The housekeeper nodded, the fright slowly fading from her face.
“I will not be a moment, gentlemen. Just let me light this lamp on the hall table.”
We sat down on two spindly chairs to wait, listening to the mumbled conversation going on above. The man who staggered down the stairs to meet us was a completely changed apparition to the smooth professional we had previously met.
“You may leave us, Mrs Hobbs,” he said through trembling lips.
He looked from one to the other of us while anger and despair fought for mastery in his features.
“What is the meaning of this intrusion in the middle of the night, Mr Robinson?”
“My name is Sherlock Holmes,” said my companion sternly. “Your friend is dead. We must have the truth or you are a lost man!”
Amos Hardcastle’s face was ashen. He mumbled incoherently and I thought he was going to have a stroke. I put my hand under his arm to help him down the last few treads and he almost fell into the chair I had just vacated. He looked round blankly, as though in a daze.
“Jabez Crawley’s nephew dead? And you are the detective, Sherlock Holmes.”
“Tell us the truth. Mr Hardcastle,” said Holmes, a smile of triumph on his face. “Or shall I tell the story for you?”
Something like anger flared momentarily in the lawyer’s eyes.
“My client…” he began but Holmes cut him short.
“Must I repeat; your client is dead. He tried to kill Mr Smedhurst. That makes you an accessory.”
The lawyer’s face turned even whiter if that were possible.
“I knew nothing of that,” he whispered. “Did you kill him?”
This to me. I shook my head.
“No. He fell over the edge of the quarry.”
“I will have you disbarred for unprofessional conduct and you will stand trial for criminal conspiracy and accessory to attempted murder,” said Holmes sternly. “It was unfortunate for you that I recognised you by the light of the lantern.”
“I beg you, Mr Holmes!”
“The time is long past for begging. Let me just try to reconstruct your dishonest sequence of events. I am sure you will correct me if I am wrong.”
Holmes sat down in a chair opposite the crushed figure of the lawyer and eyed him grimly.
“Let us just suppose that old Jabez Crawley did not leave a proper will. Just a scribbled note or two, leaving the cottage to his nephew in Australia, his only surviving relative. And supposing he had hinted that there was something valuable hidden there, without indicating its whereabouts. Money perhaps, bonds or the deeds to properties. There were two keys to the cottage. There had to be or you and the nephew would never have gone there and made searches while Mr Smedhurst was out. But that is to run ahead. Am I correct so far?”
The old man nodded sullenly. He looked like a cornered rat with his hair awry and his muddy clothes.
“You wrote to the nephew in Australia at his last known address. You got no reply, I presume?”
“No, sir. More than eight months had passed and I surmised that young Ashton had either died or moved to some other country.”
Holmes smiled thinly.
“You had many fruitless searches at the cottage in the interim — without result. So you sold it to Mr Smedhurst and pocketed the proceeds. You are a pretty scoundrel, even for a provincial lawyer.”
Hardcastle flushed but said nothing, his haunted eyes shifting first to Holmes and then on to me.
“After a long interval you got a reply from the nephew. Your letter had gone astray or been delayed. All this is fairly elementary.”
“I think it quite remarkable. Holmes.” I interjected. “I had no idea…”
“Later, old fellow,” he interrupted. “So young Ashton made his way here and you gave him all the information at your disposal without, of course, telling him that he was the rightful owner of the cottage and that you had sold it and kept the money.”
One look at the lawyer’s face told me that once again my companion had arrived at the right conclusion.
“You worked out a plan of campaign. The nephew would try and sow a little discord between Smedhurst and his fiancée, in the most subtle way, of course, at the same time keeping an eye on Smedhurst’s activities. Then the pair of you invented the series of ghostly happenings. When you drew a blank there and further searches threw no light on old Crawley’s secret, you resorted to stronger measures, with the apparition at the window, and then, finally a short while ago, the attempt at murder.”
The old man wrung his hands.
“I can assure you, Mr Holmes…”
“Well, that is a matter between you and the police,” said Holmes curtly. “We must inform them about the body in the quarry and the circumstances first thing in the morning, Watson. It is almost dawn, anyway.”
“Of course, Holmes.”
I glanced at my pocket watch and saw that it was almost 4 a.m. I felt a sudden weariness following the events of the night.
“What about the cave in the quarry?” I asked.
“That was clear as crystal, Watson. When carrying out his dangerous masquerade, Ashton needed a refuge and an opportunity for a ghostly disappearance. He found the place near the cottage which suited his purposes admirably. When he had made his escape and was sure no-one had followed, he lit the candle and tidied his clothing. Perhaps he cleaned his shoes if they were coated with mud.”
“But the fire, Holmes?”
He gave a thin smile.
“Why, simply to bum that huge papier mâché carnival mask, Watson. The fragment of label unburned, reading CARROLL AND CO. showed that the mask had been bought from a well-known Soho emporium specialising in such things. Obviously, Ashton had bought a number of them.”
“Yes, but how would he take them to the cottage, Holmes?”
“Why, probably in a large paper bag. No-one would take any notice when he passed through the town in broad daylight. The early hours were another matter. He could not risk taking that mask through the town to the house at dead of night in case he were seen; he might even have been stopped and questioned by the local constable. Hence the fire. Correct, Mr Hardcastle?”
“You are a devil, Mr Holmes,” was the man’s broken reply. “But you are correct in every detail.”
We left the shattered figure of Hardcastle huddled on the chair and walked back toward the centre of the town.
“How did you come to suspect Ashton?” I asked.
“There was the irony, Watson. It could have been anyone in Parvise Magna. But then the idea grew in my mind. Ashton was young and personable: he had come from Australia soon after the ghostly manifestations had appeared: and he had attached himself to Smedhurst’s fiancée.”
“Remarkable, Holmes.”
“You do me too much credit, my dear fellow.”
“I wonder what the secret of the cottage is?” I said.
He shrugged.
“Only time will tell. Otherwise, a very curious affair.”
7
And so it proved. Some weeks later I came to the breakfast table to find Holmes smiling broadly. He passed a cheque across to me and my eyes widened as I read the amount above Smedhurst’s signature.
“Our artist has struck lucky at last, Watson,” he said. “His letter is full of news. He has shaved off his beard and is reunited with his fiancée.”
“Excellent, Holmes.”
“And there is more. Just glance at these two newspaper cuttings.”
The first related to the preliminary police court proceedings against Hardcastle, which Holmes and I had attended, and his subsequently striking off the legal rolls. The opening of the inquest on Ashton, which we were also required to attend had been held in camera due to the involvement of Hardcastle in these proceedings also, and had been adjourned sine die. Therefore there had been no reports of these proceedings in the Dorset or national newspapers. During the inquest a high-ranking police officer had informed Holmes that a sporting rifle with one spent cartridge in the breech had been found at Ashton’s home, together with a number of carnival masks.