CHAPTER V.

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF 'CAPTAIN MYCROFT'

The following morning, Holmes attired himself again as 'Captain Mycroft', to return to Trantridge. He was not happy about venturing into the country alone: "Give me the city any time, Watson - modern, noisy, dirty, with its own madnesses, no doubt - but madnesses one can comprehend," he said. Nevertheless, he set out with some optimism that the results of the visit would help bring the case towards a swift conclusion. He took with him Mrs. Brooks' toys and books for the little Durbeyfields.

She smiled wistfully as he bore them off: "They were made for use."

I passed the day by walking in the Lower Gardens by the Bourne stream, and, when a shower passed over, returned to play Piquet with Mrs. Brooks - no mean hand at cards. I can only reflect that I am heartily glad that no money was at stake. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant enough, albeit temporary, distraction from the strain of the case. In idle moments, I still found myself worrying about Tess, and hoping that she would see the folly of sacrificing herself to protect - whom?

Holmes returned in time for dinner, after which the three of us remained at table to discuss today's progress.

"Was your suspicion correct?" I asked. "Was he there?"

"Yes, he was. Most fascinating..."

Holmes described the scene which had greeted him at Trantridge earlier in the day. Joan Durbeyfield had welcomed 'Captain Mycroft' in; she was sober, but evidently somewhat flustered. She explained that Mr. Clare had arrived the previous evening, and was staying with the family until Tess's situation was resolved "one way or another".

When Holmes entered the cottage parlour, he found the hitherto elusive gentleman beguiling the children with tales of adventure in South America. He was as Mrs. Brooks described - gaunt and hollow-eyed from disease, yet seemingly recovered, despite his death-like appearance.

"He was quite taken in by my disguise," Holmes said proudly. "He said he couldn't quite place me, but decided that must be because we had met at the Dom Sebastião - a dockside dive in Rio. When he first arrived in Brazil, he took to drowning his sorrows there. Hence he remembers very little of the early days."

"Very fortunate for you."

"Were the bairnies pleased with their gifts?" Mrs. Brooks asked earnestly.

"Delighted! But their mother decided against giving them everything at once, however - she said she didn't want them to expect that they would always get presents whenever anyone died. She seemed rather discomfited by her son-in-law's presence. I think she resented the way he had the little ones fawning around him; she blames him for what has happened to Tess."

"Guid for her!"

Holmes agreed. "But he gave the impression of repenting his desertion of his wife, and the fact that his return had so unhinged her as to drive her to crime. Did she strike you as unhinged, Watson?"

"Distraught, prey to guilt - but I would not venture to judge her sanity. It seems to me that she is still struggling to come to terms with the shock of these events. She does not seem herself."

My colleague lit his pipe. "Mr. Clare believes that temporary insanity is the only logical explanation - but that it will not stand up in court, not with his wife's past. He seems resigned to her fate, unable - or unwilling - to challenge it. He's more than a little concerned for what her revelations will do to his own reputation."

"So he's no knight-errant! But then, she had taken up with Alec d'Urberville again..."

"That's true. You know, Mr. Clare is a determined rationalist. When we began to 'reminisce' about Brazil, he revealed some knowledge of the superstitions rife there. He shares my distaste for such things. Indeed, he found it refreshing to find a seaman who was not superstitious: he said he was reminded of his boyhood hero, Peter the Great."

"A murderous tyrant? An odd choice of hero for a man of his moral probity!"

"On the contrary; strength of will is something which he esteems highly, and he referred admiringly to the Czar working in the shipyards. I believe he sees his own past venture into dairy work in a similar light. - As to Brazil, he had to admit that he found the effects of the popular religion there rather impressive."

"Are they no' a' Papists?" Mrs. Brooks asked. "That's what my man said they were."

Holmes hesitated. "Catholicism is the official religion. However, as in Haiti and Cuba, the slave population retained its own African tribal practices and grafted them on to a form of Christianity. In Haiti, this is called 'Voudou', in Cuba, 'Santería', and in Brazil, 'Candomblé'. Mr. Clare said that when he fell ill, he was nursed back to health by an old slave woman in Curitiba. Through her, he had opportunity to observe some of the Candomblé rites: trance, et cetera. He was singularly contemptuous of the practitioners, but what struck him was their reliance upon the power of suggestion."

"As in mesmerism?" I interjected.

"Yes. He says that he should like to write a monograph on the subject one day. I told him that I doubted it would be widely read," Holmes added disdainfully.

"Really! There is room for other authors of learned monographs, you know!"

Holmes laughed. "I have my pride- Besides, would it not be rather a vain occupation for a man who ought to be trying to save his wife from the gallows?"

"She adores him," I said.

He nodded sadly. "He says he pities her. And 'Liza-Lu worships him - young girls do admire brave travellers from distant lands."

"Tess says she hopes he'll marry her, but wouldn't that be illegal?"

"Unless the Holman-Hunts and their sympathisers win out... If not, they would have to go abroad. In other circumstances, it would have been almost amusing to see the way they sit together talking - she gazing up at him, and he humouring her with tales of exotic places. Of course, she's still very young; one hopes she may outgrow the infatuation."

