The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (70 page)

And so, to our amazement, it proved! One by one Nathaniel Musgrave withdrew the contents from the bag and placed them on the lid of the sarcophagus. The pieces were indeed horribly stained but they glittered nevertheless in the light cast by Musgrave’s flare. “Rubbish they appear but rubbish I know they are not!” cried Musgrave. “They are just as you say, Mr Holmes. Whatever can they be? You astonish me!”.

Sherlock Holmes bowed low in humorous acknowledgement, a look of immense satisfaction on his face.

“By Jove!” cried Musgrave. “This linen bag is identical to the one in which we recovered the crown from the lake, when you solved the puzzle of our Ritual.”

“You are certain of that?” said Holmes. “Your cousin showed me the bag at the time, but I did not, as I now regret, make any special examination of it.”

“Yes, I am certain. What can it mean?”

Holmes did not reply at once. He sat on the coffin, deep in thought. It was only when our host’s flare sputtered out, leaving us in darkness, that he spoke again. “Musgrave,” he said, “you mentioned that these catacombs abut the cellar in which we found Brunton’s body. Where precisely is that cellar?”

“Within ten paces of this spot!” replied Musgrave, relighting his flare; “Up these stone steps and through that archway!” Thus we found ourselves at the site of the old Hurlstone tragedy. The stone slab that had snuffed out Brunton’s life had been replaced, no doubt for reasons of safety, by a wooden trap door but, as Holmes commented, little else had changed. As before, on a barrel stood a large lantern, evidently still functional for Musgrave lit it at once. Wood was still stacked around the walls. Holmes was even able to show us two of the dented billets that Brunton and the girl Howells had used to raise the flagstone from the sepulchre. He had, he remarked, put them to one side, years ago.

On my first visit,” said Holmes, “I sat here for twenty minutes, thinking over the meaning of what we had found. I must now do so again. We have much data to consider. May I suggest that you, Watson, and you Musgrave, take these historic relics to a place of safety in the house while I remain here. My pipe and tobacco will suffice for company.”

I followed Musgrave as he led the way up a winding stone staircase to the daylight above. In half an hour we rejoined Holmes. He rose and stood before us, his hands on his coat lapels, his eyes alive with excitement.

“Musgrave, I have news which I fear will not please you, following as it does so hard on our discovery of …”

“Of what?” cried Musgrave. “What precisely
are
these rusted relics?”

“Reunited with the crown you already have, they are nothing less than the ancient Crown Jewels of England!”

Musgrave and I stared at Holmes in amazement.

“The Crown Jewels?”

“Just so. However, the fact is that others have rights to this new treasure and, hard though it may be to comprehend, they have already established an effective claim to it. They have done so moreover in a manner which will be hard to dispute or deny.”

“But that is impossible!” cried Musgrave. “We only discovered the trove an hour ago. We three alone know of it! How can anyone else possibly be aware of it, let alone have registered a claim to it? And by what agency could such a claim have been made?”

Holmes smiled ruefully. “I fear that I am myself the agent!”

“You?”

“Yes, I.”

“Mr Holmes, I must ask you to explain yourself. You are a friend of my family. You have helped us immeasurably in the past. My cousin admired, respected and trusted you. It is inconceivable that you would deliberately act against our family’s interest on behalf of others. I will not – can not – do not – believe it!”

“My dear Musgrave, what you say is true. Of course I would never knowingly do anything against your interest,” Holmes assured him. “The fact is that I have been duped.”

“By whom?”

“By one with a mind of astonishing power; by a daring and imaginative schemer possessed of a considerable flair and ingenuity which is the more startling for being unexpected.”

“Who is this Titan?”

“
Your family’s former second housemaid!“

“What? Impossible!”

“I assure you no. The person who has effectively lodged a valid claim against this priceless treasure is Rachel Howells: the same Howells whose unexplained disappearance at the time of Brunton’s murder – for murder it was – created such a furore.”

“But if she is a murderess, Holmes,” I exclaimed, “she must be arrested. No criminal can be allowed to benefit from his crime.”

