THE CASE OF THE ARNSWORTH AFFAIR

‘Now there’s a name from the past,’ Holmes exclaimed, laying aside the Morning Post to address me.

‘What name?’ I asked.

‘The first one listed in the obituaries,’ Holmes replied, handing me the paper folded back to the correct page. ‘The lady in question was before your advent as my chronicler, Watson, when I was still in practice at Montague Street.’1

Putting down my coffee cup, I glanced at the item. It referred to the death the previous day of Dowager Lady Edith Arnsworth of Arnsworth Castle in the County of Surrey, aged seventy-three. The funeral would be private.

I was about to enquire who Lady Arnsworth was and what part, if any, she had played in Holmes’ past when he anticipated my question. Getting up from the table, he reached down his encyclopedia2 from the shelves in one of the chimney alcoves and passed it silently to me, already opened at the relevant entry which consisted of several newspaper cuttings carefully pasted on to the page. Leaving me to peruse them on my own, he went into his bedroom, which adjoined our sitting-room, where I heard him rummaging about.

The first cutting referred to the castle itself and had obviously been clipped from a journal devoted to descriptions of the lives and backgrounds of the rich and famous.

‘Arnsworth Castle,’ it stated, ‘the home of the Arnsworth family, is a magnificent fourteenth-century building standing in over ten acres of parkland and pleasure gardens. It is encircled by a moat and access to the house is gained by a long stone bridge of over forty arches. Although extensively altered in the Tudor period, it still retains many of its original features, including the battlemented west tower, from the top of which the visitor may enjoy splendid views over the surrounding countryside.

‘The castle is said to be haunted by the ghost of the second earl, Philip de Harnsworth, who was murdered by his brother Ffulke during a quarrel over the inheritance. The house is also reputed to have several secret rooms and passages. Extensive dungeons and cellars below the castle house the family collection of weapons and instruments of torture.

‘The castle is open to the public only when Sir Grenville Arnsworth and his family are absent in Scotland during the shooting season. For permission to view, application should be made to the Steward, Mr Lionel Monckton, at the Castle Lodge.’

It was followed by an obituary notice from The Times for 12th July 1824, referring to the death of Sir Grenville together with a long account of his life, largely spent, it seemed, on the hunting field and only very occasionally in the House of Lords, much of which I merely glanced at.

The next three clippings received the same cursory treatment, as they were concerned with Sir Grenville’s heir, Sir Richard Arnsworth, including an account of his marriage to Lady Edith Godalming at St Margaret’s, Westminster in 1849, the birth of their only child and sole heir, Gilbert, in 1853, and the death of Sir Richard in a hunting accident in 1872 when Gilbert inherited the title, the castle and the considerable family fortune.

I was about to turn to the next much longer and more interesting-looking cutting, pasted separately on its own page and preceded by a dramatic heading of which I only had time to catch a few words – ‘Tragic’, ‘Nobleman’ and ‘Mysterious’ – when Holmes re-entered the room, dragging behind him the tin trunk in which he kept his records and mementoes of past cases.3

Crossing the room to my chair and perceiving that I had not yet read this last item, he snatched the volume away from me unceremoniously and, slamming it shut, returned it to the bookshelves.

‘I say, Holmes!’ I protested at this cavalier treatment.

‘I am most sincerely sorry, my dear fellow,’ Holmes rejoined. ‘But swift action was called for. Had you read that last cutting, my own account of the case would have been totally ruined and, as you know, I must be allowed my dramatic moments. And now, Watson,’ he continued, taking his seat by the fire and handing me a small package tied up with tape, ‘you shall hear about the Arnsworth case from my own lips rather than from the pen of some inky newspaper hack. In that package, you will find likenesses of the two main protagonists in the case, the Dowager Lady Edith Arnsworth, now deceased, and her son, Gilbert Arnsworth. I acquired them at a sale of family effects a few years ago.’

