The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (27 page)

exclaimed. "Really, sir, I hardly think—"

"Come now," smiled Sherlock Holmes, filling three glasses at the sideboard and

handing one to our visitor. "It is a chill morning and I can heartily recommend the rarity of

this vintage."

With a slight frown of disapproval, Sir John Doverton lifted the glass to his lips. There

was a moment of silence broken by a sudden startled cry. Our visitor, his face as white as

the piece of linen which he had put to his mouth, stared wildly from Holmes to the

flaming, flashing crystal which had fallen from his lips into his handkerchief. "The Abbas

Ruby!" he gasped.

Sherlock Holmes broke into a hearty laugh and clapped his hands together.

"Really you must forgive me!" he cried. "My friend Dr. Watson will tell you that I

can never resist these somewhat dramatic touches. It is perhaps the Vernet blood in my

veins."

Sir John Doverton gazed thunder-struck at the great jewel, smouldering and winking

against its background of white linen.

"Good heavens, I can scarcely credit my own eyes," he said in a shaking voice. "But

how on earth did you recover it?"

"Ah, there I must crave your indulgence. Suffice to say that your butler, Joliffe, who was

a sorely wronged man, was released this morning and that the jewel is now returned safely

to its rightful owner," replied Holmes kindly. "Here is the locket and chain from which I

took the liberty of removing the stone in order that I might play my little trick upon you

by concealing the ruby in your port wine. I beg that you will press the matter no further."

"It shall be as you wish, Mr. Holmes," said Sir John earnestly. "Indeed I have cause to

place every confidence in your judgement. But what can I do to express—"

"Well, I am far from a rich man and I shall leave it to you whether or not I have

deserved your five thousand pounds reward."

"Many times over," cried John Doverton, drawing a cheque-book from his pocket

"Furthermore, I shall send you a cutting from my red camellias."

Holmes bowed gravely.

"I shall place it in the special charge of Watson," he said. "By the way, Sir John, I will

be glad if you would make out two separate cheques. One for £2500 in favour of Sherlock

Holmes, and the other for a similar amount in favour of Andrew Joliffe. I fear that from

this time forward you might find your former butler a trifle nervous in his domestic duties,

and this sum of money should be ample to set him up in the cigar business, thus fulfilling

the secret ambition of his life. Thank you, my dear sir. And now I think that for once we

might really break our morning habits and, by partaking a glass of port, modestly celebrate

the successful conclusion of the case of the Abbas Ruby."

Since . . . our visit to Devonshire, he had been engaged in two affairs of the utmost

importance . . . the famous card scandal of the Nonpareil Club ... and the unfortunate

Madame Montpensier.

FROM "THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES."

9

The Adventure of the Dark Angels

"I am
afraid, Watson, that the Nordic temperament offers little scope for the student of crime.

It tends towards an altogether deplorable banality," remarked Holmes, as we turned from

Oxford Street towards the less crowded pavements of Baker Street. It was a clear, crisp

morning in May of 1901 and the uniforms of the lean, bronzed men who were flocking the

streets on leave from the South African war struck a note of welcome gaiety against the sombre

dresses of the women who were still in mourning for the death of the late Queen.

"I can remind you, Holmes, of a dozen instances among your own cases that disprove

your assertion," I replied, noting with some satisfaction that our morning walk had brought a

touch of colour to my friend's sallow cheeks.

"For instance?" he asked.

"Well, Dr. Grimesby Roylott of infamous memory. The use of a tame snake for the

purpose of murder cannot be lightly dismissed as a banality."

"My dear fellow, your example proves my contention. From some fifty cases, we recall Dr.

Roylott, 'Holy' Peters and one or two others merely for the reason that they employed an

imaginative approach to crime which was startlingly at variance with the normal practice.

Indeed, I am sometimes tempted to think that, just as Cuvier could reconstruct the complete

animal from one bone, so the logical reasoner could tell from a nation's cooking the prevailing

characteristics of the nation's criminals."

"I can observe no parallel," I laughed.

"Think it over, Watson. There, incidentally," he continued, gesturing with his stick towards

a chocolate-coloured omnibus which, with a grinding of brakes and a merry jingle from the

horses' harness, had drawn up on the opposite side, "you have a good example. It is one of

the French omnibuses. Look at the driver, Watson, all fire and nerves and concentrated emotion

as he argues with the petty officer on long leave from a naval shore station. It is the difference

between the subtle and the positive, French sauce and English gravy. How could two such men

approach crime from the same angle?"

"Be that as it may," I replied, "I fail to see how you can tell that the man in the check coat

is a petty officer on long leave."

"Tut, Watson, when a man wearing a Crimea ribbon on his waistcoat, and therefore too

old for active service, is shod in comparatively new naval boots, it is surely obvious that he

has been recalled from retirement. His air of authority is above that of the ordinary sailor

and yet his complexion is no more bronzed or wind-roughened than that of the bus-driver. The

man is a naval petty officer attached to a shore station or training camp."

"And the long leave?"

"He is in civilian clothes and yet has not been discharged, for you will observe that he is

filling his pipe from a plug of regulation naval twist which is unobtainable at tobacconists. But

here we are at 221-B and in time, I trust, to catch the visitor who has called during our

absence."

I surveyed the blank door of the house. "Really, Holmes!" I protested. "You go a little too

far."

"Very seldom, Watson. The wheels of most public carriages are repainted at this time of

the year and if you will bother to glance at the kerb you will perceive a long green mark

where a wheel has scraped the edge and which was not there when we departed an hour ago.

The cab was kept waiting for sometime, for the driver has twice knocked out the dottle

from his pipe. We can but hope that the fare decided to await our return after dismissing the

vehicle."

