The Boscombe Valley Mystery: Part Two

That's the music for your own. Welcome to Sherlock Holmes Short Stories. I'm Hugh Bonneville, and from the Neuser podcast network, this is the Bosscom Valley Mystery Part 2.

“Last time, Holmes and Watson travelled to Herafinshire, where a young man called James McCarthy had been arrested for his father's brutal murder.”

In spectacular strad told Holmes it was an open and shut case. Charles McCarthy had been found with his heads stoved in, following a blazing rower with James. But Holmes suspected there was more to the case than met the eye, and he wasn't the only one. Alice Turner, a young woman from a neighbouring family, was convinced that James was wrongly accused.

Her father, John, was the McCarthy's landlord. Both families having returned to England from Australia to Decades earlier.

While Holmes went to interview the accused, Watson attempted to piece together the clues. The strange angle from which the fatal blow was struck. The piece of grave fabric briefly spotted at the crime scene, and the dying man's final words, a rat. Now the good doctor can do nothing but wait for his friend to return, hopefully, with some new information.

It was late before Sherlock Holmes returned, he came back alone for a strad was staying in lodgings in the town.

The glass still keeps very high, he remarked as he sat down. It is of importance that it should not rain before we are able to go over the ground. On the other hand, a man should be at his very best and keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not wish to do it when fagged by a long journey. I have seen young McCarthy, and what did you learn from him? Nothing. Could he throw no light? None at all. I was inclined to think at one time that he knew who had done it and was screening him or her, but I am convinced now that he is as puzzled as everyone else.

He is not a very quick witted youth, though comely to look at and I should think sound at heart. I cannot admire his taste, I remarked, if it is indeed a fact that he was averse to a marriage with so charming young lady as this mistunner. Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. This fellow is madly insanely in love with her, but some two years ago when he was only a lad and before he really knew her,

“for she had been away five years at a boarding school, what does the idiot do but get into the clutches of a bar made in Bristol?”

And Maddie hur at a registry office. No one knows a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening it must be to him to be upgraded for not doing what he would give his very eyes to do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible. It was sheer frenzy of this sort which made him throw his hands up into the air when his father, at their last interview, was goding him on to propose to Miss Turner. On the other hand, he had no means of supporting himself, and his father, who was by all accounts of very hard man, would have thrown him over utterly, had he known the truth.

It was with his bar made wife that he had spent the last three days in Bristol, and his father did not know where he was. Mark that point, it is of importance. Good has come out of evil, however, for the bar made finding from the papers that he is in serious trouble and likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly, and has written to him to say that she has a husband already in the Bermuda Docyard, so that there is really no tie between them.

“I think that that bit of news has consoled young McCarthy, for all that he has suffered, but if he is innocent, who has done it?”

Ah, who? I would call your attention very particularly to two points. One is that the murdered man had an appointment with someone at the pool, and that this someone could not have been his son for his son was away, and he did not know when he would return.

Those are the crucial points upon which the case depends, and now let us talk about George Medvedith, if you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until tomorrow.

There was no rain as homes had foretold, and the morning broke bright and cloudless. At 9 o'clock, a strad called for us with the carriage, and we set off for Hathalie Farm and the Boston Pool.

“There is serious news this morning, the strad observed, it is said that Mr. Turner of the Hall is so ill that his life is despaired of.”

And elderly man, I presume, said homes, about 60, but his constitution has been shattered by his life abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time. This business has had a very bad effect upon him. He was an old friend of MacArthur, and I may add a great benefactor to him. To I have learned that he gave him Hathalie Farm, Brent Free, indeed that is interesting, said homes. Oh yes, in a hundred other ways, he has helped him everybody about his speaks of his kindness to him. Really?

Does it not strike you as a little singular that this MacArthur, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have been under such obligations to Turner,

should still talk of marrying his son to Turner's daughter, who is presumably Eris to the estate, and that in such a very cock-shore manner, as if it were merely a case of a proposal and all else would follow. It is the more strange, since we know that Turner himself was averse to the idea.

