The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

After "The Adventure of the Fallen Star", Watson seems to have assiduously recorded a number of cases that followed on quite quickly: "The Stockbroker's Clerk", "The Man With the Twisted Lip" – a case which was considerably more than a three-pipe problem, "Colonel Warburton Madness"- one of the lost cases, and "The Engineer's Thumb". These and others during this busy period are listed in the appendix. Amongst them are the well-known cases of "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" and "The Red-Headed League" plus a few cases which are probably apocryphal though they have the ring of authenticity about them, including "The Adventure of the Megatherium Thefts" and "The Adventure of the First-Class Carriage".

By the start of 1891, however, Holmes had placed himself firmly on the trail of James Moriarty, the most dangerous man in London, whom he planned to confront once and for all. This led to the case of "The Final Problem" ending with the presumed death of Sherlock Holmes as he and Moriarty plunged into the Reichenbach Falls.

There follows the period known as the Great Hiatus, when Holmes travelled in disguise throughout Europe and Asia. He refers to some of these travels in "The Empty House", but it is difficult to know which of the many curious cases recorded on the continent during this period really marked the involvement of Sherlock Holmes. It is a period worthy of a separate book, and one that I hope to produce at some future date. But here we concern ourselves primarily with Holmes's investigations with Watson. Watson, believing Holmes to be dead, had spent the time finalizing and preparing for publication several of his records of Holmes's cases, and these appeared in The Strand Magazine between 1891 and 1893. They made the name of Sherlock Holmes a household word. Unfortunately, Watson's wife died towards the end of 1893, so it was a rather sad Watson who was shocked and dazed at the sudden reappearance of Sherlock Holmes at the end of March 1894. (Subsequent investigations reveal that this event happened in February and, once again, Watson disguised the date.)

After "The Empty House", and the entrapment of Sebastian Moran, Holmes felt sufficiently confident to resume his investigations. Watson, now alone, was delighted to resume his old role with Holmes, and from 1894 till Holmes's retirement ten years later, the two seemed inseparable. This was the high period of Holmes's career with a catalogue of remarkable cases. Immediately following "The Empty House" came "The Second Stain", "Wisteria Lodge" and "The Norwood Builder", plus the unrecorded case of the steamship Friesland, which nearly cost them both their lives. That autumn Holmes had to move out from 221b Baker Street to allow for some refurbishment and redecoration and he and Watson briefly took lodgings at Dorset Street. There they became involved in a strange little case which was unearthed by the indefatigable Michael Moorcock who found them amongst the papers of a distant relative who had evidently been an acquaintance of Dr Watson.

The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger – Michael Moorcock

It was one of those singularly hot Septembers, when the whole of London seemed to wilt from over-exposure to the sun, like some vast Arctic sea-beast foundering upon a tropical beach and doomed to die of unnatural exposure. Where Rome or even Paris might have shimmered and lazed, London merely gasped.

Our windows wide open to the noisy staleness of the air and our blinds drawn against the glaring light, we lay in a kind of torpor, Holmes stretched upon the sofa while I dozed in my easy chair and recalled my years in India, when such heat had been normal and our accommodation rather better equipped to cope with it. I had been looking forward to some fly fishing in the Yorkshire Dales but meanwhile, a patient of mine began to experience a difficult and potentially dangerous confinement so I could not in conscience go far from London. However, we had both planned to be elsewhere at this time and had confused the estimable Mrs Hudson, who had expected Holmes himself to be gone.

Languidly, Holmes dropped to the floor the note he had been reading. There was a hint of irritation in his voice when he spoke.

"It seems, Watson, that we are about to be evicted from our quarters. I had hoped this would not happen while you were staying."

My friend's fondness for the dramatic statement was familiar to me, so I hardly blinked when I asked: "Evicted, Holmes?" I understood that his rent was, as usual, paid in advance for the year.

"Temporarily only, Watson. You will recall that we had both intended to be absent from London at about this time, until circumstances dictated otherwise. On that initial understanding, Mrs Hudson commissioned Messrs Peach, Peach, Peach and Praisegod to refurbish and decorate 221b. This is our notice. They begin work next week and would be obliged if we would vacate the premises since minor structural work is involved. We are to be homeless for a fortnight, old friend. We must find new accommodations, Watson, but they must not be too far from here. You have your delicate patient and I have my work. I must have access to my flies and my microscope."

I am not a man to take readily to change. I had already suffered several setbacks to my plans and the news, combined with the heat, shortened my temper a little. "Every criminal in London will be trying to take advantage of the situation," I said. "What if a Peach or Praisegod were in the pay of some new Moriarty?"

"Faithful Watson! That Reichenback affair made a deep impression. It is the one deception for which I feel thorough remorse. Rest assured, dear friend. Moriarty is no more and there is never likely to be another criminal mind like his. I agree, however, that we should be able to keep an eye on things here. There are no hotels in the area fit for human habitation. And no friends or relatives nearby to put us up." It was almost touching to see that master of deduction fall into deep thought and begin to cogitate our domestic problem with the same attention he would give to one of his most difficult cases. It was this power of concentration, devoted to any matter in hand, which had first impressed me with his unique talents. At last he snapped his fingers, grinning like a Barbary ape, his deep-set eyes blazing with intelligence and self-mockery… "I have it, Watson. We shall, of course, ask Mrs Hudson if she has a neighbour who rents rooms!"

"An excellent idea, Holmes!" I was amused by my friend's almost innocent pleasure in discovering, if not a solution to our dilemma, the best person to provide a solution for us!

Recovered from my poor temper, I rose to my feet and pulled the bellrope.

Within moments our housekeeper, Mrs Hudson, was at the door and standing before us.

"I must say I am very sorry for the misunderstanding, sir," she said to me. "But patients is patients, I suppose, and your Scottish trout will have to wait a bit until you have a chance to catch them. But as for you, Mr Holmes, it seems to me that hassassination or no hassassination, you could still do with a nice seaside holiday. My sister in Hove would look after you as thoroughly as if you were here in London."

"I do not doubt it, Mrs Hudson. However, the assassination of one's host is inclined to cast a pall over the notion of vacations and while Prince Ulrich was no more than an acquaintance and the circumstances of his death all too clear, I feel obliged to give the matter a certain amount of consideration. It is useful to me to have my various analytical instruments to hand. Which brings us to a problem I am incapable of solving – if not Hove, Mrs Hudson, where? Watson and I need bed and board and it must be close by."

Clearly the good woman disapproved of Holmes's unhealthy habits but despaired of converting him to her cause.

She frowned to express her lack of satisfaction with his reply and then spoke a little reluctantly. "There's my sister-in-law's over in Dorset Street, sir. Number Two, sir. I will admit that her cookery is a little too Frenchified for my taste, but it's a nice, clean, comfortable house with a pretty garden at the back and she has already made the offer."

"And she is a discreet woman, is she Mrs Hudson, like yourself?"

"As a church, sir. My late husband used to say of his sister that she could hold a secret better than the Pope's confessor."

"Very well, Mrs Hudson. It is settled! We shall decant for Dorset Street next Friday, enabling your workman to come in on Monday. I will arrange for certain papers and effects to be moved over and the rest shall be secure, I am sure, beneath a good covering. Well, Watson, what do you say? You shall have your vacation, but it will be a little closer to home that you planned and with rather poorer fishing!"

My friend was in such positive spirits that it was impossible for me to retain my mood and indeed events began to move so rapidly from that point on, that any minor inconvenience was soon forgotten.

Our removal to number 2, Dorset Street, went as smoothly as could be expected and we were soon in residence. Holmes's untidiness, such a natural part of the man, soon gave the impression that our new chambers had been occupied by him for at least a century. Our private rooms had views of a garden which might have been transported from Sussex and our front parlour looked out onto the street, where, at the corner, it was possible to observe customers coming and going from the opulent pawn-brokers, often on their way to the Wheatsheaf Tavern, whose "well-aired beds" we had rejected in favour of Mrs Ackroyd's somewhat luxurious appointments. A further pleasing aspect of the house was the blooming wisteria vine, of some age, which crept up the front of the building and further added to the countrified aspect. I suspect some of our comforts were not standard to all her lodgers. The good lady, of solid Lancashire stock, was clearly delighted at what she called "the honour" of looking after us and we both agreed we had never experienced better attention. She had pleasant, broad features and a practical, no nonsense manner to her which suited us both. While I would never have said so to either woman, her cooking was rather a pleasant change from Mrs Hudson's good, plain fare.

And so we settled in. Because my patient was experiencing a difficult progress towards motherhood, it was important that I could be easily reached, but I chose to spend the rest of my time as if I really were enjoying a vacation. Indeed, Holmes himself shared something of my determination, and we had several pleasant evenings together, visiting the theatres and music halls for which London is justly famed. While I had developed an interest in the modern problem plays of Ibsen and Pinero, Holmes still favoured the atmosphere of the Empire and the Hippodrome, while Gilbert and Sullivan at the Savoy was his idea of perfection. Many a night I have sat beside him, often in the box which he preferred, glancing at his rapt features and wondering how an intellect so high could take such pleasure in low comedy and Cockney character-songs.

The sunny atmosphere of 2 Dorset Street actually seemed to lift my friend's spirits and give him a slightly boyish air which made me remark one day that he must have discovered the "waters of life", he was so rejuvenated. He looked at me a little oddly when I said this and told me to remind him to mention the discoveries he had made in Tibet, where he had spent much time after "dying" during his struggle with Professor Moriarty. He agreed, however, that this change was doing him good. He was able to continue his researches when he felt like it, but did not feel obliged to remain at home. He even insisted that we visit the kinema together, but the heat of the building in which it was housed, coupled with the natural odours emanating from our fellow customers, drove us into the fresh air before the show was over. Holmes showed little real interest in the invention. He was inclined to recognize progress only where it touched directly upon his own profession. He told me that he believed the kinema had no relevance to criminology, unless it could be used in the reconstruction of an offence and thus help lead to the capture of a perpetrator.

We were returning in the early evening to our temporary lodgings, having watched the kinema show at Madame Tussaud's in Marylebone Road, when Holmes became suddenly alert, pointing his stick ahead of him and saying in that urgent murmur I knew so well, "What do you make of this fellow, Watson? The one with the brand new top hat, the red whiskers and a borrowed morning coat who recently arrived from the United States but has just returned from the north-western suburbs where he made an assignation he might now be regretting?"

I chuckled at this. "Come off it, Holmes!" I declared. "I can see a chap in a topper lugging a heavy bag, but how you could say he was from the United States and so on, I have no idea. I believe you're making it up, old man."

"Certainly not, my dear Watson! Surely you have noticed that the morning coat is actually beginning to part on the back seam and is therefore too small for the wearer. The most likely explanation is that he borrowed a coat for the purpose of making a particular visit. The hat is obviously purchased recently for the same reason while the man's boots have the "gaucho" heel characteristic of the South Western United States, a style found only in that region and adapted, of course, from a Spanish riding boot. I have made a study of human heels, Watson, as well as of human souls!"

We kept an even distance behind the subject of our discussion. The traffic along Baker Street was at its heaviest, full of noisy

carriages, snorting horses, yelling drivers and all of London's varied humanity pressing its way homeward, desperate to find some means of cooling its collective body. Our "quarry" had periodically to stop and put down his bag, occasionally changing hands before continuing.

"But why do you say he arrived recently? And has been visiting north-west London?" I asked.

"That, Watson, is elementary. If you think for a moment, it will come clear to you that our friend is wealthy enough to afford the best in hats and Gladstone bags, yet wears a morning coat too small for him. It suggests he came with little luggage, or perhaps his luggage was stolen, and had no time to visit a tailor. Or he went to one of the ready-made places and took the nearest fit. Thus, the new bag, also, which he no doubt bought to carry the object he has just acquired. That he did not realize how heavy it was is clear and I am sure he were not staying nearby, he would have hired a cab for himself. He could well be regretting his acquisition. Perhaps it was something very costly, but not exactly what he was expecting to get… He certainly did not realize how awkward it would be to carry, especially in this weather. That suggests to me that he believed he could walk from Baker Street Underground Railway station, which in turn suggests he has been visiting north west London, which is the chiefly served from Baker Street."

It was rarely that I questioned my friend's judgements, but privately I found this one too fanciful. I was a little surprised, therefore, when I saw the top-hatted gentleman turn left into Dorset Street and disappear. Holmes immediately increased his pace. "Quickly, Watson! I believe I know where he's going."

Rounding the corner, we were just in time to see the American arrive at the door of Number 2 Dorset Street, and put a latchkey to the lock!

"Well, Watson," said Holmes in some triumph. "Shall we attempt to verify my analysis?" Whereupon he strode up to our fellow lodger, raised his hat and offered to help him with the bag.

The man reacted rather dramatically, falling backwards against the railings and almost knocking his own hat over his eyes. He glared at Holmes, panting, and then with a wordless growl, pushed on into the front hall, lugging the heavy Gladstone behind him and slamming the door in my friend's face. Holmes lifted his eyebrows in an expression of baffled amusement. "No doubt the efforts with the bag have put the gentleman in poor temper, Watson!"

Once within, we were in time to see the man, hat still precariously on his head, heaving his bag up the stairs. The thing had come undone and I caught a glimpse of silver, the gleam of gold, the representation, I thought, of a tiny human hand. When he recognized us he stopped in some confusion, then murmured in a dramatic tone:

"Be warned, gentleman. I possess a revolver and I know how to use it."

Holmes accepted this news gravely and informed the man that while he understood an exchange of pistol fire to be something in the nature of an introductory courtesy in Texas, in England it was still considered unnecessary to support one's cause by letting off guns in the house. This I found a little like hypocrisy from one given to target practice in the parlour!

However, our fellow lodger looked suitably embarrassed and began to recover himself. "Forgive me, gentlemen," he said. "I am a stranger here and I must admit I'm rather confused as to who my friends and enemies are. I have been warned to be careful. How did you get in?"

"With a key, as you did, my dear sir. Doctor Watson and myself are guests here for a few weeks."

"Doctor Watson!" The man's voice established him immediately as an American. The drawling brogue identified him as a South Westerner and I trusted Holmes's ear enough to believe that he must be Texan.

"I am he." I was mystified by his evident enthusiasm but illuminated when he turned his attention to my companion.

"Then you must be Mr Sherlock Holmes! Oh, my good sir, forgive me my bad manners! I am a great admirer, gentlemen. I have followed all your cases. You are, in part, the reason I took rooms near Baker Street. Unfortunately, when I called at your house yesterday, I found it occupied by contractors who could not tell me where you were. Time being short, I was forced to act on my own account. And I fear I have not been too successful! I had no idea that you were lodging in this very building!"

"Our landlady," said Holmes dryly, "is renowned for her discretion. I doubt if her pet cat has heard our names in this house."

The American was about thirty-five years old, his skin turned dark by the sun, with a shock of red hair, a full red moustache and a heavy jaw. If it were not for his intelligent green eyes and delicate hands, I might have mistaken him for an Irish prize fighter. "I'm James Macklesworth, sir, of Galveston, Texas. I'm in the import/ export business over there. We ship upriver all the way to Austin, our State Capital, and have a good reputation for honest trading. My grandfather fought to establish our Republic and was the first to take a steam-boat up the Colorado to trade with Port Sabatini and the river-towns." In the manner of Americans, he offered us a resume of his background, life and times, even as we shook hands. It is a custom necessary in those wild and still largely unsettled regions of the United States.

Holmes was cordial, as if scenting a mystery to his taste, and invited the Texan to join us in an hour, when, over a whiskey and soda, we could discuss his business in comfort.

Mr Macklesworth accepted with alacrity and promised that he would bring with him the contents of his bag and a full explanation of his recent behaviour.

Before James Macklesworth arrived, I asked Holmes if he had any impression of the man. I saw him as an honest enough fellow, perhaps a business man who had got in too deep and wanted Sherlock Holmes to help him out. If that were all he required of my friend, I was certain Holmes would refuse the case. On the other hand, there was every chance that this was an unusual affair.

Holmes said that he found the man interesting and, he believed, honest. But he could not be sure, as yet, if he were the dupe of some clever villain or acting out of character. "For my guess is there is definitely a crime involved here, Watson, and I would guess a pretty devilish one. You have no doubt heard of the Fellini Perseus."

"Who has not? It is said to be Fellini's finest work – cast of solid silver and chased. with gold. It represents Perseus with the head of Medusa, which itself is made of sapphires, emeralds, rubies and pearls."

"Your memory as always is excellent, Watson. For many years it was the prize in the collection of Sir Geoffrey Macklesworth, son of the famous Iron Master said to be the richest man in England. Sir Geoffrey, I gather, died one of the poorest. He was fond of art but did not understand money. This made him, I understand, prey to many kinds of social vampires! In his younger years he was involved with the aesthetic movement, a friend of Whistler's and Wilde's. In fact Wilde was, for a while, a good friend to him, attempting to dissuade him from some of his more spectacular blue and white excesses!"

"Macklesworth!" I exclaimed.

