"Sherlock Holmes and the King’s Evil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thomas Donald)

5

Such was the visit of the Venerable Josephus Percy to our consulting rooms. I cannot say that I was much encouraged by Holmes’s performance but, at least, he was correct in telling the Archdeacon to go home and stay there. Hardly had this clergyman left us when there was a sharp sound of hooves in the street, the grating of wheels against the stone kerb, followed by a sudden pull at the door bell.

“This I think,” said Holmes, without getting up from his chair or going near the window, “will be the Earl of Blagdon. I have been expecting him for several days.”

“Really? Why?”

“I imagine he will tell us in his own good time that it is a matter of his cousin’s hands.”

At that point our visitor was announced by Mrs Hudson. A great change had come over Lord Blagdon. He was a worried and a contrite man. Placing his hat on the stand, he sat down in the chair indicated to him.

“Mr Holmes I have come to ask you not to abandon the case of Lord Arthur.”

“That does not surprise me, my lord.”

Our visitor looked puzzled but not startled.

“Perhaps you had better listen to what I have to say. I wish you, and your colleague Dr Watson, to keep watch on him for the next few days. By then I hope that arrangements can be made with those who will have him in their care. Since we last spoke, I have made inquiries among the family and the servants. I am told by her former maid that for the past two months Lord Arthur had brought bonbons from Florestan’s of St James’s Street to Lady Clementina. I cannot dismiss from my mind the suspicion that she did not die from aconite poisoning-only because she died of heart failure first!”

Holmes gave this a little thought. Then he turned to our client.

“I believe, my lord, that your cousin may be deranged but not ostensibly so. More specifically, I believe that he is a victim of cheiromancy, the so-called science of palm-reading.”

“But that is what I have come to tell you!”

“Then you betray no secrets. I had concluded as much from his curious habit of wearing gloves at all times except when playing the piano, which as you say he did less and less. We know that he does not suffer from any infection or disfigurement. If that were so, the hands would show it on their backs. It matters only to him that the world should not see his palms. Why? Because that is where secrets are read by all who can do so. He believes that catastrophe lies in wait for him as surely as a beast in the jungle.”

“But is not the whole thing absurd?”

“To you or I it is, my lord. To one who, as you say, has been a devotee of astrology, phrenology, the Magicians of the Golden Dawn, the materialisation of the dead as ectoplasm, then the appeal of palmistry may be strong. Such arts of divination, however specious, are too familiar to the criminal investigator. Palmistry is deep-rooted. It goes back through many centuries to a superstition of examining the cracks and lines of a shoulder-blade. It was brought back to England from the medieval Tartars and anciently known as ”reading the speal-bone.”

Holmes stood up and crossed to the bookcase. He took down a tattered volume bound only in sheepskin, its yellowed pages printed in the “black letter” of five hundred years earlier, a rarity even in his collection.

“Johann Hartlieb, Die Kunst Ciromantia, published in Augsburg in 1493,” Holmes handed it to Lord Blagdon, “There you will find the arts which are still practised as cheiromancy. Their exponents claim that they can read predictions of evil and disaster in the lines of the palm. The Line of Life, for example, runs in an arc from the side of the left wrist to the edge of the hand midway between the base of the thumb and the index finger. Pale and broad, it may indicate evil instincts. Thick and red it may betray violence and brutality. All this may be read easily in the course of an evening at the dinner table by a fellow guest who is an initiate. That, I believe, was the sort of discovery that Lord Arthur feared.”

Lord Blagdon sat for a moment as if trying to compose the words in his mind. At last he said,

“I am told by the Duchess of Paisley that my cousin attended an evening party a few months ago. It was the first reception of the spring at Lancaster House. Clever people but not sound. There was smart talk and someone, who professed the ability, read a number of palms. Lord Arthur naturally offered himself as a subject. The man who had started the game, Podgers was his name I believe, took Lord Arthur’s right hand. Then he dropped it suddenly and seized the left hand. When he looked up, the Duchess tells me, his face was white but he had forced a smile.”

