The Secret Notebooks of Sherlock Holmes (12 page)

‘Now there’s a name from the past,’ Holmes exclaimed, laying aside the
Morning Post
to address me.

‘What name?’ I asked.

‘The first one listed in the obituaries,’ Holmes replied, handing me the paper folded back to the correct page. ‘The lady in question was before your advent as my chronicler, Watson, when I was still in practice at Montague Street.’
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Putting down my coffee cup, I glanced at the item. It referred to the death the previous day of Dowager Lady Edith Arnsworth of Arnsworth Castle in the County of Surrey, aged seventy-three. The funeral would be private.

I was about to enquire who Lady Arnsworth was and
what part, if any, she had played in Holmes’ past when he anticipated my question. Getting up from the table, he reached down his encyclopedia
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from the shelves in one of the chimney alcoves and passed it silently to me, already opened at the relevant entry which consisted of several newspaper cuttings carefully pasted on to the page. Leaving me to peruse them on my own, he went into his bedroom, which adjoined our sitting-room, where I heard him rummaging about.

The first cutting referred to the castle itself and had obviously been clipped from a journal devoted to descriptions of the lives and backgrounds of the rich and famous.

‘Arnsworth Castle,’ it stated, ‘the home of the Arnsworth family, is a magnificent fourteenth-century building standing in over ten acres of parkland and pleasure gardens. It is encircled by a moat and access to the house is gained by a long stone bridge of over forty arches. Although extensively altered in the Tudor period, it still retains many of its original features, including the battlemented west tower, from the top of which the visitor may enjoy splendid views over the surrounding countryside.

‘The castle is said to be haunted by the ghost of the
second earl, Philip de Harnsworth, who was murdered by his brother Ffulke during a quarrel over the inheritance. The house is also reputed to have several secret rooms and passages. Extensive dungeons and cellars below the castle house the family collection of weapons and instruments of torture.

‘The castle is open to the public only when Sir Grenville Arnsworth and his family are absent in Scotland during the shooting season. For permission to view, application should be made to the Steward, Mr Lionel Monckton, at the Castle Lodge.’

It was followed by an obituary notice from
The Times
for 12th July 1824, referring to the death of Sir Grenville together with a long account of his life, largely spent, it seemed, on the hunting field and only very occasionally in the House of Lords, much of which I merely glanced at.

The next three clippings received the same cursory treatment, as they were concerned with Sir Grenville’s heir, Sir Richard Arnsworth, including an account of his marriage to Lady Edith Godalming at St Margaret’s, Westminster in 1849, the birth of their only child and sole heir, Gilbert, in 1853, and the death of Sir Richard in a hunting accident in 1872 when Gilbert inherited the title, the castle and the considerable family fortune.

I was about to turn to the next much longer and more interesting-looking cutting, pasted separately on its own page and preceded by a dramatic heading of which I only had time to catch a few words – ‘Tragic’, ‘Nobleman’ and ‘Mysterious’ – when Holmes re-entered
the room, dragging behind him the tin trunk in which he kept his records and mementoes of past cases.
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Crossing the room to my chair and perceiving that I had not yet read this last item, he snatched the volume away from me unceremoniously and, slamming it shut, returned it to the bookshelves.

‘I say, Holmes!’ I protested at this cavalier treatment.

‘I am most sincerely sorry, my dear fellow,’ Holmes rejoined. ‘But swift action was called for. Had you read that last cutting, my own account of the case would have been totally ruined and, as you know, I must be allowed my dramatic moments. And now, Watson,’ he continued, taking his seat by the fire and handing me a small package tied up with tape, ‘you shall hear about the Arnsworth case from my own lips rather than from the pen of some inky newspaper hack. In that package, you will find likenesses of the two main protagonists in the case, the Dowager Lady Edith Arnsworth, now deceased, and her son, Gilbert Arnsworth. I acquired them at a sale of family effects a few years ago.’

I loosened the tape and, unwrapping the brown paper cover, revealed two photographs mounted on thick paste-board, one of a woman in her sixties, I judged, the other a young man in his mid twenties.