As we mounted the stairs, Mrs. Hudson appeared from the lower regions.

"There's been a visitor here nigh on an hour, Mr. Holmes," she stated. "She is waiting in

your sitting-room, and that tired she looked, the poor pretty creature, that I took the liberty of

bringing her a nice strong cup of tea."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson. You did very well."

My friend glanced at me and smiled but there was a gleam in his deep-set eyes. "The

game's afoot, Watson," he said quietly.

Upon our entering the sitting-room, our visitor rose to meet us. She was a fair-haired

young lady, still in her early twenties, slim and dainty, with a delicate complexion and large

blue eyes that contained a hint of violet in their depths. She was plainly but neatly dressed in

a fawn-coloured travelling-costume with a hat of the same colour relieved by a small mauve

feather. I noted these details almost unconsciously for, as a medical man, my attention was

arrested at once by the dark shadows lurking beneath her eyes and the quiver of her lips that

betrayed an intensity of nervous tension perilously near the breaking-point.

With an apology for his absence, Holmes ushered her to a chair before the fireplace, and then

sinking into his own surveyed her searchingly from beneath his heavy lids.

"I perceive that you are deeply troubled," he said kindly. "Rest assured that Dr. Watson

and I are here to serve you, Miss..."

"My name is Daphne Ferrers," supplied our visitor. Then, leaning forward suddenly in

her chair, she stared up into Holmes's face with a singular intentness. "Would you say that the

heralds of death are dark angels?" she whispered.

Holmes shot me a swift glance.

"You have no objection to my pipe, I trust, Miss Ferrers," said he, stretching out an arm

towards the mantelpiece. "Now, young lady, we have all to meet a Dark Angel eventually,

but that is hardly an adequate reason for consulting two middle-aged gentlemen in

Baker Street. You would do far better to tell me your story from the beginning."

"How foolish you must think me," cried Miss Ferrers, the pallor of her cheeks giving place

to a faint but becoming blush. "And yet, when you have heard my story, when you have heard

the very facts that are driving me slowly mad with fear, you may only laugh at me."

"Rest assured that I shall not."

Our visitor paused for a moment as though marshalling her thoughts, and then plunged

forthwith into her strange narrative.

"You must know, then, that I am the daughter and only child of Josua Ferrers of

Abbotstanding in Hampshire," she began. "My father's cousin is Sir Robert Norburton of

Shoscombe Old Place, with whom you were acquainted some years ago, and it was on his

recommendation that I have rushed to you at the climax of my troubles."

Holmes, who had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, took his pipe from his

mouth.

"Why, then, did you not come to me last night when you arrived in town instead of waiting

until this morning?" he interposed.

Miss Ferrers started visibly.

"It was only when I dined with Sir Robert last night that he advised me to see you. But I

do not understand, Mr. Holmes, how could you know ..."

"Tut, young lady, it is simple enough. The right cuff and elbow of your jacket bear slight

but unmistakable traces of sooty dust inseparable from a window-seat in a railway carriage.

Your shoes, on the other hand, are perfectly cleaned and burnished to that high degree of polish

that is characteristic of a good hotel."

"Do you not think, Holmes," I interrupted, "that we should listen without further ado to

Miss Ferrers' story. Speaking as a medical man, it is high time that her troubles were lifted

from her shoulders."

Our fair visitor thanked me prettily with a glance from her blue eyes.

"As you should know by now, Watson, I have my methods," said Holmes with some

asperity. "However, Miss Ferrers, we are all attention. Pray continue."

"I should explain," she went on "that the earlier part of my father's life was spent in Sicily

where he had inherited large interests in vineyards and olive groves. Following my mother's

death, he seemed to tire of the country and, having amassed a considerable fortune, my father

sold his interests and retired to England. For more than a year, we moved from county to

county in search of a house that should suit my father's somewhat peculiar requirements before

deciding at length on Abbotstanding near Beaulieu in the New Forest."

"One moment, Miss Ferrers. Pray enumerate these peculiar requirements."

"My father is of a singularly retiring disposition, Mr. Holmes. Above all else, he insisted on a

sparsely populated locality, and an estate that should lie at some miles' distance from the

nearest railway station. In Abbotstanding, an almost ruinous castellated mansion of great

antiquity and once the hunting-lodge of the Abbots of Beaulieu, he found what he sought and,

certain necessary repairs having been effected, we settled finally into our home. That, Mr.

Holmes, was five years ago, and from that day to this we have lived under the shadow of a

nameless, shapeless dread."

"If nameless and shapeless, then how were you aware of its existence?"

"Through the circumstances governing our lives. My father would permit no social contact

with our few neighbours and even our household needs were supplied not from the nearest

village but by carrier's van from Lyndhurst. The staff consists of the butler McKinney, a surly,

morose man whom my father hired in Glasgow, and his wife and her sister who share the

domestic work between them."

"And the outside staff?"

"There are none. The grounds were permitted to become a wilderness and the place is

already overrun with vermin of all descriptions."

"I see nothing alarming in these circumstances, Miss Ferrers," remarked Holmes. "Indeed, if

I lived in the country, I should probably create around me very similar conditions to discourage

unprofitable intercourse with my neighbours. The household consists, then, of yourself and

your father and the three servants?"

"The household, yes. But there is a cottage on the estate occupied by Mr. James Tonston

who for many years managed our Sicilian vineyards before accompanying my father on his return

to England. He acts as bailiff."

Holmes raised his eyebrows. "Indeed," said he. "An estate that is allowed to grow into a

wilderness, no tenants and a bailiff. Surely a somewhat curious anomaly?"