Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly (25 page)

“Of course,” said Holmes casually, “and that is why Miles was never to see him, except possibly once at the window of a tower in the dark. Miss Temple was to identify him, with Mrs Grose's assistance. Major Mordaunt could carry off an impersonation for the benefit of Miss Temple, who had never seen Quint himself. The same build, the same clothes, the hair-piece of unusual red and the whiskers. For good measure, Flora saw the real Miss Jessel and knew she could not be mistaken. If Miles Mordaunt truly believed in the powers of darkness, then from all he heard he must have thought his prayers had been answered.”

“Apparitions?” Gregson asked anxiously.

“Only Miss Temple was to see apparitions of both the so-called Quint and Miss Jessel. If Mrs Grose confirmed the descriptions, there was powerful temptation for Miles to believe. Small wonder that the children talked excitedly together of little else but hauntings. They no doubt compared secrets about the two friends whom they must protect, even in death. We cannot be sure that it was Mordaunt whom Miss Temple had seen at the solicitor's office. She had never met him otherwise.”

So much for ghosts!

“The timing fits,” I said hastily, “There were no apparitions in the first months of Miss Temple's residence at Bly. They began only after Miles had been expelled from King Alfred's for his story of the Fifth Stone. With all his poisonous nonsense about devilry and fraud, the boy was a perfect victim for deception.”

Holmes turned again to the prisoner.

“Tell us, Miss Jessel!”

She spoke clearly but quietly, as though still in a state of shock.

“Once or twice James Mordaunt went to Bly on his own after Miss Temple came there. I do not know why or what he did there. He took me three times, after Miles was sent home from school. I had not been there otherwise since I left to have my child. Twice we slipped across to the island. I was to stand where Miss Temple should see me. I did not expect Mrs Grose to be with her but I moved back, out of her view.”

“And Flora was there?”

“James Mordaunt knew she would be sure to tell Miles. When I was governess, the island had been a special place for the master and me. Once we had taken the boat, no one else could cross and surprise us together. There is an old pavilion. They call it the Temple of Proserpine. We used to go there secretly when I was at Bly. After I left, he was always kind when we went back there, kind as he used to be. Kind for several days afterwards. He was different there, as if he knew it was his home.”

“And if you had refused to act your part in this masquerade?”

“If I did not behave sensibly, as he called it, the story of Peter Quint's death would come out in the end. He could easily escape to France, Spain, even to South America. He had the money. I should be left behind. What he asked of me was not much. I need only make Miss Temple believe his nonsense and leave us alone. I had no idea he might kill Peter Quint. I knew nothing of the Five Stones until after that. I was only to help him create a story of a poor mad governess and Miles, her besotted little admirer.”

Gregson's expression suggested that much of this was double-Dutch to him. With the curiosity of a medical man, however, there was one question I must ask.

“What of the Sunday? When Miss Temple came back early from church? What happened then?”

“It was an accident. We went early from Abbots Langley, on our way to Cambridge, to fetch some papers from his tower room, while all the people were at church. He came to me in the schoolroom when he saw Miss Temple walking back. He said that we should give her an experience she would never forget. It would keep her nose out of our business, that was the expression he used. If I heard her on the staircase, I must simply step through a narrow door at the far end of the schoolroom. The tower steps lie beyond. That was to be our escape. He went out to look again and then returned.”

Holmes intervened.

“Did Mordaunt have anything in his hands when he came back to the schoolroom?”

She sounded surprised that he should know.

“Why, yes. He was holding a mirror, four or five inches across, from his Army days in India. He showed it to me once before. It was what he called a field heliostat. I presume he kept it with his other souvenirs.”

“A square, plain-glass signal-mirror, in other words,” said Holmes approvingly. “From the Himalayas such a device has been known to flash Morse code messages as far as sixty miles. Small wonder if it blinded Miss Temple like a migraine, even in mild October sun!”

“He had not planned it,” she said, “but when the opportunity came he knew just what to do. That Sunday was like a day in summer. From behind the lace curtain that screened the oriel balcony where he waited, he caught the sun in the glass—he had been trained to do that—and shone it directly into her face. It almost blinded her but not before she caught a glimpse of me. I heard her cry out, ‘You terrible woman!' or something of the kind. She was fumbling or stumbling. There was a bump. Perhaps she fell, but I had gone out through the low doorway to the tower steps. I did not see what happened.”