The woman, dressed in black silk elaborately swathed and ruffled, was sitting very upright against a photographer’s backcloth of painted trees, one hand grasping the arm of a high-backed chair which was
throne-like
in its proportions and carved embellishments. Her features were handsome, the fine bone structure of the face suggesting that noble blood had coursed through her veins and those of her ancestors for many generations. Only her expression spoilt the general effect. It was cold, proud, arrogant; the look of a woman who has an unforgiving heart and little love for her fellow human beings.

I put it to one side, thinking that I should not want to have crossed swords with her, and took up the second photograph, that of her son.

The contrast was dramatic.

Whereas she sat erect, he lounged in a low chair, legs crossed, one arm resting negligently on a small round table at his side; and while her expression was one of indomitable pride and patrician haughtiness, his was of a vain, foolish complacency. It was true he shared with her a certain handsomeness of physiognomy but, in his case, the features were weak, as if the sinews beneath the flesh lacked support, giving a general effect of languor. His clothes and hair reflected this same foppish affectation in their cut and style.

‘I would appreciate your opinion of them, Watson,’ Holmes suggested in a tone of genuine interest.

‘Lady Arnsworth looks formidable while the son appears a weakling. Was he spoilt as a child?’

‘My dear fellow, you have scored a bullseye! Well done! There are times when you are astonishingly perspicacious!’ Holmes exclaimed.

Although the compliment was a little back-handed, I smiled to show my pleasure at it as Holmes continued, ‘Lady Arnsworth doted on her son. Her marriage was, I imagine, unsatisfactory, her husband being more interested in dogs and horses than his wife. Consequently, she poured all the passion she possessed and, believe me, Watson, under that iron exterior, she was a woman of strong emotions, into her son. As a result, Gilbert grew up thoroughly spoilt; a rich young man who was denied nothing.

‘He inherited not only the title and the fortune but also most of his character from his father, who was himself excessively self-indulgent. In his case, it was his hunters and his fox-hounds on which he lavished his money. Gilbert Arnsworth’s preference was for another type of filly – actresses and what the French, with their charmingly euphemistic use of language, refer to as
poules de luxe
.

‘Like his father, Gilbert also had a taste for strong liquors and fine wines and it was during a debauch in a hotel bedroom in London with one of his fillies that matters went terribly wrong. There was a quarrel, about what I do not know, which resulted in Gilbert strangling the young lady, whose professional name, according to the newspapers, was Nanette Pearl, although her real name was, more prosaically, Annie Davies. The
body was discovered the following morning by the chambermaid. In the meantime, Gilbert had fled the scene and disappeared.

‘The police were, of course, summoned and our old friend Lestrade was put in charge of the case. Although at that time I had been in practice as a private investigative agent for only a few years,
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Lestrade had already called on my assistance on two or three occasions when an inquiry of his had proved difficult. It was so in this particular investigation.

‘It had started well. The night porter at the hotel where Gilbert Arnsworth had stayed and where the murder had been committed was alerted to the fact that something might be amiss when, at half past two in the morning, a young man came running down the stairs, his clothes dishevelled and in a state of considerable alarm. Although at that time the murder had not yet been discovered, the porter was suspicious enough to follow the young man into the street where he saw him hail a four-wheeler.

‘Now the porter had worked at that particular hotel for several years. It was in a turning off the Haymarket
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and was regularly used by the ladies of the night and their clients. Consequently cabs, both hansoms and four-wheelers, were always in demand as these customers came and went, and the porter had come to know a number of their drivers by name as well as sight. So, once the murder had been discovered, the porter was able to give Lestrade not only a description of the young man who had run down the stairs but also the name of the cab driver who had driven him away. It did not take the Inspector long to trace the cabby and learn from him that he had taken the suspect to the gates of a large estate in Surrey where his passenger had paid him off. The cabby had good reason, of course, to remember his client, for not only was it unusual to drive a passenger that distance but the fare was enormous. His description of the young man and the location of the estate enabled Lestrade to establish the suspect’s identity as Gilbert Arnsworth and the destination as Arnsworth Castle.

