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

‘I understand that,’ said Holmes. ‘It was therefore arranged that he would come here, under an assumed name, in the guise of a gardener, in the hope that he might recover his health in the fresh country air. Am I correct?’

‘You are,’ said she simply. ‘How you have learnt these things, I do not know, but you appear to know all.’

‘Unfortunately, that is not all. There are those whose thirst for vengeance is not satisfied by your brother’s term of imprisonment.’

‘Surely you are not serious, Mr Holmes!’ she cried in alarm. ‘My brother has more than paid for his foolishness. Can the law not restrain these people?’

‘Nothing can restrain them, Mrs Pringle. They recognise no law but their own. You must get your brother away from here. There has already been one attempt upon his life and I fear that the second may not be long delayed. You look disbelieving! Did you not read of the man found in the river this morning?’

‘The police believe he came from Eastern Europe.’

‘That is from where the danger comes. You recall the strange hand-print which was found upon the shed wall after your sister-in-law’s visit? That was the work of these men. They were evidently watching her every movement, aware that her husband would shortly be released from prison, and left their mark to give notice of their presence. Later, when your brother and sister-in-law moved into the old cottage, they came again and again left their mark, to announce that retribution was at hand. Last Sunday night, whilst walking in the garden, your husband surprised one of these men, so I believe, and they subsequently sent him a warning note. In the event, of course, the purple hand meant nothing whatever to him; but these men have the arrogance of all who submerge and hide their own identities in that of an anonymous organisation, and clearly believe that there is no one who will not understand, and know fear, upon seeing their sign. Your husband was fortunate, I should say, to escape with his life. Only the fact that the assassin’s work was not completed saved him; for human life is as nothing to these men.’

‘But, surely, if the assassin is now dead, we have nothing to fear,’ said Mrs Pringle.

‘He will not have come alone to England.’

For a minute the three of us stood in silence upon that neat and sunny lawn, and these words of Sherlock Holmes seemed like the evil and insane inventions of a madman. Laetitia Pringle shook her head from side to side, over and over again.

‘You cannot simply wish these things away,’ said Holmes at length, as if perceiving the poor bewildered woman’s innermost thoughts; ‘you must act, and act swiftly.’

‘What should I do?’

‘You must get your brother out of England – yes, and out of Europe, too. You must tell your husband everything—’

His sentence remained unfinished, for with a shrill cry of alarm, a sandy-haired woman burst upon our little gathering from behind a row of laurels.

‘Lettie! Lettie!’ she cried; ‘John has vanished.’

She stopped abruptly as she saw that Mrs Pringle was not alone, swaying from side to side with a wild look in her eye, as if she were upon the verge of fainting. Holmes stepped forward and took her arm gently.

‘Do not fear, Mrs Wadham. We come as friends.’

‘It is Mr Sherlock Holmes,’ said Mrs Pringle to her sister-in-law.

‘Indeed?’ responded the other. ‘Your name is familiar to me, sir, and I have heard that there is no problem you cannot solve; but I fear that in this case your powers are of no avail. My husband seemed so dreadfully ill today that I left him in his bed. Just now I returned from tending the vegetable plot and found him gone, and this note upon the kitchen table.’

With a shaking hand she offered a slip of paper to my friend, which he unfolded and read aloud.

‘“My dear Helen,”’ he read; ‘“You will remember how often we strengthened each other with the hope that once I had served my sentence, our troubles would be over and we could put the past behind us. Alas! that hope was futile. I have learnt recently that some who lost money in the Anglo-Hellenic fiasco will not rest until those they regard as responsible are dead. As old Pendleton died in prison three years ago, I am the sole focus for their vengeance, unjust as you know that is. It is a turn of events I had always feared, although I prayed constantly that the threat might be lifted from me. Now hopes and fears alike ill become the moment and I must meet my fate with my own hand. Last night, as I sat beside the river shortly before retiring, the first assassin came; but I am not one who surrenders his life without a struggle, despite the weakness of my limbs. He thrust at me with his knife, but I managed to parry the blow and threw him to the ground. For a time we struggled together on the river-bank, then, without any deliberate intention on my part, his own knife pierced his side, his hand still upon the hilt. I cast his lifeless body into the water and determined to say nothing of the incident to you. I have brought enough trouble upon you and upon my dear sister and her husband: it is time for me to go. It is I alone these devils want; if I am not with you, you will be safe. Please forgive this silent way of leaving, but I know you would not let me go if I spoke these words to your face. Your loving husband, John.”’

‘What am I to do?’ cried Helen Wadham, her voice suffused with anguish.

‘When did you last see your husband?’ enquired Holmes in an urgent tone, handing back the letter to her.

‘About an hour ago; but he cannot be long gone, for I was close by the cottage until this past twenty minutes.’

‘He has not passed this way, so he has evidently taken the path beside the river,’ cried my friend. ‘Come, Watson; there may yet be time to dissuade him from this foolhardy course of action. Alone he does not stand a chance against these men.’

We ran down the path towards the river, the women following close behind. At the cottage Holmes darted in, but was out again in a trice, shaking his head in answer to my query. A little further on, we emerged from the wood and came out upon the river-bank, where the bare earth of the riverside path was baked into hard ruts by the summer sun. To left and right we looked, and a grim sight met our eves. About fifty feet upstream, the crumpled figure of a man lay athwart the path, his boots trailing in the water. Holmes hurried forward and I followed at his heels.

A swift glance told me that the man was beyond all human help. His shirt-front was dark and horrible with blood, and at the very centre of the stain protruded the carved handle of a knife. A torn sheet of paper had been forced over the knife-handle, upon which was the purple print of a human hand. I knew then that the pale, gentle face which gazed unseeing up at me was that of Mark Pringle’s strange gardener and unknown brother-in-law. I pulled the knife from his chest and cast it aside and with Holmes’s help lifted the body upon a grassy bank.

‘Keep the women back!’ said Holmes in an urgent tone, as he bent down on all fours and examined the riverside path intently. But it was too late; they ran forward and would not be restrained. What a horrible thing it was for them to see, and how that horror was marked upon their faces!

I turned as a cry came from somewhere behind us. There, at the foot of the garden path, stood my friend’s client. He hurried forwards, a puzzled look upon his face. ‘The maid told me she had seen you—Why! What melancholy business is this!’ he cried as he caught sight of the grief-stricken faces of the two women.

Quickly, in a very few sentences, Holmes gave him the gist of all that had passed. I have never in my life seen a man so stricken and mortified in so short a space of time. For a long minute he gazed down at the body of his wife’s brother, a deep and unfathomable expression upon his face. ‘Had he lived I would have loved him,’ he said softly at last. ‘Come,’ he continued, turning to me. ‘Help me bear his body to the house. Though in life he rejected my hospitality, in death shall he have it.’