I loosened the tape and, unwrapping the brown paper cover, revealed two photographs mounted on thick paste-board, one of a woman in her sixties, I judged, the other a young man in his mid twenties.

The woman, dressed in black silk elaborately swathed and ruffled, was sitting very upright against a photographer’s backcloth of painted trees, one hand grasping the arm of a high-backed chair which was throne-like in its proportions and carved embellishments. Her features were handsome, the fine bone structure of the face suggesting that noble blood had coursed through her veins and those of her ancestors for many generations. Only her expression spoilt the general effect. It was cold, proud, arrogant; the look of a woman who has an unforgiving heart and little love for her fellow human beings.

I put it to one side, thinking that I should not want to have crossed swords with her, and took up the second photograph, that of her son.

The contrast was dramatic.

Whereas she sat erect, he lounged in a low chair, legs crossed, one arm resting negligently on a small round table at his side; and while her expression was one of indomitable pride and patrician haughtiness, his was of a vain, foolish complacency. It was true he shared with her a certain handsomeness of physiognomy but, in his case, the features were weak, as if the sinews beneath the flesh lacked support, giving a general effect of languor. His clothes and hair reflected this same foppish affectation in their cut and style.

‘I would appreciate your opinion of them, Watson,’ Holmes suggested in a tone of genuine interest.

‘Lady Arnsworth looks formidable while the son appears a weakling. Was he spoilt as a child?’

‘My dear fellow, you have scored a bullseye! Well done! There are times when you are astonishingly perspicacious!’ Holmes exclaimed.

Although the compliment was a little back-handed, I smiled to show my pleasure at it as Holmes continued, ‘Lady Arnsworth doted on her son. Her marriage was, I imagine, unsatisfactory, her husband being more interested in dogs and horses than his wife. Consequently, she poured all the passion she possessed and, believe me, Watson, under that iron exterior, she was a woman of strong emotions, into her son. As a result, Gilbert grew up thoroughly spoilt; a rich young man who was denied nothing.

‘He inherited not only the title and the fortune but also most of his character from his father, who was himself excessively self-indulgent. In his case, it was his hunters and his fox-hounds on which he lavished his money. Gilbert Arnsworth’s preference was for another type of filly – actresses and what the French, with their charmingly euphemistic use of language, refer to as poules de luxe.

‘Like his father, Gilbert also had a taste for strong liquors and fine wines and it was during a debauch in a hotel bedroom in London with one of his fillies that matters went terribly wrong. There was a quarrel, about what I do not know, which resulted in Gilbert strangling the young lady, whose professional name, according to the newspapers, was Nanette Pearl, although her real name was, more prosaically, Annie Davies. The body was discovered the following morning by the chambermaid. In the meantime, Gilbert had fled the scene and disappeared.

‘The police were, of course, summoned and our old friend Lestrade was put in charge of the case. Although at that time I had been in practice as a private investigative agent for only a few years,4 Lestrade had already called on my assistance on two or three occasions when an inquiry of his had proved difficult. It was so in this particular investigation.

‘It had started well. The night porter at the hotel where Gilbert Arnsworth had stayed and where the murder had been committed was alerted to the fact that something might be amiss when, at half past two in the morning, a young man came running down the stairs, his clothes dishevelled and in a state of considerable alarm. Although at that time the murder had not yet been discovered, the porter was suspicious enough to follow the young man into the street where he saw him hail a four-wheeler.

‘Now the porter had worked at that particular hotel for several years. It was in a turning off the Haymarket5  and was regularly used by the ladies of the night and their clients. Consequently cabs, both hansoms and four-wheelers, were always in demand as these customers came and went, and the porter had come to know a number of their drivers by name as well as sight. So, once the murder had been discovered, the porter was able to give Lestrade not only a description of the young man who had run down the stairs but also the name of the cab driver who had driven him away. It did not take the Inspector long to trace the cabby and learn from him that he had taken the suspect to the gates of a large estate in Surrey where his passenger had paid him off. The cabby had good reason, of course, to remember his client, for not only was it unusual to drive a passenger that distance but the fare was enormous. His description of the young man and the location of the estate enabled Lestrade to establish the suspect’s identity as Gilbert Arnsworth and the destination as Arnsworth Castle.