Big Ben began to toll ten o'clock. Gregson had been patient during all this. Now he leant forward to our prisoner.

“Well, miss, act sensibly and you may have the means of getting free from this brute. But as Mr Holmes says, you must help us and you must do it quick-sharp. Tell us straight. Why should Mordaunt want Miles to believe in Quint's ghost?”

The look of exasperation in Holmes's eyes at the inspector's intervention is beyond description.

“To shut the boy's mouth!” he said impatiently. “Peter Quint turned to robbery—after he left the Army and before Major Mordaunt picked him up from the gutter and made him his valet. Is that not so, Miss Jessel? Quint was the Fifth Stone in the most important of your unsolved robberies and murders. Gossip has it there were five robbers to match the Five Stones. Evidence suggests there was one—Peter Quint. Robber and killer!”

Gregson glanced at Miss Jessel and then stared at Holmes again.

“How could a boy of ten know all this?”

Holmes glanced at his watch and then at the inspector.

“Quint treated him like a comrade in arms. It flattered the valet to entertain this child with stories of women and crime. Miles grew proud of the only man who seemed like a father to him. In a drunken or foolhardy moment, Quint boasted in some way of the Five Stones robbery. Soon after that Miles went to school. Boys of his age love to brag of their fathers. He showed off what Quint had taught him—selling his soul, the trick with the dice, the evil eye. He even talked of drowning his prim young governess because Quint said such kittens should be killed before they became cats. In the end Miles embroidered this tale of his friend by naming him as the Fifth Stone, but not as Quint. In revenge for some fancied ill-treatment, he also cast his abhorrent housemaster, Mair Loftus, as the gang's receiver who changed the stolen gold coins for bank-notes.”

“The story of a major robbery told in masquerade,” said Gregson softly. “Then the receiver of the gold was not Mair Loftus, was he, Mr Holmes? He was our man James Mordaunt!”

To look at Maria Jessel just then was once again to know the answer.

Before Holmes could reply, there was a knock at the door. A uniformed constable entered and presented a blue police telegram to Tobias Gregson. The inspector read it and then looked across the table at the police matron.

“Remove the prisoner!”

When Maria Jessel rose, it was obvious that she was shaking. She lost her footing as she crossed to the door but the matron's arm steadied her.

Gregson handed the form to Holmes. For my benefit, the inspector explained.

“When we arrived here, Dr Watson, I wired a request to the Royal Mail inspectors. Any communication sent to Major Mordaunt of Eaton Place to be delivered but its contents to be reported to me. After what she heard at the séance, I rather expected Miss Jessel would slip a message to her friend. She might care nothing for him, but his danger was just as much hers. This was despatched by telephone from Sambourne Avenue shortly before we detained her. To Major Mordaunt. 'The Fifth Stone is known. Cross at once. I will follow. Watch for me on the other side.'”

Holmes beamed at him.

“Cross at once, indeed!” Gregson said with satisfaction, “Watch for me on the other side! I shall wire every police-post at every cross-channel port. He fancies himself safe on the Continent, does Major Mordaunt. But not a man shall leave for France nor the Hook of Holland tonight without giving an account of himself. I fancy we shall have him, Mr Holmes!”

Holmes stared at him.

“Well done, Gregson! You are ahead of the game this time and no mistake. I prophesy there will be no stopping you!”

Even Gregson caught the irony in this. He looked as if he did not quite know how to reply.

“Of course, you do not know what your man looks like by now,” Holmes continued cheerfully, “but do not let that discourage you. Suppose him to be thick set with mutton-chop whiskers and piercing eyes, or something of that kind. You will have him the minute he tries to book his passage.”

Before I could intervene, there came a second knock at the door. It was the young uniformed constable again, looking far more flustered than before and short of breath.

“Telephone call to your office, Mr Gregson. Compliments of duty inspector, Belgravia. A gunshot was fired in Eaton Place five minutes ago. No report of injuries but no further information. A service revolver by the sound of it.”

