“And the letter?”
“it was before dawn on Monday morning that the mechanism stopped and the flashing beam from the lantern failed. The absence of my brothers was discovered soon afterwards and I was summoned from Mablethorpe later that day. I found the letter at the back of the barrack-room table drawer. I have naturally read the contents, Dr Watson, and I beg you to do the same.”
With that she handed me the envelope. I was at once struck by the disparity between the quiet but self-possessed manner of the schoolmistress and the deliberation of the ill-educated hand in her brother’s writing. I should hardly have thought them brother and sister unless I had been assured of it.
I read the single sheet of paper carefully. It certainly seemed like a letter, for the address of the sender was at the top. “The Old Light, Sutton Bridge, Boston Deeps.” It is common knowledge that the Boston Deeps remain the one navigable channel through the shallow and silted waters of The Wash. The sea has receded for centuries on that part of the Lincolnshire coast. The channel is little used now, I believe, except as a temporary anchorage for the coastal trade. I had supposed the land to be so flat, like the rest of East Anglia, as to make a lighthouse something of a rarity. Presumably, this light at Sutton Cross was a warning to ships of the point at which the Boston Deeps give way to treacherous sandbanks.
I glanced at the foot of the page and saw printed in uneven capitals the name of Abraham Chastelnau. It is an unusual surname for an Englishman. Yet it reminded me that East Anglia had become the home of Protestant Huguenot craftsmen, fleeing from France at a time of religious persecution two hundred years earlier. They were industrious and law-abiding folk who had done well in their new home.
The writer’s appeal was addressed to “Dear Doctor.” Who that might be, I could not tell.
I am a man that is afflicted with evil beyond endurance. I have lived with it many years and once or twice thought I had come out of. But I was wrong. I have heard that in days gone by a holy man might have helped me. I once thought I had found his secret but now it is lost again. If I could take a wife I might be better for it. The truth is I bear the brand upon me and no woman could tolerate the company of such a man. I cannot hide what I am and none will come near me. I need a physician who can do miracles. If you are that man please write what the cost will be.
Your respectful servant,
Abraham Chastelnau.
I read this through and then laid the paper down.
“I hoped when I read it that perhaps he had heard of you and your friend,” said Miss Chastelnau softly, “But I cannot tell who this was meant for. Surely it was someone like you, for he knew no doctor at Sutton Cross.”
I looked at it again. It was a strange letter in more ways than one. The handwriting showed a semi-literate deliberation. Yet the composition of the sentences betrayed a certain education. Here was a man who wrote “physician” rather than “doctor” or “afflicted with” rather then “suffering from.” No doubt Abraham Chastelnau lacked instruction. Yet he had heard of holy men in days gone by. From whom had he got this piece of history? Here was a man who could scarcely write and yet, on the few occasions when he did so, apparently expressed himself in a way that suggested some familiarity with those who had received a schooling. Had the letter been dictated to him in part?
“There are many unanswered questions here, Miss Chastelnau. If the letter was at the back of a drawer, how long had it been there? When did your brother write it, for there is no date upon it, and did he truly intend to send it to anyone? Will you allow my colleague Mr Sherlock Holmes to read these lines?”
Alice Chastelnau nodded. Holmes, in his turn, glanced down the page. He stretched his legs towards the fireplace while he read it again, more slowly. Before he could give an opinion, we were interrupted by Mrs Hudson’s knock and the arrival of the silver tray and table linen. After tea had been poured and the sandwiches handed round, our landlady closed the curtains against the gathering fog and retired. The gas was now lit and shone brightly on the white cloth, the glimmer of china and metal. Holmes, turned to our visitor.
“I think you must help us a little more, Miss Chastelnau. There are two distinct matters here. Your brother, if I may also call him so, is troubled in spirit. Hence the letter which we have just read. Since writing that, he and your younger brother have disappeared. Do you believe that these two things are connected? Or is it only one of them that requires our advice?”
She looked at him, directly and expressionlessly.
“I cannot tell you, Mr Holmes. That is why I am here. Because my brothers are my half-brothers, they are comparative strangers to me. My father, John Chastelnau, was an oil-cake manufacturer, supplying the dairy farmers with food for their cattle. He married a second time after my mother died. When Abraham, the elder half-brother, was born I was sixteen. I had been unwell for more than a year. A touch of consumption was suspected, the very illness which took my mother from us. My step-mother found lodgings on the coast near King’s Lynn and I recuperated there for several months. A little while later Abraham was born, she returned home and I left for instruction at Miss Openshaw’s Academy in Mablethorpe. I remained there subsequently as her assistant teacher. After she died four years ago, I was employed by her trustees.”
“You are to be congratulated,” said Holmes gently, “Pray continue.”
“My life has been very different to that of my brothers and our ages are some years apart. They remained in the little coastal village of Sutton Cross. At first they followed my father in the trade of making oil-cake for cattle. With the draining of the fens and the coming of dairy farming, his works at Sutton Cross had been profitable and he employed a dozen men. With such farming in decline and cheaper animal foods brought in by the new railway, my brothers found it a meagre inheritance.”
It seemed evident that there was no close relationship between the sister and the two brothers. This allowed Sherlock Holmes to slip the leash.
“If you wish us to investigate this disappearance, Miss Chastelnau, we should be obliged for whatever else you can tell us about your brothers. In the first place, what manner of men are they? I do not wish to be peremptory with you. However, if a search is to be successful, it must be pursued with urgency. In these mysteries the scent soon grows cold.”
She remained so composed under this warning that, had we not known of her distance from the two men, I should at length have thought Miss Chastelnau quite without feeling.
“I have had little to do with them, Mr Holmes, but that is not a matter of indifference. Like many brothers and sisters, our lives have been lived apart, in different worlds. Yet I will be frank with you. I am aware that they have not been popular in the district. I believe there was once a quarrel and some violence. As to their dispositions, both my brothers are by nature reclusive. Abraham prefers his own company and Roland resents any curiosity on the part of those around him.”
“And how do they come to be keepers of the Old Light?”
“Their troubles began after my father’s death, more than ten years ago. His oil-cake manufactory did not long survive him. The old building by the river bridge stood empty for a while and then became a warehouse. After that my brothers were employed at the Old Light. For many years now it has only been in use as a simple beacon. Abraham and Roland have acted as keepers and in return they have had a roof over their heads. It is a strange life. They are hardly a mile from the village and yet surrounded only by mudflats and quicksands, cut off by the sea for several hours out of every twelve.”