Denis Smith - The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

‘As the body was found scarcely twenty feet from Stainforth’s gate, on the road between his house and ours, Constable Pilley – and Detective Inspector Tubby, when he arrived – gave particular attention to Stainforth’s house, to see if anyone had tried to break in there during the night. The house had been completely unoccupied, for Stainforth himself was away in London as usual, and the only domestic servant he employed was a local woman who came in to see to his cooking and laundry when he was at home, but returned to her own house when he was away. The policemen soon found evidence to confirm their suspicions. A few feet to the right of the front door was a sturdy wooden trellis, for the support of climbing plants, which went all the way up to the sill of a first-floor bedroom window. This window stood slightly ajar, and it appeared from marks visible on the window-sill and on the trellis immediately below it that someone had recently climbed up there.

‘A wire was at once sent to Stainforth’s address in London and he returned that evening. In the company of the policemen, he then made a thorough examination of the inside of the house, but declared in the end that as far as he could see, nothing had been taken or disturbed. The open bedroom window had certainly been forced, however, for a close examination of the frame revealed that the paintwork at the edge was scratched and chipped, as if someone had inserted a blade there to force up the catch. A subsequent search of the garden turned up an open clasp-knife of a common type, on the ground under a bush by the gate. The conclusion of the policemen, then, was that Crompton had surprised someone in the act of breaking into Stainforth’s house. This person had jumped down to confront him on the garden path and probably threatened him with the knife. That the assailant had made at least one slashing attack on Crompton was suggested by a long shallow cut across the palm of his right hand, as if he had tried to ward off an attack. It was supposed that Crompton had then struck the knife from the other man’s grasp with his life-preserver and sent it flying to where it was subsequently found.

‘A bruise and cut on the bridge of the dead man’s nose suggested to the policemen – who had seen similar wounds among the roughs of Lincoln – that Crompton had been punched in the face. Then, it was supposed, realising that he could not hope to overcome his opponent, who was no doubt younger and stronger than he was, Crompton had turned and fled out of the gate, but his assailant, catching up with him in a few strides, had struck at him with a bludgeon of his own and delivered the fatal blow to the back of his head.

‘So much seemed clear, but did not help at all in establishing the identity of Crompton’s assailant. The only real clue was the clasp-knife, but that was of little help, for it was, as I mentioned, a very common type. There were no initials or other distinctive markings upon it and there was probably one such knife in every household in the district. Indeed, when Michael Shaxby was questioned on the matter, he was able to show the policemen what he claimed was his own knife, which was still in his possession. Shaxby had been one of the first people questioned by the police, but they subsequently questioned everyone in the district as to what they might have heard or seen on the night of the murder, without advancing their knowledge in any way.

‘Uncle Moreton and Mr Hemming discussed whether we should stay on in East Thrigby or leave straight away, and Hemming said he would write to his wife and see how matters were progressing in London. Her reply was not long in coming. This informed him that although Percival was now much better than he had been, he was still not fully recovered, and she and Aunt Phyllis had decided not to return to Lincolnshire, but to stay with a relative in London until the end of the summer. Mr Hemming and Uncle Moreton then reconsidered what we should do in the light of this and decided that we would stay just one more week. Meanwhile, Sylvie and I still played in the house and garden, but in a subdued sort of way. The Highlands seemed now a much quieter and less lively place, few visitors called by and sometimes, so it seemed, no one spoke for hours on end.

‘Two days after Crompton’s murder came a surprising development. Michael Shaxby’s younger brother, David, came forward with the information that he had found one of the stolen coins in the field next to Crompton’s garden which belonged to the farmer, Thoresby. He admitted that he had found it the day before Crompton had been killed and had been slow to announce his discovery, but said he had been shocked when he heard about the murder, unsure what to do and frightened that he would be suspected of having something to do with Crompton’s death. Of course, the policemen didn’t entirely believe him at first, although a point in his favour was that he had volunteered the information, rather than simply throwing the coin away. Despite repeated questioning he did not change his story and the police were obliged in the end to conclude that it might well be true. If so, it probably meant that whoever it was that had broken into Crompton’s house had made his escape through a gap in the hedge into Thoresby’s field, where he had accidentally dropped the coin.

‘Sylvie and I continued to climb as high as we could in the big tree at the bottom of the garden, where, in our lofty perch, we would sometimes sit together in silence as the wind blew in our faces, and survey the quiet, peaceful countryside spread out all around us. It still bothered me that we had been unable to reach the very top of the tree, and one day it occurred to me that if a thick clump of small branches which blocked the way to the summit might be removed, we should probably be able to ascend the final few feet. I therefore asked Uncle Moreton if I might cut these branches off with a small saw I had seen in the garden shed. He was at first somewhat dubious about this proposal, on the grounds both of my safety and the question of disfiguring a tree which did not belong to us. However, I eventually persuaded him to allow it by promising to take no risks in the matter, and assuring him that the change I hoped to effect would not be visible from the ground. With the saw tied with a length of cord round my neck, I therefore clambered up the tree and set about my task, with Sylvie just below me, ready to receive the sawn branches, repeatedly urging me to “be careful”. It did not take long to complete, for the branches in question were relatively thin ones, and then, with the saw and the branches disposed of, Sylvie and I squeezed ourselves between the remaining branches and ascended in happy triumph to the very summit of the old tree. The wind was strong and blustery that day, and as it buffeted our faces and hair, we could feel the tree moving beneath us, like a ship rocking gently on the billows of the ocean.

‘That night in bed, however, the triumph of our achievement was driven from my mind by another thought, vague and nebulous, which, in some odd way, linked our tree-climbing achievements to the death of Mr Crompton. There was some parallel there, I felt, some analogy that my brain could not quite grasp, as if the thought were nudging me from behind a thick veil: I could feel its pressure on my mind, but could not make out its shape.

‘When I awoke the following morning, the same thought was still running through my head, but I now saw things more clearly: just as I had removed an obstacle in order to reach the summit of the tree, so I must remove an obstacle in order to solve the mystery of Mr Crompton’s death, and the obstacle I had to remove was the primary assumption that everyone had made about it. Immediately after breakfast, Sylvie and I repaired to our den beneath the laurustinus. There, in the seclusion of our secret meeting-place, I told her my theory about Mr Crompton’s death. She was a quick, intelligent girl, and at once understood my reasoning and the significance of the facts on which I had founded it. For some time we discussed what we might do to confirm or refute the hypothesis and decided at length that we would make an expedition to look for evidence. We had been forbidden to leave the garden of The Highlands since the death of Mr Crompton and so were obliged to do so in a furtive manner. When we were sure that Uncle Moreton and Mr Hemming were occupied in the house, we made our way through a gap in the hedge near the bottom of the garden, which was hidden from view by a large bush, and so passed through the field where we had stalked rabbits and seen Mr Clashbury Staunton, and into the lane beyond, which was sufficiently far from the house that we could not be seen there. We were gone for less than an hour and returned before our absence had been noticed, feeling pleased with ourselves.’