‘As it seemed likely that Arnsworth had gone to ground in his ancestral home, Lestrade began his enquiries there and immediately came up against a wall of flint, in other words, the Dowager Lady Arnsworth. She was adamant that her son had not returned to the house and also denied any knowledge of where he might be. In fact, she challenged Lestrade to bring his men and search the castle from top to bottom, an offer Lestrade took up the following day. With a posse of ten uniformed men, he had the place searched from the top of its battlements to its dungeons.

‘“It was a thorough search, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade assured me when, a few days later, he called on me at my Montague Street lodgings. “Knowing the place was famous for its secret chambers, we tapped walls and the backs of cupboards, listening for hollow sounds which might suggest there was a hidden cavity; we inspected floorboards to make sure none could be lifted easily; we looked up the chimneys. Because it’s such a warren of a place with Heaven knows how many chambers and passages, we hung towels or sheets out of the windows of every room after we had searched it6 so that we could tell, after we had finished, if we had missed any. But we hadn’t. Every window had its white marker to show the room had been searched.”

‘“But you found nothing?” I asked him.

‘“Not a sign, Mr Holmes, although …”

‘At this point Lestrade began to look distinctively uncomfortable.

‘Now I know in the past I have criticised the police for their lack of imagination,’7 Holmes broke off to explain to me, ‘but for once Lestrade showed the first faint glimmer of any sensitivity which might be described as perceptive or intuitive. I believe the sensation surprised and bewildered him by its novelty, for he went on to add in a faltering manner:

‘“All the same, Mr Holmes, I had the feeling that Lord Arnsworth was hidden somewhere in that house. I can’t explain it any better than that. It was nothing more than this impression; no proof; no evidence. It was like that creepy sensation you sometimes get that someone behind you is staring at you. You know what I mean?”

‘“Of course I do!” I hastened to assure the poor man, for he was looking quite distressed at this, to him, quite irrational instinct on his part. “How would you like me to help you, Inspector?” I went on to ask, for it was obvious he had called on me with some positive request in mind. His face immediately cleared.

‘“Well, Mr Holmes, I wondered if you would agree to come with me to Arnsworth Castle to make a second search? I have warned her Ladyship that I might have to return and she has reluctantly agreed.”

‘“But not with ten of your officers,” I stipulated, for I had no intention of tramping about the castle accompanied by Lestrade’s no doubt keen but heavy-footed colleagues. “You may bring two, in case an arrest has to be made, but no more.”

‘Lestrade agreed to this condition and also to a date for the visit. Consequently, two days later we travelled by train to Guildford in Surrey and from there took a cab to Arnsworth Castle.

‘It is a magnificent building, Watson; the product of the combination of two quite different architectural styles – the medieval represented by the imposing battlemented west tower and the curtain walls of massive stone, still preserved in some places; and the more domestic Tudor design exemplified in the beams and red brick of the rest of the building.

‘It was a perfect day in early autumn and the castle in all its magnificence was mirrored in the still water of the moat, where its reflection seemed to float like a double image of itself painted on glass.

‘We rattled over the long bridge with its many arches, described in the magazine article you may have read, my dear fellow, and then through an imposing gateway entrance into a large cobbled courtyard where Lady Arnsworth’s butler was waiting to conduct us through a series of hallways and passages, all hung with tapestries and portraits of Arnsworth ancestors and guarded by suits of armour. Eventually, we were shown into a small drawing room where, despite the warmth of that autumn day, a bright fire was blazing in the hearth. In front of the fire, an elderly lady was seated in a high-backed chair, not unlike the one in the photograph, surrounded by family heirlooms in the way of silver and porcelain, fine rugs and heavy furniture in blackened oak, polished to a high gloss.

