The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
“So I shall, Miss Cushing. I only kept them here until my friend,
Mr. Holmes, should have seen them in your presence.”
“Why in my presence, sir?”
“In case he wished to ask any questions.”
“What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know
nothing whatever about it?”
“Quite so, madam,” said Holmes in his soothing way. “I have no
doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over
this business.”
“Indeed, I have, sir. I am a quiet woman and live a retired life.
It is something new for me to see my name in the papers and to
find the police in my house. I won’t have those things in here,
Mr. Lestrade. If you wish to see them you must go to the
outhouse.”
It was a small shed in the narrow garden which ran behind the
house. Lestrade went in and brought out a yellow cardboard box,
with a piece of brown paper and some string. There was a bench at
the end of the path, and we all sat down while Holmes examined,
one by one, the articles which Lestrade had handed to him.
“The string is exceedingly interesting,” he remarked, holding it
up to the light and sniffing at it. “What do you make of this
string, Lestrade?”
“It has been tarred.”
“Precisely. It is a piece of tarred twine. You have also, no
doubt, remarked that Miss Cushing has cut the cord with a
scissors, as can be seen by the double fray on each side. This is
of importance.”
“I cannot see the importance,” said Lestrade.
“The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact,
and that this knot is of a peculiar character.”
“It is very neatly tied. I had already made a note to that
effect,” said Lestrade complacently.
“So much for the string, then,” said Holmes, smiling, “now for
the box wrapper. Brown paper, with a distinct smell of coffee.
What, did you not observe it? I think there can be no doubt of
it. Address printed in rather straggling characters: ‘Miss S.
Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.’ Done with a broad-pointed pen,
probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The word ‘Croydon’ has
been originally spelled with an ‘i,’ which has been changed to
‘y.’ The parcel was directed, then, by a man—the printing is
distinctly masculine—of limited education and unacquainted with
the town of Croydon. So far, so good! The box is a yellow
half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb
marks at the left bottom corner. It is filled with rough salt of
the quality used for preserving hides and other of the coarser
commercial purposes. And embedded in it are these very singular
enclosures.”
He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across
his knee he examined them minutely, while Lestrade and I, bending
forward on each side of him, glanced alternately at these
dreadful relics and at the thoughtful, eager face of our
companion. Finally he returned them to the box once more and sat
for a while in deep meditation.
“You have observed, of course,” said he at last, “that the ears
are not a pair.”
“Yes, I have noticed that. But if this were the practical joke of
some students from the dissecting-rooms, it would be as easy for
them to send two odd ears as a pair.”
“Precisely. But this is not a practical joke.”
“You are sure of it?”
“The presumption is strongly against it. Bodies in the
dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears
bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut
off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a
student had done it. Again, carbolic or rectified spirits would
be the preservatives which would suggest themselves to the
medical mind, certainly not rough salt. I repeat that there is no
practical joke here, but that we are investigating a serious
crime.”
A vague thrill ran through me as I listened to my companion’s
words and saw the stern gravity which had hardened his features.
This brutal preliminary seemed to shadow forth some strange and
inexplicable horror in the background. Lestrade, however, shook
his head like a man who is only half convinced.
“There are objections to the joke theory, no doubt,” said he,
“but there are much stronger reasons against the other. We know
that this woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at
Penge and here for the last twenty years. She has hardly been
away from her home for a day during that time. Why on earth,
then, should any criminal send her the proofs of his guilt,
especially as, unless she is a most consummate actress, she
understands quite as little of the matter as we do?”
“That is the problem which we have to solve,” Holmes answered,
“and for my part I shall set about it by presuming that my
reasoning is correct, and that a double murder has been
committed. One of these ears is a woman’s, small, finely formed,
and pierced for an earring. The other is a man’s, sun-burned,
discoloured, and also pierced for an earring. These two people
are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story before
now. To-day is Friday. The packet was posted on Thursday morning.
The tragedy, then, occurred on Wednesday or Tuesday or earlier.
If the two people were murdered, who but their murderer would
have sent this sign of his work to Miss Cushing? We may take it
that the sender of the packet is the man whom we want. But he
must have some strong reason for sending Miss Cushing this
packet. What reason then? It must have been to tell her that the
deed was done! or to pain her, perhaps. But in that case she
knows who it is. Does she know? I doubt it. If she knew, why
should she call the police in? She might have buried the ears,
and no one would have been the wiser. That is what she would have
done if she had wished to shield the criminal. But if she does
not wish to shield him she would give his name. There is a tangle
here which needs straightening out.” He had been talking in a
high, quick voice, staring blankly up over the garden fence, but
now he sprang briskly to his feet and walked towards the house.
