The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
disguised himself, covered those keen eyes with tinted glasses, masked
the face with a moustache and a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear
voice into an insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the
girl’s short sight, he appears as Mr. Hosmer Angel, and keeps off other
lovers by making love himself.”
“It was only a joke at first,” groaned our visitor. “We never thought
that she would have been so carried away.”
“Very likely not. However that may be, the young lady was very
decidedly carried away, and, having quite made up her mind that her
stepfather was in France, the suspicion of treachery never for an
instant entered her mind. She was flattered by the gentleman’s
attentions, and the effect was increased by the loudly expressed
admiration of her mother. Then Mr. Angel began to call, for it was
obvious that the matter should be pushed as far as it would go if a
real effect were to be produced. There were meetings, and an
engagement, which would finally secure the girl’s affections from
turning towards anyone else. But the deception could not be kept up
forever. These pretended journeys to France were rather cumbrous. The
thing to do was clearly to bring the business to an end in such a
dramatic manner that it would leave a permanent impression upon the
young lady’s mind and prevent her from looking upon any other suitor
for some time to come. Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a
Testament, and hence also the allusions to a possibility of something
happening on the very morning of the wedding. James Windibank wished
Miss Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as to
his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not listen
to another man. As far as the church door he brought her, and then, as
he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished away by the old trick
of stepping in at one door of a four-wheeler and out at the other. I
think that was the chain of events, Mr. Windibank!”
Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while Holmes had
been talking, and he rose from his chair now with a cold sneer upon his
pale face.
“It may be so, or it may not, Mr. Holmes,” said he, “but if you are so
very sharp you ought to be sharp enough to know that it is you who are
breaking the law now, and not me. I have done nothing actionable from
the first, but as long as you keep that door locked you lay yourself
open to an action for assault and illegal constraint.”
“The law cannot, as you say, touch you,” said Holmes, unlocking and
throwing open the door, “yet there never was a man who deserved
punishment more. If the young lady has a brother or a friend, he ought
to lay a whip across your shoulders. By Jove!” he continued, flushing
up at the sight of the bitter sneer upon the man’s face, “it is not
part of my duties to my client, but here’s a hunting crop handy, and I
think I shall just treat myself to—” He took two swift steps to the
whip, but before he could grasp it there was a wild clatter of steps
upon the stairs, the heavy hall door banged, and from the window we
could see Mr. James Windibank running at the top of his speed down the
road.
“There’s a cold-blooded scoundrel!” said Holmes, laughing, as he threw
himself down into his chair once more. “That fellow will rise from
crime to crime until he does something very bad, and ends on a gallows.
The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest.”
“I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning,” I
remarked.
“Well, of course it was obvious from the first that this Mr. Hosmer
Angel must have some strong object for his curious conduct, and it was
equally clear that the only man who really profited by the incident, as
far as we could see, was the stepfather. Then the fact that the two men
were never together, but that the one always appeared when the other
was away, was suggestive. So were the tinted spectacles and the curious
voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers. My
suspicions were all confirmed by his peculiar action in typewriting his
signature, which, of course, inferred that his handwriting was so
familiar to her that she would recognise even the smallest sample of
it. You see all these isolated facts, together with many minor ones,
all pointed in the same direction.”
“And how did you verify them?”
“Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corroboration. I knew
the firm for which this man worked. Having taken the printed
description. I eliminated everything from it which could be the result
of a disguise—the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I sent it to
the firm, with a request that they would inform me whether it answered
to the description of any of their travellers. I had already noticed
the peculiarities of the typewriter, and I wrote to the man himself at
his business address asking him if he would come here. As I expected,
his reply was typewritten and revealed the same trivial but
characteristic defects. The same post brought me a letter from
Westhouse & Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the description
tallied in every respect with that of their employé, James Windibank.
_Voilà tout_!”
“And Miss Sutherland?”
“If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old
Persian saying, ‘There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and
danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.’ There is as
much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the world.”
IV. THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY
We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid
brought in a telegram. It was from Sherlock Holmes and ran in this way:
“Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired for from the
west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy. Shall be
glad if you will come with me. Air and scenery perfect. Leave
Paddington by the 11:15.”
“What do you say, dear?” said my wife, looking across at me. “Will you
go?”
“I really don’t know what to say. I have a fairly long list at
present.”
“Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you. You have been looking a
little pale lately. I think that the change would do you good, and you
are always so interested in Mr. Sherlock Holmes’ cases.”