"Exactly, Watson." Holmes paused to light his pipe, staring down into the street where the daily business of London continued its familiar and unspectacular round. "The thing was stolen about ten years ago. A daring robbery which I, at the time, ascribed to Moriarty. There was every indication it had been spirited from the country and sold abroad.Yet I recognized it – or else a very fine copy – in that bag James Macklesworth was carrying up the stairs. He would have read of the affair, I'm sure, especially considering his name. Therefore he must have known the Fellini statue was stolen. Yet clearly he went somewhere today and returned here with it. Why? He's no thief, Watson, I'd stake my life on it."

"Let us hope he intends to illuminate us," I said as a knock came at our door.

Mr James Mackelsworth was a changed man. Bathed and dressed in his own clothes, he appeared far more confident and at ease. His suit was of a kind favoured in his part of the world, with a distinctly Spanish cut to it, and he wore a flowing tie beneath the wings of a wide-collared soft shirt, a dark red waistcoat and pointed oxblood boots. He looked every inch the romantic frontiersman.

He began by apologizing for his costume. He had not realized, he said, until he arrived in London yesterday, that his dress was unusual and remarkable in England. We both assured him that his sartorial appearance was in no way offensive to us. Indeed, we found it attractive.

"But it marks me pretty well for who I am, is that not so, gentlemen?"

We agreed that in Oxford Street there would not be a great many people dressed in his fashion.

"That's why I bought the English clothes," he said. "I wanted to fit in and not be noticed. The top hat was too big and the morning coat was too small. The trousers were the only thing the right size. The bag was the largest of its shape I could find."

"So, suitably attired, as you thought, you took the Metropolitan Railway this morning to -?"

"To Willesden, Mr Holmes. Hey! How did you know that? Have you been following me all day?"

"Certainly not, Mr Macklesworth. And in Willesden you took possession of the Fellini Perseus did you not?"

"You know everything ahead of me telling it, Mr Holmes! I need speak no more.Your reputation is thoroughly deserved, sir. If I were not a rational man, I would believe you possessed of psychic powers!"

"Simple deductions, Mr Macklesworth. One develops a skill, you know. But it might take a longer acquaintance for me to deduce how you came to cross some six thousand miles of land and sea to arrive in London, go straight to Willesden and come away with one of the finest pieces of Renaissance silver the world has ever seen. All in a day, too."

"I can assure you, Mr Holmes, that such adventuring is not familiar to me. Until a few months ago I was the owner of a successful shipping and wholesaling business. My wife died several years ago and I never remarried. My children are all grown now and married, living far from Texas. I was a little lonely, I suppose, but reasonably content. That all changed, as you have guessed, when the Fellini Perseus came into my life."

"You received word of it in Texas, Mr Macklesworth?"

"Well, sir, it's an odd thing. Embarrassing, too. But I guess I'm going to have to be square with you and come out with it. The gentleman from whom the Perseus was stolen was a cousin of mine. We'd corresponded a little. In the course of that correspondence he revealed a secret which has now become a burden to me. I was his only living male relative, you see, and he had family business to do. There was another cousin, he thought in New Orleans, but he had yet to be found. Well, gentlemen, the long and the short of it was that I swore on my honour to carry out Sir Geoffrey's instructions in the event of something happening to him or to the Fellini Perseus. His instructions led me to take a train for NewYork and from New York the Arcadia for London. I arrived yesterday afternoon."

"So you came all this way, Mr Mackleworth, on a matter of honour?" I was somewhat impressed.

"You could say so, sir. We set high store by family loyalty in my part of the world. Sir Geoffrey's estate, as you know, went to pay his debts. But that part of my trip has to do with a private matter. My reason for seeking you out was connected with it. I believe Sir Geoffrey was murdered, Mr Holmes. Someone was blackmailing him and he spoke of 'financial commitments'. His letters increasingly showed his anxiety and were often rather rambling accounts of his fears that there should be nothing left for his heirs. I told him he had no direct heirs and he might as well reconcile himself to that. He did not seem to take in what I said. He begged me to help him. And he begged me to be discreet. I promised. One of the last letters I had from him told me that if I ever heard news of his death, I must immediately sail for England and upon arriving take a good sized bag to 18 Dahlia Gardens, Willesden Green, North West London, and supply proof of my identity, whereupon I would take responsibility for the object most precious to the Mackelsworths. Whereupon I must return to Galveston with all possible speed. Moreover I must swear to keep the object identified with the family name forever.

"This I swore and only a couple of months later I read in the Galveston paper the news of the robbery. Not long after, there followed an account of poor Sir Geoffrey's suicide. There was nothing else I could do, Mr Holmes, but follow his instructions, as I had sworn I would. However I became convinced that Sir Geoffrey had scarcely been in his right mind at the end. I suspected he feared nothing less than murder. He spoke of people who would go to any lengths to possess the Fellini Silver. He did not care that the rest of his estate was mortgaged to the hilt or that he would die, effectively, a pauper. The Silver was of overweaning importance.That is why I suspect the robbery and his murder are connected."

"But the verdict was suicide," I said. "A note was found. The coroner was satisfied."

"The note was covered in blood was it not?" Holmes murmured from where he sat lounging back in his chair, his finger tips together upon his chin.

"I gather that was the case, Mr Holmes. But since no foul play was suspected, no investigation was made."

"I see. Pray continue, Mr Mackelsworth."

"Well, gentlemen, I've little to add. All I have is a nagging suspicion that something is wrong. I do not wish to be party to a crime, nor to hold back information of use to the police, but I am honour-bound to fulfil my pledge to my cousin. I came to you not necessarily to ask you to solve a crime, but to put my mind at rest if no crime were committed."

"A crime has already been committed, if Sir Geoffrey announced a burglary that did not happen. But it is not much of one, I'd agree. What did you want of us in particular, Mr Mackelsworth?"

"I was hoping you or Dr Watson might accompany me to the address – for a variety of obvious reasons. I am a law-abiding man, Mr Holmes and wish to remain so. There again, considerations of honour…"

"Quite so," interrupted Holmes. "Now, Mr Mackelsworth, tell us what you found at 18 Dahlia Gardens_, Willesden!"

"Well, it was a rather dingy house of a kind I'm completely unfamiliar with. All crowded along a little road about a quarter of a mile from the station. Not at all what I'd expected. Number 18 was dingier than the rest – a poor sort of a place altogether, with peeling paint, an overgrown yard, bulging garbage cans and all the kind of thing you expect to see in East Side New York, not in a suburb of London.

"All this notwithstanding, I found the dirty knocker and hammered upon the door until it was opened by a surprisingly attractive woman of what I should describe as the octoroon persuasion. A large woman, too, with long but surprisingly well-manicured hands. Indeed, she was impeccable in her appearance, in distinct contrast to her surroundings. She was expecting me. Her name was Mrs Gallibasta. I knew the name at once. Sir Geoffrey had often spoken of her, in terms of considerable affection and trust. She had been, she told me, Sir Geoffrey's housekeeper. He had enjoined her, before he died, to perform this last loyal deed for him. She handed me a note he had written to that effect. Here it is, Mr Holmes."

He reached across and gave it to my friend who studied it carefully. "You recognize the writing, of course?"

The American was in no doubt. "It is in the flowing, slightly erratic, masculine hand I recognize. As you can see, the note says that I must accept the family heirloom from Mrs Gallibasta and, in all secrecy, transport it to America, where it must remain in my charge until such time as the other "missing" Mackelsworth cousin was found. If he had male heirs, it must be passed on to one of them at my discretion. If no male heir can be found, it should be passed on to one of my daughters – I have no living sons on condition that they add the Mackelsworth name to their own. I understand, Mr Holmes, that to some extent I am betraying my trust. But I know so little of English society and customs. I have a strong sense of family and did not know I was related to such an illustrious line until Sir Geoffrey wrote and told me. Although we only corresponded, I feel obliged to carry out his last wishes. However, I am not so foolish as to believe I know exactly what I am doing and require guidance. I want to assure myself that no foul play has been involved and I know that, of all the men in England, you will not betray my secret."

"I am flattered by your presumption, Mr Macklesworth. Pray, could you tell me the date of the last letter you received from Sir Geoffrey?"

"It was undated, but I remember the post mark. It was the fifteenth day of June of this year."

"I see. And the date of Sir Geoffrey's death?"

"The thirteenth. I supposed him to have posted the letter before his death but it was not collected until afterward."

"A reasonable assumption. And you are very familiar, you say, with Sir Geoffrey's hand-writing."

"We corresponded for several years, Mr Holmes. The hand is identical. No forger, no matter how clever, could manage those idiosyncracies, those unpredictable lapses into barely readable words. But usually his hand was a fine, bold, idiosyncratic one. It was not a forgery, Mr Holmes. And neither was the note he left with his housekeeper."

"But you never met Sir Geoffrey?"

"Sadly, no. He spoke sometimes of coming out to ranch in Texas, but I believe other concerns took up his attention.

"Indeed, I knew him slightly some years ago, when we belonged to the same club. An artistic type, fond of Japanese prints and Scottish furniture. An affable, absent-minded fellow, rather retiring. Of a markedly gentle disposition. Too good for this world, as we used to say."

"When would that have been, Mr Holmes?" Our visitor leaned forward, showing considerable curiosity.

"Oh, about twenty years ago, when I was just starting in practice. I was able to provide some evidence in a case concerning a young friend of his who had got himself into trouble. He was gracious enough to believe I had been able to turn a good man back to a better path. I recall that he frequently showed genuine concern for the fate of his fellow creatures. He remained a confirmed bachelor, I understand. I was sorry to hear of the robbery. And then the poor man killed himself. I was a little surprised, but no foul play was suspected and I was involved in some rather difficult problems at the lime. A kindly sort of old-fashioned gentleman. The patron of many a destitute young artist. It was art, I gather, which largely reduced his fortune."

"He did not speak much of art to me, Mr Holmes. I fear he had changed considerably over the intervening years. The man I knew became increasingly nervous and given to what seemed somewhat irrational anxieties. It was to quell these anxieties that I agreed to carry out his request. I was, after all, the last of the Mackelsworths and obliged to accept certain responsibilities. I was honoured, Mr Holmes, by the responsibility, but disturbed by what was asked of me."

"You are clearly a man of profound common sense, Mr Mackelsworth, as well as a man of honour. I sympathize entirely with your predicament. You were right to come to us and we shall do all we can to help!"

The relief of the American's face was considerable. "Thank you, Mr Holmes. Thank you, Doctor Watson. I feel I can now act with some coherence."

"Sir Geoffrey had already mentioned his housekeeper, I take it?"

"He had sir, in nothing less than glowing terms. She had come to him about five years ago and had worked hard to try to put his affairs in order. If it were not for her, he said, he would have faced the bankruptcy court earlier. Indeed, he spoke so warmly of her that I will admit to the passing thought that well, sir, that they were…"

"I take your meaning, Mr Mackelsworth. It might also explain why your cousin never married. No doubt the class differences were insurmountable, if what we suspect were the case."

have no wish to impune the name of my relative, Mr Holmes."

"But we must look realistically at the problem, I think." Holmes gestured with his long hand. "I wonder if we might be permitted to see the statue you picked up today?"

"Certainly, sir. I fear the newspaper in which it was wrapped has come loose here and there – "

"Which is how I recognized the Fellini workmanship," said Holmes, his face becoming almost rapturous as the extraordinary figure was revealed. He reached to run his fingers over musculature which might have been living flesh in miniature, it was so perfect. The silver itself was vibrant with some inner energy and the gold chasing, the precious stones, all served to give the most wonderful impression of Perseus, a bloody sword in one hand, his shield on his arm, holding up the snake-crowned head which glared at us through sapphire eyes and threatened to turn us to stone!

"It is obvious why Sir Geoffrey, whose taste was so refined, would have wished this to remain in the family," I said. "Now I understand why he became so obsessed towards the end.Yet I would have thought he might have willed it to a museum or made a bequest – rather than go to such elaborate lengths to preserve it. It's something which the public deserves to see."

"I agree with you completely, sir. That is why I intend to have a special display room built for it in Galveston. But until that time, I was warned by both Sir Geoffrey and by Mrs Gallibasta, that news of its existence would bring immense problems – not so much from the police as from the other thieves who covet what is, perhaps, the world's finest single example of Florentine Renaissance silver. It must be worth thousands!

"I intend to insure it for a million dollars, when I get home," volunteered the Texan.

"Perhaps you would entrust the sculpture with us for the night and until tomorrow evening?" Holmes asked our visitor.

"Well, sir, as you know I am supposed to take the Arcadia back to New York. She sails tomorrow evening from Tilbury. She's one of the few steamers of her class leaving from London. If I delay, I shall have to go back via Liverpool."

"But you are prepared to do so, if necessary?"

"I cannot leave without the Silver, Mr Holmes. Therefore, while it remains in your possession, I shall have to stay," John Mackelsworth offered us a brief smile and the suggestion of a wink. "Besides, I have to say that the mystery of my cousin's death is of rather more concern than the mystery of his last wishes."

"Excellent, Mr Mackelsworth. I see we are of like mind. It will be a pleasure to put whatever talents I possess at your disposal. Sir Geoffrey resided, as I recall, in Oxfordshire."

"About ten miles from Oxford itself, he said. Near a pleasant little market town called Witney. The house is known as Cogges Old Manor and it was once the centre of a good-sized estate, including a working farm. But the land was sold and now only the house and grounds remain. They, too, of course, are up for sale by my cousin's creditors. Mrs Gallibasta said that she did not believe it would be long before someone bought the place. The nearest hamlet is High Cogges. The nearest railway station is at South Leigh, about a mile distant. I know the place as if it were my own, Mr Holmes, Sir Geoffrey's descriptions were so vivid."

"Indeed! Did you, by the by, contact him originally?"

"No, sir! Sir Geoffrey had an interest in heraldry and lineage. In attempting to trace the descendants of Sir Robert Mackelsworth, our mutual great-grandfather, he came across my name and wrote to me. Until that time I had no idea I was so closely related to the English aristocracy! For a while Sir Geoffrey spoke of my inheriting the title – but I am a convinced republican. We don't go much for titles and such in Texas – not unless they are earned!"

"You told him you were not interested in inheriting the title?"

"I had no wish to inherit anything, sir." John Mackelworth rose to leave. "I merely enjoyed the correspondence. I became concerned when his letters grew increasingly more anxious and rambling and he began to speak of suicide."

"Yet still you suspect murder?"

"I do, sir. Put it down to an instinct for the truth – or an overwrought imagination. It is up to you!"

"I suspect it is the former, Mr Mackelsworth. I shall see you here again tomorrow evening. Until then, goodnight."

We shook hands.

"Goodnight, gentlemen. I shall sleep easy tonight, for the first time in months." And with that our Texan visitor departed.

"What do you make of it,Watson?" Holmes asked, as he reached for his long-stemmed clay pipe and filled it with tobacco from the slipper he had brought with him. "Do you think our Mr Mackelsworth is 'the real article' as his compatriots would say?"

"I was very favourably impressed, Holmes. But I do believe he has been duped into involving himself in an adventure which, if he obeyed his own honest instincts, he would never have considered. I do not believe that Sir Geoffrey was everything he claimed to be. Perhaps he was when you knew him, Holmes, but since then he has clearly degenerated. He keeps an octoroon mistress, gets heavily into debt and then plans to steal his own treasure in order to preserve it from creditors. He involves our decent Texan friend, conjuring up family ties and knowing how important such things are to Southerners. Then, I surmise, he conspires with his housekeeper to fake his own death."

"And gives his treasure up to his cousin"? Why would he do that, Watson?"

"He's using Mackelsworth to transport it to America, where he plans to sell it."

"Because he doesn't want to be identified with it, or caught with it. Whereas Mr Mackelsworth is so manifestly innocent he is the perfect one to carry the Silver to Galveston. Well, Watson, it's not a bad theory and I suspect much of it is relevant."

"But you know something else?"

"Just a feeling, really. I believe that Sir Geoffrey is dead. I read the coroner's report. He blew his brains out, Watson. That was why there was so much blood on the suicide note. If he planned a crime, he did not live to complete it."

"So the housekeeper decided to continue with the plan?" "There's only one flaw there, Watson. Sir Geoffrey appears to have anticipated his own suicide and left instructions with

her. Mr Mackelsworth identified the handwriting. I read the note myself. Mr Macklesworth has corresponded with Sir Geoffrey for years. He confirmed that the note was was clearly Sir Geoffrey's."

"So the housekeeper is also innocent. We must look for a third party."

"We must take an expedition into the countryside, Watson." Holmes was already consulting his Bradshaw's. "There's a train from Paddington in the morning which will involve a change at Oxford and will get us to South Leigh before lunch. Can your patient resist the lure of motherhood for another day or so, Watson?"

"Happily there's every indication that she is determined to enjoy an elephantine confinement."

"Good, then tomorrow we shall please Mrs Hudson by sampling the fresh air and simple fare of the English countryside."

And with that my friend, who was in high spirits at the prospect of setting that fine mind to something worthy of it, sat back in his chair, took a deep draft of his pipe, and closed his eyes.

We could not have picked a better day for our expedition. While still warm, the air had a balmy quality to it and even before we had reached Oxford we could smell the delicious richness of an early English autumn. Everywhere the corn had been harvested and the hedgerows were full of colour. Thatch and slate slid past our window which looked out to what was best in an England whose people had built to the natural roll of the land and planted with an instinctive eye for beauty as well as practicality. This was what I had missed in Afghanistan and what Holmes had missed in Tibet, when he had learned so many things at the feet of the High Lama himself. Nothing ever compensated, in my opinion, for the wealth and variety of the typical English country landscape.

