The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (27 page)

On our arrival at Andover, we hired a carriage, Holmes instructing the driver to take us to Winchcombe Hall but to remain at a safe distance and to await our return. It was early afternoon as we walked up the winding poplar-lined drive.

In the distance, where a long narrow wood snaked over the horizon, we heard the sound of gunfire. Occasionally, we glimpsed a whirring speck that was undoubtedly a pheasant bursting from cover, a bird that had survived the line of guns, gliding on downhill to land in a field of snow-covered turnips.

“At least our friend, the squire, will be kept busy for a while,” Holmes remarked as we passed through a clump of rhododendrons and had our first view of the big house. I noticed that the extensive snow-covered lawns were severely disfigured by the workings of moles, something to which Miss Morgan had alluded on her visit to our rooms in Baker Street.

Winchcombe Hall was set in a large clearing amidst tall pines and mature shrubberies. It was clearly of Georgian origin, three-storeyed and with high chimneys. Undoubtedly, once it had been a magnificent country residence but now there was evidence of loose mortar and the west wall was badly damp-stained. Which was all the more reason for Royston Morgan wanting to acquire the wealth of an eligible widow, I decided, but kept my thoughts to myself for Holmes would not have thanked me for them. A number of carriages were parked at the rear; undoubtedly, Squire Morgan had a full compliment of sportsmen for today.

Even as we mounted the wide flight of steps, the front door opened and there stood Gloria Morgan, a long black dress accentuating her pallor. Yet in spite of her grief, her delight at seeing us was all too evident.

“Oh, Mr Holmes, Doctor Watson,” she cried, “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you have come.”

“Have there been any further developments?” My companion asked as we stepped into the marble-floored hallway.

“No.” She shook her head. “Everything is still as it was when I left yesterday. My father is too preoccupied with his pheasant shooting to concern himself with a matter which he considers to be concluded. The library is through there.” She indicated a door that was partly open. “My mother …” Her trembling finger pointed to a closed door at the rear of the hall.

“Perhaps, Watson,” Holmes glanced meaningfully at myself, “you would be so kind as to take a swift professional look at the departed whilst Miss Morgan accompanies me into the library. I am curious to view a locked room where death can strike so swiftly. I will join you shortly.”

I lifted the lid of the polished oaken coffin and looked down upon Violet Morgan. Death, and the obvious agony that had accompanied it, had done its utmost to destroy her striking beauty. The soft lips were swollen and marked where she had bitten them, and even the passing of
rigor mortis
had not removed the grimace from her face. She screamed mutely up at me, for her final suffering had been terrible beyond belief.

I bent over and sniffed at her mouth but the only odour was that familiar smell of death. The palms of her hands were gouged where her fingernails had dug deep and the mortician had been unable to straighten out her fingers fully, it was as though they were afflicted with some deformity. I checked for any signs of an open wound, a cut or scratch, that might have allowed tetanus to enter her bloodstream, but there were none apart from those inflicted by herself.

Certainly the corpse bore some resemblance to the final sufferings of a victim of lockjaw but tetanus would not have struck so suddenly and without warning. Either Doctor Lambeth had never witnessed a case of lockjaw or he was taking advantage of an easy alternative. Or else he was determined to shield Squire Morgan at all costs. I was far from satisfied at what I had seen.

I heard the door open and Holmes joined me. He stood there looking down upon the corpse and I knew that his keen eyes missed nothing.

“Her suffering was terrible, indeed, Watson,” he spoke in a low voice for fear that Gloria Morgan might overhear him.

“Yes, but it was not lockjaw,” I asserted, “but surely some kind of poison that is undetectable.”

“Many poisons leave little or no trace.” He bent over the corpse. “You really must read my treatise on poisons, Watson. Ah!” His fingers lifted up one of Violet Morgan’s clawed hands, moved it so that the fingertips were exposed to view. “You noticed that faint stain on the tip of the forefinger, Watson?”

“I did not regard it as being of any significance,” I replied somewhat abruptly for I sensed that my companion was criticizing my professionalism.

“Let us return to the library.” He straightened up. I followed him out into the hallway, feeling a little offended by his abruptness. Whatever the relevance of that discolouring of the deceased’s fingertip, it clearly needed to be corroborated by an inspection of the scene of the crime. However, I knew better than to interrupt my colleague’s train of thought.

