John Adams - The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The long doors stood wide on the terrace and the night and in at them blew the wild snow, flurrying down upon the carpet. Only Eleanor Caston was in the room. She lay across the sofa, her hair streaming, her face as white as porcelain, still as a waxwork.

I crossed to her, my feet crunching on glass that had scattered from a broken pane of the windows. I thought to find her dead, but as I reached her, she stirred and opened her eyes.

"Miss Caston-what has happened? Are you hurt?"

"Yes," she said, "wounded mortally."

There was no mark on her, however, and now she gave me an awful smile. "He is out there."

"Who is? Where is Holmes?"

She sank back again and shut her eyes. "On the terrace. Or in the garden. Gone."

I went at once to the windows, taking out the revolver as I did so. Even through the movement of the snow, I saw Holmes at once, at the far end of the terrace, lit up by the lighted windows of the house. He was quite alone. I called to him, and at my voice he turned, glancing at me, shaking his head, and holding up one hand to bar me from the night. He too appeared unharmed and his order to remain where I was seemed very clear.

Going back into the dining room I fetched a glass of brandy. Miss Caston had sat up, and took it from me on my return.

"How chivalrous you always are, Doctor."

Her pulse was strong, although not steady. I hesitated to increase her distress but the circumstances brooked no delay. "Miss Caston, what has gone on here?"

"Oh, I have gambled and lost. Shall I tell you? Pray sit down. Close the window if you wish. He will not return this way."

Unwillingly I did as she said, and noted Holmes had now vanished, presumably into the icy garden below.

"Well then, Miss Caston."

She smiled again that sorry smile, and began to speak.

"All my life I have had nothing, but then my luck changed. It was as if Fate took me by the hand, and anything I had ever wanted might at last be mine. I have always been alone. I had no parents, no friends. I do not care for people much, they are generally so stupid. And then, Lucy, my maid read me your stories, Doctor, of the wonderful Mr. Holmes. Oh, I was not struck by your great literary ability. My intimates have been Dante and Sophocles, Milton, Aristotle and Erasmus. I am sure you do not aspire to compete with them. But Holmes, of course-ah, there. His genius shines through your pages like a great white light from an obscure lantern. At first I thought you had invented this marvellous being, this man of so many parts: chemist, athlete, actor, detective, deceiver-the most effulgent mind this century has known. So ignorant I was. But little Lucy told me that Sherlock Holmes was quite real. She even knew of his address, 221B Baker Street, London."

Miss Caston gazed into her thoughts and I watched her, prepared at any moment for a relapse, for she was so blanched, and she trembled visibly.

"From your stories, I have learned that Holmes is attracted by anything which engages his full interest. That he honours a mind which can duel with his own. And here you have it all, Doctor. I had before me in the legend of this house, the precise means to offer him just such a plot as many of your tales describe-the Caston Gall, which of course is a farrago of anecdote, coincidence and superstition. I had had nothing, but now I had been given so much, why should I not try for everything?"

"You are saying you thought that Holmes-"

"I am saying I wanted the esteem and friendship of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, that especial friendship and esteem which any woman hopes for, from the man she has come to reverence above all others."

"In God's name, Miss Caston! Holmes!"

"Oh, you have written often enough of his coldness, his arrogance, and his dislike of my sex. But then, what are women as a rule but silly witless creatures, geese done up in ribbons. I have a mind. I sought to show him. I knew he would solve my riddle in the end, and so he did. I thought he would laugh and shake my hand."

"He believed you in the toils of some villain, a man ruthless and powerful."

"As if no woman could ever connive for herself. He told me what he thought. I convinced him of the truth, and that I worked only for myself, but never to harm him. I wanted simply to render him some sport."

"Miss Caston," I said, aghast, "you will have angered him beyond reason."

Her form drooped. She shut her eyes once more. "Yes, you are quite right. I have enraged him. Never have I seen such pitiless fury in a face. It was as if he struck me with a lash of steel. I was mistaken, and have lost everything."

Agitated as I was, I tried to make her sip the brandy but she only held it listlessly in one hand, and stood up, leaning by the fireplace.

"I sent Lucy away because she began, I thought, to suspect my passion. There has been nothing but ill-will round me since then. You see, I am becoming as superstitious as the rest. I should like to beg you to intercede for me-but I know it to be useless."

"I will attempt to explain to him, when he is calmer, that you meant no annoyance. That you mistakenly thought to amuse him."

As I faltered, she rounded on me, her eyes flaming. "You think you are worthy of him, Watson? The only friend he will tolerate. What I would have offered him! My knowledge, such as it is, my ability to work, which is marvellous. All my funds. My love, which I have never given any other. In return I would have asked little. Not marriage, not one touch of his hand. I would have lain down and let him walk upon me if it would have given him ease."

She raised her glass suddenly and threw it on the hearth. It broke in sparkling pieces.

"There is my heart," said she. "Good night, Doctor." And with no more than that, she went from the room.

I never saw her again. In the morning when we left that benighted house, she sent down no word. Her carriage took us to Chislehurst, from where we made a difficult Christmas journey back to London. Holmes's mood was beyond me, and I kept silent as we travelled. He was like one frozen, but to my relief his health seemed sound. On our return, I left him alone as much as I could. Nor did I quiz him on what he did, or what means he used to allay his bitterness and inevitable rage. It was plain to me the episode had been infinitely horrible to him. He was so finely attuned. Another would not have felt it so. She had outraged his very spirit. Worse, she had trespassed.

Not until the coming of a new year did he refer to the matter, and then only once. "The Caston woman, Watson. I am grateful to you for your tact."

"It was unfortunate."

"You suppose her deranged and vulgar, and that I am affronted at having been duped."

"No, Holmes. I should never put it in that way. And she was but too plausible."

"There are serpents among the apples, Watson," was all he said. And turning from me, he struck out two or three discordant notes on his violin, then put it from him and strode into the other room.

We have not discussed it since, the case of the Caston Gall.

A year later, this morning, which is once more the day of Christmas Eve, I noted a small item in the paper. A Miss Eleanor Rose Caston died yesterday, at her house near Chislehurst. It is so far understood she had accidentally taken too much of an opiate prescribed to her for debilitating headaches. She passed in her sleep, and left no family nor any heirs. She was twenty-six years of age.

Whether Holmes, who takes an interest in all notices of death, has seen this sad little obituary, I do not know. He has said nothing. For myself, I feel a deep regret for her. If we were all to be punished for our foolishness, as I believe Hamlet says, who should 'scape whipping? Although crime is often solvable, there can be no greater mystery than that of the human heart.