“The daughter told us as much. Do you not deduce something from that?”

We have got to the deductions and the inferences said Lestrah, winking at me. I find it hard enough to tackle facts, homes without flying away after theories and fences.

No, you are right, said homes, demurly. You do find it very hard to tackle facts.

Only how I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it difficult to get hold of, the Plylestrah, with some warmth. And that is that MacArthur's senior met his death from MacArthur, Jr, and that all theories to the contrary are the nearest moonshine. Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog, said homes, laughing, but I am very much mistaken if this is not heavily far from the left. Yes, that is it.

“It was a wide spread, comfortable looking building, two storied slate roofed with great yellow blotches of liken upon the grey walls.”

The drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys however gave it a stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still lay heavy upon it. We called at the door where the maid at homes is request showed us the boots which her master wore at the time of his death, and also a pair of the sons, though not the pair which he had then had. Having measured these very carefully from seven or eight different points, homes desired to be led to the courtyard from which we all followed the winding track which led to Boscom Pool.

Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a center of this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker Street were to fail to recognise him. His face flushed and darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard black lines while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins stood out like whip-court in his long sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him,

that a question or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or at the most, only provoked a quick impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently, he made his way along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by way of the woods to the Boscom Pool. It was damp, marshy, ground, as his all, that district, and there were marks of many feet both upon the path and amid the short grass which bounded it on either side. Sometimes Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stopped dead, and once he made quite a little detour into the meadow.

The strad and I walked beside him, the detective indifferent and contemptuous, while I watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the conviction that every one of his actions was directed towards a definite end.

Above the woods which lined it upon the father's side, we could see the red jutting pinnacles which marked the sight of the rich landowners dwelling.

On the Hathalie side of the pool, the woods grew very thick, and there was a narrow belt of sudden grass 20 paces across between the edge of the trees and the reeds which lined the lake. The strad showed us the exact spotted which the body had been found and, indeed, so moist was the ground that I could plainly see the traces which had been left by the fall of the stricken man. To homes, as I could see by his eager face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be read upon the trampled grass.

He ran round like a dog who was picking up a scent and then turned upon my companion.

What did you go into the pool for? He asked. Hi, fished about with a rake. I thought there might be some weapon or other trace. But how on earth? Oh, I have no time. That left foot of yours with its inward twist is all over the place. A mole could trace it.

“And there it vanishes among the reeds. Oh, how simple it would all have been. Had I been here before they came like a herd of buffalo and wallowed all over it?”

Here is where the party with the lodged keeper came and they have covered all tracks for six or eight feet round the body. But here are three separate tracks of the same feet.

He drew out a lens and laid down upon his waterproof to have a better view, talking all the time rather to himself than to us. These are young Macarties feet twice he was walking and once he ran swiftly so that the souls are deeply marked and the heels hardly visible. That bears out his story. He ran when he saw his father on the ground. Then here are the fathers feet as he paced up and down.

“What is this then? It is the butt end of the gun as the sun stood listening. And this, that are what have we here?”

Tip toes, tip toes, square two, quite unusual boots. They come, they go, they come again. Of course, that was for the cloak. Now, where did they come from? He ran up and down, sometimes losing sometimes finding the track until we were well within the edge of the wood and under the shadow of a great beach, the largest tree in the neighborhood. Homes traced his way to the father side of this and laid down once more upon his face with a little cry of satisfaction. For a long time he remained there, turning over the leaves and dried sticks, gathering up what seemed to me to be dust into an envelope and examining with his lens not only the ground, but even the bark of the tree as far as he could reach.

A jagged stone was lying among the moss and this also he carefully examined and retained. Then he followed a pathway through the wood until he came to the high road where all traces were lost.

“It has been a case of considerable interest he remarked, returning to his natural manner. I fancy that this grey house on the right must be the lodge, I think that I will go in and have a word with Moran and perhaps write a little note.”