In the library Holmes commenced a minute examination of the windows and the door.

“A beetle could have entered via the gap beneath the locked door,” he spoke without looking round, “but nothing larger than an insect. Miss Morgan informs me that her mother always kept the windows tightly shut, even in summer, as she had a phobia about night moths. But, on the night in question, the temperature would have been below freezing so no window would have been open, anyway.” He moved across to a section of bookshelving, tilted his head slightly to one side to enable him to read the lettering on the spines of the volumes. “
Hawker’s Diaries
, I perceive, and also that worthy man’s
Instructions to Young Sportsmen
.” He reached down the latter leather bound tome and flipped the pages. “Well read, I see.”

“As I have already told you, my father virtually worships Hawker and everything that the man stood for,” there was a note of mingled repugnance and annoyance in her tone at this seeming digression from Holmes’s investigations. “My father’s lifelong ambition was to acquire Longparish. The place would have been a virtual shrine for him, but I am afraid family finances have been dwindling for some time.”

“And your father needed to acquire the necessary funds from other sources,” Holmes remarked. “I see that there is a sizeable collection of medieval works. Also well read.” He was examining another volume.

“My father was no lover of literature, Mr Holmes, he only read sporting books and those medieval works. Mostly reprints, as you will see, and some books appertaining to that period.”

“Hmmm.” Holmes’s expression had changed, he was staring fixedly at the open pages of the volume in his hands. From where I stood I was just able to read the title on the spine,
“Herbs and Plants of the Thirteenth Century; Their Cultivation and Uses“
Holmes read intently, he seemed oblivious of our presence in the room.

“Mr Holmes,” there was a new nervousness in Gloria Morgan’s voice, “the day’s shooting usually concludes towards mid-afternoon in order that the unscathed pheasants may go to roost in peace. The party will be returning shortly. I had not anticipated that your investigations would take so long.”

“Tell me, Miss Morgan”, Holmes appeared not to have heard her warning or else he chose to ignore it, “what was your mother’s taste in reading?”

“English literature. She read and re-read her favourite authors.”

Sherlock Holmes turned his attention back to the bookshelves, his gaze searching out that section which contained works of literature.

“Ah!” His exclamation was one of triumph as he reached down a book which protruded from one of the neat rows. “This is the one which your mother was reading at the moment of her untimely death, I perceive. It was returned to its rightful place, presumably by your butler when he tidied up the room, but, in his haste, he failed to replace it fully. Charles Dickens, I see, although I have not read his works myself.”

“Little Dorrit,”
Miss Morgan answered. “I know because she mentioned it at dinner that night. Also, the volume was lying beside her when we … we found her. As you point out, Jenkins must have returned it to the shelves when he tidied up the room after Doctor Lambeth and the mortician had finished.”

Sherlock Holmes carried the volume across to the mahogany reading table where he pored over it with an intensity which I had witnessed many times in the past.

“Your mother showed little respect for books.” He was turning the pages delicately, almost as though it was a sacrilege to touch them. From where I stood I could see that each leaf was creased in the top right hand corner as if it had been turned down to mark the reader’s place.

“It was a habit which she developed in childhood, Mr Holmes, and never relinquished, that of turning each page with a wetted forefinger.”

Holmes examined the pages with his lens, blew gently upon one. A faint puff of something white, it might have been dandruff from a previous reader’s hair, was dislodged, fell to the floor and became indiscernible. A cloud of what I took to be some kind of ash floated down in its wake.

My colleague snapped the tome shut and, in a couple of strides, was at the window, staring out with an intensity which told me that he had spotted something which was relevant to our investigations.

“The moles,” he snapped, “they have made a devil of a mess of the lawns and borders. What method is being used to halt their depredations?”

“My father has been attending to the matter himself.” Gloria Morgan was visibly surprised by yet another digression. “I believe that he obtained some substance from Randall with which to kill the creatures. I recall him mentioning it to my mother a few days ago when she expressed concern at the damage done by the moles. Something which was put down the holes, I believe, although I did not take much interest at the time.”