‘Lady Arnsworth gave the impression of having been carefully preserved along with all the other household treasures. Her skin was the colour and texture of old parchment while her hair, artfully coiled and plaited on top of her head in the style of a coronet, had the same silvery sheen as the large pewter plates on display nearby on an Elizabethan court cupboard. She sat very upright, her hands, with their sparkling rings, folded in her black silk lap, and, without moving her head, she followed our progress from the door towards her chair with considerable disfavour.

‘“Who is this man, Inspector?” she demanded, looking straight at me.

‘Lestrade awkwardly introduced me. It was clear she had no intention of shaking hands with me, for her own hands remained clasped in her lap. It was also clear that she had never heard of me; not surprising, I suppose, Watson, for in those early days I was unknown except to a very few people in Scotland Yard and a limited circle of acquaintances I had made through my former Varsity colleagues, including that handful of clients whose cases I had already taken up.8

‘But she apparently accepted me as one of Lestrade’s minions, for she did not look at me again and, when she spoke, she addressed her remarks to Lestrade.

‘“Although I do not approve of your examination of my property, certainly not for a second time, Inspector,” she said coldly, “I suppose I am obliged by law to give my permission. However, I repeat the assertion I made on your first visit: you will not find my son in this house. As before, Norris will accompany you.”

‘At this she nodded abruptly to the butler who had remained, standing just inside the door, which he then opened to usher us out.

‘As we shuffled in an embarrassed silence out of the room, two aspects of the encounter struck me. The first was the manner in which she had phrased her reference to her son’s suspected presence in the house. She had not categorically denied it. Instead, she had referred to it more obliquely by stating that Lestrade would not find her son, thereby avoiding a direct lie. This equivocation convinced me that her son was indeed concealed somewhere in the building. The second was her insistence on the butler accompanying us. This pleased me. Lestrade had already told me that, during the initial search of the castle, Norris had been with them the whole time. It crossed my mind that, rather than being struck by some irrational conviction that Arnsworth was concealed in the house, this feeling might have been suggested to Lestrade by some involuntary movement made by a member of the household, the effect of which the Inspector himself had not been fully aware of and which he had later ascribed to his own intuition. Norris could well have been the unwitting source of such a sensation. If Arnsworth was indeed hiding in the castle, who would be most likely to know this, apart from Lady Arnsworth, but the family butler?

‘I therefore decided to keep a close watch on Norris for any small changes in his demeanour which might lead me to the suspect.

‘I will not bore you, my dear fellow, with a detailed account of our search of the castle. At the time, it seemed interminable. We began at the top of the building and worked our way down, much as Lestrade had done on the first occasion and, as he had described, there were dozens of rooms, some large and well-furnished, others little more than cubbyholes containing nothing but dust. We did not, as Lestrade had done, hang sheets and towels out of the windows, although I could understand his concern to mark off each chamber as it was searched, for the place was like a labyrinth. And all the time, Norris accompanied us.

‘He was a tall, heavy-shouldered man with a long, lugubrious face, the colour of lard, which was difficult to read, for it registered no emotions whatsoever, not even the smallest flicker of impatience or weariness as he followed us from room to room or stood waiting as we made our searches. Only his eyes showed any sign of animation and even that was limited to a sideways movement when Lestrade or one of his officers stepped too near a table or a cabinet on which were displayed ornaments or other small valuables which could have been knocked over or spirited away into a pocket. But no other feature so much as twitched.

‘However, I kept him under very close observation, trusting to my own instinct that eventually he would unwittingly betray his young master’s whereabouts. But nothing happened.