In no time we were at South Leigh station and able to hire a pony-cart with which to drive ourselves up the road to High Cogges. We made our way through winding lanes, between tall hedges, enjoying the sultry tranquillity of a day whose silence was broken only by the sound of bird-song and the occasional lowing of a cow.

We drove through the hamlet, which was served by a Norman church and a grocer's shop which also acted as the local post office. High Cogges itself was reached by a rough lane, little more than a farm track leading past some picturesque farm cottages with thatched roofs, which seemed to have been there since the beginning of time and were thickly covered with roses and honeysuckle, a rather vulgar modern house whose owner had made a number of hideous additions in the popular taste of the day, a farmhouse and outbuildings of the warm, local stone which seemed to have grown from out of the landscape as naturally as the spinney and orchard behind it, and then we had arrived at the locked gates of Cogges Old Manor which bore an air of neglect. It seemed to me that it had been many years since the place had been properly cared for.

True to form, my friend began exploring and had soon discovered a gap in a wall through which we could squeeze in order to explore the grounds.These were little more than a good-sized lawn, some shrubberies and dilapidated greenhouses, an abandoned stables, various other sheds, and a workshop which was in surprisingly neat order. This, Holmes told me, was where Sir Geoffrey had died. It had been thoroughly cleaned. He had placed his gun in a vice and shot himself through the mouth. At the inquest, his housekeeper, who had clearly been devoted to him, had spoken of his money worries, his fears that he had dishonoured the family name. The scrawled note had been soaked in blood and only partially legible, but it was clearly his.

"There was no hint of foul play, you see, Watson. Everyone knew that Sir Geoffrey led the Bohemian life until he settled here. He had squandered the family fortune, largely on artists and their work. No doubt some of his many modern canvasses would become valuable, at least to someone, but at present the artists he had patronized had yet to realize any material value. I have the impression that half the denizens of the Café Royal depended on the Mackelsworth millions until they finally dried up. I also believe that Sir Geoffrey was either distracted in his last years, or depressed. Possibly both. I think we must make an effort to interview Mrs Gallibasta. First, however, let's visit the post office – the source of all wisdom in these little communities."

The post office-general store was a converted thatched cottage, with a white picket fence and a display of early September flowers which would not have been out of place in a painting. Within the cool shade of the shop, full of every possible item a local person might require, from books to boiled sweets, we were greeted by the proprietress whose name over her doorway we had already noted.

Mrs Beck was a plump, pink woman in plain prints and a starched pinafore, with humorous eyes and a slight pursing of the mouth which suggested a conflict between a natural warmth and a slightly censorious temperament. Indeed, this is exactly what we discovered. She had known both Sir Geoffrey and Mrs Gallibasta. She had been on good terms with a number of the servants, she said, although one by one they had left and had not been replaced.

"There was talk, gentlemen, that the poor gentleman was next to destitute and couldn't afford new servants. But he was never behind with the wages and those who worked for him were loyal enough. Especially his housekeeper. She had an odd, distant sort of air, but there's no question she looked after him well and since his prospects were already known, she didn't seem to be hanging around waiting for his money."

"Yet you were not fond of the woman?" murmured Holmes, his eyes studying an advertisement for toffee.

"I will admit that I found her a little strange, sir. She was a foreign woman, Spanish I think. It wasn't her gypsy looks that bothered me, but I never could get on with her. She was always very polite and pleasant in her conversation. I saw her almost every day, too – though never in church. She'd come in here to pick up whatever small necessities they needed. She always paid cash and never asked for credit. Though I had no love for her, it seemed that she was supporting Sir Geoffrey, not the other way around. Some said she had a temper to her and that once she had taken a rake to an under-footman, but I saw no evidence of it. She'd spend a few minutes chatting with me, sometimes purchase a newspaper, collect whatever mail there was and walk back up the lane to the manor. Rain or shine, sir, she'd be here. A big, healthy woman she was. She'd joke about what a handful it all was, him and the estate, but she didn't seem to mind. I only knew one odd thing about her. When she was sick, no matter how sick she became, she always refused a doctor. She had a blind terror of the medical profession, sir. The very suggestion of calling Doctor Shapiro would send her into screaming insistence that she needed no 'sawbones'. Otherwise, she was what Sir Geoffrey needed, him being so gentle and strange and with his head in the clouds. He was like that since a boy."

"But given to irrational fears and notions, I gather?"

"Not so far as I ever observed, sir. He never seemed to change. She was the funny one. Though he stayed at the house for the past several years and I only saw him occasionally. But when I did he was his usual sunny self."

"That's most interesting, Mrs Beck. I am grateful to you. I think I will have a quarter-pound of your best bullseyes, if you please. Oh, I forgot to ask. Do you remember Sir Geoffrey receiving any letters from America?"

"Oh, yes, sir. Frequently. He looked forward to them, she said. I remember the envelope and the stamps. It was almost his only regular correspondent."

"And Sir Geoffrey sent his replies from here?"

"I wouldn't know that, sir. The mail's collected from a pillar-box near the station. You'll see it, if you're going back that way."

"Mrs Gallibasta, I believe, has left the neighbourhood."

"Not two weeks since, sir. My son carried her boxes to the station for her. She took all her things. He mentioned how heavy her luggage was. He said if he hadn't attended Sir Geoffrey's service at St James's himself he'd have thought she had him in her trunk. If you'll pardon the levity, sir."

"I am greatly obliged to you, Mrs Beck." The detective lifted his hat and bowed. I recognized Holmes's brisk, excited mood. He was on a trail now and had scented some form of quarry. As we left, he murmured: "I must go round to 221b as soon as we get back and look in my early files."

As I drove the dog-cart-back to the station, Holmes scarcely spoke a further word. He was lost in thought all the way back to London. I was used to my friend's moods and habits and was content to let that brilliant mind exercise itself while I gave myself up to the world's concerns in the morning's Telegraph.

sandwiches, small savouries, scones and cakes. The tea was my favourite Darjeeling, whose delicate flavour is best appreciated at that time in the afternoon, and even Holmes remarked that we might be guests at Sinclair's or the Grosvenor.

Our ritual was overseen by the splendid Fellini Silver which, perhaps to catch the best of the light, Holmes had placed in our sitting-room window, looking out to the street. It was as if we ate our tea in the presence of an angel. Mr Mackelsworth balanced his plate on his knee wearing an expression of delight. "I have heard of this ceremony, gentlemen, but never expected to be taking part in a High Tea with Mr Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson!"

"Indeed, you are doing no such thing, sir," Holmes said gently. "It is a common misconception, I gather, among our American cousins that High- and Afternoon- tea are the same thing. They are very different meals, taken at quite different times. High Tea was in my day only eaten at certain seats of learning, and was a hot, early supper. The same kind of supper, served in a nursery, has of late been known as High Tea. Afternoon-tea, which consists of a conventional cold sandwich selection, sometimes with scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam, is eaten by adults, generally at four o'clock. High Tea, by and large, is eaten by children at six o'clock. The sausage was always very evident at such meals when I was young." Holmes appeared to shudder subtly.

"I stand corrected and instructed, sir," said the Texan jovially, and waved a delicate sandwich by way of emphasis. Whereupon all three of us broke into laughter – Holmes at his own pedantry and Mr Macklesworth almost by way of relief from the weighty matters on his mind.

"Did you discover any clues to the mystery in High Cogges?" our guest wished to know

"Oh, indeed, Mr Macklesworth," said Holmes, "I have one or two things to verify, but think the case is solved." He chuckled again, this time at the expression of delighted astonishment on the American's face.

"Solved, Mr Holmes?"

"Solved, Mr Macklesworth, but not proven. Doctor Watson, as usual, contributed greatly to my deductions. It was you, Watson, who suggested the motive for involving this gentleman in what, I believe, was a frightful and utterly cold-blooded crime."

"So I was right, Mr Holmes! Sir Geoffrey was murdered!" "Murdered or driven to self-murder, Mr Macklesworth, it is scarcely material."

"You know the culprit, sir?

"I believe I do. Pray, Mr Mackleworth," now Holmes pulled a piece of yellowed paper from an inner pocket, "would you look at this? I took it from my files on the way here and apologize for its somewhat dusty condition."

Frowning slightly, the Texan accepted the folded paper and then scratched his head in some puzzlement, reading aloud. "My dear Holmes, Thank you so much for your generous assistance in the recent business concerning my young painter friend… Needless to say, I remain permanently in your debt. Yours very sincerely…" He looked up in some confusion. "The notepaper is unfamiliar to me, Mr Holmes. Doubtless the Athenaeum is one of your clubs. But the signature is false."

"I had an idea you might determine that, sir," said Holmes, taking the paper from our guest. Far from being discommoded by the information, he seemed satisfied by it. I wondered how far back the roots of this crime were to be found. "Now, before I explain further, I feel a need to demonstrate something. I wonder if you would be good enough to write a note to Mrs Gallibasta in Willesden. I would like you to tell her that you have changed your mind about returning to the United States and have decided to live in England for a time. Meanwhile, you intend to place the Fellini Silver in a bank vault until you go back to the United States, whereupon you are considering taking legal advice as to what to do with the statue."

"If I did that, Mr Holmes, I would not be honouring my vow to my cousin. And I would be telling a lie to a lady."

"Believe me, Mr Mackelsworth if I assure you, with all emphasis, that you will not be breaking a promise to your cousin and you will not be telling a lie to a lady. Indeed, you will be doing Sir Geoffrey Mackelsworth and, I hope, both our great nations, an important service if you follow my instructions."

"Very well, Mr Holmes," said Macklesworth, firming his jaw and adopting a serious expression, "if that's your word, I'm ready to go along with whatever you ask."

"Good man, Mackelsworth!" Sherlock Holmes's lips were drawn back a little from his teeth, rather like a wolf which sees its prey finally become vulnerable. "By the by, have you ever heard in your country of a creature known as 'Little Peter' or sometimes 'French Pete'?"

"Certainly I have. He was a popular subject in the sensational press and remains so to this day. He operated out of New Orleans about a decade ago. Jean 'Petit Pierre' Fromental. An entertainer of some sort. He was part Arcadian and, some said, part Cree. A powerful, handsome man. He was famous for a series of particularly vicious murders of well-known dignitaries in the private rooms of those establishments for which Picayune is famous. A woman accomplice was also involved. She was said to have lured the men to their deaths. Fromental was captured eventually but the woman was never arrested. Some believe it was she who helped him escape when he did. As I remember, Mr Holmes, Fromental was never caught. Was there not some evidence that he, in turn, had been murdered by a woman? Do you think Fromental and Sir Geoffrey were both victims of the same murderess?"

"In a sense, Mr Mackelsworth. As I said, I am reluctant to give you my whole theory until I have put some of it to the test. But none of this is the work of a woman, that I can assure you Will you do as I say?"

"Count on me, Mr Holmes. I will compose the telegram now."

When Mr Macklesworth had left our rooms, I turned to Holmes, hoping for a little further illumination, but he was nursing his solution to him as if it were a favourite child. The expression on his face was extremely irritating to me. "Come, Holmes, this won't do! You say I helped solve the problem, yet you'll give me no hint as to the solution. Mrs Gallibasta is not the murderess, yet you say a murder is most likely involved. My theory – that Sir Geoffrey had the Silver spirited away and then killed himself so that he would not be committing a crime, as he would if he had been bankrupted – seems to confirm this. His handwriting has identified him as the author of letters claiming Mr Macklesworth as a relative – Macklesworth had nothing to do with that – and then suddenly you speak of some Louisiana desperado known as 'Little Pierre', who seems to be your main suspect until Mr Macklesworth revealed that he was dead."

"I agree with you, Watson, that it seems very confusing. I hope for illumination tonight. Do you have your revolver with you, old friend?"

"I am not in the habit of carrying a gun about, Holmes."

At this, Sherlock Holmes crossed the room and produced a large shoe-box which he had also brought from 221b that afternoon. From it he produced two modern Webley revolvers and a box of ammunition. "We may need these to defend our lives,Watson.We are dealing with a master criminal intelligence. An intelligence both patient and calculating, who has planned this crime over many years and now believes there is some chance of being thwarted."

"You think Mrs Gallibasta is in league with him and will warn him when the telegram arrives?"

"Let us just say, Watson, that we must expect a visitor tonight. That is why the Fellini Silver stands in our window, to be recognized by anyone who is familiar with it."

I told my friend that at my age and station I was losing patience for this kind of charade, but reluctantly I agreed to position myself where he instructed and, taking a firm grip on my revolver, settled down for the night.

The night was almost as sultry as the day and I was beginning to wish that I had availed myself of lighter clothing and a glass of water when I heard a strange, scraping noise from somewhere in the street and risked a glance down from where I stood behind the curtain. I was astonished to see a figure, careless of any observer, yet fully visible in the yellow light of the lamps, climbing rapidly up the wisteria vine!

Within seconds the man – for man it was, and a gigantic individual, at that – had slipped a knife from his belt and was opening the catch on the window in which the Fellini Silver still sat. It was all I could do to hold my position. I feared the fellow would grasp the statue and take it out with him. But then common sense told me that, unless he planned to lower it from the window, he must come in and attempt to leave by the stairs.

The audacious burglar remained careless of onlookers, as if his goal so filled his mind that he was oblivious to all other considerations. I caught a glimpse of his features in the lamplight. He had thick, wavy hair tied back in a bandanna, a couple

of day's stubble on his chin and dark, almost negroid skin I guessed at once that he was a relative of Mrs Gallibasta.

Then he had snapped back the catch of the window and I heard his breath hissing from his lips as he raised the sash and slipped inside.

The next moment Holmes emerged from his hiding place and levelled the revolver at the man who turned with the blazing eyes of a trapped beast, knife in hand, seeking escape.

"There is a loaded revolver levelled at your head, man," said Holmes evenly, "and you would be wise to drop that knife and give yourself up!"

With a wordless snarl, the intruder flung himself towards the Silver, placing it between himself and our guns. "Shoot if you dare!" he cried. "You will be destroying more than my unworthy life! You will be destroying everything you have conspired to preserve! I underestimated you, Macklesworth. I thought you were an easy dupe – dazzled by the notion of being related to a knight of the realm, with whom you had an intimate correspondence! I worked for years to discover everything I could about you. You seemed perfect. You were willing to do anything, so long as it was described as a matter of family honour. Oh, how I planned! How I held myself in check! How patient I was. How noble in all my deeds! All so that I would one day own not merely that fool Geoffrey's money, but also his most prized treasure! I had his love – but I wanted everything else besides!"

It was then I realized suddenly what Holmes had been telling me. I almost gasped aloud as I understood the truth of the situation!

At that moment I saw a flash of silver and heard the sickening sound of steel entering flesh. Holmes fell back, his pistol dropping from his hand and with a cry of rage I discharged my own revolver, careless of Fellini or his art, in my belief that my friend was once again to be taken from me – this time before my eyes.

I saw Jean-Pierre Fromental, alias Linda Gallibasta, fall backwards, arms raised, and crash through the window by which he had entered. With a terrible cry he staggered, flailed at the air, then fell into an appalling silence.

At that moment, the door burst open and in came John Mackelsworth, closely followed by our old friend Inspector Lestrade, Mrs Beck and one or two other tenants of 2 Dorset Street.

"It's all right, Watson," I heard Holmes say, a little faintly. "Only a flesh wound. It was foolish of me not to think he could throw a Bowie-knife! Get down there, Lestrade, and see what you can do. I'd hoped to take him alive. It could be the only way we'll be able to locate the money he has been stealing from his benefactor over all these years. Good night to you, Mr Mackelesworth. I had hoped to convince you of my solution, but I had not expected to suffer quite so much injury in the performance." His smile was faint and his eyes were flooded with pain.

Luckily, I was able to reach my friend before he collapsed upon my arm and allowed me to lead him to a chair, where I took a look at the wound. The knife had stuck in his shoulder and, as Holmes knew, had done no permanent damage, but I did not envy him the discomfort he was suffering.

Poor Macklesworth was completely stunned. His entire notion of things had been turned topsy-turvy and he was having difficulty taking everything in. After dressing Holmes's wound, I told Macklesworth to sit down while I fetched everyone a brandy. Both the American and myself were bursting to learn everything Holmes had deduced, but contained ourselves until my friend would be in better health. Now that the initial shock was over, however, he was in high spirits and greatly amused by our expressions.

"Your explanation was ingenious, Watson, and touched on the truth, but I fear it was not the answer. If you will kindly look in my inside jacket pocket, you will find two pieces of paper there. Would you be good enough to draw them out so that we might all see them?"

I did as my friend instructed. One piece contained the last letter Sir Geoffrey had written to John Macklesworth and, ostensibly, left with Mrs Gallibasta. The other, far older, contained the letter John Macklesworth had read out earlier that day. Although there was a slight similarity to the handwriting, they were clearly by different authors.

"You said this was the forgery," said Holmes, holding up the letter in his left hand, "but unfortunately it was not. It is

probably the only example of Sir Geoffrey's handwriting you have ever seen, Mr Mackelsworth."

