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

‘The porter had one other interesting thing to tell me and it is this: as well as the previous day being the only one on which Dr Zyss had not returned by the time the day porter went off duty at six o’clock, it was also the only day on which he had received a visitor at the hotel. This struck me as another interesting coincidence and I questioned the porter on the matter.

‘“About eleven o’clock in the morning,” he said, “a lady entered the hotel and asked me to inform Dr Zyss that Mrs Routledge had arrived. I did so, and a few moments later he descended from his room. After a brief exchange by the desk, he ordered a tray of coffee to be brought to the morning-room, to which he escorted the lady. There they sat in conversation for about an hour and a half. The lady then departed, and Dr Zyss returned to his room. He subsequently took lunch at the hotel as usual, but then returned once more to his room, worked there for a further couple of hours, and did not go out until nearly four o’clock, which was much later than his usual habit. That was the last time I saw him.”

‘I asked the porter if he had ever seen this Mrs Routledge at any other time, but he said not. He described her to me as a lady of medium height and late middle age. He said she was well dressed in black, with a veil on her hat, but she lifted her veil as she spoke to Dr Zyss by the porter’s desk, and he said he was confident he would recognise her again.

‘“Did you overhear any of their conversation?” I asked him.

‘“No, sir,” said he.

‘I then had another look in Dr Zyss’s room, to see if I could find a letter from Mrs Routledge. I thought it likely, for it seemed from what the porter had told me that her arrival at the hotel was not unexpected. After ten minutes I found what I was looking for. I have the letter here,’ he continued, pulling a bundle of papers from his pocket. He sifted through the bundle for a moment, then selected one and passed it to Holmes, who studied it for a few moments, then handed it on to me.

It was a plain white sheet. The address at the top was 14 Trenchard Villas, Gospel Oak, the date 19 September, and the message ran as follows:

DEAR DR ZYSS,

News of your visit to England has reached me in the past twenty-four hours, and I should wish to take the opportunity to see you to discuss a matter of mutual interest. Please reply to the above address, stating a day and time which would be convenient to you.

‘As she wrote the letter on Saturday,’ said Gregson, ‘Dr Zyss no doubt received it on Monday and sent a reply which Mrs Routledge received on Tuesday, naming Wednesday morning as a suitable time for their interview. Of course I had no evidence that this lady had anything to do with Dr Zyss’s mysterious disappearance, far less with the tragic events at Highgate; but in the absence of any real clues, I thought I had better interview her and see what she had to say for herself. I therefore took myself up to Gospel Oak yesterday morning. Unfortunately, the lady was not at home, and the maid who answered the door said that her mistress had gone to visit friends in St Albans and would not be returning until Saturday. Of course, I could have taken the train to St Albans to see her, but I had other things to do, so I decided to postpone the interview until tomorrow.

‘I therefore returned to the Arbuthnots’ house in Holly Grove, where I examined the lawn very carefully, especially that part of it which extends round the side of the house to the French windows of the study. The earth is somewhat damp there, and overhung with trees, so there were several well-preserved footprints. From these it was apparent that my initial surmise that the murderer had entered the study by the French windows was correct. There were very clear footprints crossing the lawn from the garden gate to the French windows, both coming and going. To make sure that these were indeed the footprints of the murderer, and not those of some innocent party who had called earlier, I asked Mrs Arbuthnot if they had had any visitors in the past couple of days. There had been only one, she informed me, that being the professor’s nephew, Lady Boothby’s son, Terence Chalfont, who had called early in the afternoon the previous day.

‘“Did Mr Chalfont walk round the garden to the professor’s study?” I asked, but she shook her head, and said that he had rung the front-door bell and been admitted in the usual way. I asked if Mr Chalfont was a frequent visitor, but again she shook her head.

‘“No,” said she. “He and my husband did not get on very well, and had a severe falling out a couple of months ago, since which time we have hardly seen him here at all. I was the one he had come to see. He did suggest that he went in to speak to my husband, who was working in the study at the time, but I dissuaded him from that. As I mentioned to you, my husband disliked being disturbed when he was working.”

‘“Mr Chalfont’s visit was a purely social call, I take it.”

‘Mrs Arbuthnot hesitated. “Of a sort,” she said at last. I asked her what she meant. “Mr Chalfont is a playwright,” she explained after a moment, “and moves in the world of actors and other such shallow and insubstantial people. He writes plays which are said to be highly artistic, and are put on occasionally at some of the smaller theatres. They are generally praised highly by the critics – most of whom seem to be personal friends of his – but are utterly unremunerative. His visit yesterday was partly to ask if we would care to contribute to the cost of staging his latest play, but I told him we certainly would not.”

‘The lady seemed unusually vehement on the matter, and I asked her why.

‘“Really,” said she in a tone of exasperation. “This is all perfectly irrelevant! If you must know, Inspector, Terence’s latest play, in so far as I understand what he has told me, is to be concerned with the subject of mental illness and the treatment of it.”

‘“Your late husband’s profession, in fact.”

‘“Precisely. Not at all a suitable subject for a theatrical presentation, especially in the hands of a self-indulgent young man like Terence Chalfont.”

‘“Why so?”

‘“Because he is the sort of young man who has always had his own way. Indulged appallingly by his mother – my late husband’s sister – especially since his father died, he now presumes to argue and quarrel about subjects of which he knows nothing at all.”

‘“It was on this subject that he fell out with your husband?”

‘“Yes it was,” said she with great emphasis. “He felt qualified to argue from a position of complete ignorance with the man acknowledged as the greatest psychologist in Europe. It was this that infuriated my husband so.” She paused. “But if you are thinking that Terence Chalfont might have had anything to do with my husband’s death, you are utterly mistaken. He called here at about half past two, stayed barely half an hour, then left, and I did not see him again. He may be a worthless and impertinent young fool, who likes the sound of his own voice too much, but he is certainly not violent. He is too feckless and feeble to have any violence in him!”

‘“Of course,” I said; but I took down Mr Chalfont’s address nonetheless, and made a mental note to go and see him. For it seemed to me possible that, despite Mrs Arbuthnot’s belief to the contrary, he might have returned to Holly Grove later in the afternoon. Knowing that he was not going to get any money from Mrs Arbuthnot, he might have gone directly round the side of the house to catch the professor in his study, and ended up having a violent row with him. Up until that point, I had presumed that the murder was the work of a chance intruder, but the information concerning Mr Chalfont and his fraught relations with his uncle gave me another line of inquiry.