10

B
efore Tom Rathbone returned the picnic hamper and its contents to Baker Street, Holmes had rescued his long grey travelling cloak and close-fitting cloth cap. The effect of these was to make him look taller and leaner than ever. We were now both dressed for the occasion as the footsteps of the CID officers clattered ahead of us like a troop of cavalry down the stone steps which led to the transport bay of Scotland Yard. For the benefit of Gregson, Holmes called out,

“You have the instinct of a marksman, Mr Gregson.”

“We don't carry guns on duty, Mr Holmes. You know that.”

“You miss the point, my dear fellow. After Miss Jessel's warning to him, we may take it that you now have Major Mordaunt as a target on the wing.”

“Or with a bullet through his brain,” I suggested, too quietly for the inspector to hear.

Gregson glanced over his shoulder. Here was my chance.

“Twenty years ago, Gregson, our man fought in a successful guerrilla war across Afghanistan, under Major-General Sir Frederick Roberts, as he was then. So did I. His regiment, the Queen's Rifles, scouted over the most hostile terrain you can imagine. Leaving a dark house, hidden by shrubbery, on a moonless night would be child's play.”

“Take no notice of Watson, inspector, you will have your man!”

Gregson withdrew into a suspicious silence, no doubt brooding over the interruption of his questions to Miss Jessel. We followed him to the Embankment Gate of Great Scotland Yard. The quarters of half-past ten droned through the air from Parliament and a light rain began to fall. The inspector hoisted his bulk into the black cab that had brought Maria Jessel from Kensington. It bore us past Westminster Abbey in the lamplight and into the dim reaches of Victoria Street, its shops and offices unlit. A scent of oranges and peaches from the greengrocers' stalls of the South Coast Railway hung in the mild rainy air at Victoria Station.

Mordaunt had caught himself in a trap of his own making! Quint and Miss Jessel had certainly earned the reputation that Mrs Grose gave them. What the good housekeeper did not know was that with every arrival of Mordaunt at Bly, the young woman must slip from the embrace of a menial into the arms of her master. The vicious passion of Quint and the arrogance of Mordaunt were well matched. For a master to seduce a governess was a cliché of fiction. For the young woman to be the mistress of a valet at the same time—carrying that valet's child!—foreshadowed catastrophe for all concerned.

Twice in my professional career I had encountered a man and woman drawn together by such animal attraction and held together by a crime. Yoked together in fear, passion grown cold, there was as much love then as between two ferrets confined in a sack. Mordaunt and Miss Jessel had nothing to hold them but a memory of Quint and a sick fear of the noose. The master hardly dared let the young woman out of his sight. He was secure only through Charles Alfred, held as an innocent ransom in the cruel confinement of William Shaw's baby farm at Greta Bridge.

The conclusion was plain as a proof in geometry. There could now be no safety for either party except through the death of the other. But how might that be accomplished?

We crossed Buckingham Palace Road and came to the cream fronts and garden shrubberies of Eaton Place.

These villas and mansions seemed quiet enough, but I made out half a dozen helmeted figures among the bushes. Those who had been on observation earlier had no doubt dived for cover as soon as they heard the gunshot. There was still confusion. Several uniformed men were arguing as to whether there had been one shot or two—or possibly even three. A stationary cab on the adjoining side of the square contained two or three plain-clothes officers, no doubt issued with police pistols.

The disturbance had drawn residents and passers-by to their vantage points. On the next street corner a knot of sightseers had gathered from the saloon bar of the Royal Clarence Hotel. Several wore the brown-and-white-check overcoats of rat-catchers or racing tipsters.

Within its shrubbery, Mordaunt's villa was immediately opposite us. Heavy curtains had been drawn across the tall ground-floor windows. There was no sign of light or movement.

“I never knew a suicide who bothered to turn the lights off before despatching himself,” Holmes said thoughtfully.

As a military man, I found the concealment of the police officers deplorable. An old soldier like Mordaunt with Indian service in his blood would spot their first movement from behind his darkened windows. Alerted by Miss Jessel, startled into action, he would not miss a single movement.