this.
“Of course not but he has largely given up his music.”
“Or at the dinner table?”
“Once or twice. Of late, when he has been our guest, he has taken meals in his room. That is the least of his eccentricities.”
“And when did you last hear him play the piano-without gloves, as you say?”
“About four weeks ago. It was in the afternoon with only a few family members present-and they were not paying much attention during their game of whist. He played one of the Schumann Carnaval pieces, just the first one. Then he stopped, closed the lid of the piano keyboard, folded his hands together and left to go to his room.”
“An accomplished musician indeed,” said Holmes graciously, “Since you were present, did you see any obvious marks or disfigurement of the hands?”
“No,” said Lord Blagdon, “I was, however, sitting at a little distance and naturally saw only the backs of his hands. I did not see a rash of any kind.”
“Let us conclude, then, that whatever causes Lord Arthur to wear gloves, it did not do so while he was playing Schumann. And has the instrument been played since?”
“No, the lid is closed and locked when it is not in use.”
“Has the keyboard been dusted?”
“I think not. It was locked as usual and I do not recall Mrs Rowley the housekeeper asking for the key since then.”
“Excellent!” said Holmes, “In that case, I believe we may take a first step towards the resolution of your difficulty.”
When we were alone together, Holmes jotted two or three words on the back of his shirt-cuff as an aide-memoire and then looked up.
“I confess, Watson, that this promises to be one of the most intriguing cases to come our way for a little while. First of all however, by his lordship’s leave, I think we must examine the locus in quo as the lawyers call it-the scene of this little mystery.”
So it was that three days later, on Monday morning, we stepped down from our train at the quiet wooden platform of Priorsfield Halt to find a pony and trap waiting for us. It was that time of year when the riverside elms were in full leaf. The broad stretch of the Thames sparkled in sunlight, carrying an occasional pleasure steamer rippling upstream to Oxford from Windsor.
Priorsfield House was huge and empty after a weekend party, the gardens were deserted and the patter of water spilling from a triton’s conche in the grand basin was audible across the main lawn. The housekeeper received us, in the temporary absence of her employer, and we were conducted at once to the north drawing-room. The windows had been orientated to avoid strong sunlight damaging the fabrics of furniture. With a small key she unlocked the display case.
“The piano too, if you please,” said Holmes courteously.
She puffed herself up, cock-robin style, and clasped her hands. One look at her had been enough to assure me that she would never let drop tittle-tattle about Lord Arthur Savile’s unorthodox visit to the house.
“Lord Blagdon left no instructions as to the piano.”
Sherlock Holmes sighed.
“I fear we shall have wasted his lordship’s time, as well as our own, if we are denied an opportunity to examine the keyboard. In that case, I must decline to proceed further with the investigation.”
There was only a brief pause before this contest of wills was decided. Our chatelaine walked across and unlocked the lid of the fine black-lacquered Bozendorfer grand piano, folding it back on its polished brass hinges and laying bare an immaculate keyboard.
“It seems,” said Holmes to me from the corner of his mouth, “that the housemaids here have been as careless as in most establishments when it comes to the matter of dusting. I daresay I should be so myself, in their situation. A good deal too much fuss is made about dust-which settles again almost as soon as it is brushed off.”
The housekeeper had walked silently from the room, though we could feel that her eyes were still upon us from some vantage point just beyond the door. Holmes turned to the piano. He had come equipped with a black Gladstone bag that might more properly have belonged to a doctor. From this he took an instrument case, laid it on the table and opened it. He chose two camel-hair brushes, such as a painter might have used for fine work. To these he added two small bottles. The first contained dark powder, which was graphite of much the kind used for lubricating locks. The second was his own preparation, two parts of finely powdered chalk and one part of metallic mercury. These little bottles were accompanied by two insufflators to allow each powder to be blown gently on to any surface. In his waistcoat pocket, as usual, a folded magnifying-lens was readily available.
For the next twenty minutes, Sherlock Holmes worked patiently and intently, his features drawn in a slight frown of concentration. He began with the light coloured powder of chalk and mercury, puffing it gently but accurately on to the black keys of the piano. Then he removed a little surplus with a camel-hair brush. When this was done, he took the graphite and the second insufflator, applying the darker powder to the white ivory of the piano keys. It settled like a thin drift of snow-and like snow it revealed the contours over which it lay, in this case those slight ridges imprinted by the exudations of the human skin.
He took a little mirror from his pocket and angled it to catch the light from the windows. Then there began his long examination of each piano key in turn. I knew better than to interrupt him. It was half an hour before his back straightened and he stood up, the sharp profile animated and eyes glittering. He put down the little mirror into which he had been staring, seeking the best angle. The powders had now left on the polished ivory of the keys what I can only describe as a slight and brittle encrustation which a sweep of the hand would remove.
“Of one thing we may be sure, Watson. The last person to touch this keyboard played upon it the ‘Préambule’ from the set of pieces entitled Carnaval, by the late and sublime Robert Schumann. It has not been dusted nor touched since then.”
He seemed a little too pleased with himself for my liking.
“How can you possibly say that?”
“Very easily, my dear fellow. To begin with, we are only concerned with the last person to touch the instrument. I can assure you that all these prints belong to the same pair of hands. Only one person has played upon it since it was last dusted.”
“Lord Arthur?”
He raised a finger.
“Look at the two topmost octaves of the keyboard in the right hand. No prints appear on the four highest keys. That is to say, G, A, and the raised notes of F and G. They are very often not required. We can safely forget them. But five other notes are also free of prints. Those are significant.”
“Of what?”
He sighed tolerantly.
“Significant in your case, my dear Watson, of hours wasted in concert halls, fighting back sleep when the air was shimmering with the genius of Rubinstein or Paderewski. Before our little outings to the Wigmore Hall, I like to read the scores of the pieces to be played. Consequently I may tell you that in the right-hand of Robert Schumann’s ‘Préambule’ there are only five other keys-black or white-which are not touched. All are in the same two topmost octaves. They include the upper D flat and, in both octaves, the keys of E natural and B natural. Now you may study the keyboard of this splendid instrument and tell me for yourself which of those five keys have produced no finger-prints.”
He was right, of course. I tried to salvage as much dignity as I was able.
“Hardly conclusive proof of anything but Lord Arthur playing Schumann. Not much to go on.”
“My dear fellow, I am nowhere near my conclusion yet. I promise you I have a good deal more to go on. Look at the lower half of the keyboard, by the way. Tell me what you see.”
“There are no prints on the lowest twelve keys, black or white. All the rest seem to have been touched.”
“Exactly. It will not surprise you to learn that those are the very notes not required in playing Schumann’s exquisite sketch.”
“But Holmes, there is no dispute that Lord Arthur played that piece on this piano.”
“There would have been a great deal of dispute if we had asked Lord Blagdon, or indeed Lord Arthur himself, for a set of our subject’s finger-prints as though he were a common criminal. He is a young man of excellent family and as yet unblemished reputation. Therefore he is likely to resist being treated as a suspect. None the less, we now have what we want: a set of his finger-prints is essential if our investigation is to be successfully carried out.”
There was little point in arguing. In any case I must either concede that Holmes was right or, at least, suspend my judgment. He left the lid of the keyboard open and turned instead to the display case with its magnificent collection of Sèvres porcelain. It was the most remarkable example of eighteenth-century craftsmanship. Its vases, cups, tableware, and bonbon dishes were fit for a royal drawing-room.
