Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly

make me a bigot. I may even have to accept, as the song has it, that King Henry VIII’s unhappy queen, Anne Boleyn, walks the Bloody Tower with her head tucked underneath her arm. Come to me without such evidence, however, and I must be a sceptic.”

“You make a joke of it, Mr Holmes,” said the young man reproachfully.

“On the contrary, Mr Douglas, I was never more serious. But now you have roused my curiosity, I beg you will satisfy it. I can act only upon evidence.”

Hereward Douglas inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“That is as I would wish it.”

“Admirable.” Holmes reclined against the back of his chair. I believe you are turning out to bat for Middlesex against Yorkshire this afternoon. It is now gone half-past ten. Therefore your time is rather more valuable than my own.”

Common sense told me that Holmes would never waste his talents on make-believe. Yet he seemed to look for a pretext to involve himself with ghosts and ghouls.

Mr Douglas ignored my friend’s cricketing pleasantry. He opened a briefcase and drew out a handsome quarto diary, bound in maroon leather.

“This is a private journal, Mr Holmes, kept by Miss Victoria Temple. It covers events during six months when she was governess to two children at Bly House, the Mordaunt estate in Essex.”

Holmes stared at him hard but said nothing. Victoria Temple! Why did I know that name? For a moment I could not place it. My friend had been lying back, as if prepared to be entertained. His eyelids had been almost closed and the tips of his fingers placed lightly together. Now he straightened up and sat forward.

“The Bly House child-murder,” he said expectantly. “The trial was last year, was it not?”

Hereward Douglas nodded

“The verdict was insanity, Mr Holmes. Unfit to stand trial. Guilty but insane.”

“I recall that. Pray continue.”

Mr Douglas became, if possible, still more earnest.

“As you may know, gentlemen, my family’s country seat is in Devonshire, near Ottery St Mary. In my second Long Vacation, I came down from Cambridge for the summer. My sister Louise is eight years my junior. Miss Temple had arrived as her governess a month earlier. I found her a delightful and intelligent young woman. It was no fault of hers to be born into genteel poverty, the youngest of ten daughters of a widowed clergyman. His parish lay some forty miles away. My father was patron of the living. My mother knew of the family’s misfortunes. She interviewed Miss Temple and offered her the post of governess to my sister. For several weeks we were thrown into one another’s company. We talked and strolled together in the garden. During summer afternoons we sat with our books in shady corners of the lawn under the great beeches.”

“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