The Collected Papers of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 4, page 12
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“I would be surprised if you had. It occurred in 1858, and more accurately it took place in Perrott’s Brook, rather than in nearby Duntisbourne proper. You may read the account here – ” He tapped the page before him. “ – but in short, a box of jewels – an iron box, mind you! – was stolen from a manor house, the hidden accumulated treasure of the manor’s owner. Five of the servants were suspected, but nothing was ever proven. The jewels were never recovered, and the five men were sacked, disappearing into the fog of history. Or so I thought, until today. Here, read this.”
He passed me the awkward book, with clippings threatening to spill to the floor and pages heavy with pasted news articles pulling loose from the feeble binding. Adjusting it toward the gaslight, I saw that the five listed servants of one Dr. Edward Benton all had very familiar names: Will Gains, of the stables; Arthur Chesham, the handyman; Richard D’Abitot, the butler; Jonathan Brent, the valet; and Clark Stadhampton, Benton’s private secretary.
The case was quite simple: The jewels, kept in an iron box poorly secreted in Dr. Benton’s bedroom, had been found missing. The eccentric doctor had summoned what passed for the law in those times and had accused his entire staff, including several of the maids, whose names were not listed. When the jewels weren’t found, despite searches of the staff’s possessions, they were all turned out. A final clipping showed that less than a week later, Dr. Benton had died naturally, succumbing to a wasting illness.
“In my youthful research,” said Holmes, “the matter was interesting, but hardly instructive. No solution was ever discovered. I corresponded for a bit with a local vicar, presenting a few sincere questions, and he was quite willing to reply, but he had nothing useful to add. He told me that all of the accused had long since departed from the area, and that old Dr. Benton, who was eccentric in the best light and probably mad in an accurate light, had died without any heirs, and that his small estate had been finagled and quickly absorbed by the locals in a most shocking manner, with the land being taken by a wealthy neighbor through passage of a special ordinance. And so the matter ended… until today, when you bring me a tale that effectively shackles all of these men together once again by their presence at another common location, and the reappearance of an iron box that holds their apparent fascination. But for this girl’s story to you, as brought to me, it’s unlikely that this connection would have ever been noticed.”
I closed the book and sat back. “So… so Will Gains had the jewels, then, all this time? And the others knew of it, and now their interest has been aroused. That’s what is implied by the iron box hidden in his cellar, with a note written in his own fist. But what of the note? ‘I owe you.’ What does he owe? And to whom?”
“Why, surely that is clear. He owes the jewels – or at least an equivalent payment. And who to but the other men, his cohorts in the crime, all of whom shared in the original theft, and have since found London jobs and residences and lives near one another, staying in touch through the intervening years. It doesn’t sound as if there was any animosity during that time. Your coffee house girl spoke of the men as being ‘second fathers’ to her, and there is no sign that they weren’t her father’s close friends throughout.”
“She is not my ‘coffee house girl’,” I informed him. “Is she in danger?”
“I think not. If she considers them to be second fathers, then they certainly see her reciprocally as a daughter. It was only when the box was found that Chesham seems to have shown an unexpected covetous side. He has obviously spoken to the others, and they have since started to display this sudden grimness and suspicion. They don’t know that the box is empty, save for the note. They only know that the jewels have been brought to light, and with Will Gains effectively out of the picture, their interest in their share has apparently been awakened.”
“What shall we do?” I said. “The jewels must be gone. Will Gains was keeping them, but he’s instead left a note of debt in their place.” I stood up. “Should we arrange to hide in the coffee house, tonight perhaps, and give these men another chance to break in and be caught red-handed?” I took a step forward. “I can pop down the street and notify Jennie – that is to say, Miss Gains – of our intentions.”
Holmes smiled and waved me back to my seat. “No need, Watson. I believe that I shall ask a few questions here and there on the morrow, and perhaps borrow that box from your Miss Gains. Then we shall have a little gathering here and settle this matter.”