He carefully opened the unlocked glass doors.
“I think we shall find very few finger-prints of any kind here, Watson. The servants in great houses are taught to dust such treasures, on the rare occasions when they do so, by holding them in a cloth without allowing their fingers to touch the polished surface. It would not do for a housemaid’s or even a butler’s greasy thumbprint to blemish the display.”
“Lord Arthur used no duster.”
“No. Curious is it not that a man who wore gloves on most occasions-except when playing the piano which he could hardly do with gloves on-should have left them off while practising the art of burglary. That may be the answer to everything.”
“He cannot have expected to be caught.”
“He cannot have expected to be seen, rather,” said Holmes with quiet emphasis.
“Then why play the piano without gloves in front of others?”
“We shall have an answer to that without leaving these rooms. For the moment, I should value your assistance in taking the pieces of porcelain as I hand them to you and putting them gently on the table behind you. Please avoid marking them with your own fingers and preserve the prints already there. We shall not need to look far. We have it on Lord Blagdon’s authority that whatever interested his cousin was comfortably within his reach as he stood at the opening of the cabinet doors, where we are now. I doubt whether we need examine more than a dozen items.”
As it proved, we required eight. Four of these were a fine set of Sèvres vases with gilt handles and ornament, each bearing a garden scene set in royal blue lustre, taken from a painting by Fragonard. Holmes tested all four with dark powder. They had been dusted some time ago but not marked since. A satin-pink gilt-edged dessert plate bore the signs of the zodiac but no finger-prints. Two Meissen vases decorated in blue on white with a pattern of Indian flowers required both light and dark powder but yielded no prints. Holmes was evidently correct that all these had been dusted, polished and then put away without the fingers of the servants touching their surfaces once the cleaning had been completed.
Then my friend took a dainty Sèvres bonbonnière. It was in richly enamelled porcelain, a rectangular chocolate-box, some six inches across. Edged by a motif of golden fleurs-de-lys, its centrepiece was a golden knob by which the lid was lifted. On each of its sides, the face of one of the winds was painted in natural tones, Boreas for the North, Auster for the South, Eurus for the East and Zephyr for the West. Sherlock Holmes handled it so that none of his finger-tips touched the polished surface.
“A little out of place among the vases, I should say,” he remarked as he set it safely on the table, “An afterthought to the display, and therefore most interesting. On such light surfaces as these, I believe our graphite powder will suffice.”
He positioned it on the window-table where the sunlight would fall as he required it. With his insufflator he puffed a light drift of the darker powder on to the outer surfaces. Judiciously, he blew off a small amount of the powder and applied his enlarging glass to the golden knob at the centre of the lid, as well as to the left-hand side of the box itself. Presently he straightened up, offering me the glass.
“We must make a more detailed inspection presently, Watson. However, it seems the only prints to be seen are exactly where I had anticipated. There are two complete and two partial prints on the golden knob at the centre of the lid, as well as four finger-prints on the left-hand surface and a separate thumbprint on this side. Let us suppose they are the prints of someone who has steadied the box with the left hand while lifting its lid with the fingers of the right. I believe you will find these prints are exact replicas of those on the piano keyboard.”
I am no expert in the matter of finger-prints but the similarities in the papillary ridges in every case, as Holmes now demonstrated, were certainly striking. In the case of the left index-finger, the manner in which three of the ridges forked prematurely in an upward direction and two in a downward direction were identical on the porcelain and the piano keys. There were also two short independent ridges which seemed to me a carbon copy. I also noticed an identical small feature known as an island or a lake. Conclusive, in my opinion, was the slight disfigurement of a minor cut or abrasion, such as we all suffer from time to time. It had long ceased to trouble the man whose finger sustained it, yet it had not quite vanished on either surface.
Taking the lid of the exquisite bonbonnière by its edges, Sherlock Holmes lifted it gently and put it on one side.
“I think we may say that the box was dusted and put away behind glass some time ago, untouched by the servant’s fingers. Since then, one person has touched it and removed the lid. Even if we had not the prints on the piano keyboard, the evidence points to Lord Arthur Savile.”
He peered into the interior of white glazed china.
“As one might expect, Watson. Out of sight, out of mind! The servant who dusted the exterior of the box did not think it worth the trouble to open it and clean the interior!”
He showed it to me. The glazed white china which formed the little floor of the interior was marked by two caramel-stained deposits, each about the size of a postage-stamp.
“This box has merely been used for its original purpose of holding chocolates,” I said, “Heat of some kind, perhaps a fire in the background or the sun through the window, has warmed the interior sufficiently to melt the chocolate or even the contents of one of the bonbons.”
“Two of them, I think,” said Holmes quickly, “and quite recently.”
He touched his forefinger to his tongue and then to one of the marks. He mimed a disappointed face and shrugged. Then he repeated the process with the second caramel deposit. This time he stood still, his features immobile for several seconds. Very suddenly, as if he were about to vomit, he drew his handkerchief, stuffed it to his lips and spat into it with all his strength. In a few strides, he crossed to a small table on which stood a siphon of soda water. Like a singer lubricating his tonsils, he squirted the water into his mouth, crossed to the window, flung it up, and spat again, unceremoniously into the flower-bed.
I stooped over the box and sniffed its interior. There was a mustiness of stale sugar and condiments of some kind but nothing more. Very carefully, I touched my finger to the same deposit.
“Before you go further, Watson, the word ‘aconite’ may give you second thoughts. Unless I am very much mistaken, the terms Indian aconite, or Aconitum ferox, or the so-called Bish poison would be a more accurate description here-to judge by the speed with which it affects the tongue. I believe there has been poison in this box, and it would hardly have been introduced without murder in mind. I tasted the minutest quantity but my lips and the tip of my tongue are still tingling and a little numb. Concealed in a bonbon, of course, it would have done its worst before there was any suspicion.”
“And Lord Blagdon?”
“For the moment, we shall say nothing. I lowever, in case we should require to verify his lordship’s account of Lord Alfred’s visit, I should like to take one more finger-print sample from the sill of the library window. I do not think our client has misled us but this case now takes on a graver complexion.”
We took the print from the library sill. By the time that we returned to the north drawing-room, it was occupied by the tall and stooping figure of Lord Blagdon who turned from the oriel window to greet us.
“Well, Mr Holmes,” he said uneasily, “I see that you have been at work. To what conclusion have you come?”
“To little more than I had already come,” said Holmes crisply. “In playing Schumann on the grand piano, your cousin left a perfect set of his finger-prints. Those prints also appear on the window sill of the library, corroborating your version of events.”
“When I came to you, I was not aware that my version would require corroboration,” said Lord Blagdon reproachfully.
“But you have it none the less, my lord,” Holmes replied, yielding no ground. “The same finger-prints appear on the Sèvres bonbonnière near the front of the cabinet. So far as we can establish at the moment, that was the object of Lord Arthur’s visit.”
Lord Blagdon seemed genuinely taken aback.
“What possible interest could he have in it? He certainly did not attempt to steal it. Indeed, I should have made him a present of it, if his heart was set upon the thing. It is not of great value, compared with the other pieces.”
“I do not think he ever wanted to steal it. Perhaps, however, you would not mind giving me an account of its recent history.”
Holmes had gained the initiative and Lord Blagdon now looked a little perplexed.
