The New Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes (14 page)

‘I presume,’ I said mischievously, ‘that finally you succumbed to the urge to startle Leith with an exhibition of your detective skills?’

‘My dear fellow, I fear that you know me too well.’ Holmes smiled, no doubt picturing the scene in his mind. ‘As I recounted how much I had inferred about his life and interests, he gazed at me open-mouthed. I felt like an alchemist, whom he had observed transforming base metal into gold. If anyone, he declared, might solve the mystery of the vanishing room, that man was Sherlock Holmes.’

‘An irresistible challenge,’ I suggested.

‘Naturally.’ Holmes bowed. ‘As you are aware, making sense of the apparently inexplicable is my stock-in-trade.’

I nodded. ‘I think of the mysterious death of Helen Stoner’s sister Julia, as well as Claude Rayner’s locked gazebo.’

‘Certainly, and the strange affair that Campbell Leith described to me that night appeared at first blush to present comparable difficulties. His bafflement was striking. This was a man, Watson, who could only believe in that which he could see or touch. When we conversed later, it became apparent that religious faith was to him inexplicable. Having rejected the Calvinist faith of his forefathers, he could comprehend nothing beyond the material world. A shortcoming, no doubt, but he was an honest and amiable man. On first acquaintance I had judged him too harshly. As I listened to his story, my regard for him steadily grew.’

‘And the vanished room?’

‘It occupied the first floor of the building where Leith had lodged prior to his move to Montague Street. He had decided to spend a couple of years in London until Millicent came of age. Neither his family nor hers had any money to speak of and his aim was simply to work hard and build up a modest reserve of capital. As a result, he had taken a job that offered a reasonable stipend, if little in the way of creative satisfaction. His budget for accommodation was limited and as a result he found himself a room in a small house in Henrietta Street. His landlady was a genteel, white-haired spinster called Ottolie Vyse. She was served by a single maid, a plain yet pleasant girl by the name of Thalia who happened to be her niece. Miss Vyse explained that the house had belonged to her late parents and that for years she had let rooms in order to make ends meet. Her brother, Thalia’s father, was a dealer in and a collector of curios. His wife had died giving birth to the girl and a year ago, he had drowned at Margate. Following his demise, it seemed a kindness to take the girl in. As Miss Vyse said, it was as much Thalia’s home as hers.’

‘You intimated that Miss Vyse was poor.’

‘This was abundantly clear to Leith from every detail of his new home. From the simple home-made clothes of the landlady and her niece to the threadbare nature of the furnishings and the humble content of the meals that they prepared for him. Nevertheless, the place was clean and homely, and that sufficed for the young man’s purposes. He could not afford to dwell in an elegant town-house and his solitary reservation was that, from the moment of his arrival, the young woman Thalia formed an attachment for him that bordered upon the embarrassing. The girl was kind and made agreeable company, and he was sorry that she had lost her father in such tragic circumstances, but he determined to remain true to Millicent.’

‘Admirable conduct in a young bachelor living far from home!’ I cried.

‘If unusual,’ Holmes said, his lips curving in a sardonic smile. ‘Yet I never doubted Leith’ word on that or any other subject. A cynic might say that he lacked the imagination ever to tell a lie. However remarkable his anecdote might have appeared, I never questioned its veracity.’

Holmes savoured the taste of the claret for a moment before proceeding with his story.  ‘The geography of the building appeared to be straightforward. Leith lodged on the second floor. The maid occupied a room in the attic and Miss Vyse lived downstairs. Each morning and evening he trudged up and down the stairs but on the first floor, nothing twitched. To this he gave little or no thought, concluding that his landlady had been unable to let the room below him. The experience of a single evening, however, was enough to throw his mind into turmoil.’

I leaned forward in my chair. ‘What happened?’

‘I have already mentioned Leith’ liking for drink. He admitted to me freely that, pining for his beloved, he was apt to indulge himself excessively when he toured the local hostelries. In the circumstances, no doubt even a medical man such as yourself would regard that as eminently forgivable.’

