The Collected Papers of Sherlock Holmes, Volume 4, page 21
The amateur writer in me never tired of listening to the curious tales presented by Holmes’s clients, one after another, and finding interest in their stories, as well as their diverse backgrounds. Holmes, however, with a thousand (or more likely ten-thousand) details at hand, would strip away all the frippery and froth in an instant and see the bones of the matter exposed underneath, in the same way that Sir Jasper Meek or Penrose Fisher, or any of the best doctors in London, could instantly recognize a disease – even a rare one like Black Formosa Corruption – because they had seen it presented so often before.
As I recall, that morning had been rather typical, with three or four clients already having come and gone. One was a young woman who had a bundle of her dead grandfather’s letters, in which her recently acquired young gentleman seemed to have too great an interest. Five minutes of glancing through them, followed by a few questions about the grandfather’s seafaring background and a look through the Gazetteer, was enough for Holmes to advise her to look behind a framed map (which she confirmed that she owned, in spite of not knowing how Holmes could have been aware of it) for a set of stock documents, hidden long ago, and now no doubt worth a fortune. (As she left, I added my own professional advice: Avoid the young gentleman in the future.)
After a couple of other similar consultations and a second cup of coffee, the morning continued with the announcement by Mrs. Hudson of one Ernest Wilson. He was a compact fellow of perhaps forty-five. His suit was well-kept, but not new. He had gray hair that was perhaps overdue for a trim, and it was pressed down in a ring-shape encircling his head, no doubt from wearing the cloth cap that he had clutched in his hands. He looked from one to the other of us rather nervously, but seemed to relax quickly – although not completely – when Holmes invited him to the basket chair before the fire.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Holmes,” he said, glancing my way with a bit of uncertainty. I had seen this before, but for the most part I no longer felt the need to apologize and offer to retreat upstairs to my bedroom, as I had done when Holmes and I first began sharing rooms, or even to the present when a client of recognizable importance professed a matter to be of the utmost secrecy. Usually Holmes indicated that I should stay – sometimes, it seemed, as a way to assert his authority over the client more than a wish for my presence – but there were still occasions when I was excused. In Mr. Wilson’s case, there was no indication that I should leave, and thus I picked up my notebook to jot down a few points as the man told his story.
“You may not remember me, Mr. Holmes – ”
“Of course, I do, Mr. Wilson. You’re the manager of the messenger service in Regent Street, around the corner from the Union Bank in Argyll Place.”
Wilson’s eyes widened. “I am indeed. Thank you. Thank you.” He paused for a second, as if some great honor had been accorded and had left him speechless. Then, in an effort to regain his train of thought that was visible to both Holmes and me, Wilson continued.
“As you say, I’m the manager, and have been with the company, at that location, since I was a boy. I started running messages when I was just a lad, a number of years before you two young men were born, I expect. It was a local concern then – we’ve since been absorbed by a larger organization – and as I came up, I took on more and more responsibility, so that when old Mr. Jeeter retired, I was given the reins. It’s steady work, and necessary, and if one keeps an eye on all the moving pieces, there isn’t too much that can go wrong.
“When I first started, I lived with me mum, not far out of the Seven Dials, and thank heavens I escaped from there, as many of my young mates did not. With what I earned, we were able to move to a better neighborhood, and there we stayed. Mum died a few years ago, but I remained there in our old rooms, by myself, until the middle of last February, just over a month ago, when we – that is, the other tenants and me – learned that the building had been sold to a nearby brewery so that they could demolish it and expand their building. Well, there wasn’t anything to do but look for somewhere else.
“The same day that I learned I’d have to move, I was returning from delivering a package – as I’ve never risen so high that I don’t still do some of that for myself – and I was quite fortunate to notice that a room had just become available near my place of employment – in Lowndes Court, just off Carnaby Street, not three or four blocks away from the service. It’s an easy walk, and there are probably six or eight pubs a couple of minutes in any direction, should I wish for a little something at the end of the day.
“It’s a small house, smaller than this one, and the lease is held by Mrs. Denbigh, a widow of about my age. It seems that her previous tenant, an old man who had been a bank clerk, had dropped dead at his desk one morning a week or so before, and after his sister came and cleared out his things, she needed a new lodger. The rate is reasonable, including meals and laundry, and after I saw the sign in her window and knocked on her door, we had concluded the arrangements within fifteen minutes.
“I’m not one for change, you understand, but I had no choice. I’m satisfied with where I work, and I was happy with where I lived, until I had to find somewhere else. But this is definitely a satisfactory solution to my problem.”
I could see that Holmes was becoming impatient, and to Wilson’s credit, he perceived it as well. He hurried onward toward the meat of his story.
“I’ve lived there for just a month now – at Number 8 Lowndes Court. In all that time, there’s been nothing unusual whatsoever, and I’ve simply picked up and carried on with my life the same as before – I just turn a different direction at the end of the day to walk home. But yesterday morning, as I was finishing my breakfast, Mrs. Denbigh knocked and asked to come in.