“It has no recent history to speak of, Mr Holmes. It is only as a matter of convenience that it appears in the display. During her lifetime, it was the possession of our father’s cousin, Lady Clementina Beauchamp. Lady Clem, as we all called her. Like so many of our more distant family, she was never well off but we all cared for her as best we could. She had inherited a few items like the bonbon dish from our grandfather and she left them to us when she died.”
“What did she leave to Lord Arthur?”
Lord Blagdon raised his eyebrows.
“To Lord Arthur? Why, nothing. She had no reason to. He had no expectations from her. It was my own side of the family from which she had received kindness. She was fond enough of my cousin, of course, as I have always believed he was of her. But then, Lady Clem was fond of everyone because it was in her nature. I do not think she and Lord Arthur were more closely acquainted.”
“They were on visiting terms, however?”
“Oh, to be sure, we all were. To what extent, in his case, I cannot say.”
“When did Lady Beauchamp die?”
The expression on Lord Blagdon’s face suggested that this line of questioning had gone on long enough but that he would indulge his hired detective a little more.
“Almost exactly two months ago.”
“And where was Lord Arthur then?”
“Lord Arthur had been in Venice for a week or two with my wife’s brother. He was unable to return in time for the funeral. Now if that is all for the present…”
“I fear, my lord, that it is not nearly all.”
The tone of this stung our host.
“Mr Holmes! On the recommendation of a close friend I have invited you to investigate a most sensitive family matter. You now inquire into things which I cannot see are in the least necessary. I am anxious to benefit from your advice but I am bound to say that there is a point beyond which I shall feel compelled to do without it!”
Holmes did not even blink.
“I trust not, my lord, for if I am compelled to relinquish the case, the advice which you will receive is likely to be that of the Metropolitan Police. Most probably, as matters stand, it will come in the person of Chief Inspector Lestrade or Inspector Tobias Gregson, both of the Criminal Investigation Division of Scotland Yard. My lord, I cannot afford to be party to compounding a felony.”
It is a cliché to say that a man looks stunned but that was exactly how Lord Blagdon appeared. Holmes allowed him no retreat.
“I have to tell you, Lord Blagdon, that the bonbonnière before you contains two deposits of melted chocolate or something of the kind. One of these, in my opinion, contained a lethal dose of Aconitum ferox, the most deadly and still one of the most secret of all poisons.”
“Stuff and nonsense! Balderdash!”
I had expected Lord Blagdon to be further stunned by this news but he came out fighting, as the saying is. Even Holmes paused and this gave me the chance to intervene between them.
“Since I am a medical man, Lord Blagdon, it may help us all if you can tell me quite simply how Lady Clementina died.”
He almost laughed at me.
“Quite simply, she died of heart failure at an advanced age, sir! Though she put on a brave face and went out and about as much as she could, she had been ailing for years. It was not unusual at her time of life. The wonder is she lived as long as she did. I have served in India with the 17th Lancers and I too know a little of vengeance by secret poison. I have some notion of what the symptoms are. She did not exhibit them.”
He turned away to the window, as if to conceal from us his exasperation. Then he swung round again with a spin of the hem of his morning coat and a wagging finger.
“Suspect me, if you like! I was present when Lady Clem died and I can tell you that she died of heart failure. Her final illness lasted for more than a week. During that time the bonbon dish you refer to was never within her reach and, believe me, she had no use for it during her last days. The Duchess of Paisley visited her just before the end and took dinner in Lady Clementina’s room. The poor old woman could manage nothing apart from broth and plain water. Her physician, Sir Matthew Reid, and a nurse were in constant attendance. A man of Sir Matthew’s eminence may be allowed, I think, to know the difference between heart failure and acute poisoning. Your suggestions are quite preposterous!”
“Lord Arthur…” Holmes began, but he got no further.
“I have already told you, Mr Holmes, that Lord Arthur was several hundred miles away. You or your friends at Scotland Yard may check for yourselves that he was staying at Danielli’s Hotel in Venice. When he was not at the hotel, he was yachting on the Adriatic or with a shooting party in the Pinetum, accompanied by at least a dozen witnesses. As for having a motive to murder, that is the most absurd thing of all. He would not benefit by her death and he knew it. Her intentions were never in doubt. I grant you Lord Arthur benefited a little in the end-only because after her death I asked that I should not have certain items she bequeathed to me. Lord Arthur did not know beforehand that this would happen. Despite your reputation, if this is the best you can do, Mr Holmes…”
“Perhaps it would help,” I said, with some sense of desperation, “if you could tell me what happened to the contents of the bonbon dish.”
“The dish was bequeathed to me as a keepsake. I lack a sweet tooth for such things and, in any case, there is something unappealing in eating the bonbons of the dead. I threw away such as remained in it and left the dish for the servants to clean. It was evidently dusted. I had assumed that the servant who did this would also have washed it out. If it should contain evidence of criminality of any kind, then of course I am glad that did not happen.”
This discussion of the dish had calmed the atmosphere somewhat.
“In that case, my lord,” said Holmes, “there is little more that I can suggest. The curiosity of Lord Arthur’s visit here in the middle of the night is a matter for your own consideration. Unless you wish to pursue it, the mystery may rest where it is. As to the death of Lady Clementina, however…”
“Very well, Mr Holmes, as to that I am there before you. I am, after all, a magistrate and know something of the law. You mean to have your way. Yet you must understand that I could not bear the thought of that kind old lady being made the subject of public gossip and the sniggerings of the gutter press.”
“It is the last thing I should wish. However…”
“Fortunately, she lies in the family vault at Beauchamp Chalcote. I will go this far with you. I will communicate with Sir Matthew Reid, who attended her from first to last. I will take his opinion whether an autopsy might be the proper course to silence speculation. If Sir Matthew thinks so, I shall make no objection. He may deal with the coroner. I will suggest, perhaps, that terms in her will, favouring medical science, make an examination desirable. I hope that may suffice. Because it is our family vault in the church at Beauchamp Chalcote no unseemly public exhumation from a churchyard or municipal cemetery is necessary. If it must be done, it must also be discreetly done.”
Holmes gave a half bow and said,
“Your lordship is too kind.”
He made it sound as if Lord Blagdon might withdraw his offer of an autopsy if he chose. Yet both men knew that his lordship had been allowed no choice.
As all the world does not know, because the secret was kept within the family circle, an autopsy was carried out within the week. The body of Lady Clementina Beauchamp showed no trace of poison whatever, let alone the atrocious effects of Aconitum ferox.
“I fear we have put Lord Blagdon to unnecessary distress,” I said to Holmes across the breakfast table, when the post communicated this news to us.
“I think not.”
“We were misled by the evidence of a smear which in itself would have killed no one. On that evidence, we allowed for the possibility of a far greater quantity of aconite in the bonbons before the box was emptied. Suppose there was not. Then all we have is a medicinal trace which may have leaked from a pastille or a gelatine capsule used to make a tonic dose palatable. A homoeopath might well have prescribed it for a failing heart.”
“No doubt,” said Holmes in the tone of one who is listening with less than half his attention.
“At the worst it was a quack remedy, bought and neglected. It lay in the box until heat and moisture caused chocolate and gelatine to melt. That is the rational explanation.”
“You really think so?”
“I cannot see why not.”
“I entirely accept that you cannot see why not. That is where your problem lies.”
