The Execution of Sherlock Holmes (25 page)

Holmes took him through the course of his life, eliciting how one of nine pauper children born in the workhouse had by dint of hard work become foreman carpenter at Smyth’s Seed Drill Works in Peasenhall. He had taken a loving wife from the Primitive Methodist congregation at Sibton, two miles away, and accepted salvation through its faith. He rose through the ranks of the chapel as he had done at the works. At thirty-four, this pauper child was assistant steward, Sunday school superintendent, choirmaster, and organist, though the choir was a mere dozen voices and organ-playing little more than an accompaniment of chords on the harmonium. It was in this Methodist chapel that William Gardiner, the married man, had met Rose Harsent, who was twenty years old at the time. It seemed that she had been brought to the primitive faith by her former suitor, though their courtship had now ended. Miss Rose had been a member of Gardiner’s little choir and had asked him to teach her the harmonium.

Among his other accomplishments, he could read well and write passably, though his penmanship lacked a number of refinements. His reputation with his employers was such that two years earlier he had been sent to manage the firm’s stand at the Paris Exhibition and had written several letters to them reporting on the event. It was said among some of his more envious neighbours that he had ‘done well for a workhouse brat.’

‘Very good then,’ said Holmes, when all this ground had been cleared. ‘Now let us come, if you please, to the night of 1 May, thirteen months before the murder. It was the evening that gave rise to so much talk about you and Miss Rose Harsent, was it not? Tell us what you did and where you were between seven and nine o’clock.’

Gardiner held his gaze once more.

‘That is easily done, sir. I had been driving Mr. Smyth on business that afternoon, over to Dunwich. He will vouch for it that we were late back. We came to the drill works again just after seven that evening. I rubbed down the horse, which is my job, and gave him his feed. Yet the animal would not take the bait to start him eating. I thought I should leave him a while and then, if he still would not eat, I must report the matter to Mr. Smyth. Home I went and had my tea at seven thirty, as my wife will tell you. The walk is a quarter mile or so and not more than six or seven minutes.’

‘At what time do you usually have your tea?’ asked Holmes.

‘Normally, sir, I have my tea at six. On this occasion, it was a little before eight when I finished the meal and about five minutes after that when I was ready to go out again. Then I went back to the drill works to attend to the horse, to see if he had eaten. I found that he had. I would have reached the works very soon after eight o’clock, I daresay not much more than five minutes past. I came out again about eight fifteen. It was then that I saw Miss Rose Harsent standing by the gate of what we call the Doctor’s Chapel, which she cleaned every week. I did not see Wright hanging about then. If he was there, he was concealed from me. Rose was in service with Mr. and Mrs. Crisp at Providence House. That chapel was Congregational. Mr. Crisp being one of the deacons, cleaning it was part of Rose’s duties.’

‘You went across the road to her?’

‘No, sir. She called me over and said that she had finished her cleaning but could not get the chapel door to close, so that she might lock it. She had been a friend to Mrs. Gardiner and me for a few years, so naturally I went to help. The door was an old one and I found that the rain had swollen it at the bottom. I caught hold and gave it a good slam, enough to close it so that it might be locked. We came back down the path together, for the chapel stands back thirty yards from the road. That is the distance they have now measured. We walked together a little way to Providence House, a few minutes, half of my way home. We talked of chapel matters as we went, choosing hymns for the anniversary and so on. I left her at the corner, saw her go into Providence House, and walked the rest of the way home, just a couple of minutes more. And that was all there was to it, sir, no matter what they may say. My wife will tell you that I was home before half past eight.’

Inspector Lestrade had been fretting to get his own question in.

‘What of the young man, George Wright, who tells a different story?’

‘I saw him twice, sir. When I left the Seed Drill Works and went home to my tea, just before seven thirty, he was hanging about the gate of the works. He was there, still hanging about, when I went back about half an hour or so later. I knew him, of course, for he is a labourer at the works, but I never stopped to say more than a word as I passed.’

‘And that is all?’

‘And that is all, sir.’

