Collected Short Stories IV. The Parasite

COLLECTED SHORT STORIES • IV

The body was carried into the kitchen and laid upon the table. In the meantime Parker had followed the bewildered and heart-broken old man into the drawing-room, and holding out a handful of things, including his watch and some money, he asked him if he would take care of them. The squire angrily refused. He then took two bundles of her letters out of his pocket – all that was left of their miserable love story.

‘Will you take care of these?’ said he. ‘You may read them, burn them, do what you like with them. I don’t wish them to be brought into court.’

The grandfather took the letters and they were duly burned. And now the doctor and the policeman, the twin attendants upon violence, came hurrying down the avenue. Poor Mary was dead upon the kitchen table, with three great wounds upon her throat. How, with a severed carotid, she could have come so far or lived so long is one of the marvels of the case. As to the policeman, he had no trouble in looking for his prisoner. As he entered the room Parker walked towards him and said that he wished to give himself up for murdering a young lady. When asked if he were aware of the nature of the charge he said, ‘Yes, quite so, and I will go with you quietly, only let

me see her first.’

‘What have you done with the knife?’ asked the policeman. Parker produced it from his pocket, a very ordinary one with a clasp blade. It is remarkable that two other penknives were afterwards found upon him. They took him into the

kitchen and he looked at his victim.

‘I am far happier now that I have done it than before, and I hope that she is.’ said he.

81

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

This is the record of the murder of Mary Groves by Vincent Parker, a crime characterized by all that inconsequence and grim artlessness which distinguish fact from fiction. In fiction we make people say and do what we should conceive them to be likely to say or do, but in fact they say and do what no one would ever conceive to be likely. That those letters should be a prelude to a murder, or that after a murder the criminal should endeavour to stanch the wounds of his victim, or hold such a conversation as that described with the old squire, is what no human invention would hazard. One finds it very difficult on reading all the letters and weighing the facts to suppose that Vincent Parker came out that day with the preformed intention of killing his former sweetheart. But whether the dreadful idea was always there, or whether it came in some mad flash of passion provoked by their conversation, is what we shall never know. It is certain that she could not have seen anything dangerous in him up to the very instant of the crime, or she would certainly have appealed to the labourer who passed them in the lane.

The case, which excited the utmost interest through the length and breadth of England, was tried before Baron Martin at the next assizes. There was no need to prove the guilt of the prisoner, since he openly gloried in it, but the whole question turned upon his sanity, and led to some curious complications which have caused the whole law upon the point to be reformed. His relations were called to show that madness was rampant in the family, and that out of ten cousins five were insane. His mother appeared in the witness-box contending with dreadful vehemence that her son was mad, and that her own marriage

82

COLLECTED SHORT STORIES • IV

had been objected to on the ground of the madness latent in her blood. All the witnesses agreed that the prisoner was not an ill-tempered man, but sensitive, gentle, and accomplished, with a tendency to melancholy. The prison chaplain affirmed that he had held conversations with Parker, and that his moral perception seemed to be so entirely wanting that he hardly knew right from wrong. Two specialists in lunacy examined him, and said that they were of opinion that he was of unsound mind. The opinion was based upon the fact that the prisoner declared that he could not see that he had done any wrong.

‘Miss Groves was promised to me,’ said he, ‘and therefore she was mine. I could do what I liked with her. Nothing short of a miracle will alter my convictions.’

The doctor attempted to argue with him. ‘Suppose anyone took a picture from you, what steps would you take to recover it?’ he asked.

‘I should demand restitution,’ said he ‘if not, I should take the thief’s life without compunction.’

The doctor pointed out that the law was there to be appealed to, but Parker answered that he had been born into the world without being consulted, and therefore he recognised the right of no man to judge him. The doctor’s conclusion was that his moral sense was more vitiated than any case that he had seen. That this constitutes madness would, however, be a dangerous doctrine to urge, since it means that if a man were only wicked enough he would be screened from the punishment of his wickedness.

Baron Martin summed up in a common-sense manner. He declared that the world was full of eccentric people, and

83

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

that to grant them all the immunity of madness would be a public danger. To be mad within the meaning of the law a criminal should be in such a state as not to know that he has committed crime or incurred punishment. Now, it was clear that Parker did know this, since he had talked of being hanged. The Baron accordingly accepted the jury’s finding of ‘Guilty,’ and sentenced the prisoner to death.

There the matter might very well have ended were it not for Baron Martin’s conscientious scruples. His own ruling had been admirable, but the testimony of the mad doctors weighed heavily upon him, and his conscience was uneasy at the mere possibility that a man who was really not answerable for his actions should lose his life through his decision. It is probable that the thought kept him awake that night, for next morning he wrote to the Secretary of State, and told him that he shrank from the decision of such a case.

The Secretary of State, having carefully read the evidence and the judge’s remarks, was about to confirm the decision of the latter, when, upon the very eve of the execution, there came a report from the gaol visitors – perfectly untrained observers – that Parker was showing undoubted signs of madness. This being so the Secretary of State had no choice but to postpone the execution, and to appoint a commission of four eminent alienists to report upon the condition of the prisoner. These four reported unanimously that he was perfectly sane. It is an unwritten law, however, that a prisoner once reprieved is never executed, so Vincent Parker’s sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life – a decision which satisfied, upon the whole, the conscience of the public.