“Mark my words, Holmes, you will find that we have seen the last of Lord Blagdon.”
“I think not.”
After this exchange of words, it seemed that our case had come to an end-and a most unsatisfactory end at that. The bonbonnière was thereafter washed, polished and returned to its shelf. The presence of aconite had been a red herring, if ever there was one. As I had remarked to Holmes, in medicinal doses even such poison has its place in every pharmacy cupboard, as a homoeopathic remedy for the onset of acute conditions, from the common cold to a congestion of the vital organs.
It was hard to see that the case could go any further. Certainly no murder had taken place. Such a minute trace of aconitum was not even sufficient evidence of attempted murder. What was left? A minor figure of the English aristocracy had behaved oddly, but that was hardly a novelty. He had arrived and departed, unannounced, at his cousin’s house in the middle of the night. While there, he had inspected several items of porcelain but had taken nothing. This, at any rate, was how the matter rested as the London season ended and the beau monde looked forward to country estates and shooting parties.
August is the month which the newspapers characterise as “The Holiday Season.” A lack of serious information caused the columns of the press to be filled with stories that one was afterwards ashamed to have wasted time in reading. Something of the sort also affects the life of the consulting detective, as Holmes was apt to complain. Humbler folk, not part of the London season, take their families to the beaches of Brighton or the sands of Mar-gate. The criminal classes are hardly to be seen from Putney Bridge in the West of London to Bow Church in the city’s East End. We were at the mercy of every eccentric or lunatic who chose to pester us with his story. I suggested to my friend that we might refresh our minds and bodies among university dons or the legal and medical professions, where the Atlantic Ocean rolls sonorously in at Ilfracombe or Tenby.
He would have none of it. Better to be pestered by clients of doubtful sanity or questionable morals than to travel without purpose and linger one’s life away-or as his old Calvinist nursemaid had cautioned him, to sleep oneself silly.
When the Archdeacon of Chichester, the Venerable Doctor Josephus Percy, visited us, he was the first client to cross the threshold for almost a fortnight. Dr Percy, despite his archdiaconate and his attachment to scholarship, had made little impression upon the world of theology or church politics. He was known principally for a certain eccentricity of conduct and his devotion to the worlds of books and clocks.
Several years ago he had attracted a certain notoriety and a rebuke from the coroner on the death of his housekeeper. This amiable churchman had been at home with her when the unfortunate lady succumbed to a heart attack. It had despatched her within half a minute. It was a Thursday afternoon, just before two o‘clock. At two o’clock every Thursday, the Archdeacon was a visitor to Goodley’s Fine Prints and Rare Editions in the market square of his cathedral city. On this occasion, having propped the deceased housekeeper in the corner of the sofa, he was seen upon his errand as usual, bicycling through the streets of Chichester. An hour or so later, with a brown paper parcel in the basket of his machine, he had pedalled home. Only then did he summon assistance.
In appearance, the Archdeacon looked not so much an old man as a younger man made up for the stage to look antique. The bulb of his vinous nose suggested a gutta-percha beak surmounting a smaller and less inflamed protuberance. The hump of his back belonged surely to the properties department of Quasimodo. The dark locks of a younger man were assuredly bunched up beneath the white wig. His mutton-chop whiskers suggested an aura of spirit gum. But it was not so. The youth of Josephus Percy, if he ever had one, had long since passed away.
“Mr Holmes!” The voice was firm and precise. “What can you tell me of exploding clocks?”
Sherlock Holmes touched his finger-tips together as he confronted the Archdeacon across the unlit fireplace.
“Very little, I fear, archdeacon. A clock, like almost any other mechanism, can be designed to explode. However, it is not usual. Indeed, a clock is more often the means of regulating the time of an explosion. Perhaps that is what you mean?”
The Archdeacon shuffled his gaiters-there is no other term for it-and impatiently tapped the carpet twice with the ferule of his stick.
“What I mean, sir, is this. Four days ago I received through the post a black marble clock in the shape of a classical Athenian facade-with figures. If you know anything of me, you will know that I am a collector of clocks and a past president of the Horological Society of Great Britain, as well as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.”
“I was indeed aware of that,” said Holmes graciously.
“Well, then! The clock of which I speak came from a dealer in Greek Street, Soho. I had not heard of this dealer before and there was no explanation as to why it had been sent. I assumed it must be a gift or presentation of some kind and that a letter explaining this would follow. No such letter has arrived.”
“Perhaps you would do me the kindness of describing the clock in detail.”
“It was a most unusual one, Mr Holmes. It appeared to emanate from the French Revolutionary period and even to sing the praises of that unfortunate event. At the quarter, it sounded the first two notes of the Marseillaise. At the half, it sounded four, at the three-quarters six, and at the hour the first ten, completing the opening line of that distasteful anthem.”
At this point the Archdeacon broke briefly into song.
“All-ons, en-fants de la pa-trie-uh-uh! After that it struck the hour.”
“I low singular,” said Holmes as if the tedium were well-nigh unbearable, “Pray, do continue your most interesting account.”
“On the top of the pediment stood a figure of Marianne, wearing a Cap of Liberty, as though at the head of a mob. To either side, in niches, are two figures, whom pennants stamped in gold identify as Danton and Marat. My manservant, Parker, unpacked it and after breakfast we stood it upon the mantelpiece in the library. It was soon wound up and ticking. At midday on Friday, I was reading in a chair just beside the mantelpiece. The clock played its ten notes and then struck the hour. At once, there was a whirring sound from the mechanism, a sharp crack and a puff of smoke from Marianne’s pedestal. It was such a mouthful of smoke as might be exhaled during the consumption of a cigar. The figure in its Cap of Liberty fell off the pediment.”
Sherlock Holmes shifted his long legs to ease them.
“I fear, sir, you have been the victim of an elaborate practical joke. I am bound to say that your views upon revolutionary outrages are quite well known.”
“You fear that, do you?” said the Archdeacon testily, “Wait until you have heard the rest. I thought, as you do, that the device was sent merely to try my patience. I summoned Parker and ordered that the object should be removed at once and placed in the potting-shed. That seemed the most appropriate place for it. I replaced it with a testimonial clock from a grateful congregation at the Tabernacle Church, Ebbw Vale, which had been there to begin with.”
“This story has scarcely brought you all the way to Baker Street,” I said helpfully.
Once again, the Archdeacon’s forefinger pointed in the direction of heaven and his eyes grew wider.
“Wait! That night the household, such as it is, had gone to bed soon after eleven o’clock. At what must have been midnight, I was woken from a doze by a blast which sounded as though a gas-main had exploded. I got up at once and looked from the window. The potting-shed was just in my view-or rather it was not. It had gone. There was a smell of burning fabric in the air and the moonlight was reflected on several shards of broken glass. Anyone in the vicinity at the time of the explosion would have been killed.”
“And it was in the light of such danger that you sought our advice?” I asked sceptically.
“No, sir. I do not keep a dog and bark myself. I summoned the police but unfortunately they were very little help. They pointed out that the evidence I offered had been destroyed most efficiently by the explosion. They promised to look into the matter but, meantime, advised me to be patient. They said that explosions in potting-sheds are invariably caused by paraffin oil heaters! Such things are always happening, they told me. Their inspector thought it a great joke. ‘I wonder you don’t go and consult Mr Sherlock Holmes in Baker Street!’ he said and his constables all laughed. Hence, you see me here.”