“That was a bit strange, as she usually waits until I’ve gone for the day to collect the dishes, along with any laundry which I’ve set aside. She seemed upset, and wanted to speak about something, but had a difficult time finding a way to start. I’ve seen this over the years with my lads at the service – when they’ve made a mistake, or something that should have been easy has had a complication, and they fear that they’ve handled it the wrong way. The best way forward is simply get them to tell it, and I urged Mrs. Denbigh to share what troubled her.
“‘Have you heard any… noises in the night?’ she asked.
“‘What noises?’ I asked. Truth be told, the house could burn around me and I might not wake up – it used to worry my mum something terrible.
“‘Footsteps – that’s how it started,’ she said, as if she were embarrassed about it. I couldn’t think why, until I suddenly understood what she might be thinking. She didn’t mean a burglar. ‘And then the knocking began.’
“‘Do you think that the house might have a ghost?’ I tried not to smile and make her feel foolish.
“She couldn’t look at me then, as if hearing it said out loud, in the bright light of morning, made her too ridiculous. And yet, she’d decided to ask me about it, and she pressed on, instead of letting the matter drop.
“‘Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Wilson! I’ve never heard anything like these noises before, in the entire twenty years that I’ve lived here. For the last week they’ve happened every night – softly at first. Just a single knock on the wall outside my bedroom, as if a piece of plaster has crumbled loose and fallen in the wall, or been knocked loose by the passage of a mouse. I’m a light sleeper, or I might not have noticed it – at least, when it began. But once I hear it, then in a few minutes – five or ten I suppose – there will be another, and it sounds intentional, as if someone had thumped a knuckle on the wall, and not as if the house is simply creaking as it settles for the night. Every night that I’ve heard the noises, they’ve begun the same way.’
“‘Every night, you say. And you’ve heard them for a full week?’
“‘Yes, although who can say when they started before I noticed them? They might even… might have started…’
“Her voice trailed off then, and I knew what she was implying – that old Creech, the man who had lived there before me – was back somehow. I laughed aloud then, and her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like being mocked.
“‘You’re thinking that it’s your former tenant,’ I said, trying to sound serious. ‘But that’s silly, Mrs. Denbigh. Surely you don’t believe in ghosts.’
“That made her a little angry, I think. Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils turned white. ‘I am sure that I don’t know what to believe, Mr. Wilson,’ she said tightly. ‘I apologize for wasting your valuable time.’ And she would have left in anger if I hadn’t risen and asked her to stay, and to tell me more of what had happened.
“‘Has it just been the knocking, then?’ I asked.
“She shook her head. ‘The first night I heard steps, somewhere in the house, but I couldn’t tell from where, It was a sliding sound, with an occasional thump – the way that old Mr. Creech would walk around up here at night in his slippers.’ She took a step forward, and put a hand on my arm. ‘Have you heard him? Has he been up here as well?’
“I shook my head. ‘But the walking was only the first night? After that it was the knocking?’
“She nodded. ‘That started the night after I heard the walking – even last night. When I’m fully awake, it stops. Afterwards, I can’t go back to sleep. It’s a wonder the last few nights that I’ve managed to fall asleep at all, afraid of what I’ll hear in the darkness, but when I do hear the knocking, I wake up, my heart racing. Are you sure that you haven’t heard anything?’
“I shook my head and forcefully kept myself from smiling this time. ‘I sleep so deeply that your Mr. Creech could be leaning right over my bed and I’d never know it.’
“I’d mistakenly made light of it once more, in spite of trying not to, and that only seemed to upset her yet again, but instead of turning to leave this time, a strange look came over her face, and she rushed on with her story. ‘But it isn’t just the knocking and the walking around. Now… now, last night – he’s written me a warning!’
“This, then, sounded more substantial. One might have thought that she was dreaming the other, no matter that she insisted she was awake. After all, I’ve only known the woman for a month, and while she’s presented herself most sensibly during that time, I cannot really say if she might be the type to hear things that aren’t there. But if there was actually a warning – something written down – well, now there was something to be going on with. As we say at the service, if it isn’t written it doesn’t exist, and this sounded like proof.
“Aware that the morning was getting away from me, I asked her to explain, but she said that she’d better show me instead. I nodded, and she led me downstairs – my two rooms are on the first floor, same as yours here, gentlemen – and then along the hallway beside the stairway to her own chambers at the rear. (The ground floor front is let to a key shop.) Of course I hadn’t been to this part of the house before, but there were no surprises about it – She has a parlor with windows looking out over a small court, and a bedroom just beside it, and a small kitchen.”
“And the basement?” interrupted Holmes.
“The door to the downstairs is underneath the steps going up to my rooms. It’s located just outside of Mrs. Denbigh’s sitting room.”
“And who lodges above you?”
“No one – I’m the only lodger. Above me is just the attic, nothing more. It’s a small house.”
Holmes nodded for him to continue.
“In the parlor, she led me over to the fireplace. The wall there is papered – some sort of pink flowers, very small – and there, alongside the mantel, was the word ‘Revenge’, written in soot.”
