The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes (53 page)

‘I fear,' said Holmes, waving aside a cloud of tobacco smoke, ‘that no one could accuse Mr Thomson's client of subtlety.'

Marshall Hall shook his head.

‘As a result of the reports from the insurance offices, the body was exhumed. There was no blackening round the head-wound, just behind the right ear. Therefore the shot could not have come from less than three feet. By the spread of shot, it was probably thirty feet away. We know from other witnesses that only Monson was that far away at the time. Since the investigation was renewed and the major arrested, Scott has fled and will no doubt be outlawed when Monson is charged.'

Holmes was now jotting a few scattered notes on a sheet of paper.

‘After the boating-accident, Hamborough made no accusation?'

‘None. However, Monson is arrested on suspicion, for that incident as well as the shooting.'

‘And what would you have me do?'

‘Prove the major's innocence,' said Marshall Hall simply, ‘for that is what it will mean, no matter what the law says about a presumption in favour of the defendant. The facts are deadly and the prejudice at his fraudulent way of life will go deep in any panel of jurors.'

‘His position does seem quite hopeless, from all that you have been told?'

‘As much so as any I have ever known.'

‘Good,' said Holmes briskly. ‘Then I shall certainly take the case. I confess that Watson and I had made no plans to go to Scotland just now. However, such a very incriminating set of circumstances really is too good to overlook.'

‘Could you go at once?'

My friend looked a little doubtful.

‘There is Kreisler at the Wigmore Hall this evening and I must have time to put matters in order for our absence. The criminal fraternity is apt to become over-excited when I am out of town, and Scotland Yard feels lonely. Will you give me a day's grace and allow us to take the North-Western Railway tomorrow?'

There was no mistaking the relief in the lawyer's face.

‘That would be splendid. Monson is certain to be formally charged with murder and brought before the sheriff's court. The Procurator Fiscal works more slowly and thoroughly than the English police. Charges will be brought soon but hardly before Wednesday.'

‘Capital,' said Holmes quietly, making a final note. ‘Then we shall take the North-Western Railway express from Euston, tomorrow morning at ten.'

II

Our first visit in Glasgow on the Wednesday morning was not to Ardlamont House but to the sheriff's court, in whose basement lay a concrete and white-tiled corridor of police-cells. We had been met by Mr Comrie Thomson at the Central Station on the previous evening with the news that Major Monson was now formally charged with the attempted murder of Cecil Hamborough in respect of the boating incident on 9 August and with actual murder for the Ardlamont shooting on 10 August. Of Scott,
alias
Davis,
alias
Sweeney, there was still no sign.

On that Wednesday morning, we met Mr Thomson in front of the grim pillared façade of the High Court Buildings. From there it was a very little distance to the court where Monson was to appear at a formal committal hearing. As we made our way, Mr Thomson said mournfully, ‘I cannot say that it looks hopeful, gentlemen. There are now two more witnesses who were in the schoolhouse on the edge of the Ardlamont wood and another who was working on the road to one side. They saw the three men enter the wood, well apart, Monson on the right, Hamborough in the middle, Scott on the left. They all agree that only two shots were fired after that. Unfortunately none of the guns was examined at the time, Dr Macmillan having certified death from accidental shooting. However, the first shot came from the direction of Major Monson, who was behind Hamborough and Scott and to their right. The second was either the accidental discharge of Hamborough's gun, a second shot by Monson, or a shot by Scott. We cannot be sure.'

‘What of the ranges?'

Mr Thomson shook his head.

‘The spread of the pellet-holes in the trees where the body lay, and the width of the wound behind the young man's ear, suggest that only Monson can have been far enough away to have fired the fatal shot. Had Scott been as far as thirty feet to the rear, he would have been seen from the road that passes the schoolhouse where one of the witnesses was working. He was not seen. I am informed privately on the best authority that if Hamborough had shot himself at a range of even three feet, it would have blown his head clean off.'

‘Then we must pay a little more attention to Edward Scott,' said Holmes thoughtfully.

Thomson shook his head.

‘Scott was not only too close to fire the fatal shot, Mr Holmes, he was on the wrong side of Hamborough. Hamborough was hit in the right side of the head, where only Major Monson fired.'

‘Well, well,' said Holmes philosophically, ‘then it does not look good for Major Monson.'