Holmes frowned.
“One thing you may be sure of. The name of the clockmaker on the parcel was false.”
“But I have not told you what the name is, Mr Holmes.”
“That is no matter. It is my business to know the streets of London better than other people. I can assure you that there is no clockmaker of any name in Greek Street. It has had its share of bomb-makers but they have not been active of late.”
“You confirm my suspicions, then. Now, what do you make of this?”
The Archdeacon handed my friend a small tube-like bottle with a cork in it.
“Where did it come from?” Holmes inquired, tipping a little of the powder into the palm of his hand. He sniffed it carefully.
“When the clock emitted its puff of smoke from the library mantelpiece, a very small amount of this fell on to the tiles of the fireplace.”
“Did it indeed?” said Holmes, “Well, wherever it came from or wherever it fell, this is gunpowder. However, it is certainly not gunpowder of the best quality. Were it so, the explosion which occurred in your garden shed might have taken place twelve hours earlier on your library mantelpiece. I daresay that most of the percussion caps failed to ignite the bulk of it on the first occasion.”
“And what do you suggest?”
“That you should go home and stay there. Take every sensible precaution. Leave the rest to me. I do not think you will be troubled again.”
The Archdeacon’s face was a study in indignation and dismay.
“You will not come to Chichester? I surely need to be guarded?”
“The threat to you is not from Chichester but from London. If a man with a gun appeared in the doorway of this room and offered to shoot, you would not want me to stand beside you over here but to disarm him over there.”
“Very clever, Mr Holmes. But you do not know who the assassin is!”
“On the contrary, Archdeacon, I have a very good idea who he is and I do not think he will trouble you again.”
“Then give me his name!”
“It would not help you. Indeed, I think it would mean nothing to you. It would merely distract you from doing the best and safest thing, which is to live quietly and sensibly at home until this case is concluded. It will not be for long, a week at the most, probably much less. Of one thing you may be quite sure, your persecutor will not come near you again.”
“But you have told me nothing!”
“On the contrary, I have given you precise instructions and specific assurances. For the rest, if you wish me to take your case, you must trust me.”
“It seems I have very little choice, so long as the police will not listen to me!”
With that, our visitor left. However disgruntled he might be and however often he might hint at refusing to pay a fee for this sort of advice, the Archdeacon knew that he would get no further with Sherlock Holmes that morning.
Such was the visit of the Venerable Josephus Percy to our consulting rooms. I cannot say that I was much encouraged by Holmes’s performance but, at least, he was correct in telling the Archdeacon to go home and stay there. Hardly had this clergyman left us when there was a sharp sound of hooves in the street, the grating of wheels against the stone kerb, followed by a sudden pull at the door bell.
“This I think,” said Holmes, without getting up from his chair or going near the window, “will be the Earl of Blagdon. I have been expecting him for several days.”
“Really? Why?”
“I imagine he will tell us in his own good time that it is a matter of his cousin’s hands.”
At that point our visitor was announced by Mrs Hudson. A great change had come over Lord Blagdon. He was a worried and a contrite man. Placing his hat on the stand, he sat down in the chair indicated to him.
“Mr Holmes I have come to ask you not to abandon the case of Lord Arthur.”
“That does not surprise me, my lord.”
Our visitor looked puzzled but not startled.
“Perhaps you had better listen to what I have to say. I wish you, and your colleague Dr Watson, to keep watch on him for the next few days. By then I hope that arrangements can be made with those who will have him in their care. Since we last spoke, I have made inquiries among the family and the servants. I am told by her former maid that for the past two months Lord Arthur had brought bonbons from Florestan’s of St James’s Street to Lady Clementina. I cannot dismiss from my mind the suspicion that she did not die from aconite poisoning-only because she died of heart failure first!”
Holmes gave this a little thought. Then he turned to our client.
“I believe, my lord, that your cousin may be deranged but not ostensibly so. More specifically, I believe that he is a victim of cheiromancy, the so-called science of palm-reading.”
“But that is what I have come to tell you!”
“Then you betray no secrets. I had concluded as much from his curious habit of wearing gloves at all times except when playing the piano, which as you say he did less and less. We know that he does not suffer from any infection or disfigurement. If that were so, the hands would show it on their backs. It matters only to him that the world should not see his palms. Why? Because that is where secrets are read by all who can do so. He believes that catastrophe lies in wait for him as surely as a beast in the jungle.”
“But is not the whole thing absurd?”
“To you or I it is, my lord. To one who, as you say, has been a devotee of astrology, phrenology, the Magicians of the Golden Dawn, the materialisation of the dead as ectoplasm, then the appeal of palmistry may be strong. Such arts of divination, however specious, are too familiar to the criminal investigator. Palmistry is deep-rooted. It goes back through many centuries to a superstition of examining the cracks and lines of a shoulder-blade. It was brought back to England from the medieval Tartars and anciently known as ”reading the speal-bone.”
Holmes stood up and crossed to the bookcase. He took down a tattered volume bound only in sheepskin, its yellowed pages printed in the “black letter” of five hundred years earlier, a rarity even in his collection.
“Johann Hartlieb, Die Kunst Ciromantia, published in Augsburg in 1493,” Holmes handed it to Lord Blagdon, “There you will find the arts which are still practised as cheiromancy. Their exponents claim that they can read predictions of evil and disaster in the lines of the palm. The Line of Life, for example, runs in an arc from the side of the left wrist to the edge of the hand midway between the base of the thumb and the index finger. Pale and broad, it may indicate evil instincts. Thick and red it may betray violence and brutality. All this may be read easily in the course of an evening at the dinner table by a fellow guest who is an initiate. That, I believe, was the sort of discovery that Lord Arthur feared.”
Lord Blagdon sat for a moment as if trying to compose the words in his mind. At last he said,
“I am told by the Duchess of Paisley that my cousin attended an evening party a few months ago. It was the first reception of the spring at Lancaster House. Clever people but not sound. There was smart talk and someone, who professed the ability, read a number of palms. Lord Arthur naturally offered himself as a subject. The man who had started the game, Podgers was his name I believe, took Lord Arthur’s right hand. Then he dropped it suddenly and seized the left hand. When he looked up, the Duchess tells me, his face was white but he had forced a smile.”
“A believer in his art, therefore,” said Holmes coldly, “To me, however, it reeks of rehearsal and fraud.”
“Podgers had examined the palm long and closely but he would only say, ‘It is the hand of a charming young man.’ That was all. Lord Arthur pressed him to reveal what he had seen. The rascal then went so far as to admit that he had glimpsed the death of a distant relative. There was plainly more to it than that. The Duchess assures me that Podgers is a professional palm-reader with rooms in West Moon Street.”
“Nothing more was said by either man at the party?”
“Lord Arthur and the palmist were seen together later on, very briefly. Lord Arthur was heard to say, Tell me the truth, I am not a child’, before Podgers rushed out. When he spoke these words, my cousin had his cheque-book in his hand. Whatever the secret was, he must have purchased the truth of it.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Holmes asked,
“Can you be sure of this account?”
Lord Blagdon nodded.
“Positive. Now I am told that one of his friends called at Lord Arthur’s rooms the next day. There is a small Sheraton table in the window of his drawing-room at which he writes his letters. The visitor noticed on the blotting-paper an imperfect imprint in mirror-writing. The servant had not yet had time to change it for a new sheet. This friend read the name ‘Podgers’ and the sum of £105. One hundred guineas, Mr Holmes! Unhappily, he did not hear the Duchess’s account of the party until her return from a French tour a few days ago. Now we have both halves of the story.”
