Sherlock Holmes In Montague Street Volume 2 (6 page)

“Very good. We've earned a night's rest, and now we'll have it.”

The next morning, after breakfast, Holmes took Mr. Crellan into the study.

“Can you manage,” he said, “to send Miss Garth out for a walk this morning - with somebody?”

“I can send her out for a ride with the groom - unless she thinks it wouldn't be the thing to go riding so soon after her bereavement.”

“Never mind, that will do. Send her at once, and see that she goes. Call it doctor's orders; say she must go for her health's sake - anything.”

Mr. Crellan departed, used his influence, and in half an hour Miss Garth had gone.

“I was up pretty early this morning,” Holmes remarked on Mr. Crellan's return to the study, “and, among other things, I sent a telegram to London. Unless my eyes deceive me, a boy with a peaked cap - a telegraph boy, in fact - is coming up the drive this moment. Yes, he is. It is probably my answer.”

In a few minutes a telegram was brought in. Holmes read it and then asked, “Your friend Mr. Mellis, I understand, was going straight to town yesterday morning?”

“Yes.”

“Read that, then.”

Mr. Crellan took the telegram and read:

“Mellis did not sleep at chambers last night. Been out of town for some days past.”

Mr. Crellan looked up.

“Who sent it?” he asked.

“Lad back in London; sharp fellow. You see, Mellis didn't go to town after all. As a matter of fact, I believe he was nearer this place than we thought. You said he had a disagreement with his uncle because of scientific practices which the old gentleman considered ‘dangerous and unprofessional,' I think?”

“Yes, that was the case.”

“Ah, then the key to all the mystery of the will is in this room.”

“Where?”

“There.” Holmes pointed to the book-cases. “Read Bernheim's
Suggestive Therapeutics
, and one or two books of Heidenhain's and Björnström's and you'll see the thing more clearly than you can without them; but that would be rather a long sort of job, so - but why, who's this? Somebody coming up the drive in a fly, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Mr. Crellan replied, looking out of the window. Presently he added, “It's Cranley Mellis.”

“Ah,” said Holmes, “he won't trouble us for a little. I'll bet you a penny cake he goes first by himself to the small staircase and tries that secret recess. If you get a little way along the passage you will be able to see him; but that will scarcely matter - I can see you don't guess now what I am driving at.”

“I don't in the least.”

“I told you the names of the books in which you could read the matter up; but that would be too long for the present purpose. The thing is fairly well summarized, I see, in that encyclopædia there in the corner. I have put a marker in volume seven. Do you mind opening it at that place and seeing for yourself?”

Mr. Crellan, doubtful and bewildered, reached the volume. It opened readily, and in the place where it opened lay a blue foolscap envelope. The old gentleman took the envelope, drew from it a white paper, stared first at the paper, then at Holmes, then at the paper again, let the volume slide from his lap, and gasped, “Why - why - it's the will!”

“Ah, so I thought,” said Holmes, catching the book as it fell. “But don't lose this place in the encyclopædia. Read the name of the article. What is it?”

Mr. Crellan looked absent-mindedly at the title, holding the will before him all the time. Then, mechanically, he read aloud the word, “
Hypnotism
.”

“Hypnotism it is,” Holmes answered. “A dangerous and terrible power in the hands of an unscrupulous man.”

“But - but how? I don't understand it. This - this is the real will, I suppose?”

“Look at it; you know best.”

Mr. Crellan looked.

“Yes,” he said, “this certainly is the will. But where did it come from? It hasn't been in this book all the time, has it?”

“No. Didn't I tell you I put it there myself as a marker? But come, you'll understand my explanation better if I first read you a few lines from this article. See here now:

Although hypnotism has power for good when properly used by medical men, it is an exceedingly dangerous weapon in the hands of the unskillful or unscrupulous. Crimes have been committed by persons who have been hypnotized. Just as a person when hypnotized is rendered extremely impressionable, and therefore capable of receiving beneficial suggestions, so he is nearly as liable to receive suggestions for evil; and it is quite possible for an hypnotic subject, while under hypnotic influence, to be impressed with the belief that he is to commit some act after the influence is removed, and that act he is safe to commit, acting at the time as an automaton. Suggestions may be thus made of which the subject, in his subsequent uninfluenced moments, has no idea, but which he will proceed to carry out automatically at the time appointed. In the case of a complete state of hypnotism the subject has subsequently no recollection whatever of what has happened. Persons whose will or nerve power has been weakened by fear or other similar causes can be hypnotized without consent on their part.

