The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes (6 page)

In the Marsh Test, which Holmes now conducted, the pale blue solution taken from the dead woman's specimens was diluted with a chemical base in a retort and heated until hydrogen was given off. The gas passed into a sealed tube that was warmed—a ‘mirror', as it was called. If arsenic was present in the gas, it would collect as a greyish substance on the inner surface of the tube. When all the hydrogen was given off, Holmes turned down the flame of the Bunsen lamp. The ‘mirror' tube was still perfectly clean. The same solution which had just before shown enough arsenic to kill Isabella Bankes twice over now showed none at all.

Imagine the consternation at this! Among those who watched Sherlock Holmes at work with his apparatus, there was relief and expectation among the defenders of Thomas Smethurst, dismay among those whose evidence had helped to cast upon him the shadow of the hangman's noose.

How could it be that one time-honoured and infallible test showed no arsenic and the other, equally honoured and infallible, enough poison to hang a man? You may be sure that Dr Taylor and his colleagues hastened to repeat these experiments, only to come to the same conclusion as Holmes. Yet one thing could not be denied. There was arsenic in the Reinsch Test, enough to bring Smethurst to the gallows.

Rumours spread of the strange discovery and, as the world knows, there was agitation for a reprieve. The Home Secretary of the Liberal government, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, found himself caught between the process of law and an opposing clamour of the scientific world. Physicians, lawyers, public men all protested against the hanging of Thomas Smethurst on such evidence as this. There was a petition to the Home Office and another to Her Majesty the Queen for a free pardon. Sir George, caught in this fix, summoned the one man in England who could explain the predicament in which he found himself, Mr Sherlock Holmes.

VII

It was the first time that my friend had ever visited the Home Office but it was by no means the last. The day appointed for the execution of Thomas Smethurst was little more than a weekend away. Indeed, it was very nearly too late to save him. Men were customarily hanged in public on a Monday morning but just then a new law of Sabbath-day observance was being debated. It was objected that the men who erected the gallows on the roof of Horsemonger Lane gaol would have to work on Sunday. The question was whether Thomas Smethurst should be hanged early, on Friday, or late, on Tuesday. They gave him until Tuesday and so saved his neck.

Sir George Lewis was a grave scholarly man, a former editor of the famous
Edinburgh Review
and author of
Observation and Reasoning in Politics
. There was never a Home Secretary more ready to be persuaded by logic and rational argument. On that summer evening he sat with his back to the Venetian window of his office, a view of the colliers and penny steamers on the Thames behind him, facing his visitor across the desk. The conversation had reached that point where Holmes felt confident enough to reveal his secret.

‘I have always preferred to shave with Occam's Razor,' he said equably. ‘The precept that when you have discarded all impossibilities, whatever is left, however unexpected, must be true. In the case of Thomas Smethurst, I confess I was also troubled by an absence of sufficient motive. He is a rogue, a cheat, a seducer. But, while I have known of men who have killed for gain, I have never known such a man who killed a woman when she was worth several times more to him alive than dead.'

‘All that has been accounted for, Mr Holmes. It is only the matter of arsenic which remains at issue.'

‘Very well,' Holmes said, ‘I listened to the evidence that was given in court. When Dr Taylor tested the solution he looked only for arsenic. He did not need to test for chlorate of potass. He assumed that, if it was there, it had been used to flush out any trace of noxious substance from the poor woman's body. If he had any doubts, of course, they were soon settled. The chlorate of potass attached itself first to the copper gauze, corroding it. By using three pieces of the wire gauze, he was able to exhaust the chlorate. On the third piece, he collected a good deal of arsenic.'

‘And this would happen if there was arsenic in the body?' Sir George said sympathetically.

‘Indeed,' said Holmes, ‘and it would happen even if there was no arsenic in the body.'

The Home Secretary shifted uncomfortably in his leather chair. ‘I think you had better explain that.'

‘When there is merely arsenic, Sir George, the experiment is infallible. That is the case ninety-nine times out of every hundred. Dr Taylor had never encountered one that was otherwise. This time there was also chlorate of potass. He was right in thinking that the chlorate of potass must be exhausted before arsenic would gather on the copper gauze. It was after this that he made his error.'