Having done that, we may drive back to our lunchroom. You may walk to the car, but I shall be with you presently. It was about 10 minutes before we regained our cab and drove back into Ross, homes still carrying with him the stone which he had picked up in the wood. This may interest you, Lestrade. He remarked, holding it out. The murder was done with it. I see no marks. There are none. How do you know then? The grass was growing under it. It had only lain there a few days. There was no sign of a place once it had been taken.

It corresponds with the injuries. There is no sign of any other weapon. And the murderer is a tall man, death-handed, limps but the right leg, wears thick-sold shooting boots and a grey cloak smokes Indian cigars, uses a cigar holder, and carries a blunt pen knife in his pocket. There are several other indications, but these may be enough to aid us in our search. Lestrade laughed. "I am afraid that I am still skeptic," he said. "Theories are all very well but we have to deal with a hard-headed British jury."

"And leave your case unfinished?" "No. Finished." "But the mystery." "It is solved." "Who was the criminal then?"

“"The gentleman I described." "But who is he?" "Surely it would not be difficult to find out. This is not such a populist neighborhood."”

"The strard shrunk his shoulders." "I am a practical man," he said, "and I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking for a left-handed gentleman with a gain leg." "I should become the laughing stock of Scotland Yard." "All right," said Holmes quietly. "I have given you the chance. Here are your lodgings. Goodbye. I shall drop you a line before I leave." "Having leftless strard at his rooms we drove to our hotel where we found lunch upon the table." Holmes was silent and buried in thought with a pained expression upon his face as one who finds himself in a perplexing position.

"Look here, Watson," he said when the cloth was cleared. "Just sit down in this chair and let me preach to you for a little." "I don't know quite what to do and I should value your advice, light a cigar and let me expound." "Pray, do so." "Well now, in considering this case there are two points about Young MacArthur's narrative which struck us both instantly, although they impressed me in his favor and you against him." "One was the fact that his father should, according to his account cry, Koo-E, before seeing him."

“"The other was his singular dying reference to a rat."”

"He mumbled several words, you understand, but that was all that caught the sun's air." "Now, from this double point, our research must commence and we will begin it by presuming that what the lad says is absolutely true." "What of this? Koo-E, then." "Well, obviously it could not have been meant for the sun." "The sun, as far as he knew, was in Bristol."

"It was mere chance that he was within air-shot." "The Koo-E was meant to attract the attention of whoever it was that he had the appointment with." "But Koo-E is a distinctly Australian cry, and one which is used between Australians." "There is a strong presumption that the person whom McCarthy expected to meet him at boscompool, was someone who had been in Australia."

"What of the rat, then?"

“Sherlock Holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened it out on the table.”

"This is a map of the colony of Victoria," he said. "I wired to Bristol for it last night." "He put his hand over a part of the map." "What do you read?" "A rat, I read."

"And now?" "He raised his hand." "Alarat." "Quite so?" "That was the word the man uttered, and of which his son only caught the last two syllables."

"He was trying to utter the name of his murderer, so-and-so of Ballarat." "It is wonderful," I exclaimed. "It is obvious, and now you see I had narrowed the field down considerably."

"The position of a grey garment was a third point which granting the son statement to be correct was a certainty."

"We have come now out of mere vagueness to the definite conception of an Australian from Ballarat with a grey cloak." "Sertainly, and one who was at home in the district for the pool can only be approached by the farm or by the estate where strangers could hardly wonder." "Quite so?" "Then comes our expedition of today. By an examination of the ground, I gained the trifling details which I gave to that imbicycle as strad as to the personality of the criminal." "But how did you gain them?"

"You know, my method, it is founded upon the observation of trifles." "His height, I know that you might roughly judge from the length of his stride, his boots too might be told from their traces." "Yes, they were peculiar boots, but his leanness."

"The impression of his right foot was always less distinct than his left. He put less weight upon it. Why? Because he limped. He was lean."

"But his left handedness?" "You were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded by the surgeon at the inquest. The blow was struck from immediately behind, and yet was upon the left side. Now, how can that be unless it were by a left-handed man?"

