John Adams - The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

"No; it would have been far too inconvenient. We had regular reports from the man in charge, and my husband would come by on occasion to check on the progress-or rather the lack of it."

"Thank you," said Holmes. "Mr. Low?"

"I was going to ask about the dogs," said Low, "the ones which you felt were responsible for the damage. Do you know for a fact that Karswell kept dogs?"

"No," replied Mr. Fitzgerald slowly. "Indeed, it did strike me as odd, as from what we knew of him he seemed unlikely to be a man who kept pets."

"This damage they caused; was it general, or confined to one particular place?"

"Again, it is very odd, Mr. Low. One would not expect dogs to be particular as to where they caused damage, yet it all seemed to be located in the one room, on the first floor. It is a very fine room, with views out over the park, and we understood that Karswell used it as his study."

"What sort of damage was caused?"

"Well, as my wife said, it appeared that the animals had clawed around the base of the wooden panelling in the room. Quite deep gouges they were, too, which is why the wood needed to be replaced."

"Do any of the marks remain?"

Mrs. Fitzgerald drew in her breath sharply, and Mr. Fitzgerald's already pale face seemed to go a shade whiter. It was a moment before he answered.

"When we took up residence my answer would have been no, Mr. Low; none of the marks remained. However, since then they… they have returned."

"Returned?" said Holmes sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I will come to that in a moment, Mr. Holmes," said Mrs. Fitzgerald. She paused, as if to gather her thoughts, then continued with her tale.

"As I say, we took up residence; that was in early March. At first all was well; we were busy settling in, and there were a hundred-and-one things to do and be seen to, and anything odd we put down to the fact that we were in a very old house that was still strange to us.

"Gradually, however, we became aware that things were happening which were not at all usual. It began with a sound, very faint, in the room above us… " She broke off with a shudder, and Mr. Fitzgerald looked at her with concern.

"Margaret, would you like me to continue?"

"Yes please," she said in a quiet voice, and her husband took up the tale.

"At first we both thought that it was one of the maids, cleaning; it was only later that we realised the sounds were heard at times when there should not have been anyone in the room. You will forgive us, gentlemen, for being somewhat slow to remark on this fact, but at first it seemed such a trifling matter that we gave it little thought.

"The next thing that occurred was a cold draught, which always seemed to play about the room. Now one must, I fear, expect draughts in a house as old as this, but we did not notice such a thing anywhere else; indeed, the house was, as my wife said, very sound, which made it all the more odd that it should be confined to this one room. We examined the windows and walls and around the door, and could find nothing to account for it. It began to be quite uncomfortable to be in the room, which I used, as Mr. Karswell had, as a study. I had hoped that as the spring approached the draughts would stop; but if anything they seemed to get worse.

"The sounds had continued all this time; not constant, by any means, but frequent enough to become unnerving. We told ourselves that it was some trick, perhaps related to the draughts; but one evening we heard the sounds more distinctly than before. They seemed changed, too; if we had heard them like that from the first we would not have mistaken them for the footsteps of a person. It was a dull, heavy, dragging sound, rather as if a large dog was moving with difficulty about the floor. I would go to investigate, but I never saw anything, although I found that I did not care to be alone in that room.

"Then one day one of the maids came to us, almost in tears, poor thing, because she said that she had been in the room to fill the coal scuttle and had heard what she thought was a growl, as of a large dog. She said that she had a careful look around the room, thinking that perhaps some stray animal had got in, but could see nothing untoward, and was continuing with her work when she distinctly felt something large and soft brush heavily against her, not once but twice, as if a dog had walked past her quite close and then turned back.

"Of course we went to look-it was all we could do to persuade Ellen to go back in, even though we were with her-but found nothing. We reassured the girl as best we could, and my wife took her down to the kitchen so that she could have a cup of tea, and I took one last look round; and it was then that I saw the marks on the wall."

"These are the claw marks to which your wife has alluded?" asked Holmes.

"Yes. As we explained, the panelling in that room was ripped out and completely replaced, and I remember thinking to myself what a fine job the men had done. So you can imagine my surprise and consternation when I saw marks on the woodwork. At first I thought that perhaps they had been caused by something being bumped against the wall accidentally, but when I examined them I saw that they were quite deep, and identical in every way with the marks which had been there before. I must admit, Mr. Holmes, that I was startled, to say the least, and I was glad that my wife had left the room, particularly in light of what happened next. For as I stood there, trying to make sense of it, I heard a soft, shuffling noise, such as a dog or other large animal might make, getting up and shaking itself. And then, before I could move, I felt something brush against me; something heavy, and soft."

"Did you see anything?"

"No, I did not; nor, I will say, did I stay to look about more closely. I was on the other side of the door, and had closed it, before I could think clearly once more. When I did, I locked the door, and later told the servants that we would not be using that room for a time, and that they need not bother with it unless we told them otherwise."

"The servants," said Holmes thoughtfully. "Have they been with you for some time, or did they work for Mr. Karswell?"

"None of Mr. Karswell's servants stayed on, Mr. Holmes," said Mrs. Fitzgerald; "they were dismissed immediately upon his death. From what I heard of them I would not have wished to employ any of them. A queer, secretive lot, apparently, who were disliked almost as much as their master. No, the servants here have all been with us for some time, and I trust them implicitly."

"Has anything else untoward happened?" asked Holmes. "Have either of you noticed any signs of your things having been tampered with, or has anything gone missing that you cannot account for?"

"No, Mr. Holmes," said Mrs. Fitzgerald. "The-disturbances-seem confined to that one room."

"I think, then, that we should take a look at this rather singular-sounding room," said Holmes, rising. "Will you show us the way?"

We followed the Fitzgeralds out of the room and made our way up the stairs. The spring day was drawing to a close, and the lamps were lit throughout the house. Was it my imagination, or did the hall seem a trifle darker outside the door before which our host and hostess halted? Such a thought had, I felt, occurred to Flaxman Low, for I noticed that he glanced sharply up and down the hall and then up at the light closest to us, which seemed dimmer than its fellows. Before I could remark on this, however, Mr. Fitzgerald had produced a key from his pocket, unlocked the heavy door in front of us, and pushed it open.

A sudden cold draught played around my ankles with a force which startled me, as if a tangible presence had pushed at me from within the room. I could see from the looks on the faces of my companions that they had felt what I did, and I confess that I hesitated for a moment before entering the room.