“A great deal to pay for such information,” said Holmes thoughtfully, “Something of which you may be sure is that it was not a prediction that he would poison Lady Clementina with aconite, since this did not happen.”
“Then who else was in danger-if it was to be murder?”
“I have reason to suppose that Lord Arthur may have been the person who despatched an exploding clock to the Archdeacon of Chichester. It failed in its purposes.”
Lord Blagdon looked blank.
“I do not know the Archdeacon of Chichester from Adam! Nor, I am sure, does Lord Arthur. What possible purpose could there be, unless this scoundrel Podgers put a spell upon him or exercised black magic of some kind?”
Sherlock Holmes’s fine profile was a study in distaste.
“I am not a believer in spells, my lord, nor in black magic. Scoundrels are another matter. I believe that I can best discharge my duty to you-and indeed to Archdeacon Percy of Chichester, who has been good enough to consult me-by keeping the closest possible watch upon your cousin for the immediate future.”
“You will find that his manservant, Crayshaw, shares my concern about his master. Crayshaw will keep watch on his movements indoors. It is for us to do the rest. I shall occupy his time as best I can without alarming him. For the immediate future, I may tell you that he has no engagements this afternoon but that he will attend the House of Commons this evening.”
“In what connection?” I asked.
“Mr Joseph Keighley, the Member for Manchester South, is a modern rationalist. He has put down an amendment to the Sale of Goods Act. It would make fortune-tellers legally liable for any loss or distress suffered in consequence of their mischief. It stems from the Hevingham judgment in the High Court last winter. Mr Justice Strode urged the legislature to take some such course in dealing with what he called ‘pious fraud’.You may recall that one of these charlatans terrified an elderly lady with predictions of death and disaster in order to buy her house for a song because it had a ‘curse’ upon it.”
“Indeed,” said Holmes, almost stifling a yawn.
“Lord Arthur, as you may know, is Member of Parliament for Chalcote. Though he bears the courtesy title of ‘Lord,’ as the grandson of an earl, he is not a peer of the realm. Therefore he is entitled to sit in the House of Commons. He will be sure to attend in order to vote against the proposed amendment.”
“He will not take part in the debate?” Holmes inquired.
“He has never spoken in the five years he has sat in the house, except to say, ‘Hear, hear,’ on two or three occasions. He does not often attend. His seat is safe enough. Chalcote has been our land for a century past and our tenants are loyal. My cousin has been returned unopposed at two elections.”
So it was that Sherlock Holmes and I attended the Strangers Gallery of the House of Commons for the first time. We did so on the nomination of Lord Blagdon who was by title a member of the House of Lords-and therefore a Member of Parliament in his own right.
We should never have been able to track Lord Arthur that evening without permission to enter the precincts of Parliament. Once there, it seemed impossible to lose him. The policeman at the gate of Palace Yard saluted our passes and gave us directions. It was already growing dark, though a full moon lit the river and the gothic pinnacles of Westminster. Downstream, along the Victoria Embankment, gas-lamps on their wrought-iron pillars stretched like an even row of pearls. This was the hour when members, having dined, attended the house to discuss the matters on the order paper as long into the night as might be necessary.
A Gothic door whose architraves were filled by plain glass admitted us to a world which mingled Plantagenet architecture with the comforts of a gentleman’s club. Pale stone arches formed sprays of fan vaulting above the tracery of Norman windows. Long murals in Pre-Raphaelite pastel showed the deposed King James II throwing the Great Seal of the realm into the Thames in 1688 and the new King William finding it again in 1689. King Charles I bowed before the headsman’s axe on a cold January morning in Whitehall.
As we made our way towards the Strangers Gallery of the Commons, the floor tiles were diamonds of blue and yellow and brown, patterned with clubs, spades and hearts. The officials in their red livery and buckled shoes might have been kings and knaves in a pack of cards. The brass-furnished oak door of each room bore a title which powerfully suggested the nonsense logic of Alice in Wonderland. One was the home of “Motions” and another of “Questions.” On our right was “The Court Post-master” and to our left “The Table Office.” I half expected to turn the corner of a corridor and meet a white rabbit in Tudor jacket and tights.
We made our way up the steps and into the Strangers Gallery, where every seat was taken for the contentious debate on the legal liabilities of fortune-tellers. Lord Blagdon looked round and inclined his head as we took our places.
The House of Commons was much smaller than I had expected, not unlike the nave of a medieval parish church with rows of benches in green leather facing one another on either side. At the far end, upon his dais, Mr Speaker faced us in his wig and gown. Behind him rose the Press Gallery and above that the Ladies Gallery, whose occupants were concealed by a lattice screen, as though this were a Turkish harem. In front of him was the table with its clerks and the two despatch-boxes at which members addressed the House.
The debate had already begun. Joseph Keighley, the Member for Manchester South, had brought forward the motion standing in his name and was addressing the House from the despatch-box on our left. Tall and spare, his black swallow-tail coat falling open, his grey hair sparse and windswept, his spectacles glinting, he looked every inch a rationalist in argument and agnostic in matters of belief. We heard the story of the widow whom only the Chancery Division and the High Court had saved from being cheated out of her property by a fraudulent fortune-teller.
Mr Keighley glowed with indignation and demanded protection by parliament and new legislation against robbery in the guise of superstition.
He was answered on the other side by a Junior Minister from the Home Office. This functionary was as placid and mellifluous as Mr Keighley had been indignant and hectoring. Was it really suggested that the inoffensive fortune-telling tent at every village fair or church fete should be made subject in all particulars to the criminal law? As for black magic, said to have been worked on the poor old lady in this case, the art and its practitioners had always been punishable at common law without the need for new legislation. On the advice of the learned Solicitor-General, they remained so to the present day.
There was much more of this sort of thing and, before long, I confess that my eyelids were heavy. I had not realised before, when reading the report of an interesting parliamentary debate, how much of the proceedings are omitted by the press. In their entirety I found them insupportable. I heard the junior minister refer jocularly to the reading of palms as “the harmless pastime of the tea-party and the fairground tent.” Then I knew no more until Holmes dug me sharply in the ribs.
A younger member was on his feet, demanding to know on what grounds the minister was entitled to judge whether such arts were a harmless pastime or not. I screwed my eyes up and peered forward. I needed no one to tell me that the young man, who had risen among the benches and was wearing the black silk hat which entitled him to speak, was a blood relation of Lord Blagdon. The points of resemblance in the face, the dark curls and the patrician stoop were plain. This, then was Lord Arthur Savile. After a career of parliamentary silence, something had goaded him into eloquence.
I listened to his words and wondered if I was still dreaming. He demanded angrily how it could be said by the government’s Junior Minister that there was no harm in the “fun” of fortune-telling? Examples of its harm might be seen on every side. He began to list examples. I stared at the young man and thought that surely he was now speaking on the wrong side-in support of criminalising fortune-telling rather than permitting it! What had changed his mind so suddenly and so dramatically?
