“I have no idea, Dr Watson. But he proved it to them. In the previous summer, the school photograph was taken on the front lawn, with the main building as its background. The boys wore the short jackets and striped trousers of their ‘Eton suits’ and stood in long rows, ranged according to height.”
He nodded at an assortment of framed prints on the far wall and then continued.
“When the photographs were printed, a slightly-built, fair-haired junior was at the left-hand end of the back row. That was Miles Mordaunt.”
“Where was the trick?”
“Behind him, doctor. As I mentioned, the front of the school building was the background. There is a three-sided oriel window in a room to the right of the main entrance door. Within the diagonal leaded lights of its Tudor window, forty feet or so behind the row at whose far end the boy stood, was also the face of Miles Mordaunt. It was a fainter image but beyond doubt it was the same child with the same look of frustrated energy. To credulous junior boys of eight or nine, he offered it as proof of his ability to materialise in two places at the same time.
“A prank,” said Holmes dismissively, “I daresay few of his dupes knew that such long photographs are taken in sections and matched together. Miles Mordaunt had only to stand within the window when the process began and then sneak round to the end of the back row before the camera lens shifted its angle.”
“With his friends who knew that, he treated it as a secret joke. If they did not know, he made it a demonstration of his psychic powers.”
“He was surely not dismissed for such a game!” I said.
“But that was only the beginning, Dr Watson. Next came a series of rumours, dark secrets confided to close friends. He described to one crony how he had drowned his sister’s governess when she betrayed a promise. The intensity of his confessions was such that even you might almost believe him, until you knew better. Her death was thought to be a tragic mishap and he was never suspected. There was no truth in this. The poor lady died of natural causes at her father’s home, many miles away. She was, of course, replaced by Miss Temple.”
“A great misfortune, as it turns out!” said Holmes softly.
“Mr Holmes, there was also a man at Bly, who died in an accident. He was a servant of some kind …”
“Quint,” I said at once.
“I believe so, Dr Watson. He and the boy were great chums, according to Miles. There were no other males in the household—except possibly a gardener from the outlying estate. Quint, if that was his name, had warned the boy never to let himself be put upon by any governess or female servant. Better drown them like kittens than let them grow to be cats, Quint had said, if the boy was to be believed.”
“And that was the worst that Miles said?” I asked.
“Unhappily not, Dr Watson. The boy gathered a coven about him. By closing his right fist, then extending the thumb and small finger, he taught those who swore allegiance to him how to exercise the curse of the evil eye. He confided to them how he had placed curses on those who crossed him and how these had been fulfilled. He always tailored this to misfortunes which had actually occurred, so that he was more easily believed.”
I was about to inquire where a child of his age could have picked up such poisonous nonsense, but the thought of Peter Quint provided an answer.
“A boy so young!” I said incredulously.
“Just so, doctor. Children may be capable of the worst imaginings and dishonesties.”
I followed his gaze as he spoke. Subconsciously he had led me to a bookshelf and a volume of Cases at Salem: Drawn from Pleas of the Crown. How strange to be reminded in this sunlit room of those innocent American men and women sworn to their deaths by children in the famous witch trials two centuries ago.
“He was believed by the junior boys?” Holmes asked.
“Not at first, I daresay. Yet it gave him an air—a reputation for malevolent power. To silence the doubters, he undertook to prove publicly the powers which his demon—Quint perhaps—had conferred upon him.”
Holmes sat back with his fingers folded together, missing no word nor nuance of the young master’s explanation.
“He performed his tricks, Mr Holmes. I cannot put it any other way. For instance, he claimed that he could see through walls. He could even see into the skulls of others and read their thoughts.”
“What was his proof?”
Our host thought for a moment.
“It varied. Several times, to my knowledge, he used a pair of dice. Two boys would go into another room—even into another building—and roll the dice. Miles could not possibly see the result. He told them to take the figure on the left hand die and double it. They must then add five to that answer and multiply the whole by five. Finally they must add the number on the right hand die. Once they gave him that total, even though they had been a dozen miles away, he would give them the precise numbers on the two dice, which he now saw in their minds. He was never wrong. He claimed that he could read their minds as plainly as they themselves. Some of the little boys grew afraid of him. A few began to believe in the things that he told them. Even the seniors grew wary of him.”
“A mathematical dodge with a pair of dice!” said Holmes scornfully. “He had learnt it somewhere—from an adult, of course. Who taught him, I wonder? Let me tell you, Mr Spencer-Smith, it is a trick based on multiplication by five. Once his dupes gave him the final total, all he needed to do was subtract from it the square of five. Twenty-five. That would invariably and infallibly give him the numbers on the two dice. So, for example, sixty-two would always equal six-plus-two, thirty-five would always give him three-plus-five. It never fails. It is no more magic nor witchcraft than a recipe for plum pudding! But surely he was not expelled—even for this?”
“No, Mr Holmes. His downfall was the Five Stones murder in the neighbourhood of his home, far away at Bly. I daresay you have heard of it? A mill-owner was driving a cart with a barrel of gold coins, believing that no one knew of his cargo. It was the quarter’s takings from several saw-mills which he was carrying to his safe. It was a good deal of money and he had been careful to tell no one of it, as he thought. Unfortunately for him, his route was known to the robber, even if the size of the cargo was not. He was attacked and clubbed to death while crossing the heathland near the prehistoric Five Standing Stones of Bly. Little remains of four stones, but the fifth is still upright. The perpetrators were never caught. For no good reason, it was locally believed that there were five robbers—as there were five stones at the scene of the crime. The fifth, supposed to be the actual murderer, was popularly nicknamed the Fifth Stone.”
“I have heard of the crime,” said Holmes tolerantly.
“But why was the child expelled from school?” I persisted.
“For what followed, Dr Watson. The master of Brunswick House, Mair Loftus, was not an amiable man. Ill-tempered, strict and pious, he kept his wife and son in fear of him. He was a rasping bully. To all criticism, he replied, ‘When I was a junior boy, I feared my master. Now, by God, these juniors shall fear me.’ He has since left us. Miles cordially loathed the man and, quite simply, set out to destroy him. For devilment, I suppose, this little boy swore to his friends that he knew a secret about this murder committed near his home. Mair Loftus, all the way down in the West Country, was an accomplice of the Fifth Stone. This housemaster was the receiver of the stolen gold. Little by little, Miles told his friends, the robber brought the gold coins all the way down to Somerset. Loftus changed them at his bank into negotiable notes and even into government bonds. Who would suspect a schoolmaster, especially one with a private income? Miles swore that he had this story from the Fifth Stone himself.”