THE ADVENTURE OF THE STAINED CEILING
A Sherlock Holmes Mystery
edited from a transcript of Dr. J. H. Watson's case notes
by Dr. M. M. G.
CHAPTER I.
THE ACE OF HEARTS
By the beginning of May 1890, Holmes' recourse to cocaine was once more giving his closest friends cause for concern. He claimed that it was the inevitable result of too little brainwork, but I suspected that he would fare better away from the stresses of London life. As he found the countryside disturbing, my wife ventured that a busy seaside town might prove more to his taste. Mrs. Hudson suggested Sandbourne on the Wessex coast, where her second-cousin, a master mariner's widow, ran a small but reputable guest-house. Holmes was initially reluctant, but I stood firm as doctor and friend, and eventually convinced him of the wisdom of this. Mary agreed that I should accompany him for the first two weeks to ensure that he settled and to keep an eye on his use of the needle. "After all," she said, "you need a rest, too. Besides, it's a health resort - no-one's likely to be murdered there!"
Thus it was that Holmes and I came to be residing on the second floor of The Herons, a pleasant villa overlooking the Lower Gardens, with real herons and squirrels frequently in view. The proprietrix, Polly Brooks - née Forbes - was a straight-backed Scotswoman, a little under fifty, with kind eyes but a bitter mouth. She was perpetually busying about, her presence indicated, even when she was not visible, by the rattle of heavy jet beads and the rustle of bombazine. She kept the house personally, with only part-time staff, priding herself on 'running a tight ship' and balancing her books. I could not but think that, in her cousin's place, she would not have tolerated a long-term tenant as eccentric as Holmes, although she herself was rumoured to be interested in table-rapping.
Holmes was initially unsettled by the air of sunny, cosmopolitan ephemerality which clung to Sandbourne. He complained bitterly about leaving London. However, he soon adapted. Before our first week was out, he had returned to his oldest and favourite study - that of humanity, as embodied by our fellow-guests. The first floor was occupied by two married couples. The rear apartment was that of the Oaks, middle-aged, wealthy farming people whose dinner conversation generally concerned the latest agricultural equipment and diseases of sheep. It seemed fortunate that they found each other interesting, for no-one else did, least of all their immediate neighbours, one of whom had rechristened the lady 'Baa-thsheba'. For the front apartment, directly below our own rooms, was being leased by a honeymoon couple, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander d'Urberville. Holmes regarded them as quite fascinating.
They were certainly an attractive pair, both tall and dark. He was twenty-eight or so, full of vitality and wit, and strikingly handsome in a faintly unEnglish way. His charm was sufficient to prevent Mrs. Oak taking offence at his nickname for her, and even Mrs. Brooks was not immune, remarking: "The lassie's got hersel' a braw catch there!" He, in turn, seemed to have found a fine match in his wife, Teresa, whom he clearly adored. She was several years his junior, a beauty, with a face in which girlish innocence blended with a more womanly warmth. Her figure was voluptuous, and her voice melodious, with a soft Wessex accent. There was not a person, male or female, at The Herons (even Holmes, to a degree) who was not utterly captivated by her unaffected grace - and yet sometimes a faint air of melancholy clung to her. I had gleaned, from conversation and from the half-mourning colours which she wore, that her father had died earlier in the year; but something made me wonder whether that was the full explanation.
Before dinner one evening, Mrs. Brooks had carried in Rio, her green parrot, to amuse the guests. On given verbal cues, the bird squawked snatches of sea-chanties and Scots songs. Mrs. d'Urberville was particularly enthralled, and began chatting and chirruping to it through the bars of its cage.
"She's very fond of birds," her husband commented to me. "She used to look after my late mother's."
"Really?"
"Yes - she whistled tunes to them! She speaks fluent bullfinch - don't you, Tess?"
She turned, smiling wanly at his jest.
He winked mischievously back at her, and tweaked his moustache. "She's a stunner! Incomparable! I thought I'd lost her for ever once - it nearly ruined me. D'you how far I sank?"
"Drink?" I ventured.
D'Urberville laughed. "Worse - religion! Fortunately, she saved me from myself, talked me right out of it - otherwise I'd still be preaching in some God-forsaken village hall! Can you imagine?"
"I can't, actually."
