Donald Thomas - Sherlock Holmes and the King’s Evil

Had it not been for the case upon which we were embarked, I should have found a week or so at Sutton Cross very agreeable. The fresh wind from the North Sea and the tranquil pastureland made a pleasing contrast to Baker Street. As it was, Holmes had already wired for an appointment in an hour’s time with the Reverend Roderick Gilmore, rector of the parish. This good man was formerly a contemporary of Holmes’s elder brother, Mycroft, at Trinity College, Cambridge. That seemed enough to be going on with.

We found Mr Gilmore at home, a comfortable middle-aged man who owed his incumbency to the fact that the living of St Clement’s, Sutton Cross, was in the gift of Trinity College. He, like Brother Mycroft, had distinguished himself in the Mathematical Tripos but preferred a quiet living on the Suffolk coast to a college fellowship. He talked as if we were old acquaintances, showing off the fine nave of his church with its Norman bays and clerestory, its fourteenth century south aisle. As we sat at tea in his study, the lattice windows looked out across the yew-hedged churchyard towards a bright afternoon sky above a calm sea. I thought that had life called upon me to be rector of Sutton Cross, I should have been well content.

After we had complimented him upon his church and his grounds, he said meekly,

“We are also rather proud of our little railway bridge. It was built by Robert Stevenson, you know.”

We murmured our approval and then Mr Gilmore came quietly to the reason for our visit.

“It is a bad business altogether that we should have lost the two Chastelnau brothers in this manner. A very bad business. They were not greatly liked and, indeed, they refused to consider themselves my parishioners but that makes the tragedy all the more poignant.”

Holmes put down his teacup.

“We understand from Miss Alice Chastelnau that you and the sexton were on the roof of the tower last Sunday evening, when the beacon was lit. You saw two men fighting-or, at least, struggling?”

Mr Gilmore looked mournfully at us.

“I heard a single gunshot just as we climbed the tower. It was a shotgun without doubt, such as most of the hunters carry here. The Chastelnau brothers at the Old Light were the nearest inhabitants to the marshes and the mudbanks. Like many others, they sometimes used a gunshot as a convenient signal to one another. Yet it was far too late for a hunter to be out on normal business. The dusk and the mist were setting in. All the fishermen had already been out to their nets to retrieve their catch. The fowlers and the eel-catchers had long come in.”

“Which surely makes it strange that the brothers should still have been out there?” I said.

“Not exceptionally strange, doctor. It is true that one man should have remained to guard the Old Light-or at least should be absent for as short a time as possible. Yet it is not human nature for one brother to ignore a possible distress signal fired by the other. After all, they were never out of sight of the Old Light and its beam was in no danger of extinction at that time. Besides which, the Old Light is hardly a landmark like the Eddystone or the Bell Rock. It serves little purpose but to mark the river estuary for such vessels as pass. They no longer enter the river nor even approach it since the bridge was built to carry the railway across. Its lantern will be done away with before long, mark my words. Who would want the job? Who would choose to be a keeper, living well beyond any other habitation, surrounded by the marshes and the mudflats?”

Holmes interrupted this a little too brusquely.

“Tell me, Mr Gilmore, what did you and your sexton see from the tower?”

“See?” Gilmore shook his head. “It was difficult to see very clearly, Mr Holmes. They were some distance off, half a mile perhaps, and the light was almost gone. It was very hard, by then, even to tell the appearance of their clothing. The mist was coming in with the tide. If they were carrying lanterns, which surely must have been the case, they were not shining towards us. Though I could not swear to it, I believe there was a second gunshot-the second barrel perhaps. What I saw was not so much a prize-fight with fists, not a striking of blows. It was far more like a wrestling match, as if for the possession of some object.”

“Who possessed it in the end?”

Mr Gilmore shook his head.

“That I cannot tell you. I do not think we saw the end of the affair between them. It was not done with before the darkening twilight and the mist obscured them completely. It appeared to me as if the first man snatched at the second. That second man fell but struggled free and scrambled up again. Then the first man brought him down and this time pulled him up. There was too little light to see more. I explained all this to Inspector Wainwright, but I do not know how much I could swear to in court.”

“We expect to meet Mr Wainwright this afternoon, at the Old Light.”

“Wainwright is a good man, Mr Holmes. As to the nature of the struggle between the two brothers, the greater danger would be for them to get lost among the tide and the quicksands. But that could hardly happen with the beacon on the church tower lit and the Old Light clearly visible with its beam flashing out to sea in a constant direction. That was why I was most anxious to see our beacon lit upon the tower. Moreover, these brothers had known the sands and the mudflats all their lives. All the same, neither has been seen again and so we must suppose that the two men in the dusk were they.”

“And that was all?”

“There was one thing, Mr Holmes, which I told Inspector Wainwright. In the hope we could retain communication with them, the sexton went down from the tower and came up with a rook rifle. He fired a single shot into the air, in case they could reply and tell us where they were. I heard no more but a muffled shot or breaking surf can be much the same at that distance.”

I intervened in what was, after all, my case.

“Were they greatly disliked in the village?”

Mr Gilmore paused, choosing his words with care.

“I should rather say they were mocked, Dr Watson, and that a hatred of those who abused them was their response. Local people can be very cruel at a time of misfortune. After old John Chastelnau died, the oil-cake manufactory failed. You can still see the rough stone building, just opposite the Bridge Hotel. Those who had disliked the old man’s miserliness-and some who scoffed at his second marriage to a younger woman-took no care to conceal their satisfaction at the failure of the enterprise. There was a fight outside the Bridge Hotel one evening. Roland Chastelnau broke a man’s nose after insults were exchanged. Sir Walter Butt, the magistrate, discharged both men with a caution, for fear of making matters worse. After that neither of the brothers entered the inn or the church again. Indeed, they were already strangers to the church.”

“Did their animosity extend to each other?”

“I was once told that they fought like two ferrets in a sack. That was the exact phrase used to me. I cannot believe it was as bad as that. Of course, they subsisted by tending the Old Light. I understand they were paid out of the county rate. Their accommodation was provided by the barrack-room under the lantern.”

“And what else?” I inquired, “How did they feed themselves?”

Mr Gilmore looked as if he thought I might have known without asking.

“Roland was the hunter and fisherman. Even for those who are not hunters by profession, the snaring or shooting of wild-fowl, geese, or the eel-catching and fishing nets for small fry commonly become additional trades. Abraham was the brother who usually took the watch and kept the light flashing out to sea. He also cultivated a vegetable plot just above the river bridge on the far side. How they lived otherwise, I cannot say.”