‘After about three hours of searching the upstairs rooms, we descended to the ground floor where we stood grouped together a little uncertainly in the main entrance hall, the walls of which were lined with a curious collection of weapons – swords, sabres, shields, flintlock pistols and halberds arranged into intricate designs of chevrons, triangles and concentric circles.

‘Lestrade hesitated over which room we should inspect next and I guessed from his manner that he was trying to postpone the inevitable moment when the drawing room would have to be searched for a second time and he would be forced into another encounter with the formidable Lady Arnsworth.

‘To help him make up his mind, I turned to Norris.

‘“Where does that passage lead to?” I asked, pointing to an archway to the right which led into a dim gallery hung with ancient banners and lined, like the hall, with suits of armour.

‘His response to my question was so controlled that, had I not been watching him closely, I could have missed it altogether. He became even more impassive if that were possible. Even his eyes remained fixed, staring straight ahead at the wall opposite as if he had suffered a cataleptic seizure, and when he spoke his voice had the expressionless tone of an automata.

‘“To the family chapel, sir,” he replied, not looking at me but keeping his gaze fixed forwards.

‘At that moment, I knew exactly where Gilbert Arnsworth was hiding.

‘“Let us search there first,” I said to Lestrade and, giving him no time to protest, I led the way down the passage.

‘It ended in a heavy oak door, strapped with iron and furnished with a large metal ring as a handle. It was weighty and difficult to open but with the help of one of the constables, I managed to force it back and we stepped inside the chapel.

‘It was a long, rectangular chamber with a high vaulted ceiling supported on stone pillars. Although the fabric of this part of the building was probably of the same early date as the west tower and the other medieval features, it had clearly been refurbished at some later date, at which time the oak pews with their heavy carvings and red velvet cushions had been installed, as well as the magnificent reredos of green marble and gilded wood placed against the east wall.

‘The altar, which stood beneath it, was a comparatively modest fitting compared to its elaborate backdrop, for it consisted of nothing more than a simple table hung with a green velvet cloth, trimmed with gold braid, and bore only a silver cross and a pair of elegant branched silver candle-sticks. On the steps of the altar stood two tall white marble vases containing lilies.

‘We halted just inside the door and I was aware of the response of both Lestrade and Norris. The butler stood like a statue; not even his eyes so much as blinked and his profile, when I glanced sideways at it, might have been chiselled from the same stone with which the chapel was constructed. In contrast, Lestrade’s uneasiness was all too obvious in the small movements of his head and hands and in his rapid, shallow breathing, as if he had run a long distance.

‘I knew immediately why he was showing such signs of distress and why he had not discovered Gilbert Arnsworth the first time he had searched the chapel. The good Inspector was intimidated by the atmosphere of religious sanctity about the place, manifested in the scent of flowers and beeswax, and in the silence that hung like a shadowy veil over the altar and its green and gold reredos. It had inhibited him from making a thorough search of the place. I was also convinced that, when Lestrade was in the chapel on that first occasion, or perhaps even in the passage leading up to it, Norris had made some slight, involuntary movement which had given Lestrade that apparently irrational conviction that Arnsworth was hiding somewhere in the building.’

‘But not necessarily in the chapel?’ I interrupted Holmes’ narrative to ask.

‘Obviously not, or he would have given orders for the place to be thoroughly searched,’ Holmes replied. ‘But Lestrade is a conventional man, subject to all the restraints which that implies, one of which is the fear of behaving inappropriately in a sanctified place, and that tabu overrode all other considerations.

‘Luckily, I do not suffer from the Inspector’s inhibitions and, once I was convinced that I had discovered Gilbert Arnsworth’s hiding-place, I proceeded to flush him out, using the same method which I was later to put to good effect in the Bohemian scandal case, namely the use of fire.9

‘The lesson of that inquiry, as I think I explained to you at the time, is that when a woman thinks her house is on fire, she will rush to the rescue of whatever she values most – her baby, in the case of a married woman, her jewel box if she is unmarried. As you know, Irene Adler immediately hurried to the secret recess in which she had concealed the photograph of herself and the King of Bohemia.