‘Not quite,’ said Lestrade ominously, ‘for this is not a court of law and the suspicion still stands against you. What do you say to the allegations of Wright and Skinner? Please do not tell me that it is all a lie from beginning to end, for that will not do in this room. William Wright swears on his oath in court that he saw Rose Harsent enter the Doctor’s Chapel about seven thirty that evening. He saw you follow her a few minutes later. Contemptible though it may be, he then went to fetch his young friend Alfonso Skinner to have some fun, as he put it, by spying on you and the young woman. At about eight o’clock these two youths crouched down behind a hedge, on a high bank near the southwest window of the chapel. They have sworn in court that they heard your voice and that of a young woman, whom they later saw to be Rose Harsent. They heard the sounds of an act of gross indecency. …’

Gardiner’s face was tight as canvas under full sail and dark as indigo.

‘It is. … ’

‘Kindly do not interrupt me,’ said the Scotland Yard man calmly, ‘and in your own best interests do not tell me again that it is a foul lie unless you can show that to be true. These two young men heard the two of you clearly enough. Your voices were plain enough for Skinner to make out the exact passage from the thirty-eighth chapter of the Book of Genesis which you and Rose Harsent used to describe your misconduct. Wright left his friend for about ten minutes during the time that you were in the chapel with the girl. He came back and stayed another fifteen minutes. He was in time to hear the rest of your conversation and to see you both leave. From where they were hidden, they were able to see the girl leave first and then to watch you following her.’

Gardiner would keep silent no longer.

‘It is an abominable falsehood! By all I hold sacred, it is! A libel on holy scripture as surely as on my reputation! Why should they do such a thing to me? I never in my life wished them harm.’

Sherlock Holmes intervened.

‘One moment, Lestrade. Is it said that Mr. Gardiner and the girl left the chapel together?’

Lestrade turned over several pages of his papers.

‘According to Skinner, Rose Harsent left and Gardiner followed a few minutes later. The girl went on ahead to Providence House, he says, while Gardiner came out, tiptoed across to the other side of the road, and took the same direction. Skinner followed him in turn. I daresay, Mr. Holmes, your cases are in a superior class to this kind of thing. For your information, however, guilty parties in conduct of this kind seldom leave the scene of their amours together.’

For some reason that was not plain to me at that moment, a look of relief appeared on the face of Sherlock Holmes. Before he could speak, however, Gardiner burst out again.

‘Those two young men say they hid behind that hedge about twenty minutes after eight. I was on my way home from the chapel by then. Skinner says they were there about an hour, and Wright too, except for the ten minutes he was away walking about the road. I was at home before all that. He says he was there for an hour and Wright was there three-quarters of an hour. As my wife will tell you, I was with her all the time that this wickedness was supposed to be happening at the chapel. She knows it, and for that reason she never believed a single word that these slanderers spoke.’

‘So she has said,’ Lestrade remarked coldly. Gardiner stared at him.

‘Will you believe these two foul-minded rascals or her? I never saw Rose Harsent at all that evening except when I came out of the works at about quarter past eight. I went to the Doctor’s Chapel and slammed the door so that she could lock up. I never so much as set foot inside the building beyond that. When I heard what was said about me by those two young men, I started an action for slander.’

‘And withdrew it,’ Lestrade said quietly.

‘Only because the attorney told me that those two had nothing and I must pay the costs even if I won. I had not the money to pay costs. After that, there was always two of those wretches to back each other up. I had only my wife, who is disbelieved because she is my wife, and Rose, who might have spoken for me too. But I could not put that girl through such an ordeal as an action for slander.’

Holmes leant forward a little and took up the questioning.

‘Mr. Gardiner, tell me this. It is a very simple question. Let us suppose it was only slander or malice on the part of Wright and Skinner, perhaps a vicious sense of fun. Why would these two youths stick to their falsehood after Rose Harsent had been murdered and your life was at stake in a murder trial?’

I quite expected Gardiner to act a dramatic part over this, but he became very quiet.