Holmes glanced at me. Just two years earlier we had seen something of the sort scrawled on the wall of an abandoned house in Brixton. In that case, the same word – but then in German – had been inscribed in blood, located above the body of a dead American. It had been a most thrilling affair, especially to me in those early days of my recovery, and I wondered if Wilson’s narrative might end up as another tale of vengeance spread across many decades and continents before coming to a grim conclusion in an old house in the heart of the British capital.
“Is the word still there?” asked Holmes, his features alert with interest. I knew that he would wish to examine it, and that he’d likely be able to glean a number of useful details.
Wilson shook his head. “Mrs. Denbigh washed it away later that day.”
Holmes’s eyes narrowed. “Describe it then.”
Wilson glanced away for a moment as he reviewed the image in his mind. “The letters were even – none larger than the other – and each about a foot tall.”
“All capitals?”
“That’s right.”
“And about how wide? Did they crowd together, or appear to get closer together at the end of the word, as if the writer had planned poorly and was running out of room?”
“No, they were evenly spaced – about six inches wide each, and an inch or two apart.”
“Ah, a ghost who plans accordingly beforehand. What you describe would have been over four feet wide.”
“That’s right. It was at eye-level, and you couldn’t help but notice it. There’s plenty of room on that side of the mantel.”
“And one would assume that the ghost – or whomever was responsible – dipped a finger into the fireplace to access this make-do ink.”
“I thought of that. I looked in the fireplace, but Mrs. Denbigh had already built up the fire that morning. I did see some small droppings of soot across the slates in front of the fireplace leading off to the right, toward the message.”
Holmes nodded. “A man after our own hearts, Watson! Possibly an important detail – for why would a phantasm need soot to write a message at all? Wouldn’t such a creature be able to inscribe it with green flames, or with some sort of ectoplasm from ‘The Other Side’.”
Wilson nodded. “My thinking exactly, Mr. Holmes. Someone real – not a dead man – had been in those rooms. But even if it wasn’t a ghost, it’s still something that is a worry to Mrs. Denbigh.”
“Agreed. And you say that this occurred yesterday morning?”
Wilson nodded.
“What did you do next?”
“There wasn’t much that could be done. It was a bright morning as you’ll recall, and the idea of ghosts seemed silly in the daylight. I mentioned that I needed to get on to work – Mrs. Denbigh didn’t seem too pleased about that! – but I promised to think on it during the day.”
“Does she not have anyone else that she can call upon for assistance?” I asked.
“It seems not. Her husband died fifteen years back – he was a brakeman for the railway, and there was some sort of accident. She’s mentioned that fact a number of times in passing. There were no children. If she has anyone else – a parent or brother or sister perhaps – I’m not aware of them. She doesn’t have any photographs of family in her parlor, although there might be something of that sort in her bedroom.”
“You’ve waited a day to approach me. What happened next? May I assume that there were developments last night?”
“Last night, and this morning as well. Throughout yesterday, I considered the problem, and decided that there was nothing to be done except hide myself last night and try to catch the person who was getting into the house. When I returned yesterday evening, I explained my plan, intending to settle myself in a little alcove near the front door, where I’d be out of the way when someone passed by – either entering somehow by way of the front door, or coming up from the basement.”
“Is there a back entrance?” Holmes asked.
“Yes, but it’s in the basement, so if someone were to enter that way, he or she would still have to climb the stairs and pass me in the alcove.”
“Is there a separate entrance into the house by way of the key shop?” I interrupted.
Wilson nodded. “I thought of that, but I examined the connecting door in the front hall quite closely after I returned home, and it was locked and seems to be secure. The light wasn’t the best there, but I could see that cobwebs across the doorway were too old to have been made since the night before, and they are unbroken.”
Holmes nodded appreciatively, and Wilson continued. “I also looked around a bit down in the basement, but saw nothing that seemed unusual. The rear door was locked up tight, and the door to the front areaway beneath Lowndes Court has a couple of solid locks, and while someone might be able to pick them, or even have copies of the keys, there’s nothing there that revealed itself to me.
“After my little supper, I read for a bit and then went downstairs, knocking on Mrs. Denbigh’s parlor door and letting her know that I was getting on station for the night watch. She seemed concerned that I’d be too far away, being near the front door, to know if anything happened, but I’d already arranged a comfortable chair in the alcove, and settled in to wait for whatever happened. However, gentlemen – and I hate to admit it – but… well, I fell asleep. I never heard a thing. This morning I awakened early, rather shamed that I’d been unable to stay awake for one night, and crept down the hall toward Mrs. Denbigh’s parlor. She wasn’t up yet, and the house wasn’t making a sound. There, written in the same place as the morning before, and duplicating it as if traced in the same spot, was the word ‘Revenge’, again spelled out in soot.
“It was quite early, and the fire wasn’t built up yet, so I looked closely and saw where there were places in the soot where a finger had likely dipped in to be re-inked. I took the time to examine the letters more closely, and it was apparent to me then – and I should have noticed it the first time – that each letter would have taken a number of strokes to complete, for a little bit of soot inked on each finger doesn’t go far when writing seven letters that are each half-a-square-foot in size.”