“There now, what do you make of that?”

“Why, do you mean that Miss Garth has been hypnotized by - by - Cranley Mellis?”

“I think that is the case; indeed, I am pretty sure of it. Notice, on the occasion of each of his last two visits, he was alone with Miss Garth for some little time. On the evening following each of those visits she does something which she afterwards knows nothing about - something connected with the disappearance of this will, the only thing standing between Mr. Mellis and the whole of his uncle's property. Who could have been in a weaker nervous state than Miss Garth has been lately? Remember, too, on the visit of last Saturday, while Miss Garth says she only showed Mellis to the door, both you and the nurse speak of their being gone some little time. Miss Garth must have forgotten what took place then, when Mellis hypnotized her, and impressed on her the suggestion that she should take Mr. Holford's will that night, long after he - Mellis - had gone, and when he could not be suspected of knowing anything of it. Further, that she should, at that time when her movements would be less likely to be observed, secrete that will in a place of hiding known only to himself.”

“Dear, dear, what a rascal! Do you really think he did that?”

“Not only that, but I believe he came here yesterday morning while you were out to get the will from the recess. The recess, by the bye, I expect he discovered by accident on one of his visits (he has been here pretty often, I suppose, altogether), and kept the secret in case it might be useful. Yesterday, not finding the will there, he hypnotized Miss Garth once again, and conveyed the suggestion that, at midnight last night, she should take the will from wherever she had put it and pass it to him under the front door.”

“What, do you mean it was he you chased across the grounds last night?”

“That is a thing I am pretty certain of. If we had Mr. Mellis's boot here we could make sure by comparing it with the piece of paper I cut out, as you will remember, in the entrance hall. As we have the will, though, that will scarcely be necessary. What he will do now, I expect, will be to go to the recess again on the vague chance of the will being there now, after all, assuming that his second dose of mesmerism has somehow miscarried. If Miss Garth were here he might try his tricks again, and that is why I got you to send her out.”

“And where did you find the will?”

“Now you come to practical details. You will remember that I asked about the handyman's tool-house? Well, I paid it a visit at six o'clock this morning, and found therein some very excellent carpenter's tools in a chest. I took a selection of them to the small staircase, and took out the tread of a stair - the one that the pivoted framing-plank rested on.”

“And you found the will there?”

“The will, as I rather expected when I examined the recess last night, had slipped down a rather wide crack at the end of the stair timber, which, you know, formed, so to speak, the floor of the recess. The fact was, the stair-tread didn't quite reach as far as the back of the recess. The opening wasn't very distinct to see, but I soon felt it with my fingers. When Miss Garth, in her hypnotic condition on Saturday night, dropped the will into the recess, it shot straight to the back corner and fell down the slit. That was why Mellis found it empty, and why Miss Garth also found it empty on returning there last night under hypnotic influence. You observed her terrible state of nervous agitation when she failed to carry out the command that haunted her. It was frightful. Something like what happens to a suddenly awakened somnambulist, perhaps. Anyway, that is all over. I found the will under the end of the stair-tread, and here it is. If you will come to the small staircase now you shall see where the paper slipped out of sight. Perhaps we shall meet Mr. Mellis.”

“He's a scoundrel,” said Mr. Crellan. “It's a pity we can't punish him.”

“That's impossible, of course. Where's your proof? And if you had any I'm not sure that a hypnotist is responsible at law for what his subject does. Even if he were, moving a will from one part of the house to another is scarcely a legal crime. The explanation I have given you accounts entirely for the disturbed manner of Miss Garth in the presence of Mellis. She merely felt an indefinite sense of his power over her. Indeed, there is all the possibility that, finding her an easy subject, he had already practiced his influence by way of experiment. A hypnotist, as you will see in the books, has always an easier task with a person he has hypnotized before.”

As Holmes had guessed, in the corridor they met Mr. Mellis. He was a thin, dark man of about thirty-five, with large, bony features, and a slight stoop. Mr. Crellan glared at him ferociously.

“Well, sir, and what do you want?” he asked.

Mr. Mellis looked surprised. “Really, that's a very extraordinary remark, Mr. Crellan,” he said. “This is my late uncle's house. I might, with at least as much reason, ask you what you want.”

“I'm here, sir, as Mr. Holford's executor.”

“Appointed by will?”

“Yes.”

“And is the will in existence?”

