character’ we should have been grateful, but this was not to be expected in a letter of the kind he had set himself to write. For the rest we must please ourselves with the picture of the Sage and his faithful negro servant keeping their three nights’ vigil in the empty house.
And now we come to the Spettigue affair…
Again Appleby paused in his reading. The engines had taken on the deeper throb which seems to come in the late afternoon; it was as if they were preparing for their long, tireless haul through the night. Again a bell rang and overhead there was the pad of a quartermaster’s feet going forward; from the little saloon below came a chink of cutlery and rattle of plates. Dinner would be at seven-thirty; there would be the usual jokes about the metamorphoses of Roast Hazel Hen. Appleby frowned. There was over a week’s steaming before them, and three times a day he and Hudspith would gather round the board with Wine and Beaglehole and Mrs Nurse and Miss Mood – with these and with the wraiths of Hannah Metcalfe and Lucy Rideout. And Daffodil. Roast Hazel Horse… Appleby pulled himself awake and returned to 37 Hawke Square.
And now we come to the Spettigue affair, which is more striking in itself and gives retroactive significance to the sketchy case of Colonel Morell. At this time, more than a hundred and twenty years after the events we have been considering, the Hawke Square house was in the occupancy of Mr Smart, a merchant, who had married the sister of his close friend Dr Spettigue. There were several young children – a circumstance from which arose one of the most curious aspects of the affair. For the house, like others of its kind, had a central staircase winding round a narrow well. And Mrs Smart, like other careful parents similarly situated, had provided against accident by causing a net or lattice to be placed across the well at the level of the first and again at the third (or nursery) landing. During the summer of 1888 the whole family had repaired for a holiday visit to a hotel in Yarmouth, the servants (other than a nurse) being placed on board wages the while. During this period nothing remarkable seems to have occurred, and Mr Smart was said to be in particularly good spirits, even playing cricket with his children on the beach. When the holiday was over – and following the usual custom of the Smarts on such occasions – Mr Smart returned to town a day earlier than his family for the purpose of ‘opening up’ the house – an operation of some intricacy, it will be remembered, during Victorian times. He was to await the arrival of the servants in the afternoon, sleep at his club, and his family was to return home on the morrow. This, we repeat, was the established procedure. But when the servants arrived on this occasion they found their master dead on the marble floor of the hall. The nets or lattices spoken of had been removed and there were indications that Mr Smart had fallen from the top storey.
Suicide and murder seemed equally possible as agencies in this sad affair, and at the inquest an open verdict was returned. Those taking the view that Mr Smart had been done to death saw significance in the time of the fatality: on this day of the year – and perhaps on this day only – was Mr Smart likely to be found alone in his own house. But on the other side it was maintained that this was far from weakening the case for suicide. For by taking his own life under those precise circumstances Mr Smart would so far have contrived to mitigate the shock to his family as to ensure that the discovery was made by servants and not by any of those more intimately concerned. Moreover the removal of the lattices and subsequent luring of the victim to the top of the house appeared an unnecessarily intricate method of committing murder, while the removal of the lattices by Mr Smart himself was consistent with a rational plan for taking his own life with a greater measure of decent
And now we come to the Spettigue affair…
Again Appleby paused in his reading. The engines had taken on the deeper throb which seems to come in the late afternoon; it was as if they were preparing for their long, tireless haul through the night. Again a bell rang and overhead there was the pad of a quartermaster’s feet going forward; from the little saloon below came a chink of cutlery and rattle of plates. Dinner would be at seven-thirty; there would be the usual jokes about the metamorphoses of Roast Hazel Hen. Appleby frowned. There was over a week’s steaming before them, and three times a day he and Hudspith would gather round the board with Wine and Beaglehole and Mrs Nurse and Miss Mood – with these and with the wraiths of Hannah Metcalfe and Lucy Rideout. And Daffodil. Roast Hazel Horse… Appleby pulled himself awake and returned to 37 Hawke Square.
And now we come to the Spettigue affair, which is more striking in itself and gives retroactive significance to the sketchy case of Colonel Morell. At this time, more than a hundred and twenty years after the events we have been considering, the Hawke Square house was in the occupancy of Mr Smart, a merchant, who had married the sister of his close friend Dr Spettigue. There were several young children – a circumstance from which arose one of the most curious aspects of the affair. For the house, like others of its kind, had a central staircase winding round a narrow well. And Mrs Smart, like other careful parents similarly situated, had provided against accident by causing a net or lattice to be placed across the well at the level of the first and again at the third (or nursery) landing. During the summer of 1888 the whole family had repaired for a holiday visit to a hotel in Yarmouth, the servants (other than a nurse) being placed on board wages the while. During this period nothing remarkable seems to have occurred, and Mr Smart was said to be in particularly good spirits, even playing cricket with his children on the beach. When the holiday was over – and following the usual custom of the Smarts on such occasions – Mr Smart returned to town a day earlier than his family for the purpose of ‘opening up’ the house – an operation of some intricacy, it will be remembered, during Victorian times. He was to await the arrival of the servants in the afternoon, sleep at his club, and his family was to return home on the morrow. This, we repeat, was the established procedure. But when the servants arrived on this occasion they found their master dead on the marble floor of the hall. The nets or lattices spoken of had been removed and there were indications that Mr Smart had fallen from the top storey.
Suicide and murder seemed equally possible as agencies in this sad affair, and at the inquest an open verdict was returned. Those taking the view that Mr Smart had been done to death saw significance in the time of the fatality: on this day of the year – and perhaps on this day only – was Mr Smart likely to be found alone in his own house. But on the other side it was maintained that this was far from weakening the case for suicide. For by taking his own life under those precise circumstances Mr Smart would so far have contrived to mitigate the shock to his family as to ensure that the discovery was made by servants and not by any of those more intimately concerned. Moreover the removal of the lattices and subsequent luring of the victim to the top of the house appeared an unnecessarily intricate method of committing murder, while the removal of the lattices by Mr Smart himself was consistent with a rational plan for taking his own life with a greater measure of decent
Similar Books