“There is a difficulty,” replied Holmes. “Rachel Howells has, by using us as her instruments, effectively lodged her claim. She knows however from Watson’s account that there are legal obstacles. She cannot have expected to surmount them unaided. She has certainly enlisted confidants as her agents. It is to these that the crown jewels of the Tudors and Stuarts must be released. Rachel Howells undoubtedly expects to reclaim them; what arrangements she has made to that end I have as yet no way of knowing. I think it unlikely however that these surrogates yet know that they have laid, let alone established, good claim to the Crown Jewels of England; nor, I suspect, are they aware that they have a murderess in their midst.”

“But where are these confederates?” cried Musgrave.

“In North America, the origin of this extraordinary letter.”

“In Canada? In British Columbia?”

“It is not unlikely.”

“But who are they? The Scowrers? The Mafia? The Red Circle?”

“That is what I must still discover. Now, Musgrave,” said Holmes, laughing, “you are overwhelming me with your questions. Besides, you are leading me into Watson’s deplorable habit of explaining matters backwards. Would it not be better if we repaired to your quarters, where I shall be happy to clarify the matter? Agreed? Come then, lead on!”

It was a remarkable gathering as we sat in comfortable arm chairs in Musgrave’s rooms. On a table before us lay the newly discovered great orb and sceptre of the kings of England, steeped in centuries of history. Beside them Nathaniel Musgrave had placed the refurbished Hurlstone crown – golden, jewel-encrusted and magnificent. Beside these objects lay the two linen bags in which they had been found. Holmes explained:

“Before I could form a hypothesis capable of explaining the extraordinary message which directed us to these treasures, it was first necessary to assemble my data. My starting point was these two linen bags. They are, as you rightly told us, Musgrave, identical. The first, which has been kept with the crown since its recovery years ago from the mere, shows some signs of deterioration; the other little if any. On my last visit, when the existence of only one bag was known, I paid little attention to it, ascribing its damaged condition to its sojourn in the crypt of your cellar while ten generations of your ancestors lived out their lives above.
But of course I was mistaken
. I should have realized that centuries of corrosion by worms and fungi, sufficient to have eaten through the walls of the wooden strongbox, would have utterly destroyed a simple linen bag. The deterioration of the bag had of course been caused only by its comparatively short immersion in your lake. But these bags are otherwise identical and in similar condition. It must follow that the crown jewels were placed in them not at the time of Charles’s trial and execution but comparatively recently.”

“At the time the first bag was tossed into the mere?” I suggested.

“Precisely,” said Holmes. “And who was the last person we know to have handled the crown and its bag?”

“Brunton!”

“Yes, the butler Brunton and his accomplice, the person to whom he passed up the treasure – handed it up from the crypt that was to be his coffin. But wait, we have not yet exhausted the resources of applied deduction! If the bags were not in the crypt when Brunton discovered the strongbox – and we have now established that they were not – they can only have been taken there by Brunton himself. We can be sure that it was Brunton who lowered himself into the crypt, while Rachel Howells waited above. Brunton, with the treasure at last within his grasp, was of course intent on examining it; he neither needed nor wanted a witness. It is unlikely that Howells, even if invited to descend, would have been prepared to enter the crypt herself, knowing that only a simple prop, a billet of wood, prevented the stone slab from crashing down, with none above to hear her cries. With an accomplice she trusted, her avarice might have overcome her fear; with a man who had already proved faithless, never. It was Brunton then who entered the crypt; Brunton who opened the strongbox; Brunton who discovered the treasure and Brunton who filled the bags.”

“Bags?” said I. “Plural?”

“Yes, bags. One was retrieved years ago from the mere, the other by us today from your catacombs, Musgrave. Brunton we know never left the crypt alive. The two bags could therefore have escaped the crypt in only one way: both were handed up by Brunton to his accomplice.”

“And that could only be Rachel Howells!”

