The Three Monarchs (3 page)

The house shared the same proportions as Mrs Webster's, but it had a clammy, quite sombre feel. Even though it was still inhabited, it was as if it had been abandoned. Mrs Abernetty was waiting for us in the parlour. She was a very small woman, almost swallowed up by the armchair in which she sat, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief and still barely able to speak.

‘This is a terrible business, Mr Holmes,' Abernetty began. ‘I have already explained everything to the inspector but I am of course willing to help you in any way I can.'

‘This is my fault,' Mrs Abernetty sobbed. ‘Harold shot that young man for my sake.'

‘It was my wife who woke me,' Abernetty continued. ‘She had heard a door being broken open and sent me downstairs to investigate. I took the gun with me, although I never intended to use it. When the man saw me and came rushing towards me . . . even then, I didn't know what I was doing. I fired the shot and saw him fall – and wish with all my heart that I could have wounded him and not brought an end to his young life.'

‘What did you do after he had fallen?'

‘I hurried to my wife and told her that I was unharmed. Then I got dressed. My intention was to find the nearest police officer but first I noticed the bag that the young man had brought with him and, although I knew I should not tamper with the evidence, I took a look inside. That was when I saw the three china figures, lying next to each other. I recognised one of them as being our own. I had bought it for my wife as a souvenir of the Golden Jubilee and I saw at once that it was missing from its place on the sideboard. As you can imagine, I was completely astounded by the presence of the other two – but then I remembered that I had seen one in Mrs Webster's front room.'

‘It was on her piano,' Mrs Abernetty said.

‘I realised then that we might not be the only victims of burglary that night, something that was soon confirmed when Inspector Jones began his enquiry.'

‘You cannot blame my husband. He did nothing wrong. He never intended to hurt anyone.'

‘You do not need to distress yourself, Mrs Abernetty,' Holmes assured her. ‘I have seen your neighbour, Mrs Webster. She speaks very highly of you.'

‘She is a good woman,' Abernetty said, ‘still much distressed by the loss of her husband last August. But we are all advancing in years. These things are to be expected.'

‘She told us about Matilda Briggs.'

Abernetty nodded. ‘Then you know how much we owe her. Mrs Briggs employed us for many years. Emilia . . .' here he turned to his wife, ‘nursed her through a long illness and, out of gratitude, having no immediate family of her own, she bequeathed us this house in her will.'

‘There was, I believe, a nephew.'

‘He was a colour sergeant with the 92nd Highlanders. He was killed at the Battle of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.'

‘It must have been a great blow to her.'

‘She was upset, certainly. But the two of them had never been close.'

‘And the rest of the money?'

‘She gave it to the local church, for the relief of the poor,' Mrs Abernetty said. ‘Mrs Briggs was a very devout person and a member of the Royal Maternity Charity, the Temperance Society, the Society for the Rescue of Young Women and many others.'

Holmes nodded then got his feet, signalling that the interview was over. I was surprised that he had no further questions and that in this instance he chose not to examine the back door or the garden, but then he had already said that he had not expected to learn very much from this encounter. It was only as we left that he turned back to the elderly couple.

‘One last question,' he said. ‘Where are your neighbours, the stockbroker's clerk and his family?'

‘They are in Torquay,' Mrs Abernetty replied. ‘They are visiting Mr Dunstable's mother.'

Holmes smiled. ‘Mrs Abernetty, you have told me exactly what I wanted to know and your answer was exactly what I had expected. I congratulate you and wish you a good day.'

We walked a short way down the hill in silence but at last the man from Scotland Yard could bear it no more.

‘Do you have any answer to this riddle, Mr Holmes?' he burst out. ‘Three little statues of almost no value at all are stolen from three adjoining houses. What was the purpose of the theft? It seems to me that you have asked no questions that I have not already asked and seen nothing that I had not already noted. I fear I have wasted your time bringing you here.'

‘Far from it, Inspector Jones, I have a few enquiries to make but otherwise the affair could not be more clear. Shall we meet at my rooms in Baker Street tomorrow morning? Would ten o'clock be convenient?'

‘I can certainly be there.'

‘Then let us part company for the time being. Watson, will you walk with me to the station? I find the air a little fresher up here. Good day to you, Inspector Jones. This has indeed been a quite singular case and I thank you for bringing it to my attention.'

This was all he would say and Jones returned to the waiting coach with a look of complete bafflement on his face. I will admit that I was no wiser myself but knew better than to ask questions to which no answers would yet be forthcoming. I also knew that I would have to absent myself from my practice for a third day in succession as it would be inconceivable for me to miss the solution to such a pretty puzzle as the three monarchs had presented.

The next day, I returned to Baker Street at ten o'clock precisely, meeting Inspector Jones at the door. We climbed the stairs together and were met by Holmes who was wearing his dressing gown and just finishing his breakfast.

‘Well, Inspector Jones,' he began, when he saw us, ‘we have a name for the dead man. It is Michael Snowden. He was released from Pentonville Prison just three days ago.'

‘What was his offence?'

‘Blackmail, assault, larceny – I fear Master Snowden led a life that was as dissolute as it was short. Well, at least he never went as far as murder. There is some solace in that.'

‘But what brought such a man to Hamworth Hill?'