"You mean he dictated everything to his – to that devil?"

"I doubt, Mr Mackelsworth, that your namesake had ever heard of your existence."

"He could not write to a man he had never heard of, Mr Holmes!"

"Your correspondence, my dear sir, was not with Sir Geoffrey at all, but with the man who lies on the pavement down there. His name, as Doctor Watson has already deduced, is Jean-Pierre Fromental. No doubt he fled to England after the Picayune murders and got in with the Bohemian crowd surrounding Lord Alfred Douglas and others, eventually finding exactly the kind of dupe he was looking for. It is possible he kept his persona of Linda Gallibasta all along. Certainly that would explain why he became so terrified at the thought of being examined by a doctor – you'll recall the postmistresses words. It is hard to know if he was permanently dressing as a woman – that, after all, is how he had lured his Louisiana victims to their deaths and whether Sir Geoffrey knew much about him, but clearly he made himself invaluable to his employer and was able, bit by bit, to salt away the remains of the Mackelsworth fortune. But what he really craved, was the Fellini Silver, and that was when he determined the course of action which led to his calculating deception of you, Mr Mackelsworth. He needed a namesake living not far from New Orleans. As an added insurance he invented another cousin. By the simple device of writing to you on Sir Geoffrey's stationery he built up an entire series of lies, each of which had the appearance of verifying the other. Because, as Linda Gallibasta, he always collected the mail, Sir Geoffrey was never once aware of the deception."

It was John Macklesworth's turn to sit down suddenly as realization dawned. "Good heavens, Mr Holmes. Now I understand!"

"Fromental wanted the Fellini Silver. He became obsessed with the notion of owning it. But he knew that if he stole it there was little chance of his ever getting it out of the country. He needed a dupe. That dupe was you, Mr Macklesworth. I regret that you are probably not a cousin of the murdered man. Neither did Sir Geoffrey fear for his Silver. He appears quite reconciled to his poverty and had long since assured that the Fellini Silver would remain in trust for his family or the public forever. In respect of the Silver he was sheltered from all debt by a special covenant with Parliament. There was never a danger of the piece going to his creditors. There was, of course, no way, in those circumstances, that Fromental could get the Silver for himself. He had to engineer first a burglary – and then a murder, which looked like a consequence of that burglary. The suicide note was a forgery, but hard to decipher. His plan was to use your honesty and decency, Mr Macklesworth, to carry the Silver through to America. Then he planned to obtain it from you by any means he found necessary."

Macklesworth shuddered. "I am very glad I found you, Mr Holmes. If I had not, by coincidence, chosen rooms in Dorset Street, I would even now be conspiring to further that villain's ends!"

"As, it seems, did Sir Geoffrey. For years he trusted Fromental. He appears to have doted on him, indeed. He was blind to the fact that his estate was being stripped of its remaining assets. He put everything down to his own bad judgement and thanked Fromental for helping him! Fromental had no difficulty, of course, in murdering Sir Geoffrey when the time came. It must have been hideously simple. That suicide note was the only forgery, as such, in the case, gentlemen. Unless, of course, you count the murderer himself."

Once again, the world had been made a safer and saner place by the astonishing deductive powers of my friend Sherlock Holmes.

Postscript

And that was the end of the Dorset Street affair. The Fellini Silver was taken by the Victoria and Albert Museum who, for some years, kept it in the special "Macklesworth"Wing before it was transferred, by agreement, to the Sir John Soane Museum. There the Macklesworth name lives on. John Macklesworth returned to America a poorer and wiser man. Fromental died in hospital, without revealing the whereabouts of his stolen fortune, but happily a bank book was found at Willesden and the money was distributed amongst Sir Geoffrey's creditors, so that the

house did not have to be sold. It is now in the possession of a genuine Macklesworth cousin. Life soon settled back to normal and it was with some regret that we eventually left Dorset Street to take up residence again at 221b. I have occasion, even today, to pass that pleasant house and recall with a certain nostalgia the few days when it had been the focus of an extraordinary adventure.

The Mystery of the Addleton Curse – Barrie Roberts

At the start of "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez," which took place in November 1894, Watson refers to his three massive manuscript volumes covering the cases of 1894, and he lists five other cases in addition to the six that had already happened in the first half of the year. Four of those cases tumbled one on top of each other during October and early November, and I present them here without interruption. I must thank the individuals who helped reconstruct these cases.

Barrie Roberts, the tireless delver into matters Sherlockian, spent many years tracking down the clues that allowed him to rebuild the case of the Addleton tragedy. Robert Weinberg is an American bookdealer, collector and writer who has a remarkable talent for finding obscure papers and records. He acquired a batch of notes some years ago and amongst these were early scribblings by Watson on a number of incidental cases, which he later wrote up but did not publish. One of these was the case of Huret the Boulevard assassin, which Mr Weinberg was able to complete with the assistance of Lois Gresh. Stephen Baxter, is a well-known science-fiction writer. His investigations into the early life of H.G. Wells identified the clues that allowed us to reconstruct the forgotten "Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor". Alert readers will find a passing reference to a red leech suggesting that this story may be the one Watson refers to under that name although, as we shall see, there is another story by that title. Finally Peter Crowther, who hails from Yorkshire, had some remarkable luck only recently in some research he was undertaking for a book on angels, when he came across some old records which enabled him to piece together the case of Crosby the Banker.

It is to the very great credit of my friend Mr Sherlock Holmes that his willingness to enter into an enquiry was never motivated by financial considerations. Indeed, I saw him often reject the possibility of large fees in cases which did not arouse his interest and at least as often I witnessed his involvement for no fee in matters which stimulated his curiosity and offered him the opportunity to pit his logical processes against some complicated pattern of events.

I have remarked elsewhere that 1894 was a busy year for Holmes, my notes of cases filling three large volumes, yet even in that year he took up an enquiry from which he had no hope of profit.

We sat at breakfast one morning that autumn, reading our way slowly through the many daily papers to which Holmes subscribed.

"Did you not say", he asked suddenly, "that your friend Stamford was treating Sir Andrew Lewis?"

"Yes", I said, "Stamford told me that he had had to call in Sir William Greedon and even that eminent gentleman was baffled by the symptoms."

"Really!" said Holmes. "Do you recall what they were?"

I cast my mind back to the conversation I had had with Stamford over a game of billiards a couple of weeks previously.

"Apparently Sir Andrew was the victim of a general debility with lesions of the skin, headaches, fainting spells, loss of hair, attacks of vomiting. In addition the poor fellow's mind seems to have been affected – he believed he was the victim of a curse."

"And what did Stamford believe it was?"

"He admitted to me that he hadn't the least notion. Greedon believed it was some obscure tropical disease that Sir Andrew picked up during his work abroad. Apparently Lewis's son died in his twenties of something similar, though it took him more swiftly. Greedon thought that they had both been infected abroad and that the son, having caught the disease as a child, was more vulnerable. Why do you ask?"

"Because", Holmes replied, "the combination of Stamford and Sir William Greedon has failed to save Lewis. His obituary appears this morning," and he passed me his newspaper.

The article recited the dead man's academic honours and titles, described some of his more famous archaeological explorations and listed the many museums which displayed items that he had discovered. It referred to the controversy which had clouded his career and caused him to withdraw from public life in recent years.

"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed as I drew towards the end of the article, "Perhaps he was the victim of a course."

"Why do you say so?" asked Holmes, raising one eyebrow. "Because it is suggested here," I said, "Listen," and I read him the relevant passage:

The accusation concerned his conduct during the excavation of an allegedly cursed barrow at Addleton, and must have been the more painful for coming at the time of his son's death. Sir Andrew made no defence against his attacker, save to state that he acted honourably at Addleton. Fellow archaeologists were unanimous in decrying the attack, but Sir Andrew evidently felt it very deeply, for he took no further part in any excavation, confining himself to writing a definitive series of papers and presenting occasional lectures. The shadow which he at least, perceived as clouding his career now followed by his death from a condition which has defeated the best medical brains in Britain might perhaps encourage the villagers of Addleton to believe that their barrow was truly cursed. Sir Andrew leaves one unmarried daughter.

"That", said Holmes, emphatically, "is journalism of a kind that one would hope not to find in an allegedly responsible paper. As to the accusation against Lewis, it was brought by his assistant on the Addleton excavation, one Edgar. He published a letter which raised what he claimed was a mysterious difference between the curious decorations on a sealed container found in the barrow and its contents which, though valuable, were in no way unusual. He contrived to imply, without saying so, that a valuable item had been removed from the container overnight, after it had been discovered and before it had been taken from the excavation."

"As you have read," he continued, "the academic world was outraged and supported Lewis to a man. Edgar's own career certainly suffered. He was well thought of until the Addleton affair but is now, I believe, a lecturer at a suburban institute." We returned to our newspapers. Holmes was now into the more popular papers, which he read closely for their reports of crimes and accounts of Police Court proceedings. As he finished one he passed it to me and I was turning to the racing page when a heading caught my eye:

the addleton curse death of eminent archaeologist

I started the article out of idle curiosity, but as I read on I became more engrossed.

"Stamford should read this," I said, when I had done.

"Really," said Holmes, in a voice that suggested a total lack of interest.

"Yes," I persisted. "Do you know what it says here?"

My friend sighed and laid down the Police Gazette. "No doubt you are going to tell me, eh Watson?"

"This article", I said, "states that the Addleton barrow had been the subject of evil legends as long as anyone can recall. It stood on Addleton Moor, surrounded by many smaller burial mounds. It seems that light falls of snow never covered it and even in the hardest winter the snow always melted on that barrow first. The locals called it the "Black Barrow" because the grass would not grow on it."

"Watson," interrupted Holmes, "the grave on which the snow melts soonest and where the grass will not grow is a

commonplace of rural legend. Half the country churchyards in Britain claim such a grave."

"I know," I said, "but that's not the interesting part. They say here that after Sir Andrew Lewis opened the barrow the village of Addleton was struck by a strange disease. It's symptoms were similar to Sir Andrew's but it was not always fatal. Since then the area has suffered many stillborn children and numbers of deformities. The villagers insist that it resulted from Lewis tampering with the Black Barrow. What do you say to that Holmes?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Sadly, that is not the most reliable of our public prints, but if its report is true then the matter is a singular one. What is your medical opinion, Watson?"

"Perhaps Greedon was right. Maybe Sir Andrew picked up something peculiar during his years in Egypt and passed it on to the people at Addleton. Maybe it's hereditary. Lewis's son died of it. It could be that his father acquired the infection before his son's birth. Perhaps it's one of those unpleasant diseases that can lie dormant for years and then become active."

"Perhaps so," he said. "Watson, be a good fellow and pass me my writing case will you?"

He busied himself with a letter and I believed that the Addleton affair had passed from his mind until he reverted to it at breakfast a couple of days later.

"Do you recall our conversation about the death of Sir Andrew Lewis?" he asked.

"Certainly," I replied.

Holmes lifted a letter from beside his plate. "The press accounts of the affair excited my curiosity," he said, "to the extent that I dropped a line to the County Officer of Health."

"Did you indeed? And what does he have to say?"

Holmes referred to the letter. "While deploring any attempt to suggest that a curse is at work, he confirms that, in the year following Sir Andrew's excavation of the Black Barrow, the village of Addleton suffered a number of deaths from what appeared to be an obscure form of anaemia and a number of stillbirths and deformed births. He suggests that there is no connection between these misfortunes and the archaeological expedition and that the source of the problem may be some effect of the local water supply."

"And what do you believe?" I asked.

"My disbelief in curses is only matched by my disbelief in coincidences. Those who have most occasion to be concerned – the people of Addleton – associate their tragedies with Sir Andrew's excavation. They may be wrong in believing that one is the cause of the other, but that does not mean that there is not a link between the two phenomena. As to the water supply, Addleton stands in a valley surrounded by hills of limestone. In such areas the water is famously pure. One recalls that the villages of south Derbyshire hold ceremonies every summer to celebrate the purity of their limestone streams which, they believe, saved them from the Great Plague."

"And have you any alternative explanation?" I enquired.

"It is far too early for that," he replied. "It would be a serious error to attempt an explanation when we have so little data. Our next effort must be to acquire further information so that the full pattern of these curious events reveals itself."

It was the afternoon of the following day when he enquired, "Have you any engagement this evening, Watson?" When I replied in the negative he said "I thought we might take in this evening's lecture at the Aldridge Institute. Mr Edgar, of Addleton fame, is lecturing on 'The Stones and the Stars', apparently a dissertation on Sir Norman Lockyer's theory that ancient religious monuments were constructed in relation to the movements of heavenly bodies."

The Institute turned out to be in a remote part of south London and Mr Edgar's lecture was not well attended. Nevertheless it was an interesting evening. Edgar was a man of about forty, with the long hair of a scholar and owlish spectacles that imparted a solemn aspect to his face though his lecture revealed a ready wit. His lantern slides, from photographs which he himself had taken, were not only informative but in some cases strikingly attractive. I recall particularly a picture of the great trilithon at Stonehenge lit from behind by the rising sun of midwinter. His arguments in favour of Lockyer's theory, though complex, were lucidly explained for a lay audience and convincing.

As the small audience trickled out at the lecture's end Holmes rose and approached Edgar who was giving some instruction to the lantern operator.

"We have enjoyed your talk," said Holmes,

"Thankyou, gentlemen," said the lecturer, "but I hope you are not journalists."

"Why should you think so?" asked Holmes.

"Because I have received a deal of attention from that profession since the death of Sir Andrew Lewis, and I have nothing to say to the press."

"You may be assured that we are not journalists," said my friend. "I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my colleague, Dr Watson."

The lecturer's eyes widened behind his round spectacles. "The consulting detective!" he exclaimed, "What, may I ask, is your interest in archaeology?"

"You may have read", said Holmes, "my papers on 'Logical Deductions from Strata' and 'Early English Charters as a Guide to the Keltic Principalities', though they were not published under my own name, but it is not those that bring us here. I would welcome your assistance in my enquiries into the death of Sir Andrew Lewis."

"The death of Sir Andrew!" repeated Edgar. "Surely it is not thought that…"

Holmes raised a hand. "No, Mr Edgar. This is not a matter of murder. Sir Andrew, so far as anyone can tell, died naturally, but the manner of his death bears a strange similarity to the deaths and sicknesses that struck Addleton after the opening of the 'Black Barrow'."

"You believe in the so-called Curse of Addleton, then?" asked Edgar.

"Certainly not," said Holmes, "but I have reliable information that the village has suffered a strange disease since the excavation and it would be in the interest of Addleton's people to determine the cause."

"I know nothing of medicine, Mr Holmes. How can I help you?"

"Simply by telling me what you recall of the excavation at Addleton Moor," said Holmes.

The archaeologist began packing his lantern-slides away in their long wooden cases, while he spoke.

"It was a favourite project of Sir Andrew's," he began. "As a student he had been on Addleton Moor and seen that snow did not lie on the Black Barrow and grass did not grow upon it. He did not, of course, believe in the Curse, but he did believe that there was something unique about that barrow."

"So we went up there, that summer ten years ago, to see what we could find. The weather was fair and Addleton is a pretty village, but I tell you Mr Holmes, before we'd been there long I could have believed in the curse."

"Why was that?" asked Holmes.

Edgar indicated his slides. "One of my functions", he said, "was to take photographs for Sir Andrew. I had no difficulty taking pictures of the Moor, of the other tumuli upon it or anything except the Black Barrow. On the first day I took a group of all the party standing by the barrow. It did not come out. I thought it to be merely a faulty plate, as all my other pictures that day were successful, but, as the excavation progressed, I found that every single plate of the barrow failed."

"In what way?" asked Holmes.

"They were all fogged, Mr Holmes. Every one. I could have a bright, sunny day, an exposure timed to the second, and the picture would come out looking as if it had been taken in a London pea-souper."

"Have you any idea of the cause?" Holmes enquired.

"None whatsoever. It went on for days and then it ended as mysteriously as it began."

"It ended!" exclaimed Holmes.

"Oh yes," said Edgar. "I have pictures of the barrow. Suddenly the fogging was gone and everything was all right. I never knew what caused it."

"You hinted," said Holmes, "that there were other difficulties." "There were indeed," said Edgar. "In the early stages Sir

Andrew and several other members of the party became ill." "With what?" I asked.

"Nothing the village doctor could put a name to. There was sickness and itchiness. At first we tended to blame the beds or the food at the inns, but they were two different pubs at opposite ends of Addleton. Then people started saying it was some disease of the local cows or sheep, but that was madness, just the irritability of fellows who were not up to par. Then that passed off, just like my photographic problem."

"And was there anything else?" said Holmes.

"There were Sir Andrew's personal problems. His son arrived from London. He was in the army, you know, and the young idiot had got himself cashiered for debt. His father was furious at the disgrace and there was his son bothering him for money. He was a wretched nuisance, hanging about the inn where his father stayed and, when Sir Andrew wouldn't give him his time, he'd turn up at the digging and hang about pestering his father. It was all very distracting for Sir Andrew."

He paused. "Then he fell ill," he said. "Not like the rest of us, something really serious. We were just finishing up and Sir Andrew had to come back to London, leaving his son sick in Addleton. He sent the best doctors up from London, but they did no good. The lad was dead in weeks. Do you wonder that I said it was easy to believe in the Curse?"

