Holmes intervened.
“No, madam. If that were so, we should not be here.”
Victoria Temple looked at us, her eyes brighter.
“I am better now, whatever I may have been last year. I was ill, distressed, perhaps mad—I do not know. I am still distressed, beyond anything you can imagine. But I am sane. How can I prove I am not mad? They say you cannot prove the contrary, do they not?”
“Then we must prove you to be a rational young woman,” said Holmes firmly.
Miss Temple looked at him as if he had perplexed her and she could not think of a reply. At length she said, “They are very kind, Mr Holmes. Ever since that dreadful day at Bly everyone has been good to me—none more so than Major Mordaunt. He still has that title, though since he left the Army he is Dr Mordaunt. He always gave me complete freedom to care for the children. I was to be the mistress of Bly Hall. He felt no inclination for the place, though I believe he lived there with them for a short while after his brother’s death. He would never neglect his duties to them. He never forgot them, though he paid others to attend to them. I owe my life to him.”
“Very commendable,” I said gently.
“When my ordeal came on, Major Mordaunt was living in France. Yet it was he who supported me from there during my trial. I could not believe I had committed murder, though that was what they called it. I knew I never meant harm—but who would believe me? The evidence was all one way, unless I could tell my story well enough in the witness-box. But my recollection was imperfect. I could never have withstood cross-examination by a clever lawyer. What jury would believe my account of the apparitions? Left to myself, I should have been convicted and hanged.”
“But thankfully that did not happen,” said Holmes reassuringly.
“No, Mr Holmes, it did not, thanks to James Mordaunt. He found a Queen’s Counsel for my defence, Mr Ballantine. And Mr Ballantine was on terms with the Treasury Solicitor. There were discussions and I was seen by several physicians—specialists of Mr Ballantine’s acquaintance. I do not know how these things are done but it was arranged that the same gentlemen should give their evidence to the court.”
“And that the Crown should accept a plea of not guilty by virtue of insanity,” Homes said quietly.
I feared the words might distress her, but Victoria Temple seemed indifferent to them.
“Without that, Mr Holmes, I should have been hanged. If Major Mordaunt had not found Mr Ballantine for me—and paid his fee—I should have been lost. I knew so little of the law that I was afterwards possessed by the idea that if ever they believed I had recovered my sanity, the law would oblige them to come for me and hang me. I had the most fearful dreams at first of being woken for that purpose. Dr Annesley and others worked with great patience to encourage me and bring me to my senses over it. And now Mr Douglas, whom I have not seen in all this time, has been good to me as well, persuading you to visit me here.”
Then it seemed that the conversation ran into a brick wall. There was silence until Miss Temple herself broke it with a slight wave of her hand.
“Gentlemen, you may talk of whatever you please. The apparitions, Mrs Grose and the others at Bly, the children. Even little Miles. I weep for him, of course, but I am quite all right now. I can speak of him, as I am speaking to you at this moment.”
“Very well then,” said Holmes quietly. “Tell me, please, before your arrest how many times had you seen Major Mordaunt?”
“Once.” She paused for a moment, as if to check her accuracy. “He interviewed me in London, at the office of his solicitor in Harley Street. I was offered the place of the late Miss Jessel. From what I have heard, I was not the first to refuse. You must remember that I had never held a post of this kind. There was no master or mistress in the house, only the servants. My employer would not even be in England much of the time. I was a newcomer and I thought the responsibility too great.”
She paused, looked about her, and then returned her gaze to us.
“I feared the loneliness and the lack of company, the distance from my home. There would be no one to whom I could turn for advice, for instructions or decisions. Major Mordaunt made that clear. He had never wanted to be guardian of his brother’s children and estate. He preferred that it should be done by others.”
“You were to have charge of both children?”
“Only the little girl, Flora, at first. Miles was away at King Alfred’s School. He was sent home some time after my arrival.”
“For the holidays?”
“No, Mr Holmes. He was dismissed from the school, unfairly dismissed. Dr Clarke, the headmaster, went so far as to insist that his continued presence would injure the other boys. The head would say nothing more than that. I was never able to determine the exact cause. That boy, Mr Holmes, was beautiful in soul and body. He was the type that such schoolmasters dislike. He was too good for them!”
“And what persuaded you to accept the post at last, after you had first refused?” I asked.
“By the time that Major Mordaunt wrote to me again, two months later, I had found no other appointment. I also saw how the increased stipend, which I was now offered, might help my sisters. They were poorly provided for, as matters stood. My mother had now died and my father had few prospects. I had received one or two disturbing letters from home, as to his condition. Therefore I consented.”
“Perhaps you will help me to visualise the occasion,” said Holmes courteously. “The interview took place in a solicitor’s office, simply between the two of you?”
“Correct.”
“Major Mordaunt sat on the far side of his desk?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause, as if she expected him to continue. When he did not, she looked up and smiled.
“Major Mordaunt is a very charming man, of course, and certainly persuasive. I did not see him for more than fifteen or twenty minutes, but I once told the housekeeper, Mrs Grose, that I had been quite carried away by him. She said, ‘You’re not the first.’ When she first described Miss Jessel to me, I said, ‘He seems to like us young and pretty.’”
“A ladies man?” Holmes asked casually.
“I have nothing to complain of in his conduct. He was beyond reproach.”
“Good,” he nodded, “You never suffered insubordination from the servants at Bly nor any disobedience on the part of the children?”
“Nothing at all, unless you count their denials of seeing the intruders.”
“The children’s denial of seeing the apparitions?”
“They were intruders, Mr Holmes! Who cares in what form they came?”
So Miss Temple was no mere hysteric who insisted upon ghosts. I found that interesting, but Holmes was impatient and our time with this client was passing too quickly.
“Tell me, Miss Temple, are you a needlewoman or an artist?”
“I crochet and sketch, Mr Holmes. Ah, yes. Of course. I know what you mean. The hospital records will tell you that I do not need glasses for either short or long sight. I see what is in front of me distinctly. That is your point, is it not? Very well. I do not imagine visions, apparitions, or whatever else you like to call them. I can describe what I saw.”
“Indeed,” said Holmes gravely. “Then tell me about Peter Quint. What did he look like?”
She was a little flustered at this demand but quickly composed herself.
“I first saw him on the garden tower at Bly, standing at the battlements, as I looked up from the lawn. We stared at one another, I cannot tell you for how long. He held a rather unnatural pose, like an actor. Presently he turned and walked to the far corner of the tower out of sight and I saw him no more. He was dressed in clothes that seemed too fancy for a mere valet. As we stared at one another, the world went into a strange silence. The sheep bells and the bird calls stopped.”
“So I understand,” said Holmes briskly. “However, we will leave the sheep and the birds out of it. His appearance, if you please.”
By a glance I tried to warn him against this approach, without Miss Temple seeing me. I need not have bothered. She was quite able to hold her own.
“He never wore a hat,” she said, “and so I saw his hair clearly. It was unusually red and tightly curled, red whiskers too. He had bushy whiskers—not a beard—of the mutton-chop kind that a sergeant-major might wear. He
