“The girl has not yet arrived,” said he. “I suggest we cross the street and wait at the foot of Ludgate Hill. We shall easily be able to see when she comes, but will be far enough away to avoid drawing attention to ourselves.”
“Have your enquiries progressed at all?” I asked as we made our way between the traffic.
“A little,” he returned. “I wrote to the tutor, Theakston, at the address Miss Borrow gave us, and have had a letter back this morning. It is not from Theakston himself, however, nor from his mother, but from the vicar of Hembleby, a Mr Daniel Blanchard. He informs me that he has been asked by Theakston’s mother to reply to my letter. Mrs Theakston, he says, has been exceedingly concerned for her son, for she has not seen him for nearly a year and has had no communication from him for over six months. Mr Blanchard says that in July he wrote on the mother’s behalf to Hartley Lessingham, and received a brief reply, informing him only that the tutor had left East Harrington in the spring, and that his present whereabouts were unknown.”
“It seems odd that he should not have written for such a long time,” I remarked. “Even if he perhaps felt a little ashamed at his dismissal from his post, you would think he would have written by now. What can it mean?”
Holmes shook his head. “We cannot yet say. There are several possible explanations. I also wrote to Edgar Shepherd, the family friend in Sussex, giving him a very brief account of the state of affairs at East Harrington and enclosing a letter for the aunt, in which I gave a more detailed account of the matter. I have not yet, however, received a reply from either of them. One thing, at least, which I have been able to discover is that the Borrow children are worth a very great deal of money. Under the terms of their late father’s will, they stand to inherit, between them, almost all of his fortune. This, as far as I have been able to make out, is something in excess of a quarter of a million pounds.”
“Good Lord!”
“Yes, it is a considerable sum, is it not? I very much doubt that the children themselves are aware of it, but you can be sure that Hartley Lessingham is. I have verified that he and his wife were appointed the legal guardians of the children after the death of their parents. In that capacity they have full use of the income from the Borrow fortune, so long as the children are residing with them, although they cannot touch the capital without the agreement of the Borrows’ solicitor, Jervis and Co. of Gray’s Inn. This, I suggest, explains some, at least, of Hartley Lessingham’s anxiety for the children’s safety, and also his insistence that they remained with him when the aunt left. If the children are lost to him, then so is the money. Of course, he is supposed to use the money only for the children’s benefit, but I should not imagine that a mere technical consideration of that sort would weigh very heavily in Hartley Lessingham’s consideration of the matter. From what I have learned, it seems that he is not so well off as he might wish to be. His racing is a very expensive hobby, and my information is that he has been living far beyond his means for some time. As you are probably aware, agricultural income and rents are all depressed at present and show no prospect of rising in the near future, and then, of course, he has had the little difficulty with the mill, of which Miss Borrow informed us. All in all, I think we can see why he required the children to remain with him, even though, in many ways, the situation suits no one. What the rest of the girl’s story might mean, it is hard to tell at the moment. It is always difficult when, as in this case, one is presented with a miscellaneous assortment of facts, to judge which of them are related and which are not. I suspect that a personal inspection at East Harrington might clarify my ideas on the matter somewhat, but there are practical difficulties in the way of that course of action, as you will appreciate. But, here, unless I am much mistaken, is Miss Borrow’s carriage!”
I watched as the carriage pulled into the side of the road, outside the entrance to St Martin’s. A moment later, the girl alighted, crossed the pavement and entered the porch of the church. I made to walk up the hill, but Holmes put his hand on my arm.
“Don’t make your attention too obvious, Watson,” said he, without turning his head, “but take a look at the fellow in the hansom at the end of Fleet Street. He seems to be taking an uncommon interest in Miss Borrow.”
I took what I hoped appeared a leisurely glance around, allowing my gaze to wander first up Ludgate Hill, then down towards Blackfriars, and finally into Fleet Street. In a stationary cab near the corner sat a large, clean-shaven, powerful-looking man in a top hat. I had been looking for only a second or two when he turned abruptly in my direction. I quickly looked away and pretended to consult my watch. Next moment, his cab had crossed the road junction and was clattering past us, at a gallop, up Ludgate Hill. Beyond it, the carriage that had brought Miss Borrow was just reaching the top of the hill, near St Paul’s, and passing out of sight. In a few moments, the much quicker hansom cab had also reached the top of the hill and vanished.
“Now, I wonder what we should make of that little episode,” said Holmes, as we made our way up the hill.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“It is a deep, dark business, Watson, and may yet become both deeper and darker before we have seen it through.”
“I would not doubt it. I cannot imagine what you will do next.”
“I will let you know when I have made my decision,” returned he as we approached the church doorway.
We entered the shadowed porch and passed through into the interior of the church. It was cool and seemed extraordinarily silent and peaceful after the bustle in the street outside. Miss Borrow was sitting at the end of a pew, her head bent to a book, and appeared a small, solitary figure, alone in the broad expanse of the nave.
“I’m afraid I must ask you to wait as a sentry by the door again, old fellow,” said Holmes in a low tone. “The consultation should not take long, but if the woman should return and catch the two of us speaking, it would seriously prejudice Miss Borrow’s position and severely compromise my own options.”
“Certainly,” said I, and returned accordingly to the porch. After several minutes of watching the unbroken flow of traffic up and down Ludgate Hill, I was struck again by the incongruous nature of the mysterious events Miss Borrow had narrated to us earlier in the week, and as my thoughts ranged over all that she had told us, the time flew by without my being aware of it. Though physically I was within a few inches of the bustle of Ludgate Hill, mentally I was a hundred miles away, in Leicestershire, when I was abruptly brought to myself by the sudden arrival of a carriage, practically in front of me. I stepped back into the porch as the carriage door was opened and a woman began to descend. It was undoubtedly Miss Rogerson. I turned quickly on my heel, pushed open the door of the church and rapped my knuckles sharply on a table near the door, on which an assortment of books and other publications was neatly stacked. Miss Borrow was still seated where I had seen her before, but now Holmes was seated next to her.
It was clear that they were deep in conversation, but they looked round sharply upon my signal. I began to make a silent gesture, but even as I did so I heard the door open behind me, so turned instead to the publications on the table, which I made a show of studying. The woman who had entered walked swiftly past me. I lifted my head slightly and looked from the corner of my eye. Miss Borrow was now standing up, and appeared to be reading the inscription on a plaque affixed to the wall near where she had been sitting. Of Sherlock Holmes, there was no sign at all.