"No," agreed Holmes, "and when you returned there was the row in the papers."

"I hope you do not blame me," said Edgar, sharply, "though I blame myself for the timing of it. But I thought about it for weeks before I wrote my letter. I could not believe my own thoughts, but in the end, in all conscience, I had to say what I thought, and it appeared just as Sir Andrew's son died. I felt wretched, attacking at such a time a man I had admired and looked up to. It was all pointless, anyway. There was a wave of sympathy for him, the profession closed ranks and nobody gave any serious attention to what I was saying. They say I destroyed his profession." He gave a mirthless laugh and waved a hand around him. "It didn't exactly do mine much good."

"What was it about?" I ventured, for I had not completely understood Holmes's remarks on this aspect of the matter.

"Have you seen the Addleton casket?" Edgar asked. "It was in the Barnard Museum, though they withdrew it from display when the row started, to avoid attracting vulgar sensation-seekers."

I shook my head and he continued.

"It was at the heart of the barrow, at ground level. Now usually you find a small stone chamber with ashes, or pots with ashes, bits of burned bones, a few funeral artefacts, that kind of thing. When we reached the bottom and uncovered the top of the casket we were delighted. We knew we'd found something utterly unique. We had come to the usual box of stone slabs and, when we removed the top slab, there was this magnificent casket. It was oval, made in bronze, with silver and enamelled decoration all over it, the finest work of its kind I've ever seen."

He paused and his eyes turned beyond us. "There was just Sir Andrew and myself that evening. The sickness was at its

height and the other fellows had gone down from the Moor at tea-time, but sick or not you couldn't keep Sir Andrew from his work. I stayed on with him because I didn't like the idea of him up on the Moor alone. It's a creepy sort of place, you know."

"Well, it was late, almost dark when we uncovered the casket. We went to lift it, but it was infernally heavy and in the end Sir

Andrew said to cover it up and leave it, let the other fellows see it in situ in the morning. Before we put the slab back I recall crouching in the pit with a lantern, for it was twilight, peering at the decorations on that wonderful thing and trying to make sense of them, and when I did I shuddered."

He shuddered slightly again at the recollection.

"Why was that?" asked Holmes.

"Death," said the archaeologist. "That splendid casket was covered in symbols of death. I have never seen anything like

it, Mr Holmes. Those old peoples were like us, they believed in rebirth. If there are decorations connected with their burials they are always signs of life, sun wheels, spirals, plants, animals, but this was completely different. It was covered in skulls and bones."

"And what did that suggest to you?" asked Holmes.

"I was excited. I believed that the casket would contain something remarkable, something that its creators regarded as

of great importance. Because we could not lift it, Sir Andrew

and I covered it up and went down from the Moor. We knew no villager would venture onto Addleton Moor after twilight. It was

dark when we got back to our lodgings, and the other fellows had turned in, but I could scarcely sleep for wondering what lay in that bronze box."

"Next morning we returned to the excavation and carefully lifted the container and opened it. As soon as the lid was

removed we knew why it had been heavy and I knew that it had been tampered with. Apart from being constructed from very thick bronze, the casket had been lined with a layer of lead. Now lead, as you may know, can decay into a powdery, ash-

like form, and parts of the lining had done so. Pieces crumbled away as we lifted it, and fell into the box, and, while the rest of them gazed at the contents, I became aware that those dusty fragments of lead had been disturbed by human fingers. The marks were clear."

"I could not understand it. We were the first, or so it seemed, who had looked into that casket since it was placed under the barrow, but then I looked at the contents."

"What were they?" I asked.

"You might have seen those, too, in the Barnard Museum," he said. "A pair of fine bronze mirrors, brooches, beads, knives, cups, a strange quartz pebble mounted in a bronze holder, knives and the usual bone fragments and ashes contained in two handsome pottery urns. A very satisfactory find, or so my colleagues thought it, but they were wrong."

"Why was that?" enquired Holmes.

"Because there was nothing there that had not been seen in other excavations, nothing at all to justify those sinister decorations on the outside of the container, and thereby I knew that something had been removed."

He drew a deep breath. "Only Sir Andrew and I had even known of the casket's existence overnight, but someone had opened it, disturbed the leaden lining and removed something, and that someone could only have been Sir Andrew."

He closed a slide-box with a snap. "As I said, we came away, Sir Andrew distracted by his son's illness and the necessity to leave him at Addleton and I appalled by the looting of our excavation by the man who had been my friend and mentor. The rest you know."

"There is really only one more question," said my friend. "Which of Addleton's inns was Sir Andrew's lodging?" Edgar stared at us blankly for a moment. "The Goat and

Boots," he said shortly and turned away.

The next morning found Holmes and me on the doorstep of the late Sir Andrew's home. Like Edgar, the butler was disposed to believe we were journalists and drive us away, but my friend's card gained us an introduction to Sir Andrew's daughter.

She received us in the morning room. Lady Cynthia was a tall, fair, young woman, on whom sombre black sat well.

"Mr Holmes, Doctor", she said. "My father would have welcomed the opportunity to meet you. He read your accounts, Doctor, of Mr Holmes's cases, with great pleasure and approved of your application of logic."

"It is kind of you to say so," said Holmes, "and I could have wished to meet in happier circumstances, but it is about your father that we have called."

"About my father?" she queried. "Surely you do not believe that there is anything suspicious about his death? Sir William Greedon believed the cause to be an old infection from his Egyptian explorations, similar to that which carried off my poor brother."

"You must not assume that my involvement indicates a crime, Lady Cynthia. The press has linked Sir Andrew's death with the so-called Curse of Addleton…"

"That is mere vulgar sensationalism," she interrupted. "We experienced the same nonsense at the time of Anthony's death."

Holmes nodded, sympathetically. "Nevertheless," he said, "I have reliable information that Addleton has suffered some strange infection since Sir Andrew opened the Black Barrow."

"Surely you do not believe in the Curse, Mr Holmes!"

"No madam, not for one moment, but I have often observed that what the superstitious or the lazy-minded call supernatural or coincidental is, in fact, the occurrence of two striking events which have a common cause or share a connection. I believe that such may be the case here."

"If it will prevent deaths such as my brother's and my father's," said Lady Cynthia, "then of course I will assist your enquiries. How can I help you?"

"You might tell me what it was that occupied Sir Andrew's mind in his last days, Lady Cynthia."

An expression of pain passed across her features. "When he first fell sick," she began, "he became anxious to write up his paper on Addleton. He had never published it, you know, because of the row with Edgar. But he never completed it, for he would fall into strange excitements and sudden obsessions."

"And what form did they take?" asked Holmes.

"He began to blame himself for my brother's death. When his own health was already failing, he insisted on travelling alone to Addleton, saying that he must ask Tony's forgiveness. I pleaded

to travel with him, if he must go, but he said that he must go alone."

She gazed at the handsome portrait of her father which hung above the fireplace.

"After that his health deteriorated rapidly. While he was not yet confined to his bed he sat in his workshop, scribbling endlessly."

"Do you have any of his scribblings?" asked Holmes.

"No, Mr Holmes. I looked at them after his death and they were unconnected nonsense. I destroyed them."

"Might we see his workshop?" asked my friend.

"By all means," she replied and rose from her chair. We followed her to the rear of the house, where she led us into a long room, lit by three tall windows that overlooked an attractive garden. Its walls were lined with bookshelves and down the middle ran a long, solid table, littered with tools and scraps of various materials. In one corner stood a writing desk.

"This was always my father's working place," said Lady Cynthia. "Please feel free to make any examination that you wish. If you will join me in the morning room when you have done, I shall arrange some tea," and she withdrew.

Sherlock Holmes looked about him. "I think you had better take the books," he said.

"How do you mean?" I queried.

"Examine the bookshelves, Watson, for anything which occurs to you as out of the ordinary."

"But I am not sure that I know what an eminent archaeologist would ordinarily read," I protested.

He ignored me and began to pace around the big central table. I turned to the bookshelves and attempted the task that Holmes had set me. There were shelf upon shelf of archaeological journals, some in foreign languages, there were works on history, legend and folklore, but nothing that struck me as anomalous. Eventually I turned back to Holmes who was looking at some objects at one corner of the bench.

"He seems to have nothing here but professional reading," I observed.

"Very well," said Holmes. "Then we must make what we can of his work-bench," and he passed to me a small dark pad.

"Moleskin," I said, as soon as my fingers touched it, "A piece of moleskin folded over and stitched into a – a pin-cushion perhaps?"

"Moleskin," confirmed my friend, "but not a pin-cushion, I think. Smell it, Watson."

I lifted the little pad and my nostrils wrinkled. "Faugh!" I exclaimed, "it reeks of rancid tallow."

"Precisely," said Holmes, "and what about this?"

He picked up from the bench a curious wooden object and I took it from him. It was about eighteen inches long and rounded at one end to form a handle such as one would find on many tools, but above the handle it widened out, one side being flat and the other curved.The opposite end from the handle was cut quite flat. It was evidently a manufactured object and had been stained, though the curved and flat surfaces bore signs of impact.

"I've never seen anything like it," I said. "Are you sure it is complete?"

"Oh, it is quite complete," said Holmes, "and exactly what I expected to see. Now, I think it only remains to examine the writing desk."

The desk yielded little. The pigeon-holes had been cleared and there were two note-pads on the desk from which the upper sheets had been removed.

"Nothing here, Holmes," I said.

"I do not know, he replied, and slipping his lens from his pocket began an examination of the blank note pads. "Have you a cigarette, Watson?" he asked, suddenly.

I took out my case and opened it. "I see," said Holmes, "that the horses have not lived up to your expectations. You are reduced to cheap Virginias. Still, they will suffice," and he took one and lit it.

After a few vigorous puffs he leaned over the desk and tapped his ash onto one of the note-pads, rubbing it into the paper with his forefinger. After a moment he smiled.

"See," he said, lifting the pad, "the ash has darkened the paper, except where it has been compressed by the weight of a pencil on the sheet above. Now, what have we here?"

He held the paper to the light. "We have some decipherable words, Watson, and they seem to be 'poor Tony's death'. Now, what will the second pad reveal?"

Soon he had applied his process to the second pad and examined it. " 'Lead? Lead? Lead?' " he read from it, "Each time with a question mark. That-seems to be all on this one."

He crumpled the two ash-stained sheets into his coat pocket and straightened up. "I think," he said, "we should take our farewells of Lady Cynthia."

While we took tea with Lady Cynthia, Holmes assured her that he expected to unravel the mystery of her father's death and would communicate with her when his researches were complete. I, however, had been growing more mystified at each of my friend's moves and, in the cab back to Baker Street, I said so.

"Watson, Watson," he said, shaking his head. "It was you who drew my attention to this pretty little puzzle. Since then I have merely pursued a completely logical investigation into the mystery and have been able to acquire certain data which will, I firmly believe, lead me to a successful conclusion. You should know my methods well by now Surely you have some inkling?"

I shook my head.

"Then consider these important facts," he said, striking them off on his fingers as he announced them. "Firstly, the people of Addleton believe the Black Barrow to be accursed because grass does not grow and snow does not lie upon it; secondly, the County Medical Officer confirms that a strange disease struck the village after the opening of the barrow; thirdly, Mr Edgar believes, with good reason, that something was removed from the barrow illicitly. Does none of that assist you?"

I had to admit that it did not, and he shook his head again in wonderment, but offered no further explanation.

"What will be your next move?" I asked, seeking some indication that might help me.

"I should have thought," he said, "that that also would have been obvious to you. We must go to Addleton and view the locus in quo, indeed the scene of the crime."

"But I thought you believed there was no crime here!" I exclaimed.

"I set out," said Holmes, "to solve a medical mystery, but we have stumbled across crime on our path. There has been a crime, Watson. One with very far-reaching consequences."

The next afternoon found us in Addleton, a stone-built village which consisted largely of one long street with an inn at either end, huddled deep beneath the great square bulk of Addleton Moor. Once we had settled our baggage at the Goat and Boots Holmes sought out the village's only doctor. Doctor Leary was an affable Irishman in his forties, who welcomed us into his surgery.

"And what," he asked, when we had introduced ourselves, "brings a famous consulting detective all the way from London to Addleton? We have no murders here, Mr Holmes, and apart from a bit of head-thumping among the quarrymen on pay nights we have no other kind of crime."

"But you have a mystery," said Holmes.

"A mystery? Ah, surely a man of reason and logic like yourself is not looking into the Curse of the Black Barrow?"

"Certainly not," said Holmes. "I am, however, looking into events which have led the popular press to allege that the Curse is real, namely the death of Anthony Lewis, the deaths, sicknesses, stillbirths and deformed births that have occurred here, and the recent death in London of Sir Andrew Lewis. Would you deny that they create a curious pattern?"

"There certainly seems to be a connection though, like you, I reject the supernatural explanation," said Dr Leary. He groped in his pocket for his pipe and lit it. When it was well alight he continued.

"I came here, you know, fresh from Medical School. I thought I'd found a nice pitch", he said. "A pretty village, a bracing climate, clean water, nice people and nothing much to worry me or them except old age and quarry accidents. And so it was for the first few years, then they opened the Black Barrow, and if it wasn't cursed then it certainly deserves to be so."

"What did you make of the sickness that affected the excavators?" Holmes asked.

"Very little, I admit. It was not serious and it might have had a number of causes. They were sweating away up on the Moor in the summer sun, some of them young fellas who were more used to a pen than a pick. I thought it could be a touch of the sun and I treated it as such."

"And young Lewis?" said my friend.

"That, of course, was different. At the time I made no connection with the archaeologists. He came to me first with burns on his hands. I thought he had picked up something too

hot with both hands. He said that he had not, that he had red patches appear on his hands for no reason and then open up like burns. I treated him with salves and wondered if it was some foreign skin disease, for he told me he had been abroad as a child."

The doctor puffed at his pipe, reflectively. "Then it got worse. He had fainting fits, headaches, nausea – soon he was too weak to leave his bed. His father sent the best of Harley Street to help me, but they were helpless. We could only watch him fade away."

"And how did the sickness spread?" enquired Holmes.

"Very quickly," said Leary. "Though it was never as fierce as in young Lewis. The next was the boot boy at the Goat. He died some weeks after the young man. It seems he had been in the habit of slipping into Lewis's room in his spare time and listening to tales of soldiering and the silly lad must have caught his death from Lewis. Then there was old McSwiney. He was a retired peeler who spent all his time in the Goat. He was old enough to go at any time if he hadn't pickled himself in alcohol, but he'd never had much in the way of sickness until the end. He had the vomiting and that, but not the burns, but it was clear it was the same thing."

"That was when I called in the County Officer of Health. We went over everything, the food and drink at the Goat, the water, the bedding, everything. There was nothing to find, the place was as clean as a whistle."

"Your Medical Officer seems to think the disease is waterborne," said Holmes.

"Rubbish!" said Leary. "He says that because he can't think of anything else. We have deep limestone wells here. I've had the water under a microscope, Mr Holmes. There's nothing in it except a few extra salts that people pay for in fancy spas."

"And what do you make of it, Dr Leary?"

"I've racked my brains for ten years," he said. "I know no more about that disease now than I did then, except one thing. As well as the deaths we had a few cases that were milder. When the deaths and the sickness stopped we thought it had gone, but then there came the births you have heard about. I didn't see how it could have been the same thing, but now I'm sure it was."

"And what made you so sure?" asked Holmes.

"Geography," said Leary. "Lewis died in the 'Goat' the boot boy died in the 'Goat', McSwiney drank in the 'Goat',

those who had the sickness drank in the 'Goat', though not so

much as McSwiney, Lord save him. When the stillbirths and the deformities occurred I saw the same pattern. They were all

at that end of the village, close to the 'Goat'. And I'll tell you one more thing. All of the women were already pregnant when Lewis died."

He knocked out his pipe on the fender. Holmes steepled his fingers in front of his face for a moment, then looked up at the Irishman. "Is it over?" he asked.

"Oh yes. It's over – for now. But we don't know what it is or how it came here. I can't tell my people that it won't happen again."

"I hope," said Holmes, "that I can give you that assurance in the very near future. Is there anything else at all that you believe may help us?"

Leary laughed. "They say there's a bright side to everything. You won't have seen it in the papers, for they only deal in bad news, but we did have two miraculous cures at the same time."

"What were they?" said Holmes.

"One was Mary Cummins, the daughter of the landlord at the 'Goat'. She was seventeen at the time, a sweet, pretty

thing, but she started with blinding headaches, dizziness,

fainting. This was before the barrow was opened, when there was no thought of a new sickness. Nothing I could do

for her made any difference. Soon she had spells when her mind wandered. I began to wonder about a tumour on the brain, but do you know that while others were sickening she suddenly got well? She lost all her symptoms and she's as right as rain to this day.

The other was old Mrs Henty, next door to the pub. Her daughter-in-law was the mother of one of the deformed babies, but Mrs Henty had a persistent eczema on both forearms. She'd had it all her life, she told me, but it vanished in days."

"Astonishing," said Holmes. "Now, Doctor, we have taken up enough of your time. I assure you again, that I believe I am well

on the track of this thing and will let you know my conclusions." We dined that night at our inn and had the good fortune to be waited upon by the same Mary Cummins that Dr Leary had

mentioned to us. Whatever her difficulties of ten years ago, she was now a buxom, raven-haired countrywoman in her middle twenties, vigorous and witty.