“A believer in his art, therefore,” said Holmes coldly, “To me, however, it reeks of rehearsal and fraud.”

“Podgers had examined the palm long and closely but he would only say, ‘It is the hand of a charming young man.’ That was all. Lord Arthur pressed him to reveal what he had seen. The rascal then went so far as to admit that he had glimpsed the death of a distant relative. There was plainly more to it than that. The Duchess assures me that Podgers is a professional palm-reader with rooms in West Moon Street.”

“Nothing more was said by either man at the party?”

“Lord Arthur and the palmist were seen together later on, very briefly. Lord Arthur was heard to say, Tell me the truth, I am not a child’, before Podgers rushed out. When he spoke these words, my cousin had his cheque-book in his hand. Whatever the secret was, he must have purchased the truth of it.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Holmes asked,

“Can you be sure of this account?”

Lord Blagdon nodded.

“Positive. Now I am told that one of his friends called at Lord Arthur’s rooms the next day. There is a small Sheraton table in the window of his drawing-room at which he writes his letters. The visitor noticed on the blotting-paper an imperfect imprint in mirror-writing. The servant had not yet had time to change it for a new sheet. This friend read the name ‘Podgers’ and the sum of £105. One hundred guineas, Mr Holmes! Unhappily, he did not hear the Duchess’s account of the party until her return from a French tour a few days ago. Now we have both halves of the story.”

“A great deal to pay for such information,” said Holmes thoughtfully, “Something of which you may be sure is that it was not a prediction that he would poison Lady Clementina with aconite, since this did not happen.”

“Then who else was in danger-if it was to be murder?”

“I have reason to suppose that Lord Arthur may have been the person who despatched an exploding clock to the Archdeacon of Chichester. It failed in its purposes.”

Lord Blagdon looked blank.

“I do not know the Archdeacon of Chichester from Adam! Nor, I am sure, does Lord Arthur. What possible purpose could there be, unless this scoundrel Podgers put a spell upon him or exercised black magic of some kind?”

Sherlock Holmes’s fine profile was a study in distaste.

“I am not a believer in spells, my lord, nor in black magic. Scoundrels are another matter. I believe that I can best discharge my duty to you-and indeed to Archdeacon Percy of Chichester, who has been good enough to consult me-by keeping the closest possible watch upon your cousin for the immediate future.”

“You will find that his manservant, Crayshaw, shares my concern about his master. Crayshaw will keep watch on his movements indoors. It is for us to do the rest. I shall occupy his time as best I can without alarming him. For the immediate future, I may tell you that he has no engagements this afternoon but that he will attend the House of Commons this evening.”

“In what connection?” I asked.

“Mr Joseph Keighley, the Member for Manchester South, is a modern rationalist. He has put down an amendment to the Sale of Goods Act. It would make fortune-tellers legally liable for any loss or distress suffered in consequence of their mischief. It stems from the Hevingham judgment in the High Court last winter. Mr Justice Strode urged the legislature to take some such course in dealing with what he called ‘pious fraud’.You may recall that one of these charlatans terrified an elderly lady with predictions of death and disaster in order to buy her house for a song because it had a ‘curse’ upon it.”

“Indeed,” said Holmes, almost stifling a yawn.

“Lord Arthur, as you may know, is Member of Parliament for Chalcote. Though he bears the courtesy title of ‘Lord,’ as the grandson of an earl, he is not a peer of the realm. Therefore he is entitled to sit in the House of Commons. He will be sure to attend in order to vote against the proposed amendment.”

“He will not take part in the debate?” Holmes inquired.

“He has never spoken in the five years he has sat in the house, except to say, ‘Hear, hear,’ on two or three occasions. He does not often attend. His seat is safe enough. Chalcote has been our land for a century past and our tenants are loyal. My cousin has been returned unopposed at two elections.”

So it was that Sherlock Holmes and I attended the Strangers Gallery of the House of Commons for the first time. We did so on the nomination of Lord Blagdon who was by title a member of the House of Lords-and therefore a Member of Parliament in his own right.