I gave Holmes a sharp look. He had long ago, or so I believed, weaned himself off his craving for cocaine, but I did not doubt his sympathy for those who resorted to artificial stimulants in their attempts to stave off life’s terrors. Moreover, I was well aware that a man who has succumbed to addiction once may yield to temptation again, should the circumstances of his life encourage him to do so. To the best of my knowledge, his existence on the Sussex Downs was contented, but I could never rid myself of the niggling fear that a black cloud of depression might one day envelop him so completely that he would once more resort to the needle.

If Holmes read my thoughts – and it was far from improbable – he gave no sign of it. ‘One night, Leith returned to Miss Vyse’s house significantly the worse for wear. He had run into a group of acquaintances who shared his enthusiasm for ale and by the time he made his way back home, his gait was less than steady, his thoughts far from being sharply focused. As he approached, the house was cloaked in darkness. The landlady and her niece had, as usual, retired early and it took him several minutes to contrive to fit his key into the lock. The stairs that led to his room, he told me, seemed to roll under his feet as he began to climb, as though he were walking along the deck of a ship on the high seas.’

At this point in his narrative, Sherlock Holmes paused. He possessed the instincts of the born thespian and, as I waited impatiently for him to continue, he reached again for his glass and took a long and leisurely sip.

‘In such a fuddled state, a man is apt to make mistakes. Leith stumbled up the steps on to a landing and tried to open, as he thought, the door to his room. It swung forward at his touch and within an instant he realised his error. He had only ascended a single flight of stairs, not two. The room was not his, he understood that in an instant. It was a large chamber, simple yet opulent in its décor. Thick velvet curtains hid the windows and a crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, although none of its lights burned. Instead the room was illuminated by a single flame from a small yet elaborately sculpted candelabra placed upon a marble table in the middle of the room. Large gilt-framed oil paintings adorned the walls. Leith had enough knowledge of art to recognise the style of members of the Flemish school, while one of the landscapes put him in mind of Constable. A vivid scene of a sun setting over water might, given the way the artist had captured the light, have been a minor work by Turner. Opposite the door stood a long case clock. As Leith stood on the threshold, it began to chime. It was midnight and as the clock struck twelve, he heard a dry cough. Peering for a moment around the door, he saw the dark outline of a figure lying upon a chaise-longue.’

Holmes stroked his chin. ‘Leith told me that, unsurprisingly, he was overcome by embarrassment. He stammered an apology and, in his drunken confusion, barked his forehead against the door-frame as he turned to flee. The sting of the blow brought a tear to his eye as he scrambled up the stairs to his own room. Throwing himself on to the bed, he fell asleep within moments and surrendered to uneasy dreams of the shadowy recluse who lived in ill-lit splendour on the floor below.

‘When morning came, accompanied by a punitive headache, Campbell Leith resolved to repeat his apology to the occupant of the first floor room as well as to Miss Vyse. He made his way down to the kitchen as usual, to partake of breakfast, but as soon as he tried to explain himself to his landlady, he was greeted with incomprehension.

‘“But Mr Leith,” the spinster protested. “You cannot have disturbed anyone at all. I heard nothing and I have not had a tenant to occupy the room on the first floor for at least twelve months.” Astonished, the young man described what he had seen, only to be greeted by a shake of the head and the gentlest of reproaches. “You say that you visited a hostelry or two last evening. I can only presume that, having enjoyed yourself to the full, as young fellows will do, your faculties were not at their sharpest when you returned here.”

‘When Leith protested that the effects of alcohol would not have caused him to imagine what he had seen, Miss Vyse became unexpectedly insistent. The meek old woman had, he discovered, a core of steel. She was adamant that nobody lived on the first floor and moreover that the room was smaller than he had described and furnished in the most humble manner. Bewildered, Leith appealed to Thalia, who reiterated what her aunt had said. Yet the girl’s answers were jerky, as though she was frightened by his claims. Were the two women hiding something from him? It seemed inexplicable, but he was sure that he had not imagined what he had seen the night before. Sensing that he would not let the matter rest, the landlady suggested that he accompany them upstairs so that he could see the room for himself. He accepted with alacrity and Miss Vyse led her niece and Leith back up the stairs. Apart from a couple of tall linen cupboards, only one door led from the landing on the first floor. It was the door that Leith had mistaken for his own the previous night. Miss Vyse produced a heavy key that turned smoothly in the lock and flung open the door.

