The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (93 page)

“All our office correspondence,” interrupted our visitor, “is typed on the same machine, and I can fully understand why it has become a little worn.”

“But I have four other letters here,” resumed Holmes, in a slow and menacing tone, “which purport to come from Mr. Horatio Darvill. And in each of these, also, the ‘e's are slurred, and the ‘t's un-tailed.”

Mr. Wyndham was out of his chair instantly and had snatched up his hat: “I can waste no more of my valuable time with such trivialities, Mr. Holmes. If you can catch the man who so shamefully treated Miss van Allen, then catch him! I wish you well—and ask you to let me know the outcome. But I have no interest whatsoever in your fantastical notions.”

Already, however, Holmes had stepped across the room and turned the key in the door. “Certainly I will tell you how I caught Mr. Darvill, if you will but resume your chair.”

“What?” shouted Wyndham, his face white, his small eyes darting about him like those of a rat in a trap. Yet finally he sat down and glared aggressively around, as Holmes continued his analysis.

“It was as selfish and as heartless a trick as ever I encountered. The man married a woman much older than himself, largely for her money. In addition, he enjoyed the interest on the not inconsiderable sum of the step-daughter's money, for as long as that daughter lived with them. The loss of such extra monies would have made a significant difference to the life-style adopted by the newly married pair. Now the daughter herself was an amiable, warm-hearted girl, and was possessed of considerable physical attractions; and with the added advantage of a personal income, it became clear that under normal circumstances she would not remain single for very long. So he—the man of whom I speak—decided to deny her the company and friendship of her contemporaries by keeping her at home. But she—and who shall blame her?—grew restive under such an unnatural regimen, and firmly announced her intention to attend a local ball. So what did her step-father do? With the connivance of his wife, he conceived a cowardly plan. He disguised himself cleverly: he covered those sharp eyes with dully tinted spectacles; he masked that clean-shaven face with bushy side-whiskers; he sank that clear voice of his into the strained whisper of one suffering from the quinsy. And then, feeling himself doubly secure because of the young lady's short sight, he appeared
himself
at the ball, in the guise
of one Horatio Darvill, and there he wooed the fair Miss van Allen for his own—thereafter taking further precaution of always arranging his assignations by candlelight.”

(I heard a deep groan which at the time I assumed to have come from our visitor, but which, upon reflection, I am inclined to think originated from Mycroft's corner.)

“Miss van Allen had fallen for her new beau; and no suspicion of deception ever entered her pretty head. She was flattered by the attention she was receiving, and the effect was heightened by the admiration of her mother for the man. An ‘engagement' was agreed, and the deception perpetuated. But the pretended journeys abroad were becoming more difficult to sustain, and things had to be brought to a head quickly, although in such a
dramatic
way as to leave a permanent impression upon the young girl's mind. Hence the vows of fidelity sworn on the Testaments; hence the dark hints repeated on the very morning of the proposed marriage that something sinister might be afoot. James Wyndham, you see, wished his step-daughter to be so morally bound to her fictitious suitor that for a decade, at least, she would sit and wilt in Cowcross Street, and continue paying her regular interest directly into the account of her guardian: the same blackguard of a guardian who had brought her to the doors of St. Saviour's and then, himself, conveniently disappeared by the age-old ruse of stepping in at one side of a four-wheeler—and out at the other.”

Rising to his feet, Wyndham fought hard to control his outrage. “I wish you to know that it is you, sir, who is violating the law of this land—and not me! As long as you keep that door locked, and thereby hold me in this room against my will, you lay yourself open——”

“The law,” interrupted Holmes, suddenly unlocking and throwing open the door, “may not for the moment be empowered to touch you. Yet never, surely, was there a man who deserved punishment more. In fact…since my hunting-crop is close at hand——” Holmes took two swift strides across the room; but it was too late. We heard a wild clatter of steps down the stairs as Wyndham departed, and then had the satisfaction of watching him flee pell-mell down Baker Street.

“That cold-blooded scoundrel will end on the gallows, mark my words!” growled Holmes.

“Even now, though, I cannot follow all the steps in your reasoning, Holmes,” I remarked.

