The Secret Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes (21 page)

‘The crucial question was how had Miss Butler managed to introduce the poison to her victim? It had quite clearly not been added to either the food or the wine at dinner. The parlourmaid served the meal from dishes at the table and neither she nor the other servants suffered any ill effects when they shared the leftovers. Only one solution to the problem presented itself. The poison had to be present in some other ingredient which was on the table and to which the victim had access but not the servants. It also had to be white and of a similar texture to the arsenic otherwise the victim’s suspicions might have been aroused. The answer was obvious. The poison was in the salt pot. This was why I insisted on interviewing Miss Butler in the dining-room. I wished to examine the sideboard in which the table silver would usually be kept. Any doubts I might have had about Miss Butler’s guilt were dispelled when I observed that there was only
one
salt pot although there were two silver pepper pots in the cupboard. As we now know, the second was concealed in Miss Butler’s room, her intention being to empty it of its contents and replace them with unadultered salt as soon as she had the opportunity.

‘She was forestalled by Mr Rushton’s sudden and unexpected death from a heart attack. Usually victims of arsenical poisoning linger for hours before finally succumbing to the dreadful symptoms. The police were immediately sent for and Miss Butler had no opportunity to empty the salt pot and return it to the dining-room.

‘This brings us to the whole matter of timing. It was crucial to Miss Butler’s plan that Mr Rushton should appear to suffer the
first effects of arsenical poisoning not too long after he had drunk the sherry, thus casting suspicion on the nephew. As we had only her word that it was on Mr Rushton’s instructions that the study door was locked, we also had to rely on her statement that he was first taken ill at about ten minutes to nine when he decided to retire to bed. The servants, shut up in the kitchen at the rear of the house, had no knowledge of what time, in fact, Mr Rushton went upstairs to his room.’

‘But, Holmes!’ I protested, perceiving a flaw in his reasoning. ‘By a quarter past nine, Mr Rushton was so ill that Miss Butler came down to the kitchen for a hot-water bottle and a glass of warm water in which to mix bicarbonate of soda.’

Holmes raised his eyebrows at me.

‘My dear fellow, of course she did!’ said he. ‘But once more we only have her word that Mr Rushton required such attention at that particular time.’

‘Oh yes, I see, Holmes,’ I replied, considerably dashed.

‘Pray allow me to continue,’ Holmes said with a pained air. ‘It was Mr Rushton’s habit to retire to bed at ten o’ clock, a fact I learnt from his nephew. When we entered Mr Rushton’s bedroom, I observed his pocket-watch lying on the table; no ordinary watch as I perceived from the key attached to the chain. It was a ratchet type and the patent of the well-known French watch-making firm of Breguet et fils.
*
The watch incorporated several other distinctive features, typical of Breguet’s work, including a perpetual calendar on the face, a device for repeating the preceding hour as well as a gold engine-turned dial on the back showing the phases of the moon.

‘But more important to the investigation, a Breguet watch has
on the arbor
*
in the centre of the barrel a stopwork mechanism which allows the barrel to be turned only four full revolutions in thirty hours, the usual length of time a watch will run before it needs rewinding. This is to prevent the spring from being over-wound. As it would take two turns of the key to complete one full revolution of the barrel, it therefore follows that the key would have to be turned eight times for the barrel to be completely wound and the stopwork mechanism to come into play, preventing the barrel from being turned any further.

‘I must confess, Inspector, that I asked my colleague, Dr Watson, to distract your attention for a few moments while I examined Mr Rushton’s pocket-watch. The time then was a little before midnight but it required only one half-turn of the key before the stopwork mechanism arrested the barrel, thus proving that the watch had last been wound up approximately two hours before, or if you wish me to be absolutely precise on the matter, one hour, fifty-two and a half minutes; in other words, at ten o’ clock, the time Mr Rushton normally retired to bed. The mathematics involved are simple enough and I shall leave it with you to work them out for yourselves. As Miss Butler denied ever having touched the watch, it meant that Mr Rushton must have wound it up himself.

‘But at a quarter past nine, if Miss Butler is to be believed, Mr Rushton was already in bed, suffering from nausea and cramps in the legs to such a degree that she went down to the kitchen for a hot-water bottle and a glass in which to mix bicarbonate of soda in order to relieve his symptoms. If that were so, he would hardly be in a fit condition to concern himself three quarters of an hour later with winding up his watch.

‘In the light of the evidence, I think we may now revise the timing of the events which took place in Laurel Lodge and which led to Mr Rushton’s unfortunate demise.