“Capital!” Holmes cried. “Everything fits at last, the final piece in the jigsaw has slotted into place.”

“Mr Holmes!” Gloria Morgan’s cry of alarm interrupted my companion’s moment of exultation, and in the brief moment of silence which followed we heard the slamming of the front door, followed by heavy footfalls in the hallway. “Mr Holmes, it is too late, my father has returned!”

At that very moment the library door crashed back on its hinges and I was afforded my first view of Royston Morgan, the sporting squire of Winchcombe Hall. He stood there framed in the doorway, a giant of a fellow, well over six feet tall and surely all of sixteen stone in weight, seemingly even more immense clad in baggy plus-fours and a tweed shooting jacket which strained at the shoulder seams. Silver hair spilled from beneath a wide-brimmed floppy hat. His expression was one of escalating fury, wide cheeks darkly flushed, lips bared to reveal tusk-like teeth as he removed a long black cheroot from his cruel mouth.

But it was not just his size, the demoniac expression in his sunken eyes, nor his raging fury, which caused him to tremble in every limb, that had Miss Morgan cowering against the table. Rather it was the double-barrelled shotgun which he pointed in our direction as he demanded of his daughter in slurred stentorian tones, “Gloria, what is the meaning of this? Who are these gentlemen who have left their carriage down on the road and slunk up here like thieves intent on burgling us?”

“Father.” I admired her for the way in which she regained her composure and spoke with a voice that had only the slightest tremor in it. “This is Mr Sherlock Holmes and his colleague, Doctor Watson.”

“Sherlock Holmes
!” The name was uttered in a whisper which embodied both shock and anger, accompanied by an intake of breath. His gaze fastened on my companion and those cheeks became darker still. “I have heard of you, Mr Holmes. Holmes, the meddler, Scotland Yard’s errand boy! What brings you here? How dare you set foot in my house uninvited!”

“I invited Mr Holmes, Father”, Gloria Morgan spoke coolly and looked even more radiant in her moment of defiance.

“Leave my house at once!” The gun barrels swung round and came to a halt, trained upon Holmes, “or I shall summon the local constabulary and have you arrested. Nobody sets foot in Winchcombe Hall except at my invitation!”

“I rather think that it will snow again before nightfall,” Sherlock Holmes remarked as though he was totally unaware of the gun which threatened him.

“Get out!”

“Perhaps,” Holmes continued, undeterred, “you would be good enough to summon your local constabulary, after all, Squire Morgan, so that I may present my recent findings to them. I am now able to reveal the manner in which you murdered your wife two nights ago.”

Morgan might have been a statue, frozen into immobility, the gun extended, one-handed, forefinger curled around the front trigger. My own hand crept into the pocket of my overcoat, gripped the butt of my revolver, my thumb easing back the hammer slowly so that the cocking action would not click and reveal that I was armed. Indeed, I would have shot Royston Morgan through my pocket except that I feared that the impact of the striking bullet might cause the shotgun to detonate and blast Holmes at point blank range. That was the only reason why I did not shoot this fiend down in cold blood.

“This is preposterous!” Morgan’s lips moved at last, his denial an unconvincing whine. “My dear wife died of lockjaw, caused, doubtless, by some wound whilst going about her horticultural interests.”

“No.” Holmes’s gaze never wavered, not so much as a hint of fear did he show in the face of that scattergun. “There is no such wound upon your wife’s body, my medical colleague has already checked and informs me, with authority, that she did not die from tetanus. Rather, she died from strychnine poisoning, which is both sudden and terrible, a tiny amount of the substance, which is odourless, proving fatal. You procured the poison from Randall, your gamekeeper, for the supposed purpose of poisoning moles but instead you used it to murder your unsuspecting wife.”

“I … I used the strychine to poison the moles in the grounds.” I was heartily relieved to see those gun barrels lowered and pointing to the floor.

“Some of it, perhaps.” Sherlock Holmes gave a short laugh. “But it only required a minute quantity to bring about a terrible end for your wife and free you to marry into considerable wealth, thereby fulfilling your lifelong ambition of owning the Longparish estate. It was a foul and cunning plan, aided by the fact that an ageing medical practitioner would not even consider the possibility that the local squire might have committed murder.”