‘Dr Taylor's reputation stands high, Mr Holmes. He is one of our foremost chemical analysts.'

Holmes inclined his head. ‘Dr Taylor is all that you say. However, as students, our paths diverge. He is the scholar, I am merely an inquisitive amateur. For some months I pursued researches into mineralogy with a view to improving the apparatus used in detecting murder by poison. I studied not only the chemicals that were tested but the constituents of the materials used to test them.'

‘Do you say, Mr Holmes, that the Reinsch Test is unreliable?'

‘Entirely reliable,' Holmes said, ‘provided that one tests only for arsenic. Copper gauze, however, is a curious substance. It is copper, to be sure, but it cannot be refined to a state of absolute purity. There is seldom any necessity for it. It contains, among other impurities, quantities of arsenic.'

The colour began to flow from Sir George's face. He thought, no doubt, of men hanged in the past who might have been innocent. Holmes waved away his anxieties.

‘This does not invalidate the test, as a rule,' he said quickly. ‘Usually there is no corrosion and arsenical impurity is not released from the copper gauze. In this rare case, the chlorate of potass corroded the metal gauze, releasing the arsenical impurity from the metal into the very solution being tested. Dr Taylor is a fine chemical analyst but he is no mineralogist. The Reinsch Test should never be used, where there is chlorate of potass in the solution tested. The Marsh Test would have shown no arsenic in Miss Bankes.'

Sir George Lewis cleared his throat and seemed as if he was trying to gain time for his reply. But there could be no reply save one.

‘Then you insist, Mr Holmes, that the arsenic came not from the dead woman but all of it from the copper gauze? It is beyond question?'

‘There can be no question,' Holmes said, ‘I had already tested a solution that contained only chlorate of potass—no arsenic whatever. Yet the third piece of copper gauze was coated with as much arsenic as Dr Taylor found. It was little enough, but remember that the specimen from Miss Bankes, in solution, was tiny in itself. Had this amount of arsenic come from such a minute sample, when multiplied by the total amount taken from her, it was enough to have killed the poor woman twice over.'

The bombshell that his visitor exploded in this manner was not yet enough to alter the Home Secretary's mind. Sir George Lewis stood up and gazed from his window across the coal wharves and the masts of the collier brigs, the slow barges under rust-coloured sails and the smoke-trails from the tall funnels of the little steamers.

‘He put prussic acid on the bread, Mr Holmes, and tested its strength by feeding it to the sparrows.'

‘Prussic acid, sir, is a constituent of effervescent medicine given to ease the type of vomiting from which Miss Bankes suffered. It proves nothing.'

The Home Secretary turned round again.

‘And he surely gave her the chlorate of potass. What reason for that, unless to flush from her kidneys before death all trace of arsenical poison?'

‘It was that, sir, which made the use of arsenic still more plausible. However, I took the liberty of testing for substances which were beyond the purview of Dr Taylor. Though the results were not conclusive, I believe that elaterium and veratrine were both present in the specimens taken from Isabella Bankes. They are not mineral irritants, like arsenic, but vegetable irritants. Their effect is to produce symptoms of vomiting and dysentery, very similar to those shown in this case.'

‘Then he killed her, whether by arsenic or not?'

Holmes shook his head.

‘Veratrine and elaterium are not the weapons of the poisoner. Their effect would be too uncertain. They are prescriptions of the abortionist. Isabella Bankes was in her second month of pregnancy when she died. Had she borne a child, Thomas Smethurst's bigamy would have been in great danger of discovery and his plans would have been at an end. Miss Bankes suffered from a degree of sickness beyond that found in most pregnancies. Combined with the substances used to bring on an abortion, she was subject to vomiting so severe that she could keep nothing in her stomach. She died of starvation. In her feeble state, the exhaustion of vomiting was enough to kill her. I reaffirm my conviction that Thomas Smethurst valued her more alive than dead. She stood, ultimately, to inherit thirty-five thousand pounds. That is the point where I first began, when I sought out her father's will.'

By the time that Sherlock Holmes stepped into the sunlight of a September evening, Sir George Lewis's private secretary had already drawn up copies of the letter of reprieve for immediate delivery to the High Sheriff of Surrey and the Governor of Horsemonger Lane Gaol. In his own hand, the Home Secretary himself began a more confidential memorandum. ‘Sir George Lewis, with his humble duty to Your Majesty …' In the course of that memorandum, the name of the young Sherlock Holmes was first brought to the attention of the highest in the land.