"I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this and written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of Skype, cigar and cigarette tobacco. Having found the ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss where he had tossed it. It was an Indian cigar of the variety which our rolled in Rotterdam. And the cigar holder?"

“"I could see that the end had not been in his mouth, therefore he used a holder. The tip had been cut off not bitten off, but the cut was not a clean one, so I deduced a blunt pen knife."”

"Hotens," I said. "You have drawn a net-round this man from which he cannot escape, and you have saved an innocent human life as truly as if you had cut the cord which was hanging him."

"I see the direction in which all this points. The culprit is, Mr. John Turner!" "Cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of our sitting room and ushering in a visitor. The man who entered was a strange and impressive figure. His slow limping step and bold shoulders gave the appearance of decrepitude. And it is hard, deep-lined, craggy features, and his enormous limbs, sure that he was possessed of unusual strength of body and of character. His tangled beard, grizzled hair, and outstanding drooping eyebrows, combined to give an air of dignity and power to his appearance.

But his face was of an ashen white, while his lips and the corners of his nostrils were tinned with a shade of blue. It was clear to me at a glance that he was in the grip of some deadly and chronic disease.

“"Pray, sit down on the sofa," said Holmes gently.”

"You had my note?"

"Yes. The lodgekeeper brought it up.

You said that you wished to see me here to avoid scandal." "I thought people would talk if I went to the hall, and why did you wish to see me?" He looked across at my companion with despair in his weary eyes, as though his question was already answered. "Yes," said Holmes, answering the look rather than the words. "It is so. I know all about McCarthy. The old man sank his face in his hands.

"Oh, help me," he cried.

“"But I would not have let the young man come to harm.”

I give you my word that I would have spoken out if it went against him at the her sizes."

"I am glad to hear you say so," said Holmes, gravely. "I would have spoken now, had it not been for my dear girl. It would break her heart. It will break her heart when she hears that I am arrested." "It may not come to that," said Holmes. "What?"

"I am no official agent. I understand that it was your daughter who required my presence here, and I am acting in her interests. The young McCarthy must be got off, however." "I am a dying man," said Old Turner.

"I have had diabetes for years." "My doctor says it is a question whether I shall live a month, yet I would rather die unto my own roof than in a jail." Holmes rose and sat down at the table with his pen in his hand and a bundle of paper before him.

"Just tell us the truth," he said. "I shall jot down the facts. You will sign it, and what's in here can witness it. Then I could produce your confession at the last extremity to save young McCarthy. I promise you that I shall not use it unless it is absolutely needed."

"It says well," said the old man. "It's a question whether I shall live to the assises,

but I should wish to spare Alice the shock.

“And now I will make the thing clear to you.”

It has been a long time in the acting, but will not take me long to tell." "You didn't know this dead man, McCarthy. He was a devil incarnate. I tell you that.

God keep you out of the clutches of such a man as he. His grip has been upon me these twenty years, and he has blasted my life.

I'll tell you first how I came to be in his power.

It was in the early sixties at the diggings. I was a young chap, then hot bloodied and reckless, ready to turn my hand at anything. I got among bad companions, took the drink, at no luck with my plane, took to the bush,

and in a word became what you would call over here, a highway robber. There were six of us, and we had a wild, free life of it, sticking up a station from time to time, or stopping the wagons on the road to the diggings.

Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under, and our party is still remembered in the colony as the Ballarat gang. One day a gold convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne, and we lay in wait for it and attacked it. There were six troopers and six of us,

so it was a close thing,

but we emptied four of their saddles at the first volley.

Three of our boys were killed, however before we got this wag. I put my pistol to the head of the wagon driver, who was this very man, McCarthy. I wished to the Lord that I had shot him then, but I spared him, though I saw his wicked little eyes,

“fixed on my face as though to remember every feature.”

We got away with the gold, became wealthy men and made our way over to England, without being suspected. There I parted from my old pals and determined to settle down to a quiet and respectable life.