The Junior Minister made a jovial riposte to this outburst, brushing aside the “intemperate remarks of the noble member for Chalcote.” The government would not intervene to criminalise the practice of fortune-telling. This ministerial spokesman rambled on but I was no longer listening. Like the Earl of Blagdon, I assumed that Lord Arthur would attend the debate to vote against any change in the law which might persecute fortune-tellers. Now he had changed sides and was supporting the amendment. I glanced at Holmes but if he was surprised by this volte-face, there was no sign of it on his face.
Only then did I notice a man sitting in the row ahead of me and to one side. He was fat, to put it plainly, with a face that might have been yellowed by jaundice and was deeply lined. His lightweight summer suit, of thin brown cotton, fitted his corpulent form no better than a bag. When Lord Arthur stood up and put his question this man had emitted a sharp exhalation of breath. Having heard the question answered and dismissed by the Junior Minister, he now turned round to us all with a beam of mingled triumph and relief on his sickly features. It was as if he was inviting us to share his amusement at Lord Arthur’s failure.
At last a division was called-and a vote was taken, though the House was by no means full. About a quarter of its members now divided. The “Ayes” who supported the new law against fortune-tellers filed into the lobby on the left and the “Noes” into the lobby on the right. To judge from the numbers crowding into the right-hand lobby those who thought fortune-telling a harmless occupation were going to win hands-down. But Lord Arthur Savile was not among them. I switched my gaze to the left and saw only two or three dozen members voting in support of a law against such practices. At the tail of the queue was Lord Arthur.
The members returned to their seats and the tellers brought their totals to Mr Speaker. The result was as I expected.
“There have voted. The Ayes to the left, thirty-one. The Noes to the right, ninety-five. There were no abstentions. I therefore declare that the motion is defeated by sixty-four votes. The House will proceed to the third reading of the Stockbreeders and Poulterers (Hygiene) Bill.
“How very singular,” said Sherlock Holmes.
Lord Arthur had returned to his seat on the government benches for the very good reason that he was to act as teller for the Ayes at the end of the stockbreeders debate which now began. We knew where he would be until that debate ended or was adjourned. Lord Blagdon led us to his room beyond the House of Lords with its fine view of the Houses of Parliament terrace running above the Thames. He stood at his desk, pouring whisky from a decanter into three glasses. Then he straightened up and handed us each a glass.
“Why did he ask his foolish question? Why did he vote in support of the very law which he had condemned in my hearing as an abuse of freedom and a mere expression of prejudice against the enlightened?”
“Blackmail,” said Holmes simply.
“Blackmail! How could he be blackmailed?”
“With great respect, my lord, has it not occurred to you that the so-called cheiromancer or palmist foretold something which, if true, would have made Lord Arthur liable to the criminal law or exposed him to public disgrace?”
“But what?”
“Nothing less than murder, I think.”
“But my cousin has murdered no one!”
“Possibly not. Not yet.”
Lord Blagdon had left instructions that the door-keeper should warn him as soon as a vote was called in the present House of Commons debate. Lord Arthur, as teller, could not leave until the result was announced. We should be alerted in good time to pick up his trail as he left the Houses of Parliament. Or so we thought.
I realised too late that something had gone wrong with Lord Blagdon’s arrangement. We had received no message of Lord Arthur preparing to leave the building when I heard a familiar call echoing through the corridors outside. It is the cry that ends every day’s business in the Palace of Westminster, calling like a watchman through the streets of a city.
“Who goes home? Who goes home?”
We looked at one another. Where was he? Holmes and I could scarcely go and search for him. Much of the building was forbidden territory to us and we should hardly know where to begin.
“Wait here, if you please,” said Lord Blagdon peremptorily, “I will go and find him. If the door-keeper sees him preparing to leave, he will get word to you. Lord Arthur must still be somewhere in the building.”
As it proved, Lord Arthur Savile was in the precincts of Parliament but he was no longer in the building. Left to ourselves, Holmes and I stood at the latticed window. It looked down across the terrace and the river which ran at the base of its wall. By the lights of the far bank we could see cabs moving along the Albert Embankment. A tugboat pulling a string of three lighters was proceeding down the river towards the wharves of Battersea or Lambeth.
“I do not understand it,” I said, not for the first time.
“Possibly not,” said Holmes patiently, “Have the goodness, however, to keep quite still and watch the river. I would rather not be noticed.”
I was surveying the river terrace which extends from New Palace Yard almost the entire length of parliament. There was a man walking by the wall, his back to the river. He was pacing up and down as if in expectation, wearing a black silk hat and smoking a cigar.
“That is the fellow who was sitting in the Strangers Gallery,” I said at once, for there was no mistaking his bulk and the material of his bag-like summer suit, “The man who turned round and smiled at us, after Lord Arthur had made his faux pas by interrupting the Junior Minister.”
“Just so,” said Holmes quietly, “If it will help your understanding a little further, I was able to read the card which he was holding and which admitted him. He is the correspondent of the Psychical Research Quarterly. Had it been a more exalted publication he might no doubt have claimed a seat in the Press Gallery.”
“What is he doing out there?”
“Wait! Give your attention to the facts and the events. Nothing else. From his presence in the gallery and the title of the publication, we may deduce that this is Mr Septimus Podgers and that his reading of palms at the Lancaster House spring party is probably responsible for Lord Arthur Savile’s curious change of mind this evening. His sudden antipathy to fortune-telling.”
“And the wearing of gloves to conceal his hands?”
“To conceal his palms, Watson. He cared nothing about the backs of his hands when he played the piano. I think you will find that it was the Line of Life on his left palm which promised murder, according to Mr Podgers.”
“You cannot believe that, Holmes!”
“It is enough that simple-minded Lord Arthur believed it. You follow his reasoning? If he was doomed to murder, as his belief persuaded him, let it be someone whose life was of little account and with whom he would not be connected. Imagine Lady Clementina Beauchamp-despatched by aconite in a chocolate taken from the bonbon box and eaten with her coffee after dinner. Who would look for a sinister event in the death of one so frail? Who would suspect Lord Arthur, a thousand miles away in Venice and with no motive for murder? Only when he heard of her death by natural causes did he take fright. He must, at all costs, inspect the interior of the bonbonnière and remove whatever chocolates chanced still to be there. But there were none. With luck, he must have thought, the smear of chocolate on the porcelain base was no more than a smear of chocolate.”
“And Archdeacon Percy?”
“I confess that gave me a little more trouble. The reason that there is no clock-maker at 199 Greek Street is that there is no such address at all. The numbers stop before 199. The clock’s explosive mechanism was put together most inefficiently by an amateur elsewhere in London. The first percussion cap evidently detonated only a small part of the gunpowder at noon. I suspect that it merely ignited a brief trail of it, which had leaked in the post and now burnt without any significant explosive force. It was only when the hands met again at twelve midnight that the remaining percussion caps were struck and the main detonation took place.”
“Lord Arthur was the bomb-maker?”
Holmes shook his head.
“I think not. It was a botched job but even that would have been beyond him. Let us say he commissioned it. As for the timepiece, clocks of this model were made after 1871 in France to celebrate the advent of the Third Republic. They are a rarity in England, merely a curiosity. We have no taste for these revolutions. Through the agency of Inspector Lestrade and the records of Customs and Excise, I have established that no more than half a dozen have been imported into England in the past twelve months. One of these was addressed to Mr Elivas Ruhtra in the care of the Serbian News Agency in Lisle Street.”
“Who on earth is Elivas Ruhtra? What possible interest could a Serbian anarchist have in Archdeacon Percy?”
