The Adventure of the Greenbriar Ghost

The entire courtroom was struck into stunned silence. Preston closed his eyes, looking sick and defeated. He murmured, “Dear God, we are lost.”

I wheeled toward Holmes, but my friend did not look at all discomfited. Instead he maintained what the Americans call a poker face –showing no trace of emotions, no hint of what thoughts were running through his brain during this disaster.

“Mrs. Heaster?” prompted the bailiff, offering his hand to her.

The good lady rose with great dignity though I could see her clenched fists trembling with dread. To have been denied the opportunity to speak against this evil man and now to become the tool of his advocate! It was unthinkably cruel.

“Holmes,” I whispered. “Do something!”

Very calmly he said, “We have done all that can be done, Watson. We must trust to the spirit of justice.”

Mrs. Heaster took the oath and sat in the witness chair, and immediately Grimby set about her, gainsaying niceties to close in for a quick kill. “Tell me, madam, do you believe that Mr. Shue had anything at all to do with your daughter’s death?”

“I do, sir,” she said quietly.

“Did you witness her death?”

“No sir.”

“Did you speak to anyone who witnessed her death?”

“No sir.”

“So you have no personal knowledge of the manner of your daughter’s death?”

She paused.

“Come now, Mrs. Heaster, it’s a simple question. Do you have any personal knowledge of how your daughter died?”

“Yes,” she said at length. “I do.”

Grimby’s eyes were alight and he fought to keep a smile off of his face. “And how do you come by this knowledge?”

“I was told.”

“Told? By whom, madam?” His voice dripped with condescension.

“By my daughter, sir.”

Grimby smiled openly now. “Your...dead daughter?”

“Yes sir.”

“Are we to understand that your dead daughter somehow imparted this information to you?”

“Yes, my daughter told me how she died.”

The jury gasped. Preston could have objected here, but he had lost his nerve, clearly believing the case to be already lost.

“Pray, how did she tell you?”

Mrs. Heaster raised her eyes to meet Grimby’s. “Her ghost came to me in a dream, sir.”

“Her ghost?” Grimby cried. “In a dream?”

There was a ripple of laughter from the gallery and even a few smiles from the jury. Preston’s fists were clutched so tight that his knuckles were bloodless; while to my other side Holmes sat composed, his eyes fixed on the side of Mrs. Heaster’s face.

Grimby opened his mouth to say something to the judge, but Mrs. Heaster cut him off. “You may laugh, sir. You may all laugh, for perhaps to you it is funny. A young woman dies a horrible death, the life choked out of her, the very bones of her neck crushed in the fingers of a strong man. That may be funny to some.” The laughter in the room died away. “My daughter was a good girl who had endured a hard life. Yes, she made mistakes. Mr. Grimby has been kind enough to detail each and every one of them. Yes, she had a child out of wedlock, and as we all know such things are unthinkable, such things never happen.”

Her bitterness was like a pall of smoke.

“Mr. Grimby did his job very well and dismantled the good name of my daughter while at the same time destroying each separate bit of evidence. Perhaps most of you have already made up your minds and are planning to set Trout Shue free.” She paused and flicked a glance at Holmes, and did I catch just the slightest incline of his head? “The law prevents me from telling what I know of Mr. Shue’s life and dealings before he came to Greenbriar. So I will not talk of him. Mr. Grimby has asked me to tell you how I came by my personal knowledge of the death of my daughter, and so I will tell you. I will tell you of how my dear Zona came to me over the course of four dark nights. As a spirit of the dead she came into my room and stood at my bedside, the way a frightened child will do, coming to the one person who loves her unconditionally and forever. For four nights she came to me and she brought with her the chill of the grave. The very air around me seemed to freeze and the ghost of each of my frightened breaths haunted the air for, yes, I was afraid. Terribly afraid. I am not a fanciful woman. I am not one to knock wood or throw salt in the devil’s eye over my left shoulder. I am a mountain woman of Greenbriar County. A farm woman with a practical mind. And yet there I lay in my bed with the air turned to winter around me and the shade of my murdered daughter standing beside me.”

The room was silent as the grave as she spoke.