I bought this estate, which chance to be in the market, and I set myself to do a little good with my money, to make up for the way in which I earned it. I married, too.

Though my wife died young, she left me my dear little Alice. Even when she was just a baby, her wee hand seemed to lead me down the right path, as nothing else had ever done. In a word I turned over a new leaf

and did my best to make up for the past.

“All was going well when McCarthy laid his grip upon me.”

I had gone up to town about an investment and I met him in Regen Street with hardly a coat to his back or a boot to his foot. Here we are, Jack, says he touching me on the arm. Will be as good as a family to you.

There's two of us, me and my son, and you can have the keeping of us. If you don't, it's a fine law-abiding country is England,

and there's always a policeman within hell.

Well, town they came to the West Country. There was no shaking them off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since. There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness. Turn where I would,

there was his cunning grinning face at my elbow. It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more afraid of her knowing my past than of the police. Whatever he wanted, he must have, and whatever it was I gave him without question,

land money houses, until at last he asked a thing which I could not give. He asked for Alice. His son, you see, had grown up and so had my girl, and as I was known to be in weak health,

it seemed a fine stroke to him that his lad should step into the whole property. But there I was firm. I would not have his cursed stock mixed with mine, not that I had any dislike to the lad, but his blood was in him,

and that was enough. Nice to have firm. McCarthy threatened. I'd brave him to do his worst.

midway between our houses, to talk it over.

“When I went down there I found him talking with his son,”

so I smoked a cigar and waited behind a tree until he should be alone. But as I listened to his talk, all that was black and bitter in me seemed to come up a most. He was urging his son to marry my daughter, with as little regard for what she might think,

as if she were a slut from off the streets. It drove me mad to think that I, and all that I held most deers should be in the power of such a man as this, could I not snap the bond? I was already a dying and desperate man.

Though clear of mind and fairly strong of limb, I knew that my own fate was sealed, but my memory and my girl, both could be saved if I could but silence that foul tongue. I did it, Mr. Holmes.

I would do it again. Deeply, as I have sinned,

“I have led a life of martyrdom to a tone for it.”

But that my girl should be entangled in the same meshes, which held me was more than I could suffer. I struck him down with no more compunction than if he had been some foul and venomous beast. His cry brought back his son,

but I had gained the cover of the wood, though I was forced to go back to fetch the cloak, which I had dropped in my flight. That is the true story, gentlemen, of all that occurred. Well, it is not for me to judge you,

said Holmes as the old man signed the statement, which had been drawn out.

I pray that we may never be exposed to such a temptation.

I pray not, sir. And what do you intend to do? In view of your health, nothing. You are yourself aware that you will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the assises.

I will keep your confession, and if McCarthy is condemned, I shall be forced to use it. If not, it shall never be seen by mortal eye. And your secret, whether you be alive or dead, shall be safe with us.

Farewell, then. Set the old man solemnly. Your own deathbeds when they come. We will be the easier for the thought of the peace, which you have given to mine.

Tottering and shaking in all his giant frame, he stumbled slowly from the room. "God, help us," said Holmes, after a long silence.

“"Why does fate play such tricks with poor, helpless worms?”

I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of

backstas words and say, there but for the grace of God goes Sherlock Holmes." James McCarthy was acquitted at the assises, on the strength of a number of objections, which had been drawn out by Holmes, and submitted to the defending council.

Old Turner lived for seven months after our interview, but he is now dead. And there is every prospect that the son and daughter may come to live happily together, in ignorance of the black cloud, which rests upon their past. Next time, on Sherlock Holmes' short stories,

Holmes faces the one man in the world who may consider his intellectual equal. Professor James Moriarty, the so-called Napoleon of crime. For many years now, Holmes has been working to bring down Moriarty's crime syndicate. Now, at last, he stands on the verge of completing his life's work. But Moriarty doesn't intend to go down quietly.

And when Holmes' nemesis finally catches up with him,

the great detective will find himself between a rock and a hard place, with no solution in sight. That's next time. Can't wait a week until the next episode,

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