"She loved me for the dangers I had passed;
And I loved her that she did pity them
," I quoted.

"Othello strangled his wife with his bare hands - he didn't let the common hangman do it for him!" Holmes puffed at his pipe. "You know, at first I thought I ought to like Angel Clare... He is clever, courteous, and seemed truthful, but - He has an intellectual detachment which is quite reptilian in its cold-bloodedness. It is the way he seems able to distance himself from his wife's plight, the way he is able to dissect her alleged mental collapse, as if she were some sort of experiment... There's an absence of heart at the heart of his reasoning. And he's utterly egocentric - one just has to watch how he basks in 'Liza-Lu's attention."

I recognised some of these traits. "Do you think he would make a great detective?"

Holmes threw me a sardonic look. "Point taken. But he lacks deductive power. He is a clergyman's son, of lapsed faith. He has the mind for textual exegesis of the most minute kind - yet cannot grasp the wider picture. Your account of his maltreatment of his wife - the stone coffin episode and so on - fits exactly. He is fastidious on some levels, yet psychologically cruel. For all his boasted repentance, I should not be surprised if he were to throw her second 'fall' back at her - if she lives."

"But whatever maks lassies fancy him?" Mrs. Brooks asked, incredulous.

"To girls of simple background, culture and learning," he suggested. "Romance instead of more earthy passions. Refined manners."

"Refined cruelty, mair like!" she exclaimed. "Stane coffins! And he had the bare-faced cheek tae come back here, beggin' pairdon! I maun gie his wife a guid talkin' tae when she gets out! And him a guid kickin' if he sets foot in my house again!"

I asked if there were any likelihood that we should meet Mr. Clare. Holmes responded that he had made some indication that he would be visiting Sandbourne the day after next, having secured police permission to remove some of his wife's belongings from the scene of the crime.

"Does he know where you are staying?" I asked.

"No, but it would not be strange if 'Captain Mycroft' were to be calling on the widow of an old friend, would it not, Mrs. Brooks?"

She smiled slyly. "That's a gey canny ploy, Mr. Holmes! Would you like me tae put on a tea for him?"

"Actually, I was thinking rather of testing Mr. Clare's rationalism with your tea-table..."

I was shocked. "A mock-séance? Heavens, Holmes, isn't that rather ? I mean, under the circumstances... disrespectful?"

"Shakespeare, Watson. You recalled Othello; but what of Hamlet -

The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king
?"

Mrs. Brooks looked apprehensive: "I've no' deen the like o' this afore, Mr. Holmes."

"Did you not say yourself that the effect might simply be produced by the action of your foot moving the table-leg from its proper position?"

"Aye, but..." She paused, then nodded firmly. "Strictly in the interests o' the investigation, and meanin' nae disrespect to them that's crossed the Bar?"

"You have my word. Have you had any luck with the Tennyson?"

"I canna spend the day readin' poetry, as much as I'd like tae! But you ken, when I first saw thon Mr. Angel, luikin' like a walkin' corpse, he minded me o' Jamie Harris."

"Jamie Harris? Who is he?" he asked, alertly.

"It's no' a 'wha', it's a 'what'. A ballad. There's a woman, mairrit tae a ship-cairpenter. Seven years past, she'd loved a sailor, Jamie Harris, but when she heard he was drount, she mairrit the ither man. One day, Jamie Harris comes speirin' for her, and tempts her awa' fae her husband and bairns. She gaes aboard his ship, but then she finds out he's a ghaist, or a demon, and he sinks the ship tae droun her for breakin' o' her auld vows tae him."

Holmes snapped his fingers: "Of course! We've been looking at this case the wrong way round!"

"Can you explain?" I asked.

"We've been working under the assumption that Alec d'Urberville was the intended victim. But what if the criminal's chief intention was to kill Tess Clare?"

"It's possible that the stabbing took place just after we saw her leave. But do you mean that he was simply killed in her stead, because she had gone?"

"No; it is more subtle than that. I believe that someone wanted her dead, but without doing the deed in person. What better way than to kill her lover, and cast the blame on her? As you told her, Watson, an English court will not deal kindly with a woman of doubtful morality - so that even on circumstantial evidence it would be likely that she would hang."

"You mean the laddie was killed just as a means tae an end? Tae lay the wyte on her?" Mrs. Brooks was appalled.

"That makes it murder and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice!" I said.

"I cannot yet close my net on the guilty party - or parties," Holmes continued. "There's no point in trying to counter one set of circumstantial evidence with another. The séance could be fruitful. But for the present let us keep that particular Ace up our sleeve. It would be so much simpler if Tess Clare were to tell us the truth... That pretty neck of hers wouldn't suit a Newgate Necktie."

I nodded. "I hope I managed to get through to her. She's a strange girl, but it doesn't surprise me that she's had two men competing for her favours."

"Are you smitten, Watson?" he teased.

"I'm a happily married man, Holmes!" I protested. "But she is a stunner!"

To be continued.