Park, for his head was one ball and his body another and there was a simplicity about his face that could have been suggested with a carrot and several lumps of coal. He was about forty years old, bald, with just a little dark hair around his ears. He was dressed in the manner of a clergyman, complete with dog collar, which formed another circle around his neck. As he walked towards us, he beamed and spread his arms in welcome.
‘Mr Holmes! You do us a great honour. I have of course read of your exploits, sir. The greatest consulting detective in the country, here at Chorley Grange! It is really quite remarkable. And you must be Dr Watson. We have read your stories in class. The boys are delighted by them. They will not believe that you are here. Might you have time to address them? But I am running ahead of myself. You must forgive me, gentlemen, but I cannot contain my excitement. I am the Reverend Charles Fitzsimmons. Vosper tells me that you are here on serious business. Mr Vosper helps to administer this establishment and also teaches maths and reading. Please, come with me to my study. You must meet my wife and perhaps we can offer you some tea?’
We followed the little man down a second corridor and through a door into a room which was too large and too cold to be comfortable even though some effort had been made with bookcases, a sofa and several chairs arranged around a fireplace. A large desk, piled high with documents, had been positioned so as to look out through a set of picture windows on to the lawn and the orchard beyond. It had been cold in the corridor, and it was colder here, despite the fire in the grate. The red glow and the smell of burning coal gave the illusion of warmth but little more. The rain was hammering now against the windows and running down the glass. It had drained the colour out of the fields. Although it was only the middle of the afternoon, it could just as well have been night.
‘My dear,’ exclaimed our host. ‘This is Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. They have come to ask us for our help. Gentlemen, may I present my wife, Joanna?’
I had not noticed the woman who had been sitting in an armchair in the darkest corner of the room, reading a volume of several hundred pages which was balanced on her lap. If this was Mrs Fitzsimmons, then the two of them made an odd couple, for she was quite remarkably tall and, I would have said, several years older than him. She was dressed entirely in black, an old-fashioned satin dress that fitted high around the neck and tight around the arms, with beaded passementerie across the shoulders. Her hair was tied in a knot behind her and her fingers were long and thin. Were I a boy, I might have thought her witch-like. Certainly, looking at the two of them, I had the perhaps unworthy thought that I could understand why Ross had chosen to run away. Had I been in his shoes, I might very well have done the same.
‘Will you have some tea?’ the lady asked. Her voice was as thin as the rest of her, her accent deliberately refined.
‘We will not inconvenience you,’ Holmes replied. ‘As you are aware, we are here on a matter of some urgency. We are looking for a boy, a street urchin whom we know only by the name of Ross.’
‘Ross? Ross?’ The reverend searched in his mind. ‘Ah yes! Poor, young Ross! We have not seen him for quite a while, Mr Holmes. He came to us from a very difficult background, but then so do many of the charges in our care. He did not stay with us long.’
‘He was a difficult and a disagreeable child,’ his wife cut in. ‘He would not obey the rules. He disrupted the other boys. He refused to conform.’
‘You are too hard, too hard, my dear. But it is true, Mr Holmes, that Ross was never grateful for the help that we tried to give him and did not settle into our ways. He had only been here for a few months before he ran away. That was last summer… July or August. I would have to consult my notes to be sure. May I ask why you are looking for him? I hope he has not done something amiss.’
‘Not at all. A few nights ago he was the witness to certain events in London. I merely wish to know what he saw.’
‘It sounds most mysterious, does it not, my dear? I will not ask you to elucidate further. We do not know where he came from. We do not know where he has gone.’
‘Then I will not take up any more of your time.’ Holmes turned to the door, then seemed to change his mind. ‘Though perhaps before we leave, you might like to tell us something about your work here. Chorley Grange is your property?’
‘Not at all, sir. My wife and I are employed by the Society for the Improvement of London’s Children.’ He pointed at a portrait of an aristocratic gentleman, leaning against a pillar. ‘That is the founder, Sir Crispin Ogilvy, now deceased. He purchased this farm fifty years ago, and it is thanks to his bequest that we are able to maintain it. We have thirty-five boys here, all taken from the streets of London and saved from a future picking oakum or wasting their hours on the treadmill. We give them food and shelter and, more important than either, a good, Christian education. In addition to reading, writing and basic mathematics, the boys are taught shoemaking, carpentering and tailoring. You will have noticed the fields. We have a hundred acres and grow almost all our own food. In addition, the boys learn how to breed pigs and poultry. When they leave here, many of them will go to Canada, Australia and America to begin a new life. We are in contact with a number of farmers who will be pleased to welcome them and give them a fresh start.’
‘How many teachers do you have?’
‘There are just the four of us, along with my wife, and we divide the responsibilities between us. You met Mr Vosper at the door. He is the porter and teaches maths and reading, as I think I said. You have arrived during afternoon lessons and my other two teachers are in class.’
‘How did Ross come to be here?’
‘Doubtless he would have been picked up in one of the casual wards or night shelters. The society has volunteers who work in the city and who bring the boys to us. I can make enquiries if you wish, although it has been so long since we had any news of him that I rather doubt we can be of any help.’
‘We cannot force the boys to stay,’ Mrs Fitzsimmons said. ‘The great majority of them will choose to do just that, and will grow up to be a credit to themselves and to the school. But there are the occasional troublemakers, boys with no gratitude whatsoever.’
‘We have to believe in every child, Joanna.’
‘You are too soft-hearted, Charles. They take advantage of you.’
‘Ross cannot be blamed for what he was. His father was a slaughterman who came into contact with a diseased sheep and died very slowly as a result. His mother turned to alcohol. She’s dead too. For a time Ross was looked after by an elder sister but we don’t know what became of her. Ah yes! I remember now. You asked how he came here. Ross was arrested for shoplifting. The magistrate took pity on him and handed him to us.’
‘A last chance.’ Mrs Fitzsimmons shook her head. ‘I shudder to think what will become of him now.’
‘So you have no idea at all where we might be able to find him.’
‘I am sorry you have wasted your time, Mr Holmes. We do not have the resources to search for boys who have chosen to leave us, and in truth, what would be the point of it? “
‘We believe him to be in danger.’
‘All these homeless boys are in danger.’ Fitzsimmons clapped his hands together as if struck by a sudden thought. ‘But might it help you to speak to some of his former classmates? It is always possible that he may have told one of them something that he would have preferred to keep from us. And if you would like to accompany me, it will give me an opportunity to show you the school and to explain a little more about our work.’
‘That would be most kind of you, Mr Fitzsimmons.’
‘The pleasure would be entirely mine.’
We left the study. Mrs Fitzsimmons did not join us but remained in her seat in the corner, her head buried in her weighty tome.
‘You must forgive my wife,’ the Reverend Fitzsimmons muttered. ‘You may think her a little severe but I can assure you that she lives for these boys. She teaches them divinity, helps with the laundry, nurses them when they are ill.’
‘You have no children of your own?’ I asked.
‘Perhaps I have not made myself clear, Dr Watson. We have thirty-five children of our own, for we treat them exactly as if they were our flesh and blood.’
He took us back down the corridor I had first noticed and into one of the rooms, which smelled strongly of leather and new hemp. Here were eight or nine boys, all clean and well groomed, dressed in aprons, silently