VIII

The world knows the conclusion. Smethurst was reprieved from the gallows on the last day. The eminent toxicologist, Sir Benjamin Brodie, was appointed to inquire into the facts. He confirmed the findings of Sherlock Holmes in every particular.

Thomas Smethurst received a pardon, only to be arrested for bigamy and sent to prison for a year. On his release, he sued for compensation in respect of the murder trial. His effrontery failed. However, he then went to the Court of Probate and claimed the estate of Isabella Bankes, bequeathed to him under her dying will and testament. It went against the grain but, since the will was valid, the jury had no alternative than to find a verdict in his favour.

Holmes was later to remark to me, in the case of Grimesby Roylott of Stoke Moran, that, when a doctor does go wrong, he is the worst of criminals. In his determination to destroy the child of the woman he loved, even at the risk of her life, Smethurst had proved himself a standing example of this, whatever the law might determine. History does not record the last years of our bigamist. No doubt he returned to the life of Bayswater boarding-houses and the fluttering hearts of middle-aged spinsters. It was some years afterwards when Holmes first told me the story of the case.

‘And the humour of it is, Watson,' he concluded, ‘that a scoundrel such as he should owe his life to the laws of Sunday observance.'

‘How so?'

‘Why, if they had erected the gallows on Sunday, they would have hanged him at eight sharp on Monday morning. By observing the Sabbath, they had to respite him until Tuesday, the first morning when the platform could be ready. But for that, he might have been dead and buried before he could be reprieved.'

Then he lay back in his chair with that look of satisfaction for his youthful skill, which was perhaps the nearest he ever came to smugness.

The Case of the Crown Jewels

I

It is only now, with the death of the last public man involved in the scandal, that I feel easy enough in my mind to set down the truth of the strange affair of the Irish Crown Jewels. So long as Sir Arthur Vicars remained alive, Sherlock Holmes would permit nothing to be written that might revive the accusations against that unfortunate gentleman. Moreover, the manner of Sir Arthur's death is germane to the story. Since many of my readers will recall nothing of it, I shall give a brief summary of the events accompanying it.

On the morning of 14 April 1921, an early mist veiled the blue Atlantic sky over the hills behind Kilmorna House. Pleasantly situated in the far south-west of Ireland, Kilmorna was a Victorian country house built of brick in the Tudor style. Its tall chimneys and tower rose among well-kept lawns and trees. Latterly, it had been occupied by Sir Arthur Vicars and his wife, Lady Gertrude, who was considerably younger than her husband. Though my friend Sherlock Holmes spoke seldom and briefly of any relatives that he might possess, I have reason to suppose that he was distantly connected with Sir Arthur Vicars.

By the time of the tragedy, Sir Arthur's health was not robust and he made a habit of rising late after being brought his breakfast in bed. On that spring morning, when the maidservant had removed his tray, he lay propped on the pillows, discussing the business of the day with his estate manager. He saw nothing of the trap that now closed upon him.

From the trees that flanked the carriage-drive of Kilmorna, a group of men moved stealthily towards the house. There were about thirty of them, casually dressed, like a line of beaters with a gamekeeper. Some held revolvers and one, whose forehead was bandaged, carried a double-barrelled shotgun. The man with the shotgun smashed a pane of glass, reached through and entered the house by the main door.

At the sound of breaking glass, Sir Arthur got up and pulled on his dressing-gown, just as Lady Vicars ran into his room to tell him that the house was surrounded by armed men. As the couple and their estate manager went down the stairs, they smelled smoke and paraffin or petrol. Kilmorna had been free of the ‘troubles' affecting other parts of Ireland and it was surely remarkable that such attacks should begin now. The Government of Ireland Act had been made law at Westminster and in five more days the independent Irish state was to come into being. Yet there was no doubt that the house had been set on fire by the intruders and that the lower panelling was already ablaze. Sir Arthur at once told the estate manager that they must save the most valuable paintings and furniture in the ground-floor rooms by passing them out of the library windows on to the terrace.