After dinner we established ourselves beside the fire in the back parlour, where Mary brought us our drinks.

"Miss Cummins," said Holmes, "may I ask if you know why Dr Watson and I are in Addleton?"

She smiled. " 'Tis no business of mine," she said, "but I hear tell you've come about the Black Barrow."

"Perhaps you would sit with us for a moment," he suggested. "You are right that we are investigating the singular disease that affected the village when the barrow was opened."

She took a chair and he continued. "I believe that, so far from being one of the sick, you actually recovered from an illness at that time. Would it embarrass you to tell us about it?"

"Not at all, sir," she replied. "I had been ill for nearly two years and getting worse all the time. First it was giddy spells, then faints, then cruel headaches and sometimes I seemed to lose my wits altogether. Dr Leary tried all sorts but it kept getting worse. He said I should have to have an operation on my head and I was rare frightened, but then, so fast as it came, it was gone, and as true as I'm sitting here I've never known a day's sickness since."

"Remarkable," said Holmes. "And to what do you attribute you cure?"

"Well, they say as all the sickness came out of that old barrow, and if it did, I say as my cure came out too."

Holmes eyed her, thoughtfully. "You remember young Mr Lewis?" he asked.

"Indeed I do," she said. "Poor young man. He was all in trouble with his father and then to die like that."

"Did you know him well?"

She blushed prettily. "Well, sir, when he was well he would make up to me. No more than was proper, though. And I daresay I was younger then and looked after him a bit special because of it."

"Did he ever show you, or tell you, what he had in his possession?" asked Holmes.

"How did you know about that?" she asked. "He said as no one knew he had it and I must keep his secret."

"You need not fear my knowing, Mary," said Holmes. "May I ask what it was?"

"Well, I had gone to his room one day, to tidy up, you know, and he came in. Now father's always been very strict about me not lingering in guests rooms when they're there, so I made to go, but Mr Lewis said, 'Let me show you something.' He pulled his trunk out from under his bed and he took out a great old pot, a big round earthenware pot with a lid. 'What's that?' I said, and he smiled and said, 'That's the strangest thing in the world. It'll be the making of me,' then he took my hand and put it on the pot and it was warm outside, like a brick that's been in the oven."

"I pulled my hand away, but he turned the lamp down and says 'Look at this, Mary.' He lifted the lid off that pot and there was a beautiful blue light came out of it, all shimmering like water. It took my breath away, I tell you. 'Whatever's in there?' I said, and he smiled again and said 'My fortune, Mary. No matter what my father may do,' and he closed the lid again."

"And what did you think it was?" enquired my friend.

"To tell the truth, I thought it was magic. I've never seen the like before or since." She got up from her chair. "I'll tell you something else, Mr Holmes, that I've never told nobody sometimes I think it was what he had in that funny old pot that cured my brain. Now that's daft, isn't it?"

"You may very well be right, Mary," said Holmes. "If we might ask one more favour – is Mr Lewis's old room occupied?" "No, sir," she said. "Did you wish to change?"

"Not at all," said Holmes, "but I would like a glimpse of that room."

She offered to take us up at once, and led us to a room at the end of the main landing. Holmes stood in the middle of the little, low-ceilinged bedroom, then stepped to the casement. "You can see the Moor from here," he observed, "and whose is that cottage next door?"

"That's old Mrs Henry's," said Mary. "She had a cure too. All her skin trouble went. Poor Mr Lewis, and little Georgie the boot boy and old McSwiney, they all went and all them others was sick, but Mrs Henty and me we seemed to get the good side. Funny, isn't it?"

"It is certainly strange," said Holmes, and led the way out of the room.

Holmes was down early in the morning, at the breakfast table before I joined him. He was in high good humour, though a cold snap in the night had brought a sprinkling of snow to Addleton.

"What next?" I asked him, having virtually abandoned any attempt to understand his enquiries.

"I told you, Watson. We have come here to view the locus in quo, and once the village photographer arrives, we shall pay a visit to this ill-famed barrow."

We had finished our breakfast when Mary informed us that Mr Swain, the village photographer, awaited us in the parlour. He greeted us cheerfully and offered the opinion that it would be pretty on the Moor in the snow.

We took the inn's pony-trap and, loading Mr Swain's equipment, set out for the Moor. Although the top of Addleton Moor lies at about 1,100 feet above sea level, a decent track winds up from the village at one corner and, even with a slight covering of snow, we had no difficulty in reaching the top.

On the exposed top the snow lay thicker, a blanket of white that glittered in the morning sun. All around us hummocks in the snow revealed the presence of burial mounds, each casting a pale lilac shadow in the white. Holmes stood up in the trap and gazed around him.

"Ah! There it is!" he exclaimed, and pointed.

Ahead of us and to our left a dark mark broke the whiteness and, as we moved towards it, we could see that it was another tumulus, bare both of snow and vegetation, exposing raw earth.

"Have you ever photographed the Black Barrow before?" Holmes asked the photographer.

"No, sir. That would be a wasted plate. Nobody hereabouts would pay for a picture of that thing," he replied with some vehemence.

We drew to a halt close to the Black Barrow and Mr Swain set up his camera under Holmes's directions. I walked around the mound, finding it nothing more than a heap of compacted soil, unrelieved by any blade of grass. Its lower edge was ringed with flat stones and, looking closely at its surface, it was possible to see where Sir Andrew's men had cut their trench through its centre. Apart from its nakedness, there was nothing to distinguish it from any of the forty or fifty mounds round about. One did not have to be superstitious to find something disturbing in that patch of dead, dark, soil.

I stepped aside while Mr Swain exposed half a dozen plates and then we were back in the trap and returning to the village.

Holmes was still in good spirits over luncheon, so that I queried his mood. "I have every right to be cheerful, Watson. This morning's excursion gave me the final piece of evidence. Nature has assisted my enquiry, though I made assurance doubly sure and asked Mr Swain for his photographs."

Mr Swain joined us over coffee, rather nervous and apologetic. "I do not know what has happened, Mr Holmes," he said. "The general views of the Moor are crystal clear, as they should have been with this morning's light, but all four plates of the barrow are spoiled. Look," he said and laid the box of plates on the table.

Holmes took each plate in turn and held it up to the window, passing each to me when he had done with it. Two were fine panoramas of the snowclad Moor but each of the others was just a swirl of fog.

"But this is exactly what Edgar said happened to his plates!" I exclaimed.

"Precisely," declared Holmes, "and thereby our case is closed. I am deeply grateful to you, Mr Swain."

The confused photographer took the money that Holmes offered, thanked him and left rapidly, as though he feared my friend would change his mind.

When the coffee was done Holmes drew out his watch. "We might", he said, "catch the mid-afternoon express to London. Would you be so kind as to ask the boy for our bags and the reckoning?"

On the way back to London Holmes discoursed wittily on anarchists and poisoners, on underworld argot and a dozen different topics, but I heard him with only half an ear for my mind was churning in its attempts to make sense of what Sherlock Holmes evidently regarded as a successful enquiry. At length I could stand it no longer.

"Holmes!" I exclaimed, "I have never been so completely at a loss to understand one of your enquiries. What in Heaven's name has this all been about?"

He laughed. "Do you recall", he said, "that when we had not known each other long you took issue with me over my

proposition that, by logical deduction, it should be possible to infer the existence of an ocean from a single grain of sand?" "Well, yes," I said, "but I was not then so familiar with your remarkable methods."

"I fear," he said, "that you are not yet familiar with them. I have been engaged in one of the most enjoyable enquiries that I

can recall, enjoyable because I have had to infer the existence of something which I have never seen and to construct the pattern of its movements and assess its influence by pure reason."

"You have left me a long way behind," I grumbled.

"Consider the patterns, Watson," he said.

"The patterns on the casket?" I asked. "What of them?" "No, Watson," he sighed. "The patterns of the evidence as it unfolded." He leaned forward.

"Let us begin at the beginning. The newspapers told us that snow would not lie and grass would not grow upon the Black

Barrow. I admit I took that for folklore or exaggeration, but you heard Edgar say that it was the case. What did that suggest to you?"

I confessed to no idea at all.

"Watson!" he expostulated. "You have been in mining districts; you have seen heaps of coal waste on which grass will not grow nor the snow lie."

"But that is caused by fires smouldering within the heaps," I said. "Ordinary soil does not smoulder, Holmes."

"No indeed, Watson, but that analogy led me to believe that something within the barrow might be emitting some influence or emanation that warmed its surface yet discouraged growth."

"Such as what?" I asked.

"I admit that, at first, I could see no solution along that line, but then I recalled pitchblende."

"Pitchblende?" I echoed. "What on earth is that?"

"It is an ore, of uranium, found in several places. For centuries German miners have been aware of it and afraid of it, for they

knew that it could cause burns and sickness. Now, you will recall my telling you of my experiments in coal-tar derivatives at the Montpelier laboratories in France, earlier this year?"

"Certainly."

"Among my colleagues there was a French scientist, Jacques Curie, a specialist in electro-magnetism. He introduced me to a remarkable group of people who have theories about that substance. One was a Monsieur Bacquerel, another was Curie's own brother, Pierre, and another was Pierre's assistant and fiancee, a determined and intelligent young Polish lady called Marie Sklodovska. All of them believe that pitchblende emits some influence that can affect its surroundings."

"Good Heavens!" I said. "This sounds more like witch-craft than science."

"I assure you that they are all very fine scientists, Watson, and it occurred to me to proceed on the basis that they are right and that pitchblende, or something like it, had been hidden in that barrow when it was first set up."

He paused. "That would neatly explain our first few facts, but what of the disease? Well, Mr Edgar gave us the answer to that, with his clear proof that the bronze casket had been rifled in the night. Edgar's spoiled photographs were also the proof that something was in the barrow that spoiled his plates. He failed to realise it, but the later success of his photography was also the proof that something had been removed from the mound. He was sadly wrong about Sir Andrew's guilt. It was, of course, the younger Lewis. No doubt, as Edgar described, he waited at the inn for his father's return, and Sir Andrew, fresh from his discovery, would certainly have mentioned it to his son. And so Anthony Lewis robbed the Black Barrow that night as a revenge on his father for refusing to meet his debts, and by so doing he brought about his own death."

"By Jove!" I said, "I begin to see. Everyone who came near was affected in some degree, but he slept with it beneath his bed," and I shuddered at the thought of the luckless youth asleep while the malign emanations that Holmes had described seeped into him hour by hour.

"Exactly, Watson. I told you that we had stumbled upon a crime in our enquiries, but it brought with it its own fearful sentence. Sadly, the presence of that baleful urn at the 'Goat and Boots' was also responsible for the deaths and other effects in the village, though I suppose we should rejoice at the good fortune of Mrs Henty and young Mary. Evidently the influence of the substance is not entirely malign and, if my friends on the Continent, can refine and control it, it may yet prove a blessing."

"If it can destroy a malignant tumour it will be an enormous blessing," I said. "But how came Sir Andrew to die of its effects and why does the snow still not lie on the Black Barrow? Is there more of the stuff still in there?"

Holmes shook his head. "Sir Andrew would have realized his son's crime when he saw what was in the dead man's trunk, and to spare his dead son further shame he hid the urn. Somewhere secure, apparently, for it took ten years for the influence to affect him. When it did he will have realized the significance of the unique decoration on the outer casket. It was a warning that nobody heeded. He could not leave that deadly urn to destroy others. His notes prove that he connected it with his son's death and also suggested to me the remedy that he devised. The bolster confirmed it."

"Bolster?" I said, "Where was there a bolster?"

"A wooden implement, Watson, known as a bolster or lead-dresser, used by plumbers for knocking sheet lead into shape, as a moleskin pad impregnated with tallow is used to wipe the joints of leaden pipes and containers. Sir Andrew evidently recalled the leaden lining of the bronze casket and reasoned, perhaps, that it had some inhibiting influence on the ore's emanations. This morning's visit and Mr Swain's photographs confirmed my deduction. Sir Andrew's last visit to Addleton may have been to stand at his son's grave, but it was also to return the stolen urn to the Black Barrow. He was quite right. No one will re-open that mound, the locals keep away and there will never be a road or railway or houses on the Moor. Its poisonous influence is as harmless there as if it was at the bottom of the ocean."

"I admit that it all makes sense," I said, "but it still seems very theoretical to me."

"Theoretical!" he snorted. "The pieces of my puzzle have been the words of witnesses who had no cause to lie. All I have added is the unproven, but entirely reasonable, theory of a number of eminent scientists. In the absence of data, Watson, it is permissible to theorize in directions which do not conflict with such data as does exist. It seems that my application of their theory has provided Curie and his friends with further data. In connection with which, Watson, I must ask you not to add this case to your published stories if only because publication might prematurely disclose the reasoning of my French friends and rob them of their just triumph in due course. But I must really write and tell Curie this singular tale."

I confess that I had no intention of publishing an account of the Addleton affair. I could not fault Holmes's reasoning, but I could not quell a suspicion that it was all rather too logical and was not capable of proof.

Holmes wrote to Lady Cynthia and to Dr Leary, assuring them that the Addleton disease would never occur again and also to Edgar, explaining his understandable error. That fair-minded man wrote at once to the papers saying that, in the light of new information, he wholeheartedly and entirely withdrew any implication he had made against Sir Andrew Lewis.

Twenty-five years have elapsed since the Addleton tragedy and science has moved on. I owe my friend an apology for doubting him and I make it here. It was less than two years after Holmes had explained his reasoning to me that Becquerel established the existence of an emission from uranium ore which affected photographic plates. Miss Sklodovska, or Madame Curie as she is now widely known, realized that pitchblende contained something that emitted "Becquerel rays" more strongly than uranium and, thereby, discovered radium, the medicinal use of which has saved countless lives. The Curies and Becquerel have richly deserved their Nobel prizes for their efforts in turning a freak of nature to the advantage of mankind, and it seems to me that my friend Sherlock Holmes deserves recognition for having made what must surely have been the earliest practical application of their theories.

As to the deadly aspects of "Becquerel rays", they are now well understood by scientists. Now we know their dangers and, unlike our primitive forefathers, we do not have to fear that they will ever be carelessly unleashed upon the world.

The Adventure of the Parisian Gentleman – Robert Weinberg & Lois H. Gresh

The Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor – Stephen Baxter

Our visitor was perhaps twenty-eight: a short, broad-shouldered young man, a little prone to fat, the voice high and thin, and he moved with a bright, bird-like bounce. His face, under thinning hair, was pale – perhaps he was consumptive and his blue eyes were striking, wide and dreaming. He could hardly have presented a greater contrast, physically and in his manner, to my friend Holmes. And yet his conversation sparked with Holmes's, as if their two minds were poles of some huge electrical battery.

This visitor had presented Holmes with a set of rather grainy photographs, taken with one of the New York Kodaks which are so popular. Holmes was inspecting these with his lens. The visitor, with some malicious glee, was challenging Holmes to deduce, from the evidence of each photograph, the elements of some unusual situation, after the manner of a parlour game. Holmes had just finished with a blurred image of some withered white flowers. I studied this for myself, and could see little untoward about the flowers, although I could not immediately place their natural order – perhaps it was the genus Malva – for instance, the shape of the gynoecium, clearly visible, was rather unusual. Holmes appeared rather irritated by this harmless image, and had passed on to the next, while his young visitor was grinning. "I'm not surprised he made nothing of it. The apparatus of a classic hoaxer!" he told me.

Holmes passed me the next print. "See here, Watson. What can you make of that?"

This appeared more promising – and, I observed, the visitor was somewhat more serious about it. At first glance it seemed to me an undistinguished portrait of a commonplace luncheon party – although it was set in unusual surroundings, the table and guests being all but engulfed by bulky electrical equipment, wires and cylinders and coils and cones, and in the background I could make out the fittings of a workshop: a steam lathe, metal turners, acetylene welding equipment, a sheet-metal stamp and the like. I ventured, "I observe that our visitor this evening was a guest at the lunch. I do not know these others -

"They are the Brimicombes, of Wiltshire," said the visitor. "My hosts that day: two brothers, Ralph and Tarquin. Ralph is an old college friend of mine. The brothers work together – or did so – on mechanical and electrical inventions."

"It was a sunny day," I said. "I see a splash of light here on the tablecloth, just behind the dish containing this handsome sausage."

"Yes," said Holmes with tolerant patience, "but what of the sausage itself?"

I looked again.The sausage sat on its own plate, the centrepiece of the meal. "It is a succulent specimen. Is it German?"

Holmes sighed. "Watson, that is no sausage, German or otherwise. It is evidently a prank, of dubious taste, served on their guests by these Brimicombes."

The visitor laughed. "You have it, Mr Holmes. You should have seen our faces when that giant concoction crawled off its plate and across the tablecloth!"

"A man of your profession should recognize the beast, Watson. It is an aquatic annelid, of the suctorial order Hirudinea, employed for the extraction of blood -

"Great Heaven," I cried, "it is a giant leech!"

"You cannot see the colour in the Kodak," said the visitor, "but you should know it was a bright red: as red as blood itself."

