“And there was no more?” Holmes inquired curtly.
The faintest resentment tightened our visitor’s mouth.
“There could be no place for romance, Mr Holmes. I am no snob, nor are my people. Yet an alliance with my sister’s governess was not what my parents would have chosen for me. In October, I returned to Cambridge. The young lady and I made vows of friendship, shook hands, and parted for ever. Yet during that summer I heard something of how arduous and solitary her life had been.”
“How long was this summer idyll before the death of the child at Bly?”
“I knew nothing of that tragedy until after I had left Cambridge. Even then it was merely a paragraph in the Morning Post despatched from Chelmsford Assizes. A charge of murder had been brought against Miss Temple, over the death of Miles Mordaunt, a boy of ten, at Bly House. It was alleged she had smothered the child. After judicial argument and medical evidence, some of it from Professor Henry Maudsley himself, a plea of ‘guilty but insane’ was accepted by the Crown. As is customary, the sentence was indefinite. Miss Temple was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty’s pleasure, as the saying is. She was committed to the Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Broadmoor.”
Holmes slipped his hands into his pockets and stretched out his legs.
“From a legal standpoint, Mr Douglas, that is the end of the matter, is it not? In English law, an appeal is impossible against a finding of insanity. By accepting such a verdict, those who represent the accused concede that he or she is guilty of the act, though without the necessary intent to make it criminal. I take it that the evidence was not disputed in court?”
“It was not, Mr Holmes. That was the end of the case but not the end of my story. Last winter I was in London, preparing for the Foreign Office examinations. I came home to my chambers in the Albany one evening. My manservant handed me a package. It was addressed to me by Thurlow and Marston, attorneys-at-law of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. They had acted for Miss Temple after her trial. The parcel contained this journal, kept during her time at Bly. The entries begin six months before the death of the little boy, Miles Mordaunt. They end with a confused account of his last moments. Miss Temple’s narrative must have helped to convince Professor Maudsley and the court of her so-called insanity.”
“A curious keepsake, Mr Douglas! What did she hope to gain from you?”
“In their letter, her lawyers told me that she wished me to have the volume. I was the one person she thought might still believe in her innocence. Her own circle of friends contained no one able to exercise influence on behalf of a poor young lunatic.”
He stood up and handed my friend the quarto volume. Holmes glanced through it with a frown. He turned to the last page.
“More than two hundred pages covering, as you say, six months. Well, Mr Douglas, I must not keep you waiting while I read it. Perhaps you can help me a little before I do so. What does this volume contain that might have influenced a trial judge or jury?”
Hereward Douglas enumerated the contents on the fingers of his left hand with the forefinger of his right.
“First, their uncle’s choice of Miss Temple as governess of the two children at Bly. Miles Mordaunt was ten, his sister Flora younger by two years. Their parents, Colonel and Lady Mordaunt, had lately died in a cholera epidemic in Bengal. The children were left under the indolent wardship of their uncle, Dr James Mordaunt, also known as Major Mordaunt of Eaton Square, Belgravia. He was a retired surgeon-major of the Queen’s Rifles. He summoned Miss Temple to his solicitor’s chambers in Harley Street and interviewed her alone.”
“And she accepted the post?”
He shook his head.
“She felt herself too inexperienced and unequal to such a trust. She thanked him but refused his offer. It seems he had no luck in finding any other lady. After a second invitation, still having no employment herself, she accepted.”
My friend made a note on his starched cuff.
“Let us come directly to the ghosts, if you please. Let us also be specific. Who saw them—Miss Temple, presumably? And where exactly did they appear?”
“According to her journal, two apparitions were seen several times at Bly but not together. A man, identified as Peter Quint, had been dead for a year or more. He had been valet to Major Mordaunt, the uncle. Before that, he was the major’s batman in the Queen’s Rifles. He was seen by Miss Temple at least three times. On a further occasion at night, though she did not see him, she was convinced that the little boy Miles was staring up at him in a window above her. The boy behaved as though he had seen this man. The last time she saw Quint was recorded in the journal just before her arrest. It was at the moment of the boy’s death.”
“And the second figure?”
“From Miss Temple’s description this was identified by Mrs Grose, the housekeeper, as Miss Maria Jessel. That young woman had been the preceding governess. She had gone on a long holiday the year before—it seems she was unwell. She died at her father’s home before her return. Her death left the post vacant for Miss Temple.”
I glanced covertly at Holmes to see how he was taking this catalogue of make-believe. If he felt any scorn for the ghostly visitors he certainly did not show it. He continued to question Hereward Douglas.
“How did she know these figures were ghosts?”
“Miss Temple had no idea who the two figures might be until she was told. It did not occur to her at first that they might be ghosts, because they were usually seen in full daylight. But as soon as she described the figures, Mrs Grose named them. That lady swore to me that Miss Temple was accurate in every detail. Only then did Mrs Grose tell the young governess that the two people she depicted in such detail were dead.”
“Is it not possible that Miss Temple had seen Quint and Miss Jessel during their lives and perhaps mistook two other people for them after their deaths? A trick of light or distance?”
Hereward Douglas shook his head vigorously.
“Until coming to London and to Bly, which is on the other side of the country, she had never set foot outside the southwest of England. So far as we know, neither Quint nor Miss Jessel had any connections or had ever been there.”
That was as far as Holmes allowed him to get.
“I have to tell you, Mr Douglas,” he said gently, “that it is vastly more probable for Miss Temple to have seen them previously—even if it was when they visited her home county of Devon for some very unlikely reason—than for a man or a woman to return from the grave. However, by all means continue, if you believe it will serve your purpose.”
The young man began to look a little downcast and his voice was quiet.
“Peter Quint, the Mordaunt valet, was the first apparition she saw. He was standing by the parapet of the garden tower at Bly, looking down at her across the lawn as a late summer evening turned to dusk. She thought perhaps he was an intruder but she said nothing to anyone. That autumn, seeing him again, outside the dining-room window this time, she complained to the housekeeper and gave the man’s description. Mrs Grose told her that she had depicted Peter Quint, down to his stature, the colour and texture of his hair, even the unusual waistcoat that he wore. Only then did the housekeeper tell Miss Temple that Peter Quint had died the previous year.”