“I have a few questions to ask Miss Cushing,” said he.
“In that case I may leave you here,” said Lestrade, “for I have
another small business on hand. I think that I have nothing
further to learn from Miss Cushing. You will find me at the
police-station.”
“We shall look in on our way to the train,” answered Holmes. A
moment later he and I were back in the front room, where the
impassive lady was still quietly working away at her
antimacassar. She put it down on her lap as we entered and looked
at us with her frank, searching blue eyes.
“I am convinced, sir,” she said, “that this matter is a mistake,
and that the parcel was never meant for me at all. I have said
this several times to the gentleman from Scotland Yard, but he
simply laughs at me. I have not an enemy in the world, as far as
I know, so why should anyone play me such a trick?”
“I am coming to be of the same opinion, Miss Cushing,” said
Holmes, taking a seat beside her. “I think that it is more than
probable——” he paused, and I was surprised, on glancing round to
see that he was staring with singular intentness at the lady’s
profile. Surprise and satisfaction were both for an instant to be
read upon his eager face, though when she glanced round to find
out the cause of his silence he had become as demure as ever. I
stared hard myself at her flat, grizzled hair, her trim cap, her
little gilt earrings, her placid features; but I could see
nothing which could account for my companion’s evident
excitement.
“There were one or two questions——”
“Oh, I am weary of questions!” cried Miss Cushing impatiently.
“You have two sisters, I believe.”
“How could you know that?”
“I observed the very instant that I entered the room that you
have a portrait group of three ladies upon the mantelpiece, one
of whom is undoubtedly yourself, while the others are so
exceedingly like you that there could be no doubt of the
relationship.”
“Yes, you are quite right. Those are my sisters, Sarah and Mary.”
“And here at my elbow is another portrait, taken at Liverpool, of
your younger sister, in the company of a man who appears to be a
steward by his uniform. I observe that she was unmarried at the
time.”
“You are very quick at observing.”
“That is my trade.”
“Well, you are quite right. But she was married to Mr. Browner a
few days afterwards. He was on the South American line when that
was taken, but he was so fond of her that he couldn’t abide to
leave her for so long, and he got into the Liverpool and London
boats.”
“Ah, the _Conqueror_, perhaps?”
“No, the _May Day_, when last I heard. Jim came down here to see
me once. That was before he broke the pledge; but afterwards he
would always take drink when he was ashore, and a little drink
would send him stark, staring mad. Ah! it was a bad day that ever
he took a glass in his hand again. First he dropped me, then he
quarrelled with Sarah, and now that Mary has stopped writing we
don’t know how things are going with them.”
It was evident that Miss Cushing had come upon a subject on which
she felt very deeply. Like most people who lead a lonely life,
she was shy at first, but ended by becoming extremely
communicative. She told us many details about her brother-in-law
the steward, and then wandering off on the subject of her former
lodgers, the medical students, she gave us a long account of
their delinquencies, with their names and those of their
hospitals. Holmes listened attentively to everything, throwing in
a question from time to time.
“About your second sister, Sarah,” said he. “I wonder, since you
are both maiden ladies, that you do not keep house together.”
“Ah! you don’t know Sarah’s temper or you would wonder no more. I
tried it when I came to Croydon, and we kept on until about two
months ago, when we had to part. I don’t want to say a word
against my own sister, but she was always meddlesome and hard to
please, was Sarah.”
“You say that she quarrelled with your Liverpool relations.”
“Yes, and they were the best of friends at one time. Why, she
went up there to live in order to be near them. And now she has
no word hard enough for Jim Browner. The last six months that she
was here she would speak of nothing but his drinking and his
ways. He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit
of his mind, and that was the start of it.”
“Thank you, Miss Cushing,” said Holmes, rising and bowing. “Your
sister Sarah lives, I think you said, at New Street Wallington?
Good-bye, and I am very sorry that you should have been troubled
over a case with which, as you say, you have nothing whatever to
do.”
There was a cab passing as we came out, and Holmes hailed it.
“How far to Wallington?” he asked.