Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of The Cold-Served Revenge

XIII: Modus Operandi

The term scorched earth was completely apt to describe what we found in the large clearing where the convent should have stood. Extending before us were the weathered ruins of what once used to be a convent, overgrown with ivy and long ago abandoned.

“What happened here?” I stammered.

“They no doubt know at the inn, but I shall hazard a guess,” said Holmes, gazing at the ruins.

Upon closer inspection it was immediately clear to us what had destroyed the convent. As we stepped among the dilapidated walls we saw charred stones and blackened beams, now covered in lush vegetation. The floor was completely collapsed, leaving only the bare portion of the perimeter walls. In addition to the central building we made out the outline of side wings and seminaries, now completely overgrown. The farm buildings of the monastery and garden remained buried under the soil. Our voices must have been the first sound in ages to break the pervasive silence.

“I do not want to jump to conclusions, but I fear that I recognise the handiwork of our firebug,” said the detective, bending over the grass.

In the sunlight something was shining.

“It is all over now,” I said. “The secret of her origin is lost.”

“Do not give up hope just yet.”

In his hand Holmes held a small cross covered with mould and warped by fire. A forgotten artefact and silent witness to the tragic events. It was symbolic of our quest.

“To what church did the convent belong?” I asked.

“It is hard to determine from what can be seen here,” said the detective.

He put the cross in his pocket. As there was nothing else that could be of use to us here, we turned around and headed back to town. Along the way, Holmes discoursed about the local religions, which have had a greater influence here than in other parts of the country.

Talking thus we returned to Anges.

The innkeeper was still loitering around drunkenly and did not require much in the way of encouragement to tell us about the burned down convent.

“You should’ve asked me, I would’ve told you that it’s pointless to go poking about there,” he began, more willing to talk now that my friend had ordered a round of his preferred spirits.

It happened in the winter twenty years ago, when the innkeeper’s beloved father, the original owner and founder of the roadside establishment, died. The fire apparently started at night, spreading from the kitchen to the dining room and the adjacent library. By the time the smoke woke up the nuns and they had warned their wards of the danger, the fire had spread so far that nothing could be saved. The few men who lived in the farm buildings and helped run the monastery barely managed to save the girls´lives. There was no time to fight the fire. Despite the porter’s efforts, the fire was not without tragic losses. The flames took the lives of three nuns. It was never discovered who started the fire and how.

“You say that the fire originated in the library?” said Holmes.

“Aye,” said the man, nodding his round head and spitting tobacco on the floor.

“Are you quite certain?”

“As certain as a man can be after all these years,” he said, scratching his head. “I wasn’t up there you know. But that’s what people said, on my honour!”

“Do you know what this means, Watson?” said the detective, turning to me victoriously. “Once again I am not mistaken! Alice attempted to destroy the convent archive. And she succeeded!”

The talkative innkeeper, happy to have guests who were generous and obviously much more solvent than his usual rural clientele, and delighted to be of service, took no time in imparting some other important information.

“I can see this interests you, gentlemen,” he said, leaning over the counter jovially. “Well, if you really need to know the details, then you’ve got to talk to old lady Donovann who lives over the hill.”

“Excellent! We shall go see her right away,” said Holmes joyfully, throwing a couple of coins on the counter, indicating his desire to pay and leave.

“Problem is Donovann went to Fadden market and will only get back late at night,” said the man, quickly pocketing the coins. “Tomorrow morning I’ll show you how to get to her farm.”

We were thus condemned to spend the rest of the afternoon in the company of our jovial drunk. We had already had our share of walking, but we were nevertheless happy to learn about the local folklore.

In the evening a few villagers from out of the way settlements came to spend the night at the small inn. They corrected our preconceived notions about Scots, such as their oft-ridiculed greed. In my opinion the Scots are not especially miserly. They simply value money more, because it is so hard to come by.

Indeed the innkeeper and his comrades were most obliging. Holmes invented a heartrending tale about how he was searching for his niece, who he supposed was a ward of Anges convent, and everyone outdid each other with ideas about how to help him. But they all agreed that the best course of action was to see the woman to whom the innkeeper was to take us tomorrow morning.

On the whole it was a pleasant evening with amiable company. The detective contributed a few of his tales of adventure, though not in the first person, but rather as stories he had heard.

He sensed that as Englishmen we were only tolerated here and he did not want our hosts to think we represented the official authorities. We did not forget their national pride. They had never buckled under our rule and were still trying to gain independence. Hence their toughness, brought about by natural conditions and by the constant struggle for survival.