‘He ingested the arsenic in the salt he added to his food during dinner soon after half-past seven but, because of the heavy meal he had eaten, a factor which can delay the onset of
the symptoms of arsenical poisoning, as my colleague, Dr Watson pointed out and as you, Inspector, agreed, Mr Rushton did not begin to suffer any adverse effects until after ten o’ clock, when he retired to bed at his usual hour, first winding up his watch, as was his habit. Indeed, the initial symptoms did not strike him until a quarter past ten when he was taken ill and Miss Butler sent for the doctor. Death occurred, as we know, shortly afterwards from a heart attack.

‘No doubt, Miss Butler will confirm these facts when you have taken a full statement from her,’ Holmes concluded, rising to his feet and holding out his hand to Needham. ‘Goodbye, Inspector. As you said, it is a bad business but one which is now closed.’

I felt that this last remark was a wry reference to Needham’s earlier statement that, as far as he was concerned, it was an open and shut case.

As we left the police station and emerged into the street, I saw that it was a clear night and that, above the roofs and the clustered chimney-pots, the stars were very bright, burning in drops of pure, cold light which put me in mind of Miss Butler’s own strange, ethereal radiance. Turning to Holmes, I put the question which, until that moment, I had dared not ask.

‘She will be hanged, will she not?’

He turned on me a most sombre expression. Rarely have I seen him in so melancholy a mood.

‘I fear so, Watson. She has confessed not only to Rushton’s murder but to a conspiracy to bring his nephew to the gallows. Under such circumstances, there can be little hope of a reprieve. Nor does she deserve any mercy and I believe she herself will seek none. And yet I cannot help feeling that not all the blame should be laid at her feet and that she should not be alone when she mounts the scaffold.’

‘Who else are you referring to, Holmes?’ I inquired, quite nonplussed by his remark and assuming he must mean some accomplice whom we had not yet encountered.

‘Society, of course!’ he retorted. ‘Consider her situation. Here is a young woman of undoubted intelligence and ability but of small fortune and even less opportunity to make her way in the
world. For what do we – and here I speak of society in general of which you and I, Watson, are members – expect her to do with her life? Why, to marry, of course, and if that is not her inclination, to fritter away her talents acting as housekeeper or governess or a lady companion to others richer than herself but of less capacity. Had society allowed her to attain her full potential, it might never have occurred to her to turn to crime. She could have fulfilled herself in any profession she chose, as an ambassador, say, or a captain of industry or a politician, even reaching as high as the post of Prime Minister, absurd though that idea may seem.

‘I want you to promise me that you will never publish an account of the case. The penny press will stir up enough scandal when it comes to court. I should not wish either your name or mine to be associated with such cheap sensationalism. Let her pass as decently as she can into oblivion.’

I had no hesitation in giving Holmes my word for I heartily concurred with his sentiments. Therefore, apart from a passing reference to the investigation in ‘The Five Orange Pips’,
*
I have refrained from giving any further details, not even her name.

There was a melancholy sequel to the case.

Madeleine Butler was brought to trial and, having pleaded guilty to the charge of murder, was executed on 28th May, Ascension Day.

It was a black occasion for both Holmes and myself.

Although it was not in his nature to give any further thought to the protagonists in a case once an investigation was successfully concluded, for several years afterwards on the anniversary of the date when Madeleine Butler went to the scaffold, he was in low spirits as if still mourning the passing of that extraordinary woman.

Because the following case concerns matters which could affect the security of the realm, I know, even as I set pen to paper, that there is very little chance that I shall be given permission to publish this account and that it will have to be consigned, among other highly confidential reports, to my dispatch box in the strong-room of Cox and Co. of Charing Cross.

But as it was such a remarkable investigation, I cannot allow it to pass totally into oblivion and I shall therefore set down this record, if only for my own satisfaction and in the hope that at some future date, those in authority will grant leave for it to be placed before the public although this may never happen in my lifetime. As Holmes himself expressed it, the world is not yet prepared for a full account of the case.
*
However, even in this secret report, I shall withhold or change certain facts pertaining to dates, names and, in particular, to scientific data.

Even I myself was not privy to the beginning of the case,
†
  although I knew from its outset that Holmes was engaged on some urgent matter which took him away from our lodgings for days at a time and which, on his return, left him exhausted and careworn. He would either sit silently by the fire, smoking his pipe and staring into the flames, or would retire to his bedroom
from where I could hear some melancholy air being played on his violin.

I also suspected that he had reverted to his habit of injecting himself with a 7 per cent solution of cocaine although, knowing my disapproval, he never employed the syringe in my presence.

Nevertheless, the symptoms were all too apparent in the intervals of feverish activity, followed by long periods when he seemed listless and drained of all energy.

At the time, my own health was far from good. The weather was exceedingly damp and consequently the wound I had received in my leg during the battle of Maiwand in Afghanistan had begun to ache with a dull but persistent pain which left me incapable of any prolonged physical exertion and I was forced to lie with it up on the sofa.