‘As it seemed likely that Arnsworth had gone to ground in his ancestral home, Lestrade began his enquiries there and immediately came up against a wall of flint, in other words, the Dowager Lady Arnsworth. She was adamant that her son had not returned to the house and also denied any knowledge of where he might be. In fact, she challenged Lestrade to bring his men and search the castle from top to bottom, an offer Lestrade took up the following day. With a posse of ten uniformed men, he had the place searched from the top of its battlements to its dungeons.

‘“It was a thorough search, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade assured me when, a few days later, he called on me at my Montague Street lodgings. “Knowing the place was famous for its secret chambers, we tapped walls and the backs of cupboards, listening for hollow sounds which might suggest there was a hidden cavity; we inspected floorboards to make sure none could be lifted easily; we looked up the chimneys. Because it’s such a warren of a place with Heaven knows how many chambers and passages, we hung towels or sheets out of the windows of every room after we had searched it
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so that we could tell, after we had finished, if we had missed any. But we hadn’t. Every window had its white marker to show the room had been searched.”

‘“But you found nothing?” I asked him.

‘“Not a sign, Mr Holmes, although …”

‘At this point Lestrade began to look distinctively uncomfortable.

‘Now I know in the past I have criticised the police for their lack of imagination,’
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Holmes broke
off to explain to me, ‘but for once Lestrade showed the first faint glimmer of any sensitivity which might be described as perceptive or intuitive. I believe the sensation surprised and bewildered him by its novelty, for he went on to add in a faltering manner:

‘“All the same, Mr Holmes, I had the feeling that Lord Arnsworth was hidden somewhere in that house. I can’t explain it any better than that. It was nothing more than this impression; no proof; no evidence. It was like that creepy sensation you sometimes get that someone behind you is staring at you. You know what I mean?”

‘“Of course I do!” I hastened to assure the poor man, for he was looking quite distressed at this, to him, quite irrational instinct on his part. “How would you like me to help you, Inspector?” I went on to ask, for it was obvious he had called on me with some positive request in mind. His face immediately cleared.

‘“Well, Mr Holmes, I wondered if you would agree to come with me to Arnsworth Castle to make a second search? I have warned her Ladyship that I might have to return and she has reluctantly agreed.”

‘“But not with ten of your officers,” I stipulated, for I had no intention of tramping about the castle accompanied by Lestrade’s no doubt keen but heavy-footed colleagues. “You may bring two, in case an arrest has to be made, but no more.”

‘Lestrade agreed to this condition and also to a date for the visit. Consequently, two days later we travelled
by train to Guildford in Surrey and from there took a cab to Arnsworth Castle.

‘It is a magnificent building, Watson; the product of the combination of two quite different architectural styles – the medieval represented by the imposing battlemented west tower and the curtain walls of massive stone, still preserved in some places; and the more domestic Tudor design exemplified in the beams and red brick of the rest of the building.

‘It was a perfect day in early autumn and the castle in all its magnificence was mirrored in the still water of the moat, where its reflection seemed to float like a double image of itself painted on glass.

‘We rattled over the long bridge with its many arches, described in the magazine article you may have read, my dear fellow, and then through an imposing gateway entrance into a large cobbled courtyard where Lady Arnsworth’s butler was waiting to conduct us through a series of hallways and passages, all hung with tapestries and portraits of Arnsworth ancestors and guarded by suits of armour. Eventually, we were shown into a small drawing room where, despite the warmth of that autumn day, a bright fire was blazing in the hearth. In front of the fire, an elderly lady was seated in a high-backed chair, not unlike the one in the photograph, surrounded by family heirlooms in the way of silver and porcelain, fine rugs and heavy furniture in blackened oak, polished to a high gloss.

‘Lady Arnsworth gave the impression of having been
carefully preserved along with all the other household treasures. Her skin was the colour and texture of old parchment while her hair, artfully coiled and plaited on top of her head in the style of a coronet, had the same silvery sheen as the large pewter plates on display nearby on an Elizabethan court cupboard. She sat very upright, her hands, with their sparkling rings, folded in her black silk lap, and, without moving her head, she followed our progress from the door towards her chair with considerable disfavour.