On the morning of Friday the 17th of October, 1879, the household of Hollowmere Hall woke to find its master, Mr. Gideon Merrow, dead at the desk of his study — his skull broken by the bronze inkstand that stood upon it. Merrow was a hard man who had made his fortune lending money and keeping other men's secrets, and there was no shortage of persons glad to see him in his grave.
Sergeant Pyke of the Kent Constabulary has gathered the statements and papers below and confesses himself baffled. Four persons had both a reason to wish Mr. Merrow dead and the chance to do it. Read everything set before you. Exactly one of the four is lying — and the lie can be caught.
Who killed Gideon Merrow, and how do you know?
Hollowmere Hall stands half a mile from the village of Nether Marling, a squat grey house hemmed by dripping laurels, with a study whose French windows give onto a terrace and a sodden autumn garden. That Thursday the rains came down in sheets, the lanes ran like brooks, and the branch line to town lay under water before nightfall.
I beg to report the following in the matter of the death of Mr. Gideon Merrow, of Hollowmere Hall.
I have been thirty years in service and twelve at Hollowmere, and I will set down the evening plainly.
Mr. Julian dined nowhere here; he called upon his uncle before dinner, and there were high words between them in the study — I heard the master cry out that he'd see him in the workhouse first — and Mr. Julian went off to the village in a black temper about half-past six.
We dined at seven. After dinner the mistress complained of a headache and went up before half-past eight, and her girl Susan went up to her. Mr. Crale and the master took their port together, and I heard them speak sharp over some matter of the accounts. At twenty minutes to nine Mr. Crale rang for his bag and his coat and bade me good-night, saying he must step out at once or miss the nine-two up-train, as he always takes. I saw him out at the front and heard the gate.
The master went to his study to work. At nine o'clock exactly I carried in his brandy-and-water. He was alive and out of temper and told me to leave him be and lock up. I bolted the garden door of the study myself as I always do — I am certain of it. I came again at half-past nine to see the fire banked and the glass cleared, and found him as the Sergeant has described.
I am, or was, Mr. Merrow's man of business, and I am naturally distressed beyond words.
I will not pretend our last interview was cordial. Mr. Merrow had got some notion into his head about the estate accounts — an honest error of bookkeeping, no more, which I could have set right in an hour had he lived. But he was in one of his tempers and I judged it wiser to withdraw.
I left the Hall at twenty minutes to nine and walked down to Marling Halt, where I took the nine-two up-train to town, as is my invariable habit on these visits. I supped and slept at my club, and knew nothing of this dreadful business until your constable's wire reached me the next forenoon. Grimes will tell you I left in good time for my train; the porters at the terminus will no doubt recall me. I was five-and-thirty miles gone before ever the poor man came to harm.
Begging your pardon, sir, I can speak for the mistress the whole evening, for I never left her.
I helped her undress and she was in her bed by a quarter to nine, but she couldn't settle for the pain in her head, so she bade me stop and read to her, which I did, sitting by the fire in her room. I read out of her novel until we heard the running and the door-slamming below and knew something was wrong — that would be half-past nine. I was with her every minute between, sir, and never a minute did she leave her bed. She wept a good deal, if I may say, but not, I think, for grief.
My own dear Adelaide,
I cannot bear that you should pass another winter under that man's roof. You say he will never release you and that he watches every shilling — but courage, my darling; means will be found. My regiment sails in the spring, and I will not sail without you, though the whole county talk of it. Burn this, as you burn all my letters — though I know you never do.
Ever your own,
R. Vane
| 8 o'clock | 2 brandies · 3 games whist | |
| 9 o'clock | supper, ale · 3 games | |
| 10 o'clock | brandy · 2 games | |
| 11 o'clock | settled all | 7s. 4d. |
"I, Thomas Habgood, keep the Bell, and I'll swear young Mr. Merrow sat at that table from eight till gone eleven and never once quit it, for we were four to whist and could not spare him a hand. He was there for every deal, and low in his spirits, and drank more than was good for him." — T. Habgood
Sir,
Your note of the 9th, promising payment "very shortly," will no longer serve. The sum of £340, with interest, has stood since Lady Day, and my patience is at an end. Unless I have your remittance, or firm security upon your expectations, by the 24th of this month, I shall be compelled to lay the whole before your uncle and before such other gentlemen as your credit may concern. I trust you take my meaning.
Your obedient servant,
J. Oldacre, Money-scrivener, Rochester
Rain without cease. Went again through Crale's figures with the ledger by me. No error, whatever he pleads — the man has bled this estate three years running and thought me too idle to count. I have the proof now in my own hand. Told him plainly: I lay it before the magistrate on Friday and he may hang for a felon.
J. came begging as usual. Told him he'll not have a farthing living nor a line in my will. He may drown in his debts.
The Dunning woman keeps out of my sight. She knows that I know. Let her sweat.
Dr. Fenwick and Grimes together fix the murder window tightly: Merrow was alive at 9:00 and dead by 9:30, killed at about 9:15. The killer was in the study in that half-hour, and nowhere else.
Crale (Exhibit C, corroborated by Grimes in Exhibit B) swears he left at 8:40 and caught the 9:02 up-train, putting him "five-and-thirty miles gone" before the murder — on its face, the strongest alibi of the four. But the stationmaster's telegram (Exhibit D), timed 8:20 pm, records the line flooded, the 8:15 the last train to pass, and every train that night annulled. There was no 9:02 train. Crale named his habitual train without reckoning that the line had shut twenty minutes before he even left the house.
He alone has no genuine account of his whereabouts for 9:00–9:30 — and he alone had a motive death could not silence: the torn ledger leaf (Exhibit A, item 4) was Merrow's proof of the theft (Exhibit J), due before the magistrate the very next morning.
Fairness note: the case turns on one unavoidable contradiction — Exhibit C against Exhibit D — and nothing else can substitute for it. The physical clues (unbolted window, mud, torn leaf) deliberately identify no one on their own; Pyke reports the trampled flower-bed yields no usable print. Motive is a genuine four-way tie, so it cannot solve the case alone. Crale is written to look like the least likely suspect — the one who had already gone — so the solver must distrust the strongest-seeming alibi to find him.