"Neither can I, now! Talk about 'Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath!'- I count myself a very lucky fellow to have found her again!" And then he added, less lightly: "I just hope she thinks she's a lucky girl..."
Even then it struck me as an odd thing to say. I watched him put his arm around his bride's waist, and whistle a few bars of Greensleeves to the parrot. I could not but think that the tune too belied his apparent cheerfulness. Later, before we retired, I voiced my misgivings to Holmes.
"I doubt they are married - I've never heard them quarrel," he said.
"You're an inveterate cynic, Holmes!"
"And you are an inveterate romantic, Watson - Think of yourself and Mary! Sometimes you argue over something as inconsequential as the siting of a pepperpot on the dinner table, while remaining the best of friends, as married people do. I fancy our young neighbours lack the security to risk such trivial tempests. There is something curious about them."
It was my turn for scepticism. "Nonsense - they're only newly-weds - delightful people. I was probably reading far too much into-"
"But watch them together. It is evident that he is besotted with her. Yet sometimes it is as if she absents herself emotionally from him - as if her heart is with something - or someone - else."
"You suspect her of infidelity?"
"No - there is nothing furtive in her manner. It is rather as if she were remembering someone dead, who has a claim upon her - a claim stronger than that of the living. And I'm not thinking of a father."
"You'd better ask Mrs. Brooks to do some of her table-rapping, then! Honestly, Holmes, you're supposed to be resting!"
"I need intellectual stimulation: it is idleness which drives me to the needle. And it will be interesting to see how the situation resolves itself."
"You believe he's aware of her state, then?"
"I think your observations were correct, Watson. Beneath the jesting, that boy is profoundly unhappy. Have you noticed how much he smokes? And do you know Greensleeves?"
"Yes; Mary plays it sometimes on the piano."
"The words?"
I tried to remember; then, for some reason, it was the last verse which came to mind:
"Well, I will pray to God on high,
That thou my constancy may'st see,
And that yet once before I die
Thou wilt vouchsafe to love me."
"It is unfortunate that he has to compete with a ghost," Holmes said. "You know, he is not quite a gentleman - too well-dressed, and that diamond ring is far too bold. His accent suggests the North - removed to these parts in childhood, no doubt - and a very minor public school. I doubt whether d'Urberville is his real name. Intelligent, but perhaps inclined to be guided by his passions. His father, being nouveau riche, probably owned a late Rossetti, which may explain his taste for such... abundant pulchritude."
"That's plausible! What about his wife, then?"
"A more mysterious case. She has the graces of a born lady, but I suspect that the trappings accompanying them are lately acquired - her absurd plumed hat and French perfume, for example... You are familiar with Holman Hunt's The Awakening Conscience?"
"I recall an engraving of it," I replied, although I confess that I have not my learned colleague's æsthetic sensibilities: his maternal great-uncle was Horace Vernet, the painter of battles.
"The shiny newness of the kept woman's furniture... It reminds me of Mrs. d'Urberville's finery. She does not seem comfortable in it. She is as careful of her speech as a country girl still new to society, and when we were introduced, I noticed how strong and coarse her hands were. She has done heavy manual work, and until quite recently. It's a mésalliance, Watson."
"So they are both parvenus, and perhaps her trousseau doesn't quite fit - there's little mystery there to me! She's a splendid-looking girl - albeit rather obviously so!" Unlike my own wife, Mary, whose refinement of person and features suggested the angel, there was more of the pagan goddess about the subject of our conversation.
Holmes drummed his long, thin fingers on the window sill. "She's a creature little encouraged in England, you know..."
"What is?"
"La femme moyenne sensuelle," he said with a hint of distaste. "We - the English in general - prefer to praise one extreme and censure the other. Mrs. d'Urberville would be better suited to Dieppe than Sandbourne: after all, she bears a Norman name..."
Given his French blood, Holmes' attitude towards women is baffling.
The following morning, Holmes revised his opinion of our neighbours' domestic state, as we heard sounds of quarrelling rising through our floor as we took breakfast: a man's angry voice and a woman's sobbing. Perhaps thirty minutes afterwards, he called me to the window to indicate a familiar figure leaving the house in some haste. Mrs. d'Urberville's flamboyant black-plumed hat was covered with a veil, which made me wonder why she was also carrying a parasol - although she might well wish to hide a tear-stained face.
