So much for ghosts! A fascination with human evil was now all that kept the ball in play between the two debaters in our sitting-room.
“How exactly did the children die?” Holmes asked finally.
“The little girl, Flora, died first. She was taken ill in London with high temperatures and dangerous symptoms. After a day or two, she was moved to the fever hospital for better care. It was already too late. Her fever turned to diphtheria and she died in the following week. Before this was known at Bly, Miles showed signs of a milder fever but not of diphtheria. There had been something of the kind at school. This was not apparent until a day or two after his sister’s death and certainly did not seem to threaten his life. He remained at Bly with Miss Temple. I fear the local doctor was old and ignorant. The boy might have recovered with proper care.”
“And what of the ghosts?” I asked cautiously.
“The last apparition of Peter Quint materialised quite suddenly, Dr Watson, in broad daylight at the window of the dining-room. It was the white face of damnation, as Miss Temple calls it in her journal. She seized the ailing boy in her arms to shield him from it.”
“But only according to her own journal?”
Hereward Douglas nodded at the volume which Holmes was holding.
“It is there word for word, written just after the event.”
“Written to conceal some wrong-doing of her own perhaps?”
“No, Dr Watson. If ever a suspect condemned herself, it was Miss Temple in that journal. She describes how she clutched Miles to her breast to hide from him the terrible vision of Quint on the far side of the glass. In covering his eyes during her hysterical anger at the phantom she also covered his nostrils and mouth. Miles had his eyes tight shut against the horror beyond the window. She admits that he gave a frantic little struggle for light and air. So she allowed the boy a respite but caught him again and pressed him close. She must keep the dreadful eyes from the child’s gaze. After that she lost her composure, probably she lost consciousness as well. When she came to herself, at the end of a minute or so, the life had gone from Miles Mordaunt. Miss Temple was staring at an empty window with the dead child in her arms.”
“A difficult case to try,” Holmes said sympathetically.
“It was, Mr Holmes. Miles was a boy of delicate health, in any case, and underdeveloped for his age. Unfortunately for Miss Temple, the judge ruled at the outset of the case that those who kill must take their victims as they find them. After that, Miss Temple could not put forward this child’s weakness as a mitigating circumstance. The servants could only say that they never saw anything but an empty window, where Miss Temple twice saw the features of Peter Quint.”
I tried to console the young man.
“A verdict of insanity was her only hope of life. The best way to it was to plead that some form of hysteria had robbed her of consciousness and volition, if only for a moment or two. Otherwise her sole witness was a ghost! A court would dismiss that as sheer fabrication and no defence at all.”
The young man shrugged and shook his head. He had done his best against two older and more sceptical listeners but it had got him nowhere.
“I apologise, gentlemen, if I have taken up your time to no purpose. I was bound to do what I could for my friend.”
He was an amiable young man, and I tried to make some amends for my disbelief.
“From many years of medical practice, Mr Douglas, I assure you that you have acted honourably and courageously. The sudden loss of reason in a friend or loved one, who has given no other sign of infirmity, is the most distressing form of separation. Far worse than many a mortal disease when it turns a friend into a stranger.”
He looked at me, oddly as I thought.
“You misunderstand me, Dr Watson,” he said quietly. “I do not come to you for comfort in this matter. I do not ask that you should believe in tales of ghosts or demons. I am no lawyer and certainly not a medical man. I am here because I cannot believe that Miss Temple was responsible for that child’s death. A finding of insanity may have saved her from the gallows. Now she lies in a criminal lunatic asylum. But I will take my oath that she is as sane as you or I.”
Holmes watched these exchanges, his eyes motionless as a lizard’s measuring a fly. He closed the morocco volume which he had been holding open at its final page. Then he stood up and turned to our visitor.
“If you hoped to convince me of the apparitions, Mr Douglas, I fear you have failed so far. However, though you may not think so, I believe you have done enough to persuade me that Miss Temple is no murderess.”
“And manslaughter?” Hereward Douglas murmured anxiously.
Holmes looked surprised.
“I should not accept this case merely to agree a compromise over mental frailty. With me, Mr Douglas, the battle is all or nothing.”
“Then what of insanity?”
“I have not yet had the pleasure of her acquaintance but I am ready to suppose it possible that Miss Temple is as sane as you or I. Of course, I must inquire for myself. Yet nothing you have told me so far convinces me that she is insane. “
“Thank God!” he said softly.
Sherlock Holmes was not given to fatherly gestures but he laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder.
“Now, Mr Douglas, you must permit me to read the young lady’s journal for myself. I promise you, it will not detain me long. I shall communicate with you by Monday at the latest. Until then, I suggest that you should give your best attention to Lords cricket ground and the match this afternoon.”
The tension in our sitting-room thinned and vanished like a drift of cigar smoke. Hereward Douglas was astonished to be dismissed so kindly after bringing us what we ought to have rejected as nonsense. When we were alone I waited for an explanation. After all, Holmes knew about Miss Temple’s appearance at Chelmsford Assizes. I had read only a brief press report. He was susceptible to damsels in distress. I hoped his championing of this young woman was not a mere quixotic impulse.
He had turned his back to me and was staring into the grate, his hands upon the shelf of the mantelpiece. He gave a light kick at a burnt log in the fireplace, laid for a chilly evening the day before. Its carbonised crispness disintegrated under the impact. I guessed what was coming.
“I will tell you now,” I said quietly, “that you will not easily be granted a visitor’s pass to a criminal lunatic asylum like Broadmoor. That is where reprieved murderers are held. Let alone will they permit a private interview with an inmate. At the first mention of ghosts and apparitions, they will probably detain you there as well.”
He turned with a smile, the first since Hereward Douglas began his tale.
“Dear Watson, you are right as always. Except in one detail. Before our young friend arrived, I thought it best to establish his lineage from the pages of Burke’s Peerage. His father is the Earl of Crome. Therefore, should Hereward Douglas outlive his elder brothers and any sons they may have, he will succeed to that title.”
“He would rather captain the England cricket team against Australia!”
“I daresay.”
“Then how will the peerage help us with Miss Temple?”
“Among other accomplishments, the present Earl of Crome sits on a government committee known as the Prison Board. It is one of his many good works. Certain members are also deputed to attend the Board of Governors of Broadmoor Hospital. I should not be surprised if, by his influence, the hospital superintendent were to permit us to visit one of his patients. Despite my eccentric views, he may even allow me to leave again. You recall that Miss Temple was governess to the earl’s own daughter for several months? Mr Douglas spent a summer in her company and has just confirmed that she made an excellent impression on the family.”