“Just so,” said Holmes. Musgrave and I remained silent, our eyes riveted on Sherlock Holmes as he continued: “We can now reconstruct the precise sequence of events. Brunton, redoubling his efforts following his dismissal on a week’s notice by your cousin, discovers the site of the cache within two days. His problem is to retrieve the treasure he believes to lie below. He confers with the angry, and astute, Rachel Howells, who strikes a bargain: she is to share equally in the treasure as the price for her help – and her silence. She it is who provides the two linen sacks, one for each half share of the trove. Brunton takes them down into the crypt, fills one with half the treasure and hands it up to Howells. “
The sceptre and the orb for you; the crown for me, Rachel! Fair enough, my dear?“
I can almost hear the words. “What does Howells do then?” he continued. “Aware of the need for haste, she hastily stashes her bag in the nearby hiding place she has selected earlier: the sarcophagus from which we have retrieved it today. While doing so, she quickly examines the bag’s contents. Despite Brunton’s assurances she may well conclude that the discoloured old pieces of metal are worthless. I seem to hear her screaming imprecations down at Brunton, crouched below. Brunton, reaching up to raise himself from the dungeon, places his bag on the stone shelf beside the wooden billet. And then – murder!”

“You always suspected it!”

“Yes, Watson. Murder. No other hypothesis fits. Consider. Her means, and her opportunity, are all too close to hand. Of motives she has no lack! Revenge – for Brunton has recently wronged her – as I suggested before, perhaps much more than we know: passionate Celtic women do not take kindly to being thrown over for gamekeepers’ daughters; anger – for Brunton has undoubtedly promised her that a great treasure awaits them at the bottom of the pit as a price for her help in raising the flagstone; and avarice, for Brunton’s protestations that the trinkets are of immense value may – just may – be true.

“So she, the second bag lying at her feet, murders him: murders him by dashing away the wooden billet. The heavy slab crashes down. Her faithless lover is imprisoned in the tomb.
In pace requiescat avidus!
“

Musgrave and I had listened in fascination as Holmes’s words vividly brought this ghastly tragedy to life. I took a deep breath to escape the spell he had cast.

“But this can only be a hypothesis!” I heard myself cry in protest.

“It is more than that,” said Holmes. “Consider the significance of the second bag. A British jury might possibly have acquitted Howells for lack of evidence had she been brought to trial at the time of Brunton’s death: the butler had been found dead in the crypt; the Stuart crown in the mere. There was no evidence connecting Howells directly to either. She had in any event disappeared. But now the second bag has been found and Howells’s neck is in jeopardy for she, and only she, can have received it from Brunton’s hand. Brunton never left that crypt alive. It was Howells, a jury will reason, who threw the one sack into the mere – her footsteps, leading to the edge of the lake, proclaim as much – after first secreting the other in its hiding place, a few steps from where she stood. This is no hypothesis, Watson. It is proof. This second linen bag places a hempen rope around the neck of Rachel Howells.”

“I am sure you are right,” said Nathaniel Musgrave, his eyes still fixed on Sherlock Holmes. “The facts are indisputable. They admit of no other explanation. Murder was done in our Hurlstone cellar that day: our butler the victim; our housemaid his executioner.”

Holmes continued. “Aghast at what she has done, she snatches up Brunton’s bag and flees to her room, her ears ringing with the sounds of muffled screams and the drumming of frenzied hands from the cellar. In the haven of her room she makes her plans for flight. What can she do with the bags, the evidence of her dreadful crime? Their discovery in her possession means the gallows. She decides to leave hers in its feudal hiding place. She spends the next two days in secreting her few belongings near the gate leading from the Hurlstone estate to the world beyond. On her final night she retires to bed as usual then, quietly, to avoid waking the night nurse, she leaves the house and walks to the lake – carefully leaving tracks to the water’s edge to establish the possibility of her death by drowning as an explanation for her disappearance – flings Brunton’s treasure into the mere and takes the gravel path leading from the grounds.”

“How do you know she took the path?” I asked.

“Because her footsteps took her to the edge of the mere next to the gravel path. It was at their junction that her trail ended. The mere was dragged the next day so thoroughly that the linen bag was detected and brought to the surface. But they found no body! No Rachel Howells! She had not entered the lake, therefore she had taken the path. It was always my opinion,” he went on, “that she had carried herself and the memory of her crime to some land beyond the sea, an opinion I now find justified. She left your grounds, Musgrave, walked to the village, thence, taking every care to remain inconspicuous, by coach to Portsmouth.”