‘In the Arnsworth affair, the same principle applied, except in that case the suspect had more to save than a mere photograph – his life, or so he thought. The fear of being trapped in a hiding-place during a fire would have caused most men, unless they had the courage of a lion, and Gilbert Arnsworth was not among their number, to make a bolt.

‘Before setting out that morning for Arnsworth Castle, I had taken the precaution of concealing in the pocket of my ulster a box of vestas10 together with a long taper made from twisted brown paper which I had liberally smeared with tar. It was the work of a moment to light it and hold it above my head, shouting “Fire!” at the top of my voice as I did so. Black smoke poured from it in a choking cloud.

‘There is a saying about all Bedlam breaking loose, an eventuality I have never witnessed, but I imagine it must be very similar to the scene my action provoked.

‘Norris dashed forward, showing a remarkable turn of speed for a man normally so stately in his bearing, and tried to seize the taper from me, assisted by Lestrade who, judging by his expression of scandalised outrage, must have imagined I had gone mad, while the two constables hung back, mouths agape at this scene of unexpected pandemonium, for both Lestrade, Norris, as well as myself, were shouting as we struggled together.

‘In the midst of all this noise and confusion, I noticed that the green and gold cloth which hung over the altar had begun to move as if an unseen hand was trying to fumble its way through the covering.

‘I immediately flung down the taper and began to stamp it out, as I did so pulling on Lestrade’s arm and pointing towards the altar. As the two constables took over the task of trampling out the last fragments of smouldering brown paper, the Inspector and I, together with Norris, watched as a crouching form emerged from under the folds of fabric. A moment later, the figure of Gilbert Arnsworth stood upright and confronted us.

‘I recognised him at once from the description which the night porter at the hotel had given to Lestrade and which Lestrade had passed on to me; also from his physical likeness to his mother. They shared the same haughty bearing and handsome patrician features, spoilt in his case by a dissolute air, although, as we stared at each other in those first few seconds of disclosure, his face expressed mainly shock and terror.

‘Despite this, he was the first one of us to recover. Before I or Lestrade or either of his officers could stir so much as a finger, he was off like a hare, spurred on no doubt by a desperate need for self-preservation, vaulting over the pews as he made a wild rush for the door which had been left open.

‘Lestrade and I were hampered by the fact that we were still interlocked by our earlier struggle over the taper with Norris and it took us several seconds to free ourselves. Being younger and fitter than the other two, I was the first to disengage myself, but I was not prepared for Norris’s intervention. As I pushed past him to make my own dash for the door, he thrust out a leg causing me to trip and to lose my balance momentarily. It was only a matter of seconds before I recovered but it was long enough for Arnsworth to reach the door and pass through it, slamming it shut behind him. By the time I had wrenched it open and reached the passageway, there was no sign of him, although from the doorway, I had a clear view down this corridor as far as the main entrance hall, which Arnsworth could not have reached in those few seconds’ advantage he had over me. And yet he had disappeared as if by magic.

‘Now, my dear fellow, I know I have repeated to you before that old maxim of mine that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. No doubt you have grown tired of hearing it. But that does not lessen its validity. As I stood there contemplating the empty passage, logic told me there was only one explanation which had nothing to do with the supernatural. Arnsworth must have escaped through a hidden opening of some kind in the passageway itself, although none was immediately apparent.

‘However, halfway down on the right hand side stood a suit of armour, behind which hung a long curtain of heavy red velvet as if to serve as a backdrop for the figure. I noticed that the hem was swaying to and fro as if in a light draught, but there was no current of air that I could feel and everything else in the passage, the hanging lamps and the banners arranged crossways on the walls, remained motionless. Therefore, with Lestrade at my heels, I sprinted towards the curtain which I pulled to one side, revealing an ancient oaken door which stood ajar and, with its iron straps and studding, was very similar to that leading into the church.