‘As he described it to me, Leith’ stomach jolted as he looked inside the room. What he saw bore no resemblance to the scene of the previous evening. Curtains of faded cotton, not velvet, hung at the windows. There was no chandelier, no candelabra, no marble table, no chaise-longue. Just a small single bedstead and a simple table at its side. True, there were paintings on the walls, but instead of minor masterpieces, he saw simple daubs, crude watercolours of fields and streams that any amateur might have produced in an afternoon. The room even seemed smaller than it had done the night before. Of the dark figure that had lain upon the chaise-longue, there was not a trace.

‘“Well, Mr Leith, have we satisfied your curiosity?” Miss Vyse enquired. Needless to say, her tenant was at a loss for a reply. Confronted by the insistence of the two women as well as the evidence of his own eyes, he mumbled an incoherent expression of regret for the trouble he had caused and hurried away to the office in Goodge Street where he worked.’

‘Why was the room unoccupied?’ I enquired. ‘If Miss Vyse was short of money, one would presume that she would be anxious to let any available accommodation.’

‘By the time he returned to the house that evening, the same question had occurred to him. All day he had turned the events of the previous night over in the mind. Had drink caused him to hallucinate? Had he stopped on the first floor at all? He worried that he might be losing his reason. He accosted Miss Vyse and asked her why the room upstairs was unlet. She cast a sad glance at her niece before giving a dignified reply that caused Leith’ cheeks to burn with shame at having doubted her.’

‘“As it happens, my brother Stanley always slept in that room when he and Thalia came to visit me here. He always thought of himself as a connoisseur of art and he painted the pictures that you saw on the walls. After his sudden death, neither I nor my niece could bear the thought that anyone else might sleep there. It simply did not seem right to us. In consequence, I have kept the room precisely as it was on the day when I received Thalia’s telegram telling me that her father was no more.” The landlady was made of sterner stuff than Leith had realised, and her face did not crumple as she made her response, but the girl snuffled miserably and it was plain that she was in a state of genuine distress. He expressed once more his apologies and quit the kitchen hastily. As he went back up the stairs to his room, a thought struck him. His brow still ached after grazing the door-frame. On the first landing, he stopped and peered at the wood where his forehead had struck it. There he saw a faint spot of dried blood. That small trace seemed like a form of vindication, proof that he had not invented the bizarre occurrence of the previous night.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I objected. ‘A blow to the forehead might explain the matter to everyone’s satisfaction. If he had suffered an injury while drunk, it is eminently possible that his mind might have conjured up the vision of the lavishly furnished first floor room.’

‘Quite so, Watson, but that possibility escaped Leith as he raced down the stairs to confront Miss Vyse and her niece once more. He insisted on showing them the mark on the door-frame, and was naïve enough to be taken aback when the revelation failed altogether to impress his landlady. As for Thalia, she made the very point that you have suggested. Faced with such relentless disbelief, Leith leapt to the conclusion that his personal integrity was at stake and expressed himself in vigorous and intemperate terms. More in sorrow than in anger, Miss Vyse intimated that if he no longer felt comfortable to share their humble home, the best course for everyone might be for him to take his leave. Leith had no alternative but to agree. He insisted on leaving the following day and refused his landlady’s offer of reimbursement for the period until the end of the month for which he had paid rent. As he carried his belongings downstairs, however, the girl Thalia came up to him and thrust a small package into his hand.’

‘“Please accept this little gift,” she said in a whisper, so that her aunt could not overhear. “I shall miss you, Campbell.” He protested that there was no cause for her to give him anything but she insisted that it was only a token of her regret that a silly misunderstanding had caused him to leave their house. Touched by her generosity, he wished her well and within twenty four hours, he had beaten a path to Montague Street. By then, however, he had unwrapped the gift from Thalia and discovered to his amazement that it was a silver pocket-watch.’