I nodded and walked to the shelf, returning the book to its place. It was curiously labeled “L”, which as nearly as I could tell, had nothing whatsoever to do with the names of any of the principals or locations involved with the missing jewels. I doubted that I, or anyone, would ever understand Holmes’s curious filing system.
The following morning proved to be possibly colder than before. I had awakened to discover one of those days when an unseasonable plunge in the temperatures had combined with a thick fog, making it quite unpleasant to step outside. The freezing mist had coated every surface – building and tree and pavement – with a thin rime of ice that resembled fairy tracery. As I dressed, I looked from my bedroom window at the bare yard behind our house to where the ice had limned the branches of the plane tree, delicately illuminated by light from the windows of the adjacent buildings. There was no sign of the sun.
Downstairs, I called for breakfast, observing that Holmes was already curled in his chair, seemingly fascinated with some textbook. I spoke a greeting but received no response. When Mrs. Hudson carried in my rashers and eggs, we exchanged glances of understanding.
Within the hour, Holmes had set aside his book, risen abruptly, and vanished into his bedroom. He soon returned, sans dressing gown, and fully dressed for the outside world. He confirmed that I would be at home in the early afternoon, and then he departed, wrapped well to face the bitter temperatures.
All morning and well past lunchtime, I fiddled with this or that distraction, but curiosity as to Holmes’s actions, as well as what he might be arranging in connection to the matter of the Duntisbourne jewels, kept me from doing anything constructive. Several times I considered walking down to the corner at Portman Mansions in order to report on what Holmes had revealed to me the previous night, but I sensibly remained inside, knowing that I might cause whatever edifice he was constructing to fall apart by some inadvertent action on my part.
It was mid-afternoon when the doorbell rang, and after some murmured conversation downstairs, I heard light footsteps seemingly dancing up the stairs. In seconds the door was thrown open to reveal a rather effete fellow, accompanied by a much burlier youth, carrying a basket and a large flat box. “Mr. Holmes?” asked the first, and then ignoring the shake of my head, he snapped, “Fortnum and Mason.” Then he and his assistant quickly and efficiently laid out upon the dining table a pheasant, a couple of brace of cold woodcock, what turned out to be pâté de foie gras, and a couple of tidy bottles of a respectable vintage. I became aware that Mrs. Hudson was standing in the door, watching with a mixture of amusement and skepticism, as displayed by a tolerant smile and two vertical lines between her brows. Without further explanation, the two men departed, leaving me to ask the reason for this surprising intrusion.
“I don’t have the faintest,” said our landlady. Then, with a muttered comment concerning hope and the expense of such victuals when the rent was due soon, she departed, while I tried and failed to find the words to explain that Holmes had recently received a very handsome reward for the recovery of Lady Drake’s missing maid and the tiara she had taken with her.
Not long after, Holmes returned, noting with satisfaction the various items upon the table. Then, humming to himself and ignoring my requests for an explanation, he began to drag chairs around, making up something of a semi-circle before the fireplace. Counting the seats, I realized his intention. “You have invited the four old friends of Mr. Gains.”
“Excellent, Watson.”
I nodded toward the deliveries from Fortnum and Mason’s. “This doesn’t seem to be planned as an unpleasant afternoon of accusations and denials.”
“Indeed. I have a proposal for them, and there is no reason for it to be contentious.”
As he stood, seemingly satisfied with the room’s arrangement, the doorbell rang again, and soon four men were shown into the sitting room.
D’Abitot, whom I had seen the day before, led the way. His past position as the butler of old Dr. Benton’s household apparently still made him the de facto leader. He was a smaller man than the figures that followed, but he looked around, almost belligerently, as if he were a terrier seeking something to shake to death.