‘It looks bad, Mr Holmes. And then there is the insurance on the young man's life …'

‘So there is,' Holmes said brightly. ‘Let us see what our client has to say for himself when the case comes on.'

During these preliminary proceedings, we had what proved to be our first and last view of Major Monson as he stood in the dock of the panelled court-room. When the accused was ‘put up', he appeared above the rail of the dock as a stout, unprepossessing man in his late thirties with a clipped ginger moustache and hair to match. His watery eyes and stocky build made him appear somewhat older than he was. I had seen his type often during my army service, the adjutant who passes his life at the depot, shuffling papers, then takes his pension at forty and lives the rest of his life at Cheltenham or Harrogate as the gallant swordsman of a middle-aged spinster's dream. From time to time, during the interval before the proceedings began, a nervous ferret-like smile broke cover from Monson's ginger moustache as he recognized someone he knew.

Before the matter went further, there was some discussion between the sheriff and Mr John Blair who was Monson's agent, or solicitor as he would have been in England. This revealed the unsurprising fact that the major was an undischarged bankrupt and must rely upon a poor prisoner's defence to pay his costs, which had already begun to mount up. This financing of the case occupied several minutes of discussion.

‘I understand, Major Monson, that you have been an undischarged bankrupt for the past two years?' inquired the sheriff.

‘That is so,' said the rheumy-eyed trickster.

‘You and your wife employed a maid, a nanny for your children, and were able to afford a summer at Ardlamont House. How was that?'

‘It was all Mrs Monson's money, sir.' The major's eyes watered harder, as if he might weep for pity.

There followed a recital by the prosecution of the preliminary case against the accused. Such evidence was damning enough in itself but Monson made it a good deal worse by his frightened interjections. The sheriff, either wanting to be fair to him or perhaps to let him damn himself, allowed him too much latitude. When Mr Cowan, for the Solicitor-General, remarked that the major had insured Cecil Hamborough's life for £30,000, the watery eyes cleared a little as if there was still some fight in him.

‘There is no law against that, sir! The boy had broken with his father. This was the only means by which Lieutenant Hamborough could repay board, lodging and tuition, if he should not live to get his military position, don't you see?'

‘Board and lodging at £30,000?' Mr Cowan asked the question of everyone who heard it. ‘And, indeed, he did not live to get his position, did he?'

Mr Thomson looked down at the floor and Sherlock Holmes at the ceiling. The major's face was a grimace of pure terror, as if Mr Cowan had been the hangman entering his cell on the last fateful morning.

Presently, in his recital of the evidence for the sheriff's benefit, Mr Cowan came to the events in the woods and the firing of the shot that killed Cecil Hamborough. Monson, unable to endure the allegations of his guilt, blurted out, ‘It was a pure accident, sir! The boy stumbled and shot himself, knocking the gun so that it went off.'

He laid himself open to Mr Cowan's retort, directed to the sheriff.

‘Forgive me, your honour, but I do not recall any man managing to shoot himself from a distance of three feet—let alone thirty! Even at three feet, your honour, the wound would have been scorched and the skin impregnated with burnt powder.'

‘Not with smokeless amberite cartridges, d'you see, your honour?' cried the major hopefully. ‘Cecil Hamborough was carrying the 12-bore shotgun with the amberite cartridges. I was the one who had the short-barrelled 20-bore with gunpowder.'

Mr Cowan glanced at his notes.

‘Your honour, Major Monson has told the police that he was carrying the 12-bore with the amberite.'

‘They have it wrong!' What a cry of pain it was from the doomed man! ‘To be sure I was carrying the 12-bore when we set out. As we were about to enter the wood, Hamborough asked to borrow it. We exchanged guns. I said so when they first questioned me at Ardlamont.'

Mr Cowan paused and consulted a uniformed inspector sitting at the bench behind him. Then he turned to the sheriff again.

‘Your honour, this evidence about the exchange of guns has been heard for the first time in this court-room at this moment. Nothing was said to the police by Major Monson about it, either at Ardlamont or in custody. Nor is it mentioned in the written witness-statement by the accused man.'

‘I thought they had put it in! I did not write the statement myself, only signed it!'

The sight of such a wretch as this, a congenital liar and trickster, struggling forlornly like a summer-fly in the web of evidence which his prosecutors spun about him, was terrifying. It did not end there but the damage that Monson had already done to his own case seemed mortal.