“Well - the fact is - we couldn't find it - ”

“Then, what do you mean, sir, by calling yourself an executor with no will to warrant you?” interrupted Mellis. “Get out of this house. If there's no will, I administrate.”

“But there
is
a will,” roared Mr. Crellan, shaking it in his face. “There is a will. I didn't say we hadn't found it yet, did I? There
is
a will, and here it is in spite of all your diabolical tricks, with your scoundrelly hypnotism and secret holes, and the rest of it! Get out of this place, sir, or I'll have you thrown out of the window!”

Mr. Mellis shrugged his shoulders with an appearance of perfect indifference. “If you've a will appointing you executor it's all right, I suppose, although I shall take care to hold you responsible for any irregularities. As I don't in the least understand your conduct, unless it is due to drink, I'll leave you.” And with that he went.

Mr. Crellan boiled with indignation for a minute, and then turning to Holmes, “I say, I hope it's all right,” he said, “connecting him with all this queer business?”

“We shall soon see,” replied Holmes, “if you'll come and look at the pivoted plank.”

They went to the small staircase, and Holmes once again opened the recess. Within lay a blue foolscap envelope, which Holmes picked up. “See,” he said, “it is torn at the corner. He has been here and opened it. It's a fresh envelope, and I left it for him this morning, with the corner gummed down a little so that he would have to tear it in opening. This is what was inside,” Holmes added, and laughed aloud as he drew forth a rather crumpled piece of white paper. “It was only a childish trick after all,” he concluded, “but I always liked a small practical joke on occasion.” He held out the crumpled paper, on which was inscribed in large capital letters the single word - “SOLD.”

The Case of the Missing Hand

I think I have recorded in another place Holmes's frequent aphorism that “there is nothing in this world that is at all possible that has not happened or is not happening in London.” But there are many strange happenings in this matter-of-fact country and in these matter-of-fact times that occur far enough from London. Fantastic crimes, savage revenges, mediæval superstitions, horrible cruelty, though less in sight, have been no more extinguished by the advent of the nineteenth century than have the ancient races who practiced them in the dark ages. Some of the races have become civilized, and some of the savageries are heard of no more. But there are survivals in both cases. I say these things having in my mind a particular case that came under the personal notice of both Holmes and myself - an affair that brought one up standing with a gasp and a doubt of one's era.

My good uncle, the Colonel, was not in the habit of gathering large house parties at his place at Ratherby, partly because the place was not a great one, and partly because the Colonel's gout was. But there was an excellent bit of shooting for two or three guns, and even when he was unable to leave the house himself, my uncle was always pleased if some good friend were enjoying a good day's sport in his territory. As to myself, the good old soul was in a perpetual state of offence because I visited him so seldom, though whenever my scant holidays fell in a convenient time of the year I was never insensible to the attractions of the Ratherby stubble. More than once had I sat by the old gentleman when his foot was exceptionally troublesome, amusing him with accounts of some of the doings of Sherlock Holmes, and more than once had my uncle expressed his desire to meet Holmes himself, and commissioned me with an invitation to be presented to Holmes at the first likely opportunity, for a joint excursion to Ratherby. At length I persuaded Holmes to take a fortnight's rest, coincident with a little vacation of my own, and we got down to Ratherby within a few days past September the 1
st
, and before a gun had been fired at the Colonel's bit of shooting. The Colonel himself we found confined to the house with his foot on the familiar rest, and though ourselves were the only guests, we managed to do pretty well together. It was during this short holiday that the case I have mentioned arose.

When first I began to record some of the more interesting of Holmes's operations, I think I explained that such cases as I myself had not witnessed I should set down in impersonal narrative form, without intruding myself. The present case, so far as Holmes's work was concerned, I saw, but there were circumstances which led up to it that we only fully learned afterwards. These circumstances, however, I shall put in their proper place - at the beginning.

The Fosters were a fairly old Ratherby family, of whom Mr. John Foster had died by an accident at the age of about forty, leaving a wife twelve years younger than himself and three children, two boys and one girl, who was the youngest. The boys grew up strong, healthy, out-of-door young ruffians, with all the tastes of sportsmen, and all the qualities, good and bad, natural to lads of fairly well-disposed character allowed a great deal too much of their own way from the beginning.

Their only real bad quality was an unfortunate knack of bearing malice, and a certain savage vindictiveness towards such persons as they chose to consider their enemies. With the louts of the village they were at unceasing war, and, indeed, once got into serious trouble for peppering the butcher's son (who certainly was a great blackguard) with sparrow-shot. At the usual time they went to Oxford together, and were fraternally sent down together in their second year, after enjoying a spell of rustication in their first. The offence was never specifically mentioned about Ratherby, but was rumored of as something particularly outrageous.