Behind him was a big individual whom I would learn was Chesham, the building contractor. It was easily deduced by his clothing, which was more worn than that of his compatriots. Next was Brent, a dark and solid fellow whose face, by inadvertent construction, seemed always to be smiling with a secret. His profession as a salesman of Scottish knitted goods was belied by rather colorful wool coat. At the rear was Stadhampton, the bank clerk, a thin faded chap who would disappear into the background if one wasn’t careful.
D’Abitot glanced my way but then turned his attention to Holmes. “We’re here,” he snapped, obviously advancing with the idea that an immediate aggressive stance would place them on a better footing. “You have no leverage, sir. The events to which you referred in your invitation were long ago, and never proven. Still, we felt that it would be better to discuss it with you and nip this business in the bud now, rather than let you start asking questions where you shouldn’t.”
“Peace, Mr. D’Abitot,” replied Holmes with raised hands and a smile. “Please find seats, and I’ll tell you what I know for certain and what I’ve concluded. Then perhaps you’ll find that there isn’t as much need to worry as you might have believed. “
They looked at one another and then seemed to come to a common agreement, for they moved into the circle of chairs and the settee and arranged themselves. Holmes introduced me, and let me know the names of the four men. D’Abitot glanced my way, Chesham and Stadhampton nodded, and Brent flicked an indifferent glance my way before again focusing on Holmes.
“I had to be somewhat mysterious when issuing my invitation,” explained Holmes. “How else to convince you to join us?” He nodded my way. “It was Watson who brought the matter to my attention, following a conversation with Miss Gains yesterday at the coffee house.”
D’Abitot nodded. “I saw her speaking with you.” He frowned. “We try to keep an eye on Jennie.”
“In case she happened to reveal the existence of the iron box to a stranger?” I asked, rather more hotly than I’d intended.
The wine merchant was taken aback. Suddenly he seemed less angry, and more like a rather weary middle-aged man. “Why… why no. Simply to make sure that she’s safe. Since her father’s illness, she’s done quite well, and demonstrated an impressive amount of strength and ability. And yet, each of us makes sure to regularly stop in and verify that all is well.”
Holmes nodded. “That’s what my own little researches have concluded. Miss Gains stated to Watson that the four of you are like second fathers. It’s difficult to believe that you would suddenly reverse that position and pose a threat to her. While it is possible that any one of you might harbor greedy thoughts regarding the contents of the iron box, together you serve to check one another. However, Mr. Chesham – ” Here he turned his attention to the contractor. “ – you caused a bit of a fright the day that you reacted at seeing the iron box revealed in the cellar. As did whomever it was among you that got into the building the other night to search the premises for the box’s hiding place.”
Brent cast his eyes down. “That was me. Will had given me a key long ago, and I used it to look around, hoping to discover where Jennie had hidden the box when she removed it from the cellar. I thought that I was being quiet, but I suppose something gave me away.”
“She was in the room below,” I explained, “and heard your footsteps. I gather that she was quite terrified.” Perhaps this was putting it on a little thick, but I wanted this man to feel ashamed.
“Be that as it may,” said Holmes, again taking control of the conversation, “we are here to put that behind us. I have a general sense of the events at Perrott’s Brook nearly a quarter-of-a-century past. Several years ago, in my studies of the history of crime, I became aware of the unsolved jewel theft, and corresponded with Vicar Dill. I was happy to learn that he is still among the living, and a wire to him this morning confirmed my hypothesis – specifically that your employer, Dr. Benton, was a rather cruel and unpleasant individual while he slid through dementia toward death. In fact, he refused to help treat Mr. Gains’s wife, who was the housekeeper, during her long and eventual fatal illness – making life rather more difficult for that family than it needed to be. I suspect that this led to a feeling of ill will, at best, toward him during his final days.”
They men looked at one another, and then nodded in unison.