“The Scots are not historically very well represented in British art, music and literature, but their artlessness is so refreshing!” Holmes said to me that night as we nodded off in massive wooden beds under down blankets.

True, we had to accustom ourselves to a certain crudity, but on the other hand the Scots are well known for their technical ingenuity and inventiveness.

I slept peacefully for the first time in many nights, without dreaming of Lady Alice and murderous suffragettes. In the morning I hopped out of bed as lively as a fiddle. Holmes had also slept well and over breakfast he spoke enthusiastically about returning to his farmstead and his bees.

The innkeeper was true to his word and took us to the old woman’s farm. A white mist was forming above the green pastures and hillsides.

“Old Mrs Donovann was the superior of the convent,” he said to Holmes. “She still lives here. She’s almost seventy.”

“The church did not relocate her after the fire?”

“No, because she left the order. She stayed here and went into business for herself. She’s a resourceful old lady and sometimes girls from town come to help her.”

After walking a few miles through a field we were able to make out the retired abbess from a distance. A hunched figure bent over a spade was digging up soil and planting vegetables. Bluish smoke rose from the chimney and all the windows of the house were wide open. In the shed lay a big black dog with white chest and rust-coloured paws. As soon as he saw us he began barking and pulling on the chain.

The old woman straightened up, turned to face us and shielded her eyes. We could not see her face because a scarf was tied around her head.

We doffed our hats and waved. She scolded the dog and went back to work. We kept a good distance from the dog and walked up to her.

“Good morning,” said Holmes as we approached.

She continued planting tiny green seedlings without raising her head.

The detective repeated his greeting more loudly.

“It is almost noon,” grumbled the old nun.

Indeed the sun was already high in the sky. For peasants and farmers, who woke up long before dawn, it was nearing time for lunch.

“We have been sent from the city to see you,” said Holmes.

Still nothing.

He coughed with confusion and wanted to tap the woman on the shoulder, but the dog did not like that. He barked again and tried to pounce on us. Only the strong chain saved us from a mauling. But he pulled the heavy kennel several yards before his strength gave out.

“I say, Mrs Donovann, they have sent us from the city,” the detective shouted.

“I’m not deaf,” said the woman quietly.

“Excuse me, but I need to talk with you.”

“I don’t know what I ought to tell you.”

“My name is Sherlock Holmes and this is my colleague Dr Watson. We need to ask you a few questions about the convent.”

“The convent burned down long ago and I’m no longer a member of the order.”

“Nevertheless you are the only one who can answer certain lingering questions.”

“Then they will remain unanswered.”

It all seemed pointless. The abbess would not deign to talk to us and I feared that if we bothered her a moment longer she would release the barking terror upon us, whose chops were no doubt already salivating. I respected dogs and felt a creeping sense of danger in their presence ever since Holmes and I encountered the terrible fangs of the hound of the Baskervilles. I never quite lost these fears, no matter how hard I tried.

I assumed that the detective would resign himself to defeat, but I was mistaken.

He searched his pocket until he found the cross that he had discovered in the ruins the day before. Just like yesterday it shone as he held it by the chain before the eyes of the stooped nun. She paused, stopped digging in the dirt and straightened.

Then I saw her face and understood why she wore a scarf even on a warm day.

The entire left side of her face was disfigured. From her neck to the border of her grey hair ran a row of tiny scars, almost certainly caused by fire. The purplish skin which once had suffered severe burns had never completely healed. The heat had also burned off the eyebrow over the left eye, which now gaped at us blindly.

She must have been accustomed to the expressions of horror that people had when they looked on her.

She looked at us carefully and took the cross. She gripped it tightly in her bony hand and then returned it to Holmes.

“It was a long time ago,” she whispered. “It belongs to another life.”

“Keep it,” said Holmes, pressing it back into her hand. “Perhaps you have forsaken God, but he has not forsaken you.”

The nun’s healthy eye flashed and she sank her spade into the ploughed field. She put the cross in the pocket of her long skirt and wiped her mud-caked hands on her apron.

Then she glared at me. “You are a doctor?” she said, coughing.

When I replied in the affirmative the woman motioned us to follow her to the house. But she did not take us inside. We walked past the stone doorway, around the building and into a dank earthen sty, where a goat was resting on a bed of straw. The animal was obviously sick. The goat was listless and judging by the feed that lay untouched in its trough had not been eating. From the corner of the barn the old woman brought a barrel, at the bottom of which was a bit of milk. It was reddish and smelled foul.

“This is what she gave yesterday,” said the woman. “Can you help her?”