‘This one, however, led on to a winding staircase, as I discovered when I pulled it fully open. It was, I surmised, the door to the west tower.

‘Up I went and round I went, following the tight spirals of the stone steps – a giddying sensation, especially as the staircase was so narrow that my shoulders brushed the walls on either side. At intervals, windows, little wider than slits, let in some much-needed fresh air and afforded me glimpses of the moat and the surrounding gardens, diminishing in size the higher I went until I could look down on the tops of trees and the sheet of water in the moat lying as flat and as still as a mirror in which were reflected the blue sky and the white, drifting clouds.

‘After what seemed like an eternity of climbing ever upwards, the staircase ended at a small semi-circular landing with a low door which I pushed softly open and, crouching down, emerged at the top of the tower with Lestrade behind me.

‘Gilbert Arnsworth was not expecting us. The thickness of the stone must have deadened all sound of our footsteps and it was only when Lestrade cried out as he stumbled over the threshold of the little door that Arnsworth was alerted to our presence.

‘He was standing at the far side of the tower, gazing out at the distant view of woods and fields and, by his lounging stance, I guessed he was confident that he had escaped detention. At Lestrade’s exclamation, he spun about to face us, his expression one of shocked disbelief and that kind of rage which a small child might exhibit when he is unexpectedly frustrated.

‘Throughout his life, Gilbert Arnsworth had been denied nothing and I believe he had come to expect that this fortunate state of affairs would continue, whether his own behaviour warranted it or not. In his own eyes, he was like a god, immune from all punishments and disasters to which ordinary mankind is subject. The sight of Inspector Lestrade, accompanied by the two constables who had joined us, advancing upon him, intoning those sonorous, doom-laden words “Gilbert Richard Grenville, ninth Earl of Arnsworth, I am arresting you on the suspicion of murder,” as he produced a pair of handcuffs from his pocket was not to be borne.

‘I saw him back away, his eyes fixed on Lestrade’s face as if mesmerised by the awful solemnity of the occasion, and then the spell broke and his glance darted back toward the stone battlements and the distant view.

‘I read his thoughts, Watson, as clearly as if they had been written on his face, but before I could shout out a warning he had turned and, with a great cry which drowned out my own exclamation, he had vaulted on to the narrow coping where he stood for a moment outlined against the blue sky, arms outstretched, before he dived down into space.

‘Lestrade and I, together with the two constables, rushed to the battlements and peered over them just in time to see his body plunging downwards like a great sea-bird, into the moat as if hunting for its prey within its very depths.

‘God knows what was in his mind. Did he still believe in his invincibility? Was he convinced that he would surface safely and could swim to the further side and make his escape?

‘If he did, he was tragically deceived. There was no sign of him apart from the ripples which spread out across the water to touch the grassy banks and, within a few moments, they too had disappeared and the surface once more lay as smooth and as still as glass.

‘The uniformed officers recovered his body later with the help of two of the gardeners. The rest, as they say, is history, not all of which was recorded correctly.

‘The new Earl of Arnsworth, Gilbert’s cousin Eustace, inherited the title and moved into the castle, while the Dowager Lady Arnsworth took up residence in the Dower house which was situated at the far side of the estate. As you know from my newspaper archives, she has since died. Gilbert Arnsworth’s death was attributed to a tragic accident, while at the inquest on Annie Davies a verdict of murder by a person or persons unknown was returned. As far as I know, no connection was ever made between the two deaths.’

‘“Persons unknown”!’ I protested. ‘That is not justice, Holmes!’

My old friend shrugged his shoulders and gave a small, cynical smile.

‘Not moral justice, perhaps, Watson; but legal justice all the same. There was no hard evidence against Arnsworth, only a strong suspicion. Neither the cab driver nor the night porter were ever asked to identify him as the young man seen running from the hotel in the early hours of the morning, nor as the client who engaged the cab which drove him to the gates of Arnsworth Castle. Besides, what does the death of a prostitute count against that of a belted earl? Shall you write up the story, my dear fellow?’