“You don’t have to confirm anything, of course,” said Holmes, “but I suspect that my understanding of events hews close to the truth. Knowing that Dr. Benton was not long for this world, and that he had no heirs, and also likely realizing that the local community in that remote area had already made plans to absorb his estate by whatever means – legal or otherwise – you probably saw no harm in taking his box of jewels, little realizing that he might rally long enough to discover that they were gone and thus summon the authorities. But fortunately, he chose to simply dismiss you en masse, allowing you to depart unhindered to new lives. You gravitated to London, where your shares were used to establish yourselves in new professions.”
D’Abitot cleared his throat and decided to acknowledge Holmes’s assumptions. “True enough, for the most part. But we didn’t split the jewels equally and separate as strangers, never to see one another again. We were all good friends, like brothers really, and have remained so. Will convinced us that after the jewels went missing we might be watched, perhaps for a long time, and that it would be best if we kept our true names, lived innocent lives, and made use of the funds realized from the jewels gradually, rather than each suddenly spending an unlikely amount and making a fast leap to a substantially higher station. Thus, only a few jewels at a time were carefully sold and the profits divided. The rest were kept hidden by Will, to be divided gradually as the years passed.”
“I helped with the banking side of things,” explained Stadhampton.
“And I used my own skills to make improvements and expansions at our homes and businesses, as needed,” added Chesham. “By paying me for repairs, I was able to charge what they were really worth, and it helped keep the money in the family, so to speak.”
“But then,” Holmes said, “Mr. Gains had a stroke, and you all realized that he’d neglected to tell you exactly where he hid the remaining jewels.”
They nodded, and D’Abitot said, “It’s a measure of the trust that we had with one another that we never needed to know.”
“I never meant to frighten Jennie,” added Chesham. “I recognized the box as soon as I saw it in the rubble. I tried to slip it out with the broken bricks, so that we wouldn’t have to explain to her what it was or where it came from, but she saw it. I’m afraid that my surprised reaction scared her.”
“It did,” I explained. “She felt that all of you acted differently toward her after that.”
They had the good grace to lower their heads. Then Holmes continued.
“I fear that your trust in Will Gains may have been misplaced after all. I stopped to see Miss Gains this morning, and she gave me this.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket, pulling out a folded sheet. “It is what she found in the box – not jewels, but rather a simple note in her father’s handwriting: ‘I owe you.’ I expect that you understand his meaning.” He handed it to D’Abitot.
The other’s half-rose, leaning over to see before returning to their seats. Brent still had the half-smile on his face, which would likely be there if he were angry rather than pleased. Stadhampton had no expression, a skill likely learned in his position as a bank clerk. Chesham was surprisingly indifferent, while D’Abitot only shook his head. “Poor Will,” was his unexpected comment.
“Indeed?” responded Holmes, who was clearly as unprepared for this reaction as I was.
D’Abitot looked over at him with a sad expression on his face. “You may not know that our friend Will had several unlucky occurrences in his life. He was the only one of us to marry, and then she died. When we set up in London, we all found – if not riches, then at least security – in our new lives, but he continued to struggle. Oh, he was able to obtain the lease on the building, but whichever venture he tried there never seemed to find its footing. His most recent – the shoe business – likely did much worse than he let on. I can only imagine how desperate he must have felt to have violated our trust and used the last remaining jewel for himself. And for Jenny.”
“The last jewel?” I asked. “They had all been sold over the years?”
Stadhampton nodded. “There were never that many. Dr. Benton had greatly exaggerated the amount when he reported the theft, and how could we disagree with him? We only converted a few at a time every few years to supplement our incomes, and when we last met to make a ‘withdrawal’ two years ago, there were only three left. We determined that selling two of them would meet our needs, and that the last one – the finest of the lot – should remain in the box. There was some mention of a tontine arrangement, wherein the last survivor would have it, but nothing was formalized – and how could it be? In the end, the box was closed with the final stone – a ruby – still inside. Poor Will,” He said, shaking his head. “He must have been feeling quite pressed to have been forced to take from his friends in that way. I wish that he had come to us. It must have shaken him terribly to use the jewel.”