“I should be ungrateful if I were not, seeing what I gained through one
of them,” I answered. “But if I am to go, I must pack at once, for I
have only half an hour.”
My experience of camp life in Afghanistan had at least had the effect
of making me a prompt and ready traveller. My wants were few and
simple, so that in less than the time stated I was in a cab with my
valise, rattling away to Paddington Station. Sherlock Holmes was pacing
up and down the platform, his tall, gaunt figure made even gaunter and
taller by his long grey travelling-cloak and close-fitting cloth cap.
“It is really very good of you to come, Watson,” said he. “It makes a
considerable difference to me, having someone with me on whom I can
thoroughly rely. Local aid is always either worthless or else biassed.
If you will keep the two corner seats I shall get the tickets.”
We had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of papers
which Holmes had brought with him. Among these he rummaged and read,
with intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until we were past
Reading. Then he suddenly rolled them all into a gigantic ball and
tossed them up onto the rack.
“Have you heard anything of the case?” he asked.
“Not a word. I have not seen a paper for some days.”
“The London press has not had very full accounts. I have just been
looking through all the recent papers in order to master the
particulars. It seems, from what I gather, to be one of those simple
cases which are so extremely difficult.”
“That sounds a little paradoxical.”
“But it is profoundly true. Singularity is almost invariably a clue.
The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it
is to bring it home. In this case, however, they have established a
very serious case against the son of the murdered man.”
“It is a murder, then?”
“Well, it is conjectured to be so. I shall take nothing for granted
until I have the opportunity of looking personally into it. I will
explain the state of things to you, as far as I have been able to
understand it, in a very few words.
“Boscombe Valley is a country district not very far from Ross, in
Herefordshire. The largest landed proprietor in that part is a Mr. John
Turner, who made his money in Australia and returned some years ago to
the old country. One of the farms which he held, that of Hatherley, was
let to Mr. Charles McCarthy, who was also an ex-Australian. The men had
known each other in the colonies, so that it was not unnatural that
when they came to settle down they should do so as near each other as
possible. Turner was apparently the richer man, so McCarthy became his
tenant but still remained, it seems, upon terms of perfect equality, as
they were frequently together. McCarthy had one son, a lad of eighteen,
and Turner had an only daughter of the same age, but neither of them
had wives living. They appear to have avoided the society of the
neighbouring English families and to have led retired lives, though
both the McCarthys were fond of sport and were frequently seen at the
race-meetings of the neighbourhood. McCarthy kept two servants—a man
and a girl. Turner had a considerable household, some half-dozen at the
least. That is as much as I have been able to gather about the
families. Now for the facts.
“On June 3rd, that is, on Monday last, McCarthy left his house at
Hatherley about three in the afternoon and walked down to the Boscombe
Pool, which is a small lake formed by the spreading out of the stream
which runs down the Boscombe Valley. He had been out with his
serving-man in the morning at Ross, and he had told the man that he
must hurry, as he had an appointment of importance to keep at three.
From that appointment he never came back alive.
“From Hatherley Farmhouse to the Boscombe Pool is a quarter of a mile,
and two people saw him as he passed over this ground. One was an old
woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was William Crowder,
a game-keeper in the employ of Mr. Turner. Both these witnesses depose
that Mr. McCarthy was walking alone. The game-keeper adds that within a
few minutes of his seeing Mr. McCarthy pass he had seen his son, Mr.
James McCarthy, going the same way with a gun under his arm. To the
best of his belief, the father was actually in sight at the time, and
the son was following him. He thought no more of the matter until he
heard in the evening of the tragedy that had occurred.
“The two McCarthys were seen after the time when William Crowder, the
game-keeper, lost sight of them. The Boscombe Pool is thickly wooded
round, with just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the edge. A girl
of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of the lodge-keeper of
the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the woods picking flowers.
She states that while she was there she saw, at the border of the wood
and close by the lake, Mr. McCarthy and his son, and that they appeared
to be having a violent quarrel. She heard Mr. McCarthy the elder using
very strong language to his son, and she saw the latter raise up his
hand as if to strike his father. She was so frightened by their
violence that she ran away and told her mother when she reached home
that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling near Boscombe Pool, and
that she was afraid that they were going to fight. She had hardly said
the words when young Mr. McCarthy came running up to the lodge to say
that he had found his father dead in the wood, and to ask for the help