"But how can this be, Holmes? Is it some freak of nature?"

"Of nature – or Man's science," Holmes mused. "Consider the influences acting on that wretched leech. It is drawn towards flatness by the force of the gravity of the Earth; that much we know. And its collapse to a pancake is resisted only by its internal strength. But it is hard to believe a creature as gross as this specimen would even be able to sustain its own form.

Why, then, has it evolved such a magnitude? What gives it the strength to hold itself up, to move?" He eyed his visitor sharply. "Or perhaps we should ask, what is reducing the force which drags it down?"

The visitor clapped his hands in delight. "You have it, sir!" Holmes handed back the photograph. "Indeed. And perhaps

you might care to set out the particulars of the case." Confused, I asked, "Are you so sure you have a case at all,

Holmes?"

"Oh, yes," he said gravely. "For did our visitor not speak of the work of these Brimicombe brothers in the past tense? Evidently something has disturbed the equilibrium of their fraternal lives; and you would not be here, sir, if that were not something serious."

"Indeed," was the reply, and now the visitor was solemn. "There could be nothing more serious, in fact: my visit here was motivated by the death of the elder brother, Ralph, in unusual circumstances – circumstances deriving from the more obscure corners of the physical sciences!"

I asked, "Is it murder?"

"The local coroner does not think so. I, however, am unsure. There are puzzling features – inconsistencies – and so I have come to you, Mr Holmes – I am a journalist and author, not a detective."

I smiled. "In fact, sir, I already know your occupation."

He seemed surprised. "Forgive me. We have not been introduced."

"No introduction is necessary, nor was any deep deduction on my part. Your portrait has been as common enough this year."

He looked flattered. "You know my work?"

"As it has been featured in the Pall Mall Budget, The National Observer and elsewhere. I am a great admirer of your scientific romances." I extended my hand. "It is good to meet you, Mr Wells!"

Holmes agreed to travel with Wells to the Brimicombe home, near Chippenham, and he prevailed on me to accompany him, despite my reluctance to leave London, so close was I to my bereavement. But Holmes persisted, kindly. "You know how few

of my cases involve the deeper mysteries of science, Watson. Perhaps this will be a suitable candidate for your casebook! It will be quite like old times." And so it was, the very next day, that I found myself with my valise clambering aboard the ten-fifteen from Paddington Station. We had the carriage to ourselves, Holmes, Wells and I. Holmes wrapped himself in his grey travelling-cloak and stretched out his long legs on the cushioned seat, as Wells, in his thin, piping voice, set out the full details of the case for us.

"I have known Ralph Brimicombe since we both attended the Normal School of Science in the 'eighties," he began, "and I remained in friendly contact with him until his recent death. He was a rather dream-like, remote figure – oddly impractical in the details of everyday life – to the extent that I was somewhat surprised when he married, when still a student at the Normal School. But his mind always sparked with creative energy. His subjects at the School were Astronomy, Astrophysics – all that sort of thing – along with Electricity and Magnetism. Even as a student he began to develop intriguing ideas about the coupling, as he put it, between electricity and gravity. Our theories of gravity were long due for an overhaul, he claimed. And perhaps there could even be practical applications. He was a delight to debate with! – you can imagine how I found him a soul-mate."

Holmes asked, "A coupling?"

"Gravity, as you know, is that force which imbues our bodies with weight. Ralph became convinced that the gravity of a large mass such as the Earth could be mitigated by a suitable arrangement of large currents and magnetic fluxes. Mitigated, or reduced."

"Reduced?" I said. "But if that were true, the commercial possibilities would be enormous. Think of it, Holmes. If one could reduce the weight of freight goods, for example – "

"Oh, to hang with commerce and freight!" Wells exclaimed. "Doctor Watson, Ralph Brimicombe claimed to have found a way to have removed the influence of gravity altogether. Without gravity, one could fly! He even claimed to have built a small capsule, and flown himself – alone, mind you, and without witnesses – all the way to the moon. He showed me injuries which he said were due to an exhaustion of his food and water, an exposure to the Rays of Space, and burns from the lunar Vacuum. And he gave me a small vial, of what he claimed was moon dust, as 'proof' of his journey. I have it about me." He patted his pockets.

Holmes raised a thin eyebrow. "And did you believe these claims?"

Wells hesitated. "Perhaps I wished to. But not entirely. Ralph was never above exaggerating his achievements, so impatient was he for acceptance and prestige.

"But I run ahead of my account. Ralph, for all his ability, could only scrape through the examinations at the Normal School, so distracted did he become by his gravitational obsession. After that, no respectable institution would take him on, and no journal would publish the revised theories and partial experimental results he claimed." Wells sighed. "Perhaps Ralph's greatest tragedy was the untimely death of his father, some months after he left the Normal School. The father had made a fortune in the Transvaal, and had retired to Chippenham, only to die of recurrent malaria. He left everything, with few tiresome legal complications, to his two sons: Ralph, and the younger Tarquin. This sudden legacy made Ralph a rich man. No longer did he need to convince peers of the value of his work. Now, he could plough a lone furrow, wherever it might take him.

"Ralph returned to Wiltshire, and devoted himself to his studies. He privately published his results which – while of great interest to students of the esoteric like myself – were roundly and rudely rejected by other scientists."

"And what of Tarquin?" Holmes asked.

"I knew Tarquin a little. I never much liked him," Wells said. "He was quite a contrast to Ralph. Full of vanity and self-regard, and not nearly so intelligent, though he has some smattering of an education, and, as I understand it, a crude grasp of his brother's accomplishments. Tarquin squandered his own inheritance in trying to follow his father's footsteps in Southern Africa, failed roundly, and came home pursued by debtors. Eventually his brother took him on as a species of senior assistant. Tarquin acquired equipment for Ralph's experiments, arranged apparatus and so forth. But even in this he proved less than competent, and Ralph was forced to demote him, effectively, to work as subordinate to Ralph's own engineer, a stolid local chap called Bryson."

I remarked, "It looked as if your lunch party took place in the midst of Ralph's apparatus."

"Yes." Wells smiled. "He was fond of such spectaculars. And I must describe the purpose of that apparatus to you, for it will be of significance to your investigation.

"I have mentioned Ralph's attempts – partially successful, he claimed – to nullify gravity. But this proved possible only over a small volume. To extend his abilities – to build greater ships which might carry teams of men across the Void of Space – Ralph pursued studies of more subtle aspects of the gravitational phenomenon, notably the Equivalence between Intertial and Gravitational Mass. You see -

I held up my hands. "I cannot speak for Holmes, but I am already baffled, Mr Wells. I know nothing of gravity, save for its slow dragging at the lower spines and arches of my patients."

"Let me explain by analogy. Mr Holmes, can I trouble you for some coins? A sovereign and a farthing should do – there. Thank you." He held the two coins over the carriage floor. "Look here, Watson. The sovereign is considerably heavier than the farthing."

"That is clear enough."

"If I release these coins simultaneously they will fall to the floor."

"Of course."

"But which will arrive first? – the farthing, or the sovereign?"

Holmes looked amused. I felt that embarrassed frustration which sometimes comes over me when I cannot follow some elaborated chain of reasoning. And yet, the case seemed simple enough. "The sovereign," I said. "Disregarding the resistance of the air, as the heavier of the two – "

Wells released the coins. They fell side by side, and struck the carriage floor together.

"I am no expert in Gravitational Mechanics," Holmes chided me, "but I do remember my Galileo, Watson."

Wells retrieved the coins. "lt is all to do with various Laws of Newton. Under gravity, all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of their mass. Think of it this way, Watson: if you were in a lift, and the cable snapped, you and the lift would fall together. You would feel as if you were floating, inside the lift car."

"Briefly," I said, "until the shaft floor was reached."

"Indeed. It was precisely this effect which Ralph strove to study. In the luncheon chamber I showed you, with an apparatus of coils and cones and loops, he managed to create a region of space in which – as Ralph showed us with a series of demonstrations and tricks – thanks to the adjustment of the gravity field with electrical energy, heavier objects did indeed fall more rapidly than the lighter! This was the 'Inertial Adjustor', as Ralph called it. It sounds a trivial feat – and is much less spectacular than shooting a capsule at the moon – but it is nonetheless quite remarkable. If true."

"But you doubt it," Holmes said. "In fact, you employed the word 'tricks'."

Wells sighed. "Dear old Ralph. I do not think he lied deliberately. But his optimism and energy for his own work would sometimes cloud his critical judgement. And yet the acceptance of his theories and devices – particularly his Inertial Adjustor – were central to his life, his very mental state."

"So central, in fact, that they led to his death."

"Indeed," said Wells. "For it was in that very chamber, within the Intertial Adjustor itself, that Ralph Brimicombe died – or was killed!"

It was after three o'clock when at last we reached Chippenham. We took a trap to the Brimicombe residence, a well-appointed affair of the Regency period which had been rather allowed to run to seed.

Holmes stepped from the trap and sniffed the air. He walked to the verge of the gravel drive and inspected the lawn grass, which I noticed was discoloured here and there by small brown circles, samples of which Holmes disturbed gently with the toecap of his boot.

A young man came out to meet us: tall and blond, his eyes a vacuous grey. He greeted Wells rather contemptuously "If it isn't Bertie Wells!" – and introduced himself as Tarquin Brimicombe. We were escorted into the house and introduced to various others of the household. Jane, the widow of Ralph, was a tall, willowy woman who was younger than I expected, and her eyes were puffy as if from habitual crying; and Jack Bryson, Ralph's trusted engineer, bald of head and square of shoulder, appeared puzzled and ill at ease.

Holmes smiled at the widow with the sudden kind warmth perceived in him only by those who know him well, and which made my own heart rise, for I sympathized all too well with this lady's loss of her spouse. "Madam," said Holmes. "My very deepest sympathies."

"Thank you."

"And how is your labrador? Is she still ill?"

She looked confused. "Convalescing, I think. But how did you know?"

He inclined his head. "The patches on the lawn are clear evidence of a canine – and a bitch at that, for it is well known that a bitch will empty her bladder in a single spot, so depositing enough material to damage the grass, whereas a dog will release small quantities of liquid to mark his territory. I have a monograph in draft on the excretory habits of other domestic and urban wildlife. And as to her breed, the golden hairs adhering to your lower skirt are evidence enough of that, Mrs Brimicombe, as well as to your affection for the animal."

"Oh! But you knew of her illness?"

Holmes smiled sadly. "If she were well, I should expect her to come bounding out with you to challenge three such rough strangers as ourselves."

Wells clucked admiringly.

Jane Brimicombe waved a hand rather vaguely. "The illness is baffling to the vets. Sheba has some difficulty standing, and her bones are oddly brittle and prone to breaking. She was involved in experiments of Ralph's, you see, and – "

"I know," said Holmes.

"You do? But how?"

But Holmes did not answer. Instead he drew me aside. "Watson, I'd be grateful if you'd take a sample of the droppings from the wretched animal. Perform some kind of assay."

"Looking for what?"

"My dear fellow, if I told you that I might prejudice your results."

"And how am I supposed to achieve it? I am no vet, Holmes, still less a chemist. And we are a long way from town."

"I am sure you will find a way." Now he turned back to Mrs Brimicombe, and with deft skill, began to draw her out on the subject of her husband's demise.

"It was early morning. I was in the kitchen. Mr Bryson had just come in, having completed an hour's work already." She avoided the eyes of the engineer Bryson, I observed, and the soubriquet "Mr Bryson" did not come naturally to her lips. "We would often eat together, though Mr Bryson was always busy and in a rush. For breakfast he would eat one fried egg and a slice of toast."

"Egg?" asked Holmes. "What egg?"

"From the small coop we keep at the back of the house," Mrs Brimicombe said.

Holmes asked, "And how was the egg that day?"

Mrs Brimicombe dropped her gaze. "Mr Bryson remarked on its fine flavour. I recall Tarquin – Mr Brimicombe – brought them in from the coop, fresh that morning."

"Really?" Holmes turned an appraising eye on the brother, Tarquin. "Sir, are you in the habit of visiting the hen-house?"

Tarquin blustered. "I should say not – I used to help Millie with the eggs as a boy – it was a fine morning – can't a fellow act on impulse once in a while?"

Wells was growing impatient. "Look here, Holmes, why are you so interested in this business of a breakfast egg? Isn't it rather trivial? And can't you see it's causing the lady distress?"

I knew my friend well enough to understand that nothing is truly trivial – there was surely some pattern to his close questioning which none of us could discern – but Mrs Brimicombe was, indeed, becoming agitated, and so Holmes dropped his interrogation of her and allowed Tarquin to lead us through to the drawing room, where he provided sherry. "I have to say I did not invite Mr Wells here," he said. "At first I regarded his interest and his insistence on coming here as an intrusion into my family's grief. But my view has changed, as I have meditated on the recent tragic events. Now that you are here I am glad, Mr Holmes. I need your help."

"Why so?"

"Ralph's life was not lost. Mr Holmes, it was stolen. After the coroner's report, the police are not interested. I was not sure who to approach, and – "

Holmes held up his hands. "Tell me exactly what you mean." His pale blue eyes were fixed on Holmes. "Ralph's death was no accident."

"Who was present in the Inertial Adjustor chamber at the time of the incident?"

"Only two of us. Myself and Bryson, my brother's engineer." "Then," I said doggedly, "you are accusing Bryson – "

"- of murder. That is right, doctor. Jack Bryson killed Ralph."

Holmes is always impatient to visit the scene of a crime, and Wells was clearly enjoying the whole affair hugely; and so we agreed to accompany Tarquin at once to the Inertial Adjustor chamber, the site of Ralph Brimicombe's death.

We had a walk of a hundred yards or so across the grounds to an out-building. By now it was late afternoon. I took deep breaths of wood-scented air, trying to clear my head after the fumes of the train. I could hear the clucking of chickens, evidently from the hen coop Mrs Brimicombe had mentioned.

I was startled when an insect no less than six inches long scuttled across my path, disturbed by my passage. At first I thought it must be a cockroach, but on closer observation, to my astonishment, it proved to be an ant. It ran with a blur of legs towards an anthill – a gigantic affair, towering over the lower trees like an eroded monument.

"Good Lord, Holmes," I said. "Did you observe that? What was it, do you think, some tropical species?"

He shook his head. "Ralph Brimicombe was no collector of bugs. Given the pattern of events here I have expected some such apparition."

"You expected it? But how?"

"Surely that repulsive red leech of Wells's was enough of a clue. But in any event – all in good time, my dear friend."

We reached a laboratory, of crude but functional construction, and I ran my eyes for the first time over the gruesome details of the Inertial Adjustor itself. The main chamber was fifty feet tall; and it was dominated by the stupendous wreck of a vehicle. This latter, had been a cone some fifteen feet in length and perhaps as broad, but it was without wheels, sails or runners: for its purpose, Tarquin told us in all seriousness, had been to fly, freed of gravity by Ralph's invention, into Space! To simulate to its occupant some of the stresses and impacts to be expected during a flight, the vessel had been suspended in midair, at the heart of the Intertial Adjustor itself, by a series of cables and gimbals.

Now the cables dangled uselessly. The ship, after an evident fall, had gouged a crater a few inches deep in the floor; it looked as if a great hammer had pounded into the concrete. And it was inside this capsule, this aluminium dream of flight in Space, that Ralph Brimicombe had fallen to his death.

Around the massive wreck were arrayed the elements of the Intertial Adjustor apparatus: coils and armatures, cones of paper and iron, filamented glass tubes, the poles of immense permanent magnets, great shadowy shapes which reached up and out of my vision, the whole far beyond my comprehension. There were besides some more mundane elements: drafting tables laden with dusty blueprints, lathes and vices and tools, chains for heavy lifting suspended from the ceiling.

I observed, however, that the fall of the vehicle had done a pretty damage to the equipment in that chamber, surely rendering it inoperative.

My eye was caught by a series of small glass-walled cages, beside a dissecting table. There was a series of leeches in stoppered jars, none of them as big as the specimen in Wells's photograph, but all so large they were indeed unable even to sustain their characteristic tubular forms; they lay against the thick glass at the bottom of their jars, in evident distress. Among the higher animals imprisoned here there were mice, but of an unusual morphology, with remarkably long and spindly limbs. Some of the mice, indeed, had trouble supporting their own weight. I remarked on this to Holmes, but he made no comment.

Holmes, Wells and I stepped over the crater's cracked lip and walked around the wrinkled aluminium of the capsule's hull. The fall had been, I judged, no more that ten feet – a drop that seemed barely enough to injure, let alone kill a man – but it had been sufficient to compress the ship's entire structure by perhaps a third of its length.

"How terrible," Wells said. "It was in this very spot suspended under the glittering hull of Brimicombe's moon ship itself – that he bade us dine."

"Then perhaps you have had a lucky escape," said Holmes grimly.

"The workmen have cut the capsule open." Tarquin indicated a square rent in the wall, a shadowed interior beyond. "The body was removed after the police and the coroner studied

the scene. Do you want to look in there? Then I will show you where Bryson and I were working."

"In a minute," said Holmes, and he studied the corpse of the fantastic ship with his usual bewildering keenness. He said, "What sort of man was Ralph? I see evidence of his technical abilities, but what was it like to know him – to be related, to work with him?"