It was at this time, sixteen years or thereabout after the death of their father, that Henry and Robert Foster first saw and disliked Mr. Jonas Sneathy, a director of penny banks and small insurance offices. He visited Ranworth (the Fosters' home) a great deal more than the brothers thought necessary, and, indeed, it was not for lack of rudeness on their part that Mr. Sneathy failed to understand, as far as they were concerned, his room was preferred to his company.

But their mother welcomed him, and in the end it was announced that Mrs. Foster was to marry again, and that after that her name would be Mrs. Sneathy.

Hereupon there were violent scenes at Ranworth. Henry and Robert Foster denounced their prospective father-in-law as a fortune-hunter, a snuffler, a hypocrite. They did not stop at broad hints as to the honesty of his penny banks and insurance offices, and the house straightway became a house of bitter strife. The marriage took place, and it was not long before Mr. Sneathy's real character became generally obvious. For months he was a model, if somewhat sanctimonious husband, and his influence over his wife was complete. Then he discovered that her property had been strictly secured by her first husband's will, and that, willing as she might be, she was unable to raise money for her new husband's benefit, and was quite powerless to pass to him any of her property by deed of gift. Hereupon the man's nature showed itself. Foolish woman as Mrs. Sneathy might be, she was a loving, indeed, an infatuated wife; but Sneathy repaid her devotion by vulgar derision, never hesitating to state plainly that he had married her for his own profit, and that he considered himself swindled in the result. More, he even proceeded to blows and other practical brutality of a sort only devisable by a mean and ugly nature. This treatment, at first secret, became open, and in the midst of it Mr. Sneathy's penny banks and insurance offices came to a grievous smash all at once, and everybody wondered how Mr. Sneathy kept out of gaol.

Keep out of gaol he did, however, for he had taken care to remain on the safe side of the law, though some of his co-directors learnt the taste of penal servitude. But he was beggared, and lived, as it were, a mere pensioner in his wife's house. Here his brutality increased to a frightful extent, till his wife, already broken in health in consequence, went in constant fear of her life, and Miss Foster passed a life of weeping misery. All her friends' entreaties, however, could not persuade Mrs. Sneathy to obtain a legal separation from her husband. She clung to him with the excuse - for it was no more - that she hoped to win him to kindness by submission, and with a pathetic infatuation that seemed to increase as her bodily strength diminished.

Henry and Robert, as may be supposed, were anything but silent in these circumstances. Indeed, they broke out violently again and again, and more than once went near permanently injuring their worthy father-in-law. Once especially, when Sneathy, absolutely without provocation, made a motion to strike his wife in their presence, there was a fearful scene. The two sprang at him like wild beasts, knocked him down and dragged him to the balcony with the intention of throwing him out of the window. But Mrs. Sneathy impeded them, hysterically imploring them to desist.

“If you lift your hand to my mother,” roared Henry, gripping Sneathy by the throat till his fat face turned blue, and banging his head against the wall, “if you lift your hand to my mother again I'll chop it off - I will! I'll chop it off and drive it down your throat!”

“We'll do worse,” said Robert, white and frantic with passion, “we'll hang you - hang you to the door! You're a proved liar and thief, and you're worse than a common murderer. I'd hang you to the front door for two-pence!”

For a few days Sneathy was comparatively quiet, cowed by their violence. Then he took to venting redoubled spite on his unfortunate wife, always in the absence of her sons, well aware that she would never inform them. On their part, finding him apparently better behaved in consequence of their attack, they thought to maintain his wholesome terror, and scarcely passed him without a menace, taking a fiendish delight in repeating the threats they had used during the scene, by way of keeping it present to his mind.

“Take care of your hands, sir,” they would say. “Keep them to yourself, or, by George, we'll take 'em off with a billhook!”

But his revenge for all this Sneathy took unobserved on their mother. Truly a miserable household.

Soon, however, the brothers left home, and went to London by way of looking for a profession. Henry began a belated study of medicine, and Robert made a pretence of reading for the bar. Indeed, their departure was as much as anything a consequence of the earnest entreaty of their sister, who saw that their presence at home was an exasperation to Sneathy, and aggravated her mother's secret sufferings. They went, therefore; but at Ranworth things became worse.