"The proverbial honeymoon is over," Holmes observed laconically.
"No doubt she is going back to Mother!" I said.
"Without her case- No, a stroll on the pier until tempers cool."
We settled back to finish the morning papers. Some time later the calm was suddenly shattered by someone hammering frantically at the door.
"Dr. Watson! Mr. Holmes!"
Holmes sprang to the door. It was Mrs. Brooks, white-faced and wild-eyed. "Please -" she gasped, " - come dounstairs! My ceiling!"
I was just about to suggest that she needed a plasterer, not a detective or a doctor, when she silently raised her hand. Her fingertips were smeared with what looked like -
"Blood! Watson! Hurry!" And with these words, Holmes hastened the frightened woman downstairs. I snatched up my medical bag and followed.
Mrs. Brooks led us to her own parlour to the rear of the ground floor - a haven of simple domesticity in contrast with the studied elegance of the guest rooms. We were greeted by a squawk from the parrot. An armadillo-shell work-basket - no doubt another gift from her late husband - lay overturned by her chair, spilling cotton reels on the floor beside her abandoned pince-nez.
"I was sewin', and when I luiked up, that stairted tae appear! Like the Ace o' Herts!" she explained, pointing to a crimson stain the size of a human palm, formed around a cluster of cracks in the plaster.
Holmes climbed upon the gate-leg table below the mark. He touched it, then sniffed and tasted his fingers. "Mrs. Brooks, it is fresh blood!"
"Hang down, you blood-red roses," sang the parrot.
"Wheesht!" she said, silencing the bird. "That's the d'Urbervilles' chaumer up there! And she's gaun out!"
Holmes and I ran back up to the first floor, with Mrs. Brooks behind us.
Mrs. Oak, curious at the commotion, was peering across the carved landing balustrades from the rooms opposite. The maid, Susan, who had just arrived for duty, was creeping upstairs.
Holmes knocked on the door: "Sir! Are you all right?" No reply.
Mrs. Brooks used the master-key which she wore on her châtelaine. The drawing room was empty, everything in its place, including the breakfast tray, loaded with bread and a ham, upon the table.
"They've no' touched breakfast!" she whispered.
My colleague's aquiline gaze glided over the tray. "The carving-knife is gone."
The woman put her hand to her throat: "Dear God -" as Holmes pushed apart the folding doors into the bedroom... "He's deid!" she cried out.
"Watson! Quickly! Mrs. Brooks, get those people away from the door! Tell none of them to leave the house! There's been - an accident!"
Alec d'Urberville was lying on his back, close to the edge of the bed, his left hand trailing on the floor. A stream of venous blood was trickling steadily from a stab-wound in his breast. It dripped down into a knot hole in the boards - whence through the cracks in Mrs. Brooks' ceiling.
Not such a lucky fellow after all, I thought, as I endeavoured to staunch the flow: he was already deeply unconscious. "Severe shock. It looks bad."
"The carving knife?" Holmes asked.
"Leaving such a small external wound? Unlikely."
"That's interesting. And there's no sign of a struggle," he commented, already prowling around the room in search of clues. "Prognosis?"
"Hard to assess the internal injuries because of the bleeding. At least it's not this ceiling that's stained... Even so, if the heart is damaged..." I shook my head.
Mrs. Brooks strode back in. "He's no' deid, then- That's guid! I've just sent a workman fae next door for the polis and ambulance -"
"- One of which is probably quite superfluous," Holmes muttered.
She turned almost as ashen as the victim. For a moment I feared that she would faint: I despaired of my friend's tactlessness with the fair sex. However, she simply rolled up her sleeves and loaned her strong hands to help me dress and bandage d'Urberville's wound.
"He's no' deen it himsel', has he, doctor?" she asked anxiously.
"Improbable - the weapon is missing."
"My cairving-knife?"
"Ah yes..." mused my colleague. "The carving-knife..." Using his handkerchief, he picked up Mrs. d'Urberville's scent bottle from the dressing-table and sniffed at it. "His wife even put on her perfume before she left," he commented.
Mrs. Brooks sighed: "If I'd said something - I micht hae stopped her!"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, she did it, did she no'? Thon limmer ca'in' hersel' his wife!"