“It is a fact, Watson, that one who adopts an alias or memo-rises a combination of numbers for a lock is almost always more fearful of forgetting or muddling the pseudonym or the numbers than of a thief discovering them. For this reason, the most common combination of numbers chosen is 1,2,3,4 or the numerical date of a birthday. Lord Arthur Savile is only an amateur assassin, scatterbrained enough to muddle a pseudonym, devoid of much rationality. If he were not the grandson of an earl, he would probably be in the workhouse or selling matches on the street. Yet even he would hardly forget his own name.”
“He is Elivas Ruhtra?”
“Arthur Savile is Elivas Ruhtra spelt backwards. Even his uncertain mental grasp could hardly let that slip from his memory. The Archdeacon, with whom he had no connection, beyond choosing him from the octogenarians in Crockford’s Clerical Directory, gave him a second opportunity of homicide without motive or association. The evidence of the clock, such as it was, would be destroyed in the explosion, along with the Archdeacon. His predicted murder would be committed, the dreadful prophecy would be realised. Lord Arthur would be a free man.”
I pointed at the window.
“And Septimus Podgers? What part had he in all this?”
“Blackmail. Podgers had kept him in view. He had only to tell the world, perhaps in the shape of Scotland Yard, that Lord Arthur believed himself doomed to murder. His acquisition of aconite or gunpowder would be easily traced. The deaths of Lady Clementine or the Archdeacon would take on a very different appearance. The cheque for a hundred guineas, whose impress Lord Blagdon read on his lordship’s blotter, was the final piece of evidence which convinced me. It is absurdly high for a palmist’s consultation but scarcely excessive when the object is to conceal murder.”
“That is your proof?”
“Not quite. I believe the rest will follow very shortly.”
As he spoke I saw another figure, moving towards Podgers through the doorway which opened from the library staircase to the terrace. There was lamplight enough to make out the youthful aristocratic stoop of Lord Arthur Savile. If Holmes was right, this was a private rendezvous between a blackmailer and his victim. It was a place where no one else was likely to be found at this time of night, as members hurried homewards.
I prepared myself for a confrontation between the two, a loud argument perhaps, ending in the submission of Lord Arthur, the exchange of a further cheque or bank notes. However slippery and odious, Podgers had the whip-hand over the young man. Lord Arthur came on, stooping, his hands clasped under the tails of his evening coat.
He came closer and for some reason Podgers uttered a cry that was no louder than a distant bird-call by the time that it reached the height of our window. The cheiromantist was making sudden motions with his hands, as if he were trying to push his adversary away. But he was trapped in a corner of the stone wall which rose to the height of his waist. Lord Arthur moved his hand quickly and I swore that the lamplight caught the blade of a knife. I looked at Holmes but he made no movement.
Septimus Podgers did what any man might have done in the circumstances. He put his hands on the wall, jumped up backwards and was soon sitting on it, his feet flailing at the man who stood before him, as if to ward him off. I cannot say whether Lord Arthur welcomed this or, indeed, whether he had engineered it. In another second he had dropped the knife, if that was what it was. He snatched Septimus Podgers by the ankles, tipped him back and let him go. There was a second cry, softer than the first and, I could swear, the bump of a body against stone, followed by a splash.
Lord Arthur stood at the wall, watching the river tide. There was little that he could have done, even had he wished to. The terrace of Parliament drops sheer and implacable to the Thames, the ebb running fast downstream. The tugboat and its barges were in midstream, the currents flowing powerfully toward them from both the Westminster and Lambeth banks of the great waterway. I could not see whether Podgers was alive or dead, nor even where he was. He had disappeared from the eyes of mortals. I thought I could make out a black silk hat floating directly in front of the powerful tugboat as it threshed downstream.
Holmes made no movement and said only, “Even if Lord Arthur were to raise the alarm, the miscreant is beyond all hope. It is far too dark and the tide is running far too fast for any help that might be offered. It is better so. Justice moves in mysterious ways. I cannot deny that it has dealt with Septimus Podgers as he deserved. The man was the architect of his own murder. He planned it to the last detail.”
“Planned his own murder?”
Holmes began to button his coat and draw on his gloves.
“To be sure.”
“How?”
He looked at me, his head on one side in a gesture of despair.
“My dear Watson, if a palmist were to tell me that I was preordained to commit murder-and if I believed him-I should rid myself of the burden at once by murdering him. What else? It is only because Lord Arthur is so soft-headed or soft-hearted that he chose victims who were likely to die before long in any case.”
“Then we are to do nothing?”
“There is nothing that requires doing, my old friend.”
“Ought we not at least to search the lodgings of this man Podgers in West Moon Street and remove any compromising documents or evidence relating to the case?”
He chuckled.
“It is only to their victims that blackmailers pretend to have an archive of incriminating evidence. They know too well that such documents are like a knife which is more likely to injure its owner than his victims. It is the invariable practice of these scoundrels to carry the important or crucial items in their heads-or in the case of Mr Septimus Podgers what remains of his head now that the tugboat and its barges have passed. We will, if you please, take our leave of Lord Blagdon and return to Baker Street. I daresay it will be as well to keep an eye upon the columns of the press for a week or two.”
With a sense of foreboding I followed his advice. The next week brought a letter from Lord Blagdon informing us that Lord Arthur Savile had suffered a nervous collapse and was now in the care of a keeper at a clinic for such disorders in Bexhill-on-Sea. He was well cared for in every way and, so far as he could ever be, he was happy. It was not thought that he would be released at an early date, therefore the services of Holmes and myself would no longer be required for his protection. Lord Blagdon added his thanks and enclosed fifty guineas in settlement of his account.
There the matter stood for a further week. Then, as the breakfast-table was cleared on a fine September morning with a hint of autumn in the air, I opened the pages of the Morning Post and knew that our anxieties for Lord Arthur Savile were at an end.
On Sunday morning at seven o’clock, the body of Mr Septimus R. Podgers, the eminent cheiromantist, was washed on shore in Greenwich, just in front of the Ship Hotel. The unfortunate gentleman, whose mortal remains appear to have been in collision with a steamer of the river traffic, was identified by the contents of his pockets and the prints of his fingers. He had been missing for almost a fortnight, and considerable anxiety for his safety had been felt in London ’s cheiromantic circles. It is supposed that Mr Podgers committed suicide under the influence of a temporary mental derangement, caused by overwork. A verdict to that effect was returned this afternoon by a coroner’s jury. Mr Podgers had just completed an elaborate treatise on the subject of the Human Hand, that will shortly be published, when it will no doubt attract much attention. The deceased was sixty-five years of age and does not seem to have left any relations.
Holmes read this. Ile put the paper down and gazed at the mellow sunlight beyond the window.
“I was a little short with you, old fellow, in the matter of a week or two at Ilfracombe or Tenby. September is not too far advanced and the sunny days are not yet too misty. I have for some time been meditating a monograph on criminal aberrations of the benevolent impulse, what the poet Browning calls ‘the honest thief and ‘the tender murderer.’ Warm autumn days on an Atlantic coast would do as well as anywhere for the composition I have in mind.”
Before he had a chance to change his mind, I had consulted Bradshaw’s railway guide, wired to a comfortable hotel reserving our rooms and also to the Great Western Railway, securing a first-class carriage from Paddington to Barnstaple, via Exeter.