Little was allowed to be known outside the house, but it was broadly said that Mr. Sneathy's behavior had now become outrageous beyond description. Servants left faster than new ones could be found, and gave their late employer the character of a raving maniac. Once, indeed, he committed himself in the village, attacking with his walking-stick an inoffensive tradesman who had accidentally brushed against him, and immediately running home. This assault had to be compounded for by a payment of fifty pounds. And then Henry and Robert Foster received a most urgent letter from their sister requesting their immediate presence at home.

They went at once, of course, and the servants' account of what occurred was this. When the brothers arrived Mr. Sneathy had just left the house. The brothers were shut up with their mother and sister for about a quarter of an hour, and then left them and came out to the stable yard together. The coachman (he was a new man, who had only arrived the day before) overheard a little of their talk as they stood by the door.

Mr. Henry said that “the thing must be done, and at once. There are two of us, so that it ought to be easy enough.” And afterwards Mr. Robert said, “You'll know best how to go about it, as a doctor.” After which Mr. Henry came towards the coachman and asked in what direction Mr. Sneathy had gone. The coachman replied that it was in the direction of Ratherby Wood, by the winding footpath that led through it. But as he spoke he distinctly with the corner of his eye saw the other brother take a halter from a hook by the stable door and put it into his coat pocket.

So far for the earlier events, whereof I learned later bit by bit. It was on the day of the arrival of the brothers Foster at their old home, and, indeed, little more than two hours after the incident last set down, that news of Mr. Sneathy came to Colonel Brett's place, where Holmes and I were sitting and chatting with the Colonel. The news was that Mr. Sneathy had committed suicide - had been found hanging, in fact, to a tree in Ratherby Wood, just by the side of the footpath.

Holmes and I had of course at this time never heard of Sneathy, and the Colonel told us what little he knew. He had never spoken to the man, he said - indeed, nobody in the place outside Ranworth would have anything to do with him. “He's certainly been an unholy scoundrel over those poor people's banks,” said my uncle, “and if what they say's true, he's been about as bad as possible to his wretched wife. He must have been pretty miserable, too, with all his scoundrelism, for he was a completely ruined man, without a chance of retrieving his position, and detested by everybody. Indeed, some of his recent doings, if what I have heard is to be relied on, have been very much those of a madman. So that, on the whole, I'm not much surprised. Suicide's about the only crime, I suppose, that he has never experimented with till now, and, indeed, it's rather a service to the world at large - his only service, I expect.”

The Colonel sent a man to make further inquiries, and presently this man returned with the news that now it was said that Mr. Sneathy had not committed suicide, but had been murdered. And hard on the man's heels came Mr. Hardwick, a neighbor of my uncle's and a fellow J. P. He had had the case reported to him, it seemed, as soon as the body had been found, and had at once gone to the spot. He had found the body hanging -
and with the right hand cut off
.

“It's a murder, Brett,” he said, “without doubt - a most horrible case of murder and mutilation. The hand is cut off and taken away, but whether the atrocity was committed before or after the hanging of course I can't say. But the missing hand makes it plainly a case of murder, and not suicide. I've come to consult you about issuing a warrant, for I think there's no doubt as to the identity of the murderers.”

“That's a good job,” said the Colonel, “else we should have had some work for Mr. Sherlock Holmes here, which wouldn't be fair, as he's taking a rest. Whom do you think of having arrested?”

“The two young Fosters. It's plain as it can be - and a most revolting crime too, bad as Sneathy may have been. They came down from London today and went out deliberately to it, it's clear. They were heard talking of it, asked as to the direction in which he had gone, and followed him - and with a rope.”

“Isn't that rather an unusual form of murder - hanging?” Holmes remarked.

“Perhaps it is,” Mr. Hardwick replied; “but it's the case here plain enough. It seems, in fact, that they had a way of threatening to hang him and even to cut off his hand if he used it to strike their mother. So that they appear to have carried out what might have seemed mere idle threats in a diabolically savage way. Of course they
may
have strangled him first and hanged him after, by way of carrying out their threat and venting their spite on the mutilated body. But that they did it is plain enough for me. I've spent an hour or two over it, and feel I am certainly more than justified in ordering their apprehension. Indeed, they were with him at the time, as I have found by their tracks on the footpath through the wood.”

The Colonel turned to Sherlock Holmes. “Mr. Hardwick, you must know,” he said, “is by way of being an amateur in your particular line - and a very good amateur, too, I should say, judging by a case or two I have known in this county.”