“It is this way,” replied Holmes. “The only person who profited financially from the vanishing-trick was the step-father. Then, the fact that the two men, Wyndham and Darvill, were never actually seen
together
, was most suggestive. As were the tinted spectacles, the husky voice, the bushy whiskers—all of these latter, Watson, hinting strongly at disguise. Again, the type-written signature betokened one thing only—that the man's handwriting was so familiar to Miss van Allen that she might easily recognise even a small sample of it. Isolated facts? Yes! But all of them leading to the same inevitable conclusion—as even my slumbering sibling might agree?”

But there was no sound from the Mycroft corner.

“You were able to verify your conclusion?” I asked.

Holmes nodded briskly. “We know the firm for which Wyndham worked, and we had a full description of Darvill. I therefore eliminated from that description everything which could be the result of deliberate disguise——”

“Which means that you have
not
verified your conclusion!” Mycroft's sudden interjection caused us both to turn sharply towards him.

“There will always,” rejoined Holmes, “be a need and a place for informed conjecture——”

“
Inspired
conjecture, Holmes,” I interposed.

“Phooey!” snorted Mycroft. “You are talking of nothing but wild
guesswork
, Sherlock. And it is my opinion that in this case your guesswork is grotesquely askew.”

I can only report that never have I seen Holmes so taken aback; and he sat in silence as Mycroft raised his bulk from the chair and now stood beside the fireplace.

“Your deductive logic needs no plaudits from me, Sherlock, and like Dr. Watson I admire your desperate hypothesis. But unless there is some firm evidence which you have thus far concealed from us…?”

Holmes did not break his silence.

“Well,” stated Mycroft, “I will indulge in a little guesswork of my own, and tell you that the gentleman who just stormed out of this room is as innocent as Watson here!”

“He certainly did not
act
like an innocent man,” I protested, looking in vain to Holmes for some support, as Mycroft continued.

“The reasons you adduce for your suspicions are perfectly sound in most respects, and yet—I must speak with honesty, Sherlock!—I found myself sorely disappointed with your reading—or rather complete misreading—of the case. You are, I believe, wholly correct in your central thesis that there is no such person as Horatio Darvill.” (How the blood was tingling in my veins as Mycroft spoke these words!) “But when the unfortunate Mr. Wyndham who has just rushed one way up Baker Street rushes back down it the other with a writ for defamation of character—as I fear he will!—then you will be compelled to think, to analyse, and to act, with a little more care and circumspection.”

Holmes leaned forward, the sensitive nostrils of that aquiline nose a little distended. But still he made no comment.

“For example, Sherlock, two specific pieces of information vouchsafed to us by the attractive Miss van Allen herself have been strongly discounted, if not wholly ignored, in your analysis.” (I noticed Holmes's eyebrows rising quizzically.) “First, the fact that Mr. Wyndham was older than Miss van Allen
only by some five years
. Second, the fact that Miss van Allen is so competent and speedy a performer on the type-writer that she works, on a free-lance basis, for several firms in the vicinity of her home, including Messrs.
Cook and Marchant
. Furthermore, you make the astonishing claim that Miss van Allen was totally deceived by the disguise of Mr. Darvill. Indeed, you would have her not only blind, but semi-senile into the bargain! Now it is perfectly true that the lady's eyesight is far from perfect—
glaucopia Athenica
, would you not diagnose, Dr. Watson?—but it is quite ludicrous to believe that she would fail to recognise the person with whom she was living. And it is wholly dishonest of you to assert that the assignations were always held by candlelight, since on at least two occasions, the morning after the first meeting—the
morning
, Sherlock!—and the morning of the planned wedding ceremony, Miss van Allen had ample opportunity of studying the physical features of Darvill in the broadest of daylight.”

“You seem to me to be taking an unconscionably long time in putting forward your own hypothesis,” snapped Holmes, somewhat testily.