84

THE CABMAN’S

STORY

The Mysteries of a London “Growler”

We had to take a “growler,” for the day looked rather threatening and we agreed that it would be a very bad way of beginning our holiday by getting wet, especially when Fanny was only just coming round from the whooping cough. Holidays were rather scarce with us, and when we took one we generally arranged some little treat, and went in for enjoying ourselves. On this occasion we were starting off from Hammersmith to the Alexandra Palace in all the dignity of a fourwheeler. What with the wife and her sister, and Tommy and Fanny and Jack, the inside was pretty well filled up, so I had to look out for myself. I didn’t adopt the plan of John Gilpin under similar circumstances, but I took my waterproof and climbed up beside the driver.

This driver was a knowing-looking old veteran, with a weather-beaten face and white side whiskers. It has always seemed to me that a London cabman is about the shrewdest of the human race, but this specimen struck me as looking like the shrewdest of the cabmen. I tried to draw him out a bit as we jogged along, for I am always fond of a chat; but he was a bit rusty until I oiled his tongue with glass of gin when we got as far as the “Green Anchor.” Then he rattled away quickly enough, and some of what he said is worth trying to put down in black and white.

87

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

“Wouldn’t a hansom pay me better?” he said, in answer to a question of mine. “Why, of course it would. But look at the position! A four-wheeler’s a respectable conveyance, and the driver of it’s a respectable man, but you can’t say that of a rattling, splashing ‘ansom. Any boy would do for that job. Now, to my mind money hain’t to be compared to position, whatever a man’s trade may be.”

“Certainly not!” I answered.

“Besides, I’ve saved my little penny, and I’m got too old to change my ways. I’ve begun on a growler, and I’ll end on one. If you’ll believe me, sir, I’ve been on the streets for seven-and- forty year.”

“That’s a long time,” I said.

“Well, it’s long for our trade,” he replied. “You see, there ain’t no other in the world that takes the steam out of a man so quickly – what with wet and cold and late hours, and maybe no hours at all. There’s few that lasts at it as long as I have.”

“You must have seen a deal of the world during that time,” I remarked. “There are few men who can have greater opportunities of seeing life.”

“The world!” he grunted, flicking up the horse with his whip. “I’ve seen enough of it to be well-nigh sick of it. As to life, if you’d said death, you’d ha’ been nearer the mark.”

“Death!” I ejaculated.

“Yes, death,” he said. “Why, bless your soul, sir, if I was to write down all I’ve seen since I’ve been in the trade, there’s not a man in London would believe me, unless maybe some o’ the other cabbies. I tell ye I took a dead man for a fare once,

88

COLLECTED SHORT STORIES • IV

and drove about with him nigh half the night. Oh, you needn’t look shocked, sir, for this wasn’t the cab – no, nor the last one I had neither.”

“How did it happen?” I asked, feeling glad, in spite of his assurance, that Matilda had not heard of the episode.

“Well, it’s an old story now,” said the driver, putting a small piece of very black tobacco into the corner of his mouth. “I daresay it’s twenty odd years since it happened, but it’s not the kind o’ thing as slips out of a man’s memory. It was very late one night, and I was working my hardest to pick up something good, for I’d made a poor day’s work of it. The theatres had all come out, and though I kept up and down the Strand till nigh one o’clock, I got nothing but one eighteenpenny job. I was thinking of giving it up and going home, when it struck me that I might as well make a bit of a circuit, and see if I couldn’t drop across something. Pretty soon I gave a gentleman a lift as far as the Oxford Road, and then I drove through St. John’s Wood on my way home. By that time it would be about halfpast one, and the streets were quite quiet and deserted, for the night was cloudy and it was beginning to rain. I was putting on the pace as well as my tired beast would go, for we both wanted to get back to our suppers, when I heard a woman’s voice hail me out of a side street. I turned back, and there in about the darkest part of the road was standing two ladies – real ladies, mind you, for it would take a deal of darkness before I would mistake one for the other. One was elderly and stoutish; the other was young, and had a veil over her face. Between them there was a man in evening dress, whom they were supporting on each side, while his back was propped up against a lamp-

89

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

post. He seemed beyond taking care of himself altogether, for his head was sunk down on his chest, and he’d have fallen if they hadn’t held him.

“’Cabman,’ said the stout lady, with a very shaky voice, ‘I wish you would help us in this painful business.’ Those were her very hidentical words.

“’Cert’nly, mum,’ I says for I saw my way to a good thing. ‘What can I do for the young lady and yourself?’ I mentioned the other in order to console her like, for she was sobbing behind her veil something pitiful.

“’The fact is, cabman,’ she answers, ‘this gentleman is my daughter’s husband. They have only just been married, and we are visiting at a friend’s house near here. My son-in-law has just returned in a state of complete intoxication, and my daughter and I have brought him out in the hope of seeing a cab in which we could send him home, for we have most particular reasons for not wishing our friends to see him in this state, and as yet they are ignorant of it. If you would drive him to his house and leave him there, you would do us both a very great kindness, and we can easily account to our hosts for his absence.’

“I thought this rather a rum start, but I agreed, and no sooner had I said the word than the old one she pulls open the door, and she and the other, without waiting for me to bear a hand, bundled him in between them.

“’Where to?’ I asked.

“’Forty-seven, Orange Grove, Clapham,’ she said. ‘Hoffman is the name. You’ll easily waken the servants.’

90