‘Because, Mr. Holmes, they are evil through and through. That is the simple answer to your simple question, and I will tell you why I make it. They saw that if they told the truth and admitted their falsehoods about me after Rose died, I should certainly be acquitted on the charge of murdering her. There would be nothing to connect me with this young woman in an immoral way and their lies would be turned against them. They feared that when I was set free, I should find the money to sue them in earnest for their slanders. I would have the decision of a jury behind me. And they knew very well I should win. Worse than that, for them, they might be indicted for perjury and sent to prison for many years. What worse perjury can there be than trying to swear a man’s life away? Rather than risk prison, they would see me hanged. It was the only way they could be safe. I never said any of this when I was in the witness-box, for it would be no evidence in the case. My only witness to the truth, Rose Harsent, was dead. But as you ask me, Mr. Holmes, that is the depth of their evil. Those two are a hundred times more likely to have murdered her than anyone else I can think of.’

It was an argument that might have gone against him in court, when he was cross-examined. Spoken in that prison room, as he spoke them, the words carried a terrible probability to my mind, though not to the Chief Inspector’s.

‘It is easy enough, Gardiner, to call men evil,’ said Lestrade sharply, ‘but of little use unless you can show them to be so. These are two witnesses who submitted to the chapel inquiry, which they were not bound to do, and have never refused to cooperate with the law.’

‘I can show you what they are!’ said Gardiner quietly, and for the first time his dark eyes glittered with malice. ‘Suppose, sir, you had seen filthy behaviour of the kind they allege, seen it between a young woman you knew and a married man who was also of your acquaintance. What would you have done?’

Lestrade colored a little at this.

‘You are not here to ask questions, Gardiner, but to answer them!’

‘All the same, Lestrade,’ said Holmes gently, ‘it may do no harm in this one instance.’

Lestrade glared at him, I can use no other word. Reluctantly, he gave way.

‘Very well, if I knew the fellow, I should take him on one side and speak to him.’

‘Just so,’ said Gardiner gratefully, ‘or, sir, if that accomplished nothing, you might speak to his wife. You would not ignore the man and his wife but spread dirty stories of him behind his back, among all those who knew him. Among his neighbours and friends. There, sir, is the difference between the good and the evil man. Whether you believe me or them, I leave you to judge of what kind these two witnesses show themselves to be. Evil tongues.’

‘The tongue can no man tame,’ said Holmes thoughtfully, ‘it is an unruly evil.’

‘Full of deadly poison,’ Gardiner took up the quotation. ‘The General Epistle of James, Mr. Holmes, sir, chapter three, verse eight.’

By the time that Holmes and Lestrade had finished questioning Gardiner over the allegations of his conduct with Rose Harsent, it seemed to me that a long couple of hours had passed. So great had been the intensity of these exchanges that it was only when we stepped out into the dark prison courtyard that I looked at my watch and saw that four hours and a half had gone by.

Darkness had fallen before we stood in that yard with a winter drizzle falling. The oil light was reflected in pools on the smooth paving of the yard and on the rough stonework of its walls. The burly figure of Lestrade in his travelling cloak confronted Sherlock Holmes as we waited under the light of the stone porch for Arthur Leighton and the cab that was to take us to the White Horse hotel.

‘Well, Mr. Holmes,’ said the Scotland Yard man rather huffily, ‘I don’t see how all that has got us much further. I don’t believe your client stands an inch further from the noose.’

‘He is not my client,’ said Holmes patiently. ‘Mr. Wild is my client, so far as I have one. I am prepared to find Gardiner guilty or innocent, as the evidence presents itself. Yet if you believe that what we have heard gets us no further, I shall be sadly disappointed in you.’

‘I say only that we have wasted our time this afternoon.’

Holmes rounded on him.

‘This allegation of misconduct in the Doctor’s Chapel is the only sinister link between the accused and Rose Harsent prior to the murder. She was a member of the Primitive Methodist congregation, a friend of Gardiner and his wife who visited their house regularly. She continued to pay these visits after the scandal broke. That could hardly be the case if Mrs. Gardiner believed her husband to be the girl’s lover. The world has seen that good lady twice in the witness-box. Is it likely that such a woman would have welcomed Gardiner’s mistress under her roof—as the companion of her six children? Gardiner denies the truth of the scandal, his wife denounces it as impossible because he was at home with her at the material times. If it were not for the story told by Wright and Skinner, Gardiner’s name would have no connexion with the murder nor, indeed, with the pregnancy of Rose Harsent. I do not think, Lestrade, that we have wasted our time.’