"Among those he worked with, Ralph stood out." Tarquin's face was open and seemed untainted by envy. "When we were children, Ralph was always the leader. And so it remained as we entered adult life."

Wells remarked, "I never knew if you liked him."

Tarquin's eyes narrowed. "I cannot answer that, Bertie. We were brothers. I worked for him. I suppose I loved him. But we were also rivals, throughout life, as are most brothers.

Holmes asked bluntly, "Do you stand to benefit from his death?"

Tarquin Brimicombe said, "No. My father's legacy will not be transferred to me. Ralph made out his own will, leaving his assets to his wife; and there is no love lost between the two of us. You may check with the family solicitors – and with Jane – to verify these claims. If you are looking for a murder motive, Mr Holmes, you must dig deeper. I will not resent it."

"Oh, I shall," muttered Holmes. "And Ralph Brimicombe is beyond resenting anything. Come. Let us look in the capsule."

We stepped over the shattered concrete to the entrance cut in the capsule wall. A small lamp had been set up, filling the interior with a sombre glow. I knew that the body – what was left of it – had been taken away for burial, but the craft had not been cleaned out. I dropped my eyes to the floor, expecting – what? a dramatic splash of blood? – but there were only a few irregular stains on the burst upholstery of the aviator's couch, where Ralph had been seated at the moment of his extinguishing. There was surprisingly little damage to the equipment and instrumentation, the dials and switches and levers evidently meant to control the craft; much of it had simply been crushed longways where it stood.

But there was a smell, reminiscent to me of the hospitals of my military service.

I withdrew my head. "I am not sure what I expected," I murmured. "More – carnage, I suppose."

Tarquin frowned thoughtfully; then he extended his index finger and pointed upwards.

I looked up.

It was as if a dozen bags of rust brown paint had been hurled into the air. The upper walls and ceiling of the ship, the instruments, dials and switches that encrusted the metal, even the cabin's one small window: all were liberally coated with dried blood.

"Good Lord," said Wells, and his face blanched. "How did that get up there?"

Tarquin said, "The coroner concluded the vessel must have rolled over as it fell, thus spreading my brother's blood through its interior."

As we moved on, Wells muttered to me, "Such a size of ship, rolling over in ten feet? It hardly seems likely!"

I agreed with the young author. But Holmes would make no remark.

Tarquin took us to a gantry which crossed the chamber above the wrecked ship. We stood a few inches from a bank of cables, many of which showed necking, shearing and cracking; they had clearly snapped under extreme pressure. But one cable a fat, orange-painted rope as thick as my arm – had a clean, gleaming termination. At my feet was a gas cutting kit, and a set of protector goggles. It seemed absurdly obvious, like a puzzle set by a child, that a load-bearing cable had been cut by this torch!

Tarquin said, "Not all the cables supported the weight of the ship. Some carried power, air for the passenger, and so forth."

Holmes said, "You say you were both working up here, on this gantry, when the accident occurred? Both you and Bryson?"

"Yes. We were doing some maintenance. We were the only people in the chamber – apart from Ralph, of course. He was inside the vessel itself, performing calculations there."

Holmes asked, "And the Inertial Adjustor was in operation at the time?"

"It was."

I pointed to the fat orange cable. "Was that the main support?" He nodded. "Although I did not know that at the time."

"And it has been cut with this torch?"

"That is right," he said evenly. He leaned against the gantry rail, arms folded. "The flame sliced clean through, like ice under a hot tap. When the big one went the others started to stretch and snap. And soon the ship fell."

"And Bryson was using the torch? Is that what you are saying?"

"Oh, no." He looked mildly surprised at Wells's question. "I was doing the cutting. I was working it under Bryson's supervision."

I demanded, "But if you were working the torch, how can you accuse Bryson of murder?"

"Because he is responsible. Do not you see? He told me specifically to cut the orange cable. I followed his instructions, not knowing that it was supporting the capsule."

"You said you are trained to know every detail of the ship, inside and out."

"The ship itself, yes, doctor. Not the details of this chamber, however. But Bryson knew."

Wells remarked, "But it must have taken minutes to cut through that cable. Look at its thickness! Did Bryson not see what you were doing and stop you?"

"Bryson was not here," Tarquin said coldly. "As you have heard, he was taking breakfast with my sister-in-law, as was their wont. You see, gentlemen," he went on, a controlled anger entering his voice, "I was just a tool Bryson used to achieve his ends. As innocent as that torch at your feet."

Wells stared at the torch, the ripped cables. "Tarquin, your brother knew Bryson for years. He relied on him utterly. Why would Bryson do such a thing?"

He straightened up, brushing dust from his jacket. "You must ask him that," he said.

The next step was obvious to us all: we must confront the accused.

And so we returned to the drawing room of the main house, and confronted the wretched Bryson. He stood on the carpet, his broad, strong hands dangling useless at his side, his overalls oil-stained and bulging with tools. He was, on Wells's testimony, solid, unimaginative, able – and utterly reliable. I could not avoid a sense of embarrassment as Holmes summarized to Bryson the accusation levelled against him.

Jack Bryson hung his head and ran his palm over his scalp. "So you think I killed him," he said, sounding resigned. "That is that, then. Are you going to call in the police?"

"Slow down." Holmes held his hands up. "To begin with, I do not know what possible reason you could have for wanting to harm Ralph Brimicombe."

"It was Jane," he said suddenly.

Wells frowned. "Brimicombe's wife? What about her?"

"She and I -" He hesitated. "I may as well tell you straight; you will find out anyway. I do not know if you would call it an affair. I am a good bit older than she is – but still – Ralph was so distant, you know, so wrapped up in his work. And Jane – "

"- is a woman of warmth and devotion," Holmes said gently.

Bryson said, "I knew Jane a long time. The closeness – the opportunity. Well. So there is your motive, Mr Holmes. I am the lover who slew the cuckolded husband. And my opportunity for murder is without question."

I found it painful to watch his face. There was no bitterness there, no pride: only a sour resignation.

Wells turned to Holmes. "So," he said, "the case is resolved. Are you disappointed, Holmes?"

For answer he filled and lit his pipe. "Resolved?" he said softly. "I think not."

Bryson looked confused. "Sir?"

"Do not be so fast to damn yourself, man.You are a suspect. But that does not make you a murderer: in my eyes, in the eyes of the law, or in the eyes of God."

"And will the courts accept that? I am resigned, Mr Holmes: resigned to my fate. Let it be."

To that dignified acceptance, even Holmes had nothing to say.

Holmes ordered Bryson to take us through the same grisly inspection tour as Tarquin. Soon we were walking around the wreck once more. Unlike Tarquin, Bryson had not seen this place since the day of the accident; his distress was clear as he picked his way through the remnants of the support cables. He said: "The fall took a long time, even after the main support was severed. The noise of the shearing cables went on and on,

and there was not a thing I could do about it. I ran out for help, before the end. And when we heard Ralph had been killed -" Now he turned his crumpled face to Holmes's. "No matter who you call guilty in the end, Mr Holmes, I am the killer. I know that. This is my domain; Ralph Brimicombe's life was in my hands while he was in this room, and I failed – "

"Stop it, man," Holmes said sharply. "This self-destructive blame is hardly helpful. For now, we should concentrate on the facts of the case."

Holmes took Bryson to the entrance cut in the capsule. With obvious reluctance the engineer picked his way to the crude doorway. The light inside cast his trembling cheeks in sharp relief. I saw how he looked around the walls of the cabin, at the remnants of the couch on the floor. Then he stood straight and looked at Holmes, puzzled. "Has it been cleaned?"

Holmes pointed upwards.

Bryson pushed his neck through the doorway once more and looked up at the ceiling of the capsule. When he saw the human remains scattered there he gasped and stumbled back.

Holmes said gently, "Watson, would you – "

I took Bryson's arm, meaning to care for him, but he protested: "I am all right. It was just the shock."

"One question," Holmes said. "Tell me how the cable was cut."

"Tarquin was working the torch," he began. "Under my direction. The job was simple; all he had to do was snip out a faulty section of an oxygen line."

"Are you saying Ralph's death was an accident?"

"Oh, no," Bryson said firmly. "It was quite deliberate." He seemed to be challenging us to disbelieve him.

"Tell me the whole truth," said Holmes.

"I was not watching Tarquin's every move. I had given Tarquin his instructions and had left to take breakfast before progressing to another item of work."

"What exactly did you tell him to do?"

He considered, his eyes closing. "I pointed to the oxygen line, explained what it was, and showed him what he had to do. The air line is a purple-coded cable about a thumb's-width thick."

"Whereas the support cables – "

"are all orange coded, about so thick." He made a circle with his thumbs and middle fingers. "It is hard – impossible – to confuse the two."

"Did you not see what he was doing?"

"I was at breakfast with Mrs Brimicombe when it happened. I expected to be back, however."

"Why were you not?"

He shrugged. "My breakfast egg took rather longer to cook than usual. I remember the housekeeper's apology."

Wells tutted. "Those wretched eggs again!"

"At any event," Bryson said, "I was only gone a few minutes. But by the time I returned Tarquin had sliced clean through the main support. Then the shearing began."

"So you clearly identified the gas line to Tarquin."

"I told you. I pointed to it."

"And there is no way he could have mixed it up with the support cable?"

He raised his eyebrows. "What do you think?"

I scratched my head. "Is it possible he caught the support somehow with the torch, as he was working on the gas feed?"

He laughed; it was a brief, ugly sound. "Hardly, doctor. The support is about four feet from the air line. He had to turn round, and stretch, and keep the torch there, to do what he did. We can go up to the gantry and see if you like." He seemed to lose his confidence. "Look, Mr Holmes, I do not expect you to believe me. I know I am only an engineer, and Tarquin was Ralph's brother."

"Bryson – "

"But there is no doubt in my mind.Tarquin quite deliberately cut through that support, and ended his brother's life."

There we left our enquiries for the day.

I fulfilled Holmes's request regarding the dog Sheba. On a cursory inspection I found the poor animal's limbs to be spindly and crooked from so many breaks. I collected a sample of her urine and delivered it to the Chippenham general hospital, where an old medical school friend of mine arranged for a series of simple assays. He had the results within the hour, which I tucked into my pocket.

I rejoined my companions, who had retired to the "Little George" hostelry in Chippenham for the evening. They had

been made welcome by a broad-bellied, white-aproned barman, had dined well on bread and cheese, and were enjoying the local ale (though Holmes contented himself with his pipe), and talking nineteen to the dozen the while.

"It is nevertheless quite a mystery," said Wells, around a mouthful of bread. "Has there even been a murder? Or could it all be simply some ghastly, misunderstood accident?"

"I think we can rule that out," said Holmes. "The fact that there are such conflicts between the accounts of the two men is enough to tell us that something is very wrong."

"One of them – presumably the murderer – is lying. But which one? Let us follow it through. Their accounts of the crucial few seconds, when the cable was cut, are ninety per cent identical; they both agree that Bryson had issued an instruction to Tarquin, who had then turned and cut through the support. The difference is that Bryson says he had quite clearly told Tarquin to cut through the air line. But Tarquin says he was instructed, just as clearly, to slice through what turned out to be the support.

"It is like a pretty problem in geometry," went on Wells. "The two versions are symmetrical, like mirror images. But which is the original and which the false copy? What about motive, then? Could Tarquin's envy of his brother – plain for all to see – have driven him to murder? But there is no financial reward for him. And then there is the engineer. Bryson was driven to his dalliance with Jane Brimicombe by the tenderness of his character. How can such tenderness chime with a capability for scheming murder? So, once again, we have symmetry. Each man has a motive – "

Holmes puffed contentedly at his pipe as Wells rattled on in this fashion. He said at last, "Speculations about the mental state of suspects are rarely so fruitful as concentration on the salient facts of the case."

I put in, "I'm sure the peculiar circumstances of the death had something to do with the nature of the Inertial Adjustor itself, though I fail to understand how."

Holmes nodded approvingly. "Good, Watson."

"But," said Wells, "we don't even know if the Adjustor ever operated, or if it was another of Ralph's vain boasts – a flight of fancy, like his trip to the Moon! I still have that vial of Moon dust about me somewhere – "

"You yourself had lunch in the chamber," Holmes said.

"I did. And Ralph performed little demonstrations of the principal. For instance: he dropped a handful of gravel, and we watched as the heaviest fragments were snatched most rapidly to Earth's bosom, contrary to Galileo's famous experiment. But I saw nothing which could not be replicated by a competent conjurer."

"And what of the mice?"

Wells frowned.

"They were rather odd, Mr Wells," I said.

"We can imagine the effect of the distorted gravity of that chamber on generations of insects and animals," Holmes said. "A mouse, for instance, being small, would need the lightest of limbs to support its reduced weight."

Wells saw it. "And they would evolve in that direction, according to the principles of Darwin – of course! Succeeding generations would develop attenuated limbs. Insects like your ant, Watson, could grow to a large size. But larger animals would be dragged more strongly to the ground. A horse, for example, might need legs as thick as an elephant's to support its weight."

"You have it," said Holmes. "But I doubt if there was time, or resource, for Ralph to study more than a generation or two of the higher animals. There was only his wife's unlucky labrador to use as test subject. And when Watson opens the envelope in his pocket, he will find the assay of the urine samples from that animal to display excessive levels of calcium."

That startled me. I retrieved and opened the envelope, and was not surprised – I know the man! – to find the results just as Holmes had predicted.

"The calcium is from the bones of the animal," Holmes said. "Trapped by Ralph in a region in which it needed to support less weight, the bitch's musculature and bone structure must have become progressively weaker, with bone calcium being washed out in urine. The same phenomenon is observed in patients suffering excessive bed rest, and I saw certain indications of the syndrome in those discoloured patches of lawn."

"Then the means of his death," Wells said, "must indeed be related to Ralph Brimicombe's successful modification of gravity itself."

"Certainly," said Holmes. "And similarly related are the motive behind the crime, and the opportunity."

Wells grew excited. "You've solved it, Holmes? What a remarkable man you are!"

"For the morrow," Holmes said. "For now, let us enjoy the hospitality of the landlord, and each other's company. I too enjoyed your Time Machine, Wells."

He seemed flattered. "Thank you."

"Especially your depiction of the crumbling of our foolish civilization. Although I am not convinced you had thought it through far enough. Our degradation, when it comes, will surely be more dramatic and complete."

"Oh, indeed? Then let me set you a challenge, Mr Holmes. What if I were to transport you, through time, to some remote future – as remote as the era of the great lizards – let us say, tens of millions of years. How would you deduce the former existence of mankind?"

My friend rested his legs comfortably on a stool and tamped his pipe. "A pretty question. We must remember first that everything humans construct will revert to simpler chemicals over time. One must only inspect the decay of the Egyptian pyramids to see that, and they are young compared to the geologic epochs you evoke. None of our concrete or steel or glass will last even a million years."

"But," said Wells, "perhaps some human remains might be preserved in volcanic ash, as at Pompeii and Herculaneum. These remains might have artifacts in close proximity, such as jewellery or surgical tools. And geologists of the future will surely find a layer of ash and lead and zinc to mark the presence of our once-noble civilization – "

But Holmes did not agree -

And on they talked, H.G. Wells and Sherlock Holmes together, in a thickening haze of tobacco smoke and beer fumes, until my own poor head was spinning with the concepts they juggled.

The next morning, we made once more for the Brimicombe home. Holmes asked for Tarquin.

The younger Brimicombe entered the drawing room, sat comfortably and crossed his legs.

Holmes regarded him, equally at his ease. "This case has reminded me of a truism I personally find easy to forget: how little people truly understand of the world around us. You demonstrated this, Watson, with your failure to predict the correct fall of my sovereign and farthing, even though it is but an example of a process you must observe a hundred times a day. And yet it takes a man of genius – a Galileo – to be the first to perform a clear and decisive experiment in such a matter.You are no genius, Mr Brimicombe, and still less so is the engineer, Bryson. And yet you studied your brother's work; your grasp of the theory is the greater, and your understanding of the behaviour of objects inside the Inertial Adjustor is bound to be wider than poor Bryson's."

Ralph stared at Holmes, the fingers of one hand trembling slightly.

Holmes rested his hands behind his head. "After all, it was a drop of only ten feet or so. Even Watson here could survive a fall like that – perhaps with bruises and broken bones. But it was not Ralph's fall that killed him, was it? Tarquin, what was the mass of the capsule?"

"About ten tons."

"Perhaps a hundred times Ralph's mass. And so – in the peculiar conditions of the Inertial Adjustor – it fell to the floor a hundred times faster than Ralph."

And then, in a flash, I saw it all. Unlike my friendly lift cabin of Wells's analogy, the capsule would drive rapidly to the floor, engulfing Ralph. My unwelcome imagination ran away with the point: I saw the complex ceiling of the capsule smashing into Ralph's staring face, a fraction of a second before the careening metal hit his body and he burst like a balloon…

Tarquin buried his eyes in the palm of his hand. "I live with the image. Why are you telling me this?"

For answer, Holmes turned to Wells. "Mr Wells, let us test your own powers of observation. What is the single most startling aspect of the case?"

He frowned. "When we first visited the Inertial Adjustor chamber with Tarquin, I recall looking into the capsule, and scanning the floor and couch for signs of