Outside, with Mr Comrie Thomson, I said, ‘The poor devil has put the noose round his own neck!'

The barrister, in his quiet Scots voice, added, ‘I had hoped, Mr Holmes, that your arrival would give some hope. As it is, I fear your journey may have been to no purpose.'

‘Mr Thomson, I have promised Sir Edward Marshall Hall that I will take the case. I have not the slightest intention of abandoning it in the light of what we have heard this morning. All the same, if you have no objection, I shall not interview the client. It would irritate me to be lied to by such a novice in deceit as Major Monson. Indeed, I am bound to say that it would irritate me to be in the same room with Major Monson.'

‘Then you will continue with the investigation? You think there is a chance in a million that he might be innocent?'

‘Innocent? Dear me!' Holmes looked about him as if he feared that he had caused offence unawares. ‘Major Monson is a reprobate and a liar, to be sure. Facts, however, are not liars. If the facts of the case are as I believe them to be, I have little doubt that I shall prove him to be innocent. Indeed, I had almost made up my mind to that effect before leaving Baker Street.'

Comrie Thomson reddened a little at this.

‘I do not think I understand you, Mr Holmes.'

‘Perhaps not,' said Holmes suavely, ‘but in the morning Watson and I are to become seekers after truth at Ardlamont. Thanks to your good offices we shall have the company of Mr David Stewart of the Procurator Fiscal's office. In the meantime, Mr Thomson, I should be obliged if you could find it convenient not to go to your chambers tomorrow.'

The attorney stared at him.

‘But there is work to be done, Mr Holmes! Now, of all times!'

‘Even so, you would oblige me by doing it elsewhere. Let that be settled. And now let us return to the comforts of the Argyle Hotel, where we may forget our client and his misfortunes over an agreeable glass or two. Malt whisky with water from the Highland springs, I think, followed by lunch.'

III

Next morning we set out by the paddle-steamer
Duchess of Montrose
for Ardlamont Bay. After two hours, we cleared the river and turned north in a freshening breeze towards the Kyles of Bute. With the tide racing against the bow and the wind in our faces, we stood on deck and watched the tree-lined bay approach. Ardlamont House is accessible only by water, unless one makes a considerable detour from Kames. It stands in a wooded bay, where we were met at the little pier by David Stewart, the Deputy Fiscal at Inveraray. Mr Stewart's reputation went before him, a quietly-spoken and courteous man, who had proved deadly to Major Monson in his interrogation.

Ardlamont is a tall white house of recent design, built for solid comforts. Around it lies a considerable estate of pasture and woodland, including a disused school building let to holidaymakers in the season. We paid a brief visit to the house, where the gun-cases and leather chairs in the hall, the shooting-jackets and waterproofs hanging by the hat-stand, the doors to the billiard-room and smoking-room, left little doubt as to its clientele. Since the ‘tragedy' a few weeks before, however, not a shot had been fired on the surrounding estate. In point of law, Major Monson had paid the rent, albeit with Hamborough's money, and was still the tenant.

With Mr Stewart, we then walked back towards the main gates, so that we might follow the route taken by Cecil Hamborough and his two companions on the morning of the young man's death. The carriage-drive at the gates is only a short distance from the tideline of the bay. After a hundred yards or so, we passed the stone and brick building which had once housed the village school. The main woodland lay ahead of us, bordering the carriage-drive.

‘From the windows of the schoolhouse back there,' said Stewart softly, ‘two witnesses saw Major Monson, Lieutenant Hamborough, and Mr Scott. The men had told the butler at the house that they were going rabbit-shooting. It was too early in the month for game birds and, in any case, you can see that the terrain is quite unsuited to that. The three men were carrying shotguns when they reached this point, though the witnesses at the window of the schoolhouse cannot identify which guns were carried by which men. The three of them walked down the main driveway for some distance. A hundred yards or so from where we stand, they found the easiest place to straddle the fence and enter the woodland. They walked at a diagonal into the woods, Lieutenant Hamborough still in the middle, Major Monson to the right, Scott to the left. They walked at this angle and Scott was therefore most easily seen by the witnesses through a thinner screen of trees. The men were spaced out, of course, but the most important evidence from the two witnesses in the schoolhouse shows that Scott and Hamborough were ahead, with Major Monson lagging somewhat in the rear on the right flank. If you please, we will take that way.'