I paused to reflect for a moment. Although I felt a keen responsibility to place the facts of the case before my readers and to redress, if only a little, the imbalance of the scales of justice between the rich and powerful and the poor and weak, I knew in my heart I would never publish an account of the case. For, as Holmes had pointed out, there was no final proof of Gilbert Arnsworth’s guilt, only a very strong suspicion, and I myself would be committing an injustice by suggesting otherwise.

I shall therefore place this account among my other unpublished papers, trusting that future research into the case may at last provide that evidence which will prove Arnsworth’s guilt, so that the truth may finally be laid before the public.

1 See footnote 2 of The Case of the Aluminium Crutch. Dr John F. Watson.

2 There are several references to Sherlock Holmes’ encyclopedia, sometimes referred to as his ‘commonplace book’. In the ‘Adventure of the Sussex Vampire’, Dr Watson speaks of it as ‘the great index volume’, ‘the accumulated information of a lifetime’. Dr John F. Watson.

3 Sherlock Holmes kept all the documents and mementoes of past investigations in this tin trunk, such as the case of the Gloria Scott and the Musgrave Ritual. He brought it with him from his lodgings in Montague Street when he and Dr Watson moved into their Baker Street rooms. Dr John F. Watson.

4 It is generally believed that Sherlock Holmes set up as a private consulting detective in 1874 and had met Inspector Lestrade by the end of 1880, when he asked Sherlock Holmes to help him with a case of forgery. Dr John F. Watson.

5 The Haymarket, a turning off Piccadilly, was a notorious area for prostitutes and for cheap hotels in the side streets nearby, such as Windmill Street, where they took their clients. Dr John F. Watson.

6 A similar event is said to have happened at Glamis Castle in Scotland, the home of the Bowes-Lyon family, which included the late Queen Mother, and the Earls of Strathmore. According to a family legend, a ‘monster’ was said to be locked away in a secret room in the castle. On one occasion, members of the family and their guests searched all the rooms, hanging towels and sheets out of the windows to indicate which rooms had been inspected. Apparently, no ‘monster’ was found. Dr John F. Watson.

7 Sherlock Holmes makes this criticism of Inspector Lestrade in ‘The Adventure of the Three Garridebs’. Dr John F. Watson.

8 Sherlock Holmes’ early cases included the Gloria Scott inquiry, which was his first case, and the Musgrave Ritual inquiry, his third case. Both these cases he recounted to Dr Watson, who later wrote up and published accounts of them. Sherlock Holmes also referred to other cases, the Tarleton murders, the case of Vamberry the wine merchant, the old Russian woman, the singular affair of the aluminium crutch, which is included in this collection, and the case of Ricoletti and his abominable wife. Vide: ‘The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual’. It is not known which was his second case. Dr John F. Watson.

9 In ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, Sherlock Holmes arranges for Dr Watson to throw a smoke rocket into the drawing room at Briony Lodge, Irene Adler’s house, and in her eagerness to save the photograph of herself and the King of Bohemia, she unwittingly revealed its hiding-place. Sherlock Holmes used the same ruse in the adventure relating to the Norwood builder, Jonas Oldacre, whom he flushed out from the secret room in which he was hiding by setting light to some straw and making him believe the house was on fire. Dr John F. Watson.

10 The original vesta match was invented by William Newton in 1832 and consisted of a wax taper, the tip of which was coated with a friction composition which caught fire when rubbed against a rough surface. But safety matches were first produced in 1855 in Sweden, using red phosphorus, a much safer chemical than white phosphorus, which gave off a poisonous vapour. The match was tipped with an oxidiser which was struck against a special phosphorus strip on the side of the box. Dr John F. Watson.