footman and man-of-all-work. It was he who showed you in. His wife acts as our housekeeper and the two of them reside downstairs. They have a young nephew, Patrick, who came to us recently from Ireland and who acts as the kitchen boy and runs errands, and there is a scullery maid, Elsie. In addition, we have a coachman and groom but they live in the village.’
‘A large household and a busy one,’ Holmes remarked. ‘But we were about to examine the safe.’
Eliza Carstairs remained where she was. The rest of us went out of the living room, down the corridor and into Carstairs’s study, which was at the very back of the house with a view of the garden and, in the distance, an ornamental pond. This turned out to be a comfortable, well-appointed room with a desk framed by two windows, velvet curtains, a handsome fireplace and some landscapes which, from their bright colours and the almost haphazard way the paint had been applied, I knew must belong to the impressionist school of which Carstairs had spoken. The safe, a solid enough affair, was tucked away in one corner. It was still open.
‘Is this how you found it?’ asked Holmes.
‘The police have examined it,’ Carstairs replied. ‘But I felt it best to leave it open until you arrived.’
‘You were right,’ Holmes said. He glanced at the safe. ‘The lock does not appear to have been forced which would suggest that a key has been used,’ he remarked.
‘There was only one key and I keep it with me all the time,’ Carstairs returned. ‘Although I asked Kirby to make a copy of it some six months ago. Catherine keeps her jewellery in the safe and when I am away — for I still travel to auctions all over the country and sometimes to Europe — she felt she should have a key of her own.’
Mrs Carstairs had followed us into the room and was standing by the desk. She brought her hands together. ‘I lost it,’ she said.
‘When was that?’
‘I cannot really say, Mr Holmes. It may have been a month ago, it may have been longer. Edmund and I have been through this. I wanted to open the safe a few weeks ago and could not find it. The last time I used it was on my birthday, which is in August. I have no idea what happened to it after that. I am not normally so careless.’
‘Could it have been stolen?’
‘I kept it in a drawer beside my bed and nobody comes into the room apart from the servants. As far as I know, the key never left this house.’
Holmes turned to Carstairs. ‘You did not replace the safe.’
‘It was always in my mind to do so. But it occurred to me that if the key had somehow been dropped in the garden or even in the village, nobody could possibly know what it opened. If, as seemed more likely, it were somewhere amongst my wife’s possessions, then it was unlikely to fall into the wrong hands. Anyway, we cannot be sure that it was my wife’s key which was used to open the safe. Kirby could have had a second copy made.’
‘How long has he been with you?’
‘Six years.’
‘You have had no cause to complain about him?’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘And what of this kitchen boy, Patrick? Your wife says she mistrusts him.’
‘My wife dislikes him because he is insolent and can be a little sly. He has been with us for only a few months and we only took him on at the behest of Mrs Kirby, who asked us to help him find employment. She will vouch for him, and I have no reason to think him dishonest.’
Holmes had taken out his glass and examined the safe, paying particular attention to the lock. ‘You say that some jewellery was stolen,’ he said. ‘Was it your wife’s?’
‘No. As a matter of fact it was a sapphire necklace belonging to my late mother. Three clusters of sapphires in a gold setting. I imagine it would have little financial value to the thief but it had great sentimental value to me. She lived with us here until a few months ago until…’ He broke off and his wife went over to him, laying a hand on his arm. ‘There was an accident, Mr Holmes. She had a gas fire in her bedroom. Somehow the flame blew out and she was asphyxiated in her sleep.’
‘She was very elderly?’
‘She was sixty-nine. She always slept with the window closed, even in the summer. Otherwise she might have been saved.’
Holmes left the safe and went over to the window. I joined him there as he examined the sill, the sashes and the frame. As was his habit, he spoke his observations aloud — not necessarily for my benefit. ‘No shutters,’ he began. ‘The window is snibbed and some distance from the ground. It has evidently been forced from the outside. The wood is splintered, which may explain the sound that Mrs Carstairs heard.’ He seemed to be making a calculation. ‘I would like, if I may, to speak to your man, Kirby. And after that I will walk in the garden, although I imagine the local police will have trampled over anything that might have furnished me with any clue as to what has taken place. Did they give you any idea of their line of investigation?’
‘Inspector Lestrade returned and spoke to us shortly before you arrived.’
‘What? Lestrade? He was here?’
‘Yes. And whatever opinion you may have of him, Mr Holmes, he struck me as being both thorough and efficient. He had already ascertained that a man with an American accent took the first train from Wimbledon to London Bridge at five o’clock this morning. From the way he was dressed and the scar on his right cheek, we are certain that it is the same man that I saw outside my house.’
‘I can assure you that if Lestrade is involved, you can be quite certain that he will come to a conclusion very quickly, even if it is completely the wrong one! Good day, Mr Carstairs. A pleasure to meet you, Mrs Carstairs. Come, Watson…’
We retraced our footsteps down the corridor to the front door where Kirby was already waiting for us. He had seemed barely welcoming on our arrival but it may have been that he saw us as an impediment to the smooth running of the house. He still appeared square-jawed, with a hatchet face, a man unwilling to speak more words than were truly necessary, but at least he was a little more amenable as he answered Holmes’s questions. He confirmed that he had been at Ridgeway Hall for six years. He was from Barnstaple originally, his wife from Dublin. Holmes asked him if the house had changed very much during his time there.
‘Oh yes, sir,’ came the reply. ‘Old Mrs Carstairs was very fixed in her ways. She would certainly let you know if there was anything that was not to her liking. The new Mrs Carstairs could not be more different. She has a very cheerful disposition. My wife considers her a breath of fresh air.’
‘You were glad that Mr Carstairs married?’
‘We were delighted, sir, as well as surprised.’
‘Surprised?’
‘I wouldn’t wish to speak out of turn, sir, but Mr Carstairs had formerly shown no interest in such matters, being devoted to his family and to his work. Mrs Carstairs rather burst in on the scene but we are all agreed that the house has been better for it.’
‘You were present when old Mrs Carstairs died?’
‘Indeed I was, sir. In part I blame myself. The lady had a great fear of draughts, as a result of which I had — at her insistence — stopped up every crevice by which air might enter the room. The gas, therefore, had no way of escaping. It was the maid, Elsie, who discovered her in the morning. By then the room was filled with fumes — a truly dreadful business.’
‘Was the kitchen boy, Patrick, in the house at the time?’
‘Patrick had arrived just one week before. It was an inauspicious start, sir.’
‘He is your nephew, I understand.’
‘On my wife’s side, yes, sir.’
‘From Dublin?’
‘Indeed. Patrick has not found it easy, being in service. We had hoped to give him a good start in life but he has yet to learn the correct attitude for one befitting his station, particularly in the way he addresses the master of the house. It may well be, though, that the early calamity of which we have spoken and the disruption that followed may in some way be responsible. He is not such a bad young man and I hope that in time he will prosper.’
‘Thank you, Kirby.’