"Explain!"
She walked to the window and began to speak in a low voice. My pen cannot fully convey the flavour of her speech: although she had lived in the South-West of Britain for many years, she retained, from pride, something of the idiom of her native North-East (In the interests of comprehensibility, however, I have modified throughout her habit, when greatly distressed, of pronouncing 'wh', as in 'what', 'when' c., as 'f'. – J. H. W.) "Early - at about seven - a stranger cam' here, speirin' for Mistress d'Urberville. He said he was a kinsman, 'Angel' by name - mair like the Angel o' Deith, I thocht - a richt shilpit loun, skin and bane, like he was needin' tae be deid! I heard them talkin' - no' on purpose, you ken, but she was staunin' at the chaumer door, and wi' her bein' a mairrit woman and in her nichtgoun... Weel, I keep a respectable house! I heard him ca'in' her 'wife', and her sayin' how she hated Mr. d'Urberville for keepin' them apairt! Then the man gaed awa', and later, when I was haein' my breakfast, I heard quarrellin' - the first time I'd heard thae twa airgue wi' each ither...
"I was worried, sae I went tae see... I durstna chap, sae I - I keeked in at the keyhole - I dinna mak' a habit o' it, sir, you maunna think I dee - But there was the lassie greetin' about her husband... Mr. d'Urberville was abed, for I heard his voice but couldna see him... But you dinna like tae interfere 'twixt a couple, dee you?
"And then, when I was in the dinin'-room, she swans doun the stair like the Queen of Sheba wi' her feathers and frills and veil, and gaes out!... And a' that time he's leein' here like this!" She suppressed a sob.
I left the patient's bedside to comfort her. "My dear lady, you could not have guessed... It has been a terrible shock to all of us..."
"I've aye kept a respectable house! It'll be an awfu' scandal!"
"Mrs. Brooks, perhaps you should go to your rooms and lie down, with a cup of warm sweet tea - eh, Watson?"
"But the patient -"
Holmes strode over to the bed, and checked the pulse in his neck. "I shall deal with the local constabulary; your duty is to... the living."
I nodded, understanding.
"Deid?" the woman gasped.
"Murdered."
"Mrs. Brooks," I said gently, "you may help bring the killer to justice. The police will also want to hear your story, and so you ought to get some rest now. Doctor's orders!"
She forced a grim smile. "Thank you, sir - it's a mercy you were here."
- Although too late, was the thought which passed unspoken between us. She began to shiver, although the room was not cold.
"And Watson," said Holmes, "you'd better send a telegram to Mary - your return may be delayed!"
I helped Mrs. Brooks downstairs to her parlour. She chattered on in a hollow tone about the mess on the floor and ceiling to avoid confronting the crime itself. She seemed not to notice that her lace cuffs were no longer white, and that there were dull, damp marks on her skirt, from where she had knelt beside the bed. Then, resting on the couch, sipping sweet tea, she saw the stain on the plaster again.
"There is a deid man in my bour:
I wad he were awa'," she murmured.
The parrot chuckled, and trilled the tune, Earl Richard.
"Will you be all right?"
"Aye... Fowk come here for their health, sae there's aye somebody's guests deein' somewhere... But they're auld, or sick - no' like thon young man... But you'd better get doun tae the Post Office, tae tell your wife, like Mr. Holmes said..."
By the time I returned from the busy Post Office, Holmes had gone back to our own apartment. He sat calmly smoking his pipe in his favourite chair by the window. "The police are turning over the rooms," he said laconically. "They've taken some of the lady's clothing to give the bloodhounds the scent."
"And Mr. - the body?"
"Removed. The coroner shall be informed; no doubt you'll be required to submit your findings, too. And even as we speak, the search is on across the county for the charming Mrs. d'Urberville - or rather, Mrs. Clare, according to papers found in the victim's wallet."
"You were right, then, about there being more to her than met the eye. Such a pretty young thing - a murderess!"
He puffed at his pipe thoughtfully. "I wonder..."
"What do you mean? Surely it's an open-and-shut case - a married woman with a lover, a crime of passion!"
"Is it? There's something about this business which seems too neat, too obvious - and yet there are significant incongruities. We shall see, Watson..."
To be continued.