It was during the second week of these secret and mysterious activities that Holmes confided in me.

I remember the occasion with great clarity. It was over breakfast one morning as we sat at table. He had left his food untouched, although he had drunk several cups of black coffee, and was sitting in his chair, watching me as I ate, an expression of brooding melancholy on his face.

Suddenly he said with great earnestness, ‘Watson, you and I have worked together now on a great number of cases and I know I can trust you implicitly. I am presently engaged on an investigation of great secrecy in which I should be grateful for your assistance.’

I laid down my knife and fork.

‘I shall be delighted, of course, to help you in any way I can, Holmes. What does this new adventure concern?’

‘Adventure is hardly the word I would use, my dear fellow. It is nothing less than a monstrous conspiracy to blackmail the British Government which, should it ever be made public, would cause the utmost panic among the citizens of London and our other great towns. That is why I have not confided in you before. You have not been in the best of health and I did not wish to burden you with such an appalling secret. For secret it must remain. Not even a whisper of what I shall tell you must ever spread beyond these four walls.’

I had rarely heard him speak in so grave a tone or seen him regard me with an expression of such sombre intensity and I replied with equal seriousness.

‘You know you may trust me, Holmes.’

‘Yes, I am aware of that, my old friend. Pray come with me. I have something I wish to show you.’

He led the way into his bedroom where, locking the door behind him, he crossed to his wardrobe which he opened with a key, precautions I had never known him take before in all the time of our acquaintance. Taking a wooden crate from the floor of the wardrobe, he carried it over to his bureau, removed the lid and, having felt about in the straw with which the box was packed, lifted out a large, sealed glass container in which some object was suspended in a fluid.

I went to stand beside him to take a closer look. It was then that I saw that the object was the body of a rat but of such gigantic proportions that I involuntarily took two or three paces backwards at the sight.

It was about the size of a terrier dog and was covered with a coarse, greyish-brown fur with a paler underbelly. Its snout was short and the muzzle was drawn back to reveal two wickedly sharp incisor teeth of an orange colour while the sturdy legs, though small in comparison with the rest of its huge body, were tipped with strong claws. It hung in the fluid, seeming to fix us with its evil little eyes through the glass, its scaly tail wrapped about it like some loathsome reptile.

‘Hideous, is it not?’ Holmes said.

‘It is revolting!’ I exclaimed. ‘For God’s sake, Holmes, where did it come from?’

‘From Mycroft,
*
who in turn was given it by the Prime
Minister. It was sent to him in Downing Street two weeks ago with an accompanying letter. All inquiries at present are directed towards finding where it originally came from. Have you ever encountered a more vile object, Watson? Then if you have seen enough, I shall immediately lock it away again. I must confess that I should prefer not to house it at all but Mycroft was of the opinion that it would be safer in my hands than in any of the Government offices.’

Replacing the jar inside the straw, he put the lid on the crate and carried it back to the wardrobe which he locked.

At his suggestion, we returned to the sitting-room where, in our absence, the breakfast table had been cleared and where we seated ourselves by the fire, Holmes first fetching from his desk, which was also locked, an envelope which he handed to me.

‘This is the letter I referred to, Watson,’ said he.

The envelope, which was unstamped, bore the words:
Most
Urgent.
For
the
Personal
Attention
of
the
Prime
Minister,
while the letter it contained carried no address, only a date of two weeks earlier and the following message:

‘This is quite appalling, Holmes!’ I cried, laying down the letter. ‘Half a million pounds! Why, it is a king’s ransom. And by 25th March! But that means there are only ten more days left.’

‘Exactly!’ Holmes said grimly.

‘How far have your investigations proceeded?’

‘Not far enough, although we have made some progress. You noticed, I assume, several telling features of the letter?’

‘You mean the absence of a stamp upon the envelope?’

‘Yes; there is that. I shall refer to it later when I come to give you a brief account of what we have so far discovered about the villain who calls himself the Pied Piper. But what I had in mind was the character and background of the man. He is, I am convinced, not English although his command of the language is excellent. Note, however, certain stilted phrases such as “I desire” and the reference to the “London”
Times.
No Englishman would use such a term.

‘In addition, although the language and the handwriting are those of a clerk, the man is highly intelligent. You remarked, of course, his choice of a
nom
de
plume
which suggests a mordant sense of humour. I believe also that he may bear a deep-seated grudge against the British Government. That, too, I shall explain later in greater detail.