“You are right,” admitted the other. “Let me beat about the bush no longer! You have never felt emotion akin to love for any woman, Sherlock—not even for the Adler woman—and you are therefore deprived of the advantages of those who like myself are able to understand both the workings of the male and also the female mind. Five years her superior in age—her stepfather;
only five years
. Now one of the sadnesses of womankind is their tendency to age more quickly and less gracefully than men; and one of the truths about mankind in general is that if you put one of each sex, of roughly similar age, in reasonable proximity…And if one of them is the fair Miss van Allen—then you are inviting a packet of trouble. Yet such is what took place in the Wyndham ménage. Mrs. Wyndham was seventeen years older than her young husband; and perhaps as time went by some signs and tokens of this disproportionate difference in their ages began to manifest themselves. At the same time, it may be assumed that Wyndham himself could not help being attracted—however much at first he sought to resist the temptation—by the very winsome and vivacious young girl who was his step-daughter. It would almost certainly have been Wyndham himself who introduced Miss van Allen to the part-time duties she undertook for
Cook and Marchant
—where the two of them were frequently thrown together, away
from the restraints of wife and home, and with a result which it is not at all difficult to guess. Certain it is, in my own view, that Wyndham sought to transfer his affections from the mother to the daughter; and in due course it was the daughter who decided that whatever her own affections might be in the matter she must in all honour leave her mother and step-father. Hence the great anxiety to get out to dances and parties and the like—activities which Wyndham objected to for the obvious reason that he wished to have Miss van Allen as close by himself for as long as he possibly could. Now you, Sherlock, assume that this objection arose as a result of the interest accruing from the New Zealand securities—and you are
guessing
, are you not? Is it not just possible that Wyndham has money of his own—find out, Brother!—and that what he craves for is not some petty addition to his wealth, but the love of a young woman with whom he has fallen rather hopelessly in love? You see, she took
him
in, just as she took
you
in, Sherlock—for you swallowed everything that calculating little soul reported.”

“Really, this is outrageous!” I objected—but Holmes held up his hand, and bid me hear his brother out.

“What is clear, is that at some point when Wyndham was in France—and why did you not verify those dates spent abroad? I am sure
Cook and Marchant
would have provided them just as quickly as it furnished the wretched man's description—as I was saying, with Wyndham in France, mother and daughter found themselves in a little
tête-à-tête
one evening, during the course of which a whole basketful of dirty linen was laid bare, with the daughter bitterly disillusioned about the behaviour of her step-father, and the mother hurt and angry about her husband's infidelity. So, together, the pair of them devised a plan. Now, we both agree on one thing at least, Sherlock! There appears to be no evidence whatsoever for the independent existence of Horatio Darvill except for what we have heard from Miss van Allen's lips. Rightly, you drew our attention to the fact that the two men were never seen together. But, alas, having appreciated the
importance
of that clue, you completely misconceived its
significance. You
decided that there is no Darvill—because he is Wyndham.
I
have to tell you that there is no Darvill—
because he is the pure fabrication of the minds of Mrs. Wyndham and her daughter
.”

Holmes was staring with some consternation at a pattern in the carpet, as Mycroft rounded off his extravagant and completely baseless conjectures.

“Letters were written—and incidentally I myself would have been far more cautious about those ‘e's and ‘t's: twin faults, as it happens, of my very own machine! But, as I say, letters were written—
but by Miss van Allen herself;
a wedding was arranged; a story concocted of a non-existent carriage into which there climbed a non-existent groom—and that was the end of the charade. Now, it was you, Sherlock, who rightly asked the key question:
cui bono
? And you concluded that the real beneficiary was Wyndham. But exactly the contrary is the case! It was the mother and daughter who intended to be the beneficiaries, for they hoped to rid themselves of the rather wearisome Mr. Wyndham—but not before he had been compelled, by moral and social pressures, to make some handsome money-settlement upon the pair of them—especially perhaps upon the young girl who, as Dr. Watson here points out, could well have done with some decent earrings and a new handkerchief. And the
social
pressure I mention, Sherlock, was designed—carefully and cleverly designed—to come from
you
. A cock-and-bull story is told to you by some wide-eyed young thing, a story so bestrewn with clues at almost every point that even Lestrade—given a week or two!—would probably have come up with a diagnosis identical with your own. And why do you think she came to you, and not to Lestrade, say? Because ‘Mr. Sherlock Holmes is the greatest investigator the world has ever known'—and his judgements are second only to the Almighty's in their infallibility. For if you, Sherlock, believed Wyndham to be guilty—then Wyndham
was
guilty in the eyes of the whole world—the whole world except for one, that is.”