‘He came to claim what was rightfully his.'

‘Three china figurines?'

Holmes smiled and lit his pipe, tossing the spent match into the fireplace. ‘He came to claim the house that had been left to him by his aunt, Mrs Briggs.'

‘Are you saying that he was her nephew? Mr Holmes – you cannot possibly know that!' the inspector cried.

‘I do not need to know it, Inspector Jones. I deduced it. When all the evidence points in only one possible direction, then you can be fairly certain that as you move forward you must arrive at the truth. Michael Snowden was never a soldier and he did not die in Afghanistan. This was made clear to me from what Mrs Webster told us. She said that Matilda Briggs was so upset by the death of her nephew that she never kept a picture of him in the house. But that did not strike me as even slightly credible. Had he died in the army, serving his country, she would surely have done the exact opposite. She would have been proud to keep his memory alive. However, a churchgoing woman, a member of the temperance society, were she to have a nephew who was a rake and a criminal—'

‘She would pretend that he had died abroad!' I exclaimed.

‘As a soldier, or something like that. Precisely, Watson! That was why she would not have his image near her.'

‘But she still left the house to the Abernettys,' Jones insisted.

‘So they say. But again, Mrs Webster – an excellent witness, by the way, with an astonishing grasp of detail – made a most interesting remark. The Abernettys, she said, had discussed the will with their employer, Mrs Briggs. Not the other way round! I saw at once what might have happened. An elderly, sick woman, left on her own with a scheming manservant and a wife who is also her nurse, is persuaded to change her will in their favour. They want the house and they take it, cutting the nephew out.

‘However, this is a lady with a conscience. At the last moment, she has a change of heart and writes to her nephew, telling him what has happened and expressing a desire that he should inherit after all. I have spoken to the prison warder, incidentally, and he has confirmed that Snowden did indeed receive a letter a few months ago. As the saying goes, blood is thicker than water and perhaps his aunt believes that even at this late stage he will reform. There is little that Michael Snowden can do about the situation. He is still in jail, serving a lengthy sentence. But the moment he is released, he comes to his aunt's house and confronts the two extortionists.'

‘They murder him!' Suddenly, I could see it all.

‘I am sure they tried to reason with him. They gave him a glass of sherry and it was when he proved adamant – doubtless he threatened them – that Mr Abernetty took out his revolver and shot him. Snowden dropped the sherry, spilling it on his shirt but much of the stain was, of course, concealed by his blood.'

Jones had listened to all this with something close to distress etched on his features. ‘It all seems quite clear to me, Mr Holmes,' he said. ‘But I still cannot see how you worked it out.'

‘It was the three monarchs that gave the game away. Mr Abernetty needed a reason to kill a young man who – he could at least pretend – was a complete stranger to him. Simple enough to say that he was a burglar. But why would any burglar choose a house that was in such disrepair and which would clearly contain nothing very much of value? That was his dilemma.

‘His solution was ingenious. He would rob two more houses in the same terrace and he would do so in such a way that the police could not fail to assume that mere larceny was the motive. Why did he choose number one and number five? He knew that the Dunstables were away in Torquay – that much Mrs Abernetty told us herself. And he was also aware that Mrs Webster, with her laudanum and camel-hair pillows, was a heavy sleeper and unlikely to wake up.'

‘But why the three figurines?'

‘He had no choice. There was nothing worth stealing in his own house and he did not have the necessary skills to open Mrs Webster's strongbox. He knew, however, that all three houses happened to contain the same jubilee souvenir and that created a perfect diversion. You may recall that my housekeeper, Mrs Hudson, abandoned the tea because she was distracted by a dancing dog, and very much the same principle applied here. Mr Abernetty correctly assumed that you would worry so much about these wholly inoffensive objects that you would never question whether a real burglary had taken place. He was just unfortunate that on this occasion you chose to bring the matter to me.'

‘I presume he left the footprints on purpose.'

‘Indeed so. I did wonder why we had a burglar who was so keen to mark out his method of entry. It was, of course, Mr Abernetty, wearing Michael Snowden's shoes, who took care to leave footprints in the flower beds. However, he unwittingly left a fold in the dead man's sock as he dragged one of them off. I remarked upon it in the mortuary.'

‘Mr Holmes . . . I am beyond words.' Jones got to his feet but it seemed to me that he did so only with an effort and I was reminded that he had displayed the same infirmity when we were at Hamworth Hill. ‘You will forgive me if I leave you,' he continued. ‘I must make an arrest.'

‘Two arrests, Inspector, for Mrs Abernetty was clearly an accessory to the crime.'

‘Indeed so.' Jones examined Holmes one last time. ‘Your methods are extraordinary,' he muttered. ‘I will learn from them. I
must
learn from them. To have missed so much and to have seen so little – I will not let it happen again.'

A short while later, I learned that Athelney Jones had become ill and taken leave from the police force. It was Holmes's opinion that the dreadful business of the Abernettys might have played a part in his decline and so, out of respect to the poor man, I made the decision not to publish my account but instead to place it with certain other papers in the vaults of Cox & Co. in Charing Cross, affording him the same confidence that I would to any of my own patients. Let it be made public at some time in the future, when the events I have described have been forgotten, allowing the inspector's reputation to remain intact.

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