The goat had a fever and based on the colour of the milk I concluded that there was inflammation of the udder, a relatively frequent disease among goats. Although I am not a specialist, I took some tablets from my medical bag and poured out a few.

“Give her these for a couple of days,” I said. “And milk her at least three times a day until the inflammation subsides. Make sure that your hands are clean. And replace her litter; it is important that it is clean and dry.”

She thanked me. Thus we earned an invitation to tea. The detective was satisfied. Before the kettle on the iron stove had begun to whistle, he gained the coveted answers to his questions.

“We are looking for a girl - indeed now a woman - who spent several years in the convent,” he said.

“I knew everyone who passed through those doors. What is her name?”

“Her given name is Alice. We do not know her surname.”

“Alice...” she said, running the name on her tongue as though she were examining its taste. Her wrinkled face became contemplative.

“She was born in 1870 or 1871 and in 1885 she left as a ward of the family of Lord Darringford, who later adopted her,” said Holmes.

The old abbess gasped.

“I know of whom you speak,” she said. “But I cannot tell you anything about her.”

“Why not?”

“She was quiet and thoughtful. She avoided others. It was so long ago, I don’t even remember how she left for the Darringfords. You would find everything in our records, but...”

She did not finish her sentence and inadvertently pulled the scarf over her face. The old memories had reawakened her pain.

“After the hell fire nothing remained.”

“Naturally, I understand,” said Holmes. “But I am more interested in the circumstances under which she came to you.”

“Yes, of course. It is shrouded in so many strange things that cannot be forgotten.”

She paused and poured us some weak tea before continuing with her tale.

“It was at night in the autumn or winter of 1883. I remember it was raining dreadfully. I was roused out of bed by a mighty banging on the door. Behind the door I found Alice. She was twelve years old. She was brought by her father, or at least that’s who he introduced himself as. He begged me to take in the child and hide her. He said that he was haunted by a diabolical enemy who would stop at nothing. He was more worried about her than about himself; she was everything to him.”

“What was his name?”

“He did not say. He was terrified; I could see the panic in his eyes.”

“Can you describe him?”

“He was tall, about your height, with a high forehead, not much hair, and an intelligent face. He was older and well-dressed. And he had very good manners. His daughter too was well brought up.”

Holmes listened to the description of the mysterious man with bated breath.

“Cleary he came from a well-situated family. When I took the girl in he immediately disappeared and never appeared again. Neither he nor the girl ever mentioned the mother. For months she cried every night. But they had not forgotten her entirely; they sent her packages and letters. Nevertheless, Alice suffered the whole two years that she spent with us. She was not accustomed to such simple conditions and always wanted to have a candle or lamp next to her. She longed for her father. She was very close to him.”

“But he had found a place where his enemy would not find her,” said the detective.

“Perhaps. In any case, the Darringfords were a liberation for this poor girl.”

A fine liberation indeed, I thought to myself, aware of how she had repaid them.

“That is all I know,” said Donovann. “She vanished as suddenly as she had appeared. About six years after her departure the convent burned down.”

“This happened in the autumn of 1891?”

“Yes.”

“You are certain?”

“The year is branded on my face,” she said.

We thanked the old woman for talking to us and got up to leave. She and the dog walked us back to town.

Holmes whistled.

“Watson, I believe that this visit has been most useful! We now finally have Alice’s full life story, thanks to which I can now analyse her motives for these horrible crimes.”

“How did this shy girl become so vicious?”

“The key is the father,” said the detective. “He hid Alice in the convent. The girl was unhappy here and she came to know a world without men.”

“Thus her suffragette sympathies?”

“They were no doubt strengthened by the fact that the rival who took her father away from her in childhood was also a man. But this still does not make of her a murderer.”

“Then what?”

“During the Bloody Sunday demonstration in 1887 she was merely a zealous feminist; a few years later she would kill. We know her modus operandi, which is fire. She befriended it here in Anges, when it lit her lonely nights. In 1891 she burned her adopted parents and set fire to the convent, in order to remove all trace of her origins. It proved successful, and so she continued to use it on her criminal path and in the building of her munitions empire. But in 1891 something must have happened that changed her, something that inflamed her desire for revenge and power.”

“What could have shaken her so profoundly?”

“It is elementary my dear Watson,” said Holmes. “The death of her father!”

As always he was right. From the psychological point of view it made absolute sense. I wondered how we could determine the identity of her father, but nothing occurred to me.

We returned to the inn, where that evening the last act of our adventure began to be written.