“Very naturally, Mr. Ferguson. Now sit here and pull yourselftogether and give me a few clear answers. I can assure you that Iam very far from being at my wit’s end, and that I am confident weshall find some solution. First of all, tell me what steps you havetaken. Is your wife still near the children?”
“We had a dreadful scene. She is a most loving woman, Mr.
Holmes. If ever a woman loved a man with all her heart andsoul, she loves me. She was cut to the heart that I should havediscovered this horrible, this incredible, secret. She would noteven speak. She gave no answer to my reproaches, save to gazeat me with a sort of wild, despairing look in her eyes. Then sherushed to her room and locked herself in. Since then she hasrefused to see me. She has a maid who was with her before hermarriage, Dolores by name—a friend rather than a servant. Shetakes her food to her.”
“Then the child is in no immediate danger?”
“Mrs. Mason, the nurse, has sworn that she will not leave itnight or day. I can absolutely trust her. I am more uneasy aboutpoor little Jack, for, as I told you in my note, he has twice beenassaulted by her.”
“But never wounded?”
“No, she struck him savagely. It is the more terrible as he is apoor little inoffensive cripple.” Ferguson’s gaunt features softened ashe spoke of his boy. “You would think that the dear lad’s conditionwould soften anyone’s heart. A fall in childhood and a twistedspine, Mr. Holmes. But the dearest, most loving heart within.”
Holmes had picked up the letter of yesterday and was reading itover. “What other inmates are there in your house, Mr. Ferguson?”
“Two servants who have not been long with us. One stablehand,Michael, who sleeps in the house. My wife, myself, my boy Jack,baby, Dolores, and Mrs. Mason. That is all.”
“I gather that you did not know your wife well at the time ofyour marriage?”
“I had only known her a few weeks.”
1304 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
“How long had this maid Dolores been with her?”
“Some years.”
“Then your wife’s character would really be better known byDolores than by you?”
“Yes, you may say so.”
Holmes made a note.
“I fancy,” said he, “that I may be of more use at Lamberleythan here. It is eminently a case for personal investigation. Ifthe lady remains in her room, our presence could not annoy orinconvenience her. Of course, we would stay at the inn.”
Ferguson gave a gesture of relief.
“It is what I hoped, Mr. Holmes. There is an excellent train attwo from Victoria if you could come.”
“Of course we could come. There is a lull at present. I can giveyou my undivided energies. Watson, of course, comes with us. Butthere are one or two points upon which I wish to be very surebefore I start. This unhappy lady, as I understand it, has appearedto assault both the children, her own baby and your little son?”
“That is so.”
“But the assaults take different forms, do they not? She hasbeaten your son.”
“Once with a stick and once very savagely with her hands.”
“Did she give no explanation why she struck him?”
“None save that she hated him. Again and again she said so.”
“Well, that is not unknown among stepmothers. A posthumousjealousy, we will say. Is the lady jealous by nature?”
“Yes, she is very jealous—jealous with all the strength of herfiery tropical love.”
“But the boy—he is fifteen, I understand, and probably verydeveloped in mind, since his body has been circumscribed inaction. Did he give you no explanation of these assaults?”
“No, he declared there was no reason.”
“Were they good friends at other times?”
“No, there was never any love between them.”
“Yet you say he is affectionate?”
“Never in the world could there be so devoted a son. My life ishis life. He is absorbed in what I say or do.”
Once again Holmes made a note. For some time he sat lost inthought.
“No doubt you and the boy were great comrades before thissecond marriage. You were thrown very close together, were younot?”
“Very much so.”
“And the boy, having so affectionate a nature, was devoted, nodoubt, to the memory of his mother?”
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“Most devoted.”
“He would certainly seem to be a most interesting lad. Thereis one other point about these assaults. Were the strange attacksupon the baby and the assaults upon yow son at the same period?”
“In the first case it was so. It was as if some frenzy had seizedher, and she had vented her rage upon both. In the second caseit was only Jack who suffered. Mrs. Mason had no complaint tomake about the baby.”
“That certainly complicates matters.”
“I don’t quite follow you, Mr. Holmes.”
“Possibly not. One forms provisional theories and waits for timeor fuller knowledge to explode them. A bad habit, Mr. Ferguson,but human nature is weak. I fear that your old friend here hasgiven an exaggerated view of my scientific methods. However,I will only say at the present stage that your problem does notappear to me to be insoluble, and that you may expect to find us atVictoria at two o’clock.”
It was evening of a dull, foggy November day when, havingleft our bags at the Chequers, Lamberley, we drove through theSussex clay of a long winding lane and finally reached the isolatedand ancient farmhouse in which Ferguson dwelt. It was a large,straggling building, very old in the centre, very new at the wingswith towering Tudor chimneys and a lichen-spotted, high-pitchedroof of Horsham slabs. The doorsteps were worn into curves,and the ancient tiles which lined the porch were marked with therebus of a cheese and a man after the original builder. Within,the ceilings were corrugated with heavy oaken beams, and theuneven floors sagged into sharp curves. An odour of age and decaypervaded the whole crumbling building.
There was one very large central room into which Ferguson ledus. Here, in a huge old-fashioned fireplace with an iron screenbehind it dated 1670, there blazed and spluttered a splendid logfire.