‘To return to more immediate matters, the letter and the crate itself. They were delivered to number ten Downing Street on 25th February. On receiving them, the Prime Minister immediately contacted my brother Mycroft who, as you know, Watson, has the full confidence of the Government over all matters covering the security of the realm or any highly confidential state affairs. He, in turn, alerted me and a certain Inspector Unwin of Scotland Yard. Unwin is an excellent man, intelligent, efficient and utterly trustworthy. He has gathered together a small group of fellow officers with whom I am working in liaison.

‘So far we have followed several lines of investigation which seemed promising at the time but which unfortunately have come to very little. Allow me to give you a brief account.

‘Unwin’s men traced the carrier who delivered the crate and
the letter to Downing Street. They were handed in at the firm’s office in Holborn by a man whom the clerk described as short and sandy-haired, respectably dressed and wearing steel-rimmed eye-glasses but so insignificant in appearance that the clerk would not have taken note of him at all if it had not been the address to which the delivery was to be made. As he spoke with a faint foreign accent, I have no doubt that the man was the Pied Piper himself. He paid in cash and left no address.

‘The rat itself afforded us a little more evidence. It was examined by a specialist who identified it as being of the species
Rodentia
sumatrensis
and is,  as the name suggests, indigenous to the Far East, in particular to the island of Sumatra.
*
where it is known as the bamboo rat. Although it is the largest of the subgenus
Rhizomys,
it does not normally grow to such gigantic proportions as the specimen in the jar. In the wild, it inhabits extensive burrows and is reported to be particularly vicious, with a savage bite. Moreover, it has a life-span of up to four years.

‘This led us to make inquiries at the London docks about any ships which had called there recently from the Far East and we discovered one which appeared to fit our requirements. It was a cargo vessel which also carried a few passengers, among whom was a sandy-haired man in eye-glasses who called himself Van Breughel and who had boarded the boat at Padang, taking with him some personal luggage and, what is more pertinent to our investigation, several large metal crates with mesh sides which appeared to contain livestock. Van Breughel insisted that they were placed in a convenient part of the hold where he could have easy access to them in order to feed whatever creatures they contained which, I am convinced, were the very same rats he has threatened to introduce into the sewers.

‘Unfortunately, by the time we made our inquiries, the boat had already unloaded, taken on board a new cargo and departed on its return voyage to the Far East so we have been unable to contact its captain.

‘However, we learnt a little more from the dock officials. It seems that when the vessel came to be discharged, a fault was found in the lifting gear and, as the crates were too cumbersome to be manhandled out of the hold, they would have to be left
in
situ
until one of their own engineers was free to repair the mechanism of the hoist.

‘On being informed of this, Van Breughel became extremely angry and, declaring that his cargo might perish if it were left any longer on board the vessel, insisted that an engineer from a private firm be immediately sent for in order that the lifting gear might be mended without any further delay.

‘Consequently, a Mr Dodds from an engineering assessors in Old Jewry arrived at the docks to repair the mechanical fault in the equipment and the crates were subsequently lifted from the hold.

‘I interviewed Mr Dodds who had good reason to remember Van Breughel. Using the excuse that, as he had recently arrived in this country he had not yet opened a bank account nor had he enough money on him to pay in cash, Van Breughel asked for the bill to be sent to an address in Hertfordshire which proved, on later inquiry, to be false. Mr Dodds was, however, sufficiently suspicious of his client to take a keen interest in his behaviour and, fortunately for us, he observed the crates being loaded into the back of a large, covered van, bearing neither the name nor the address of any firm or business, but which was driven by a thick-set, swarthy-looking man. We therefore know that Van Breughel, alias the Pied Piper, has an accomplice.

‘Mr Dodds also observed Van Breughel getting into a cab with a large valise which he seemed reluctant to entrust to the van driver and overheard him telling the driver to take him to Charing Cross, which further aroused Mr Dodds’ suspicions as the trains for Hertfordshire depart from St Pancras, not Charing Cross.

‘To cut a very long story short, Unwin, his men and I made
inquiries at Charing Cross and discovered that our quarry caught the 5.15 train to Chatham. Once again, it was his reluctance to part with money which made him conspicuous. A porter at Charing Cross, who carried his valise to the train, remembers the man for the smallness of the tip he gave him. Further inquiries along the line at every station at which the train halted on its route to Chatham established the fact that he alighted at Wellerby, undertipping another porter who carried his valise to a nearby hotel, the Maltby Arms. Here our quarry dined and was again remembered for the paucity of his remuneration by a waiter who reported that he was collected by a swarthy-looking man, the same individual, I am convinced, who was in charge of the van although on this occasion he was driving a gig. The two men then drove off together.

‘It is here that our inquiries have foundered and where I shall need your assistance, Watson. All of this happened five days ago and since then neither Inspector Unwin, his assistants nor I have been able to discover any trace of either Van Breughel or his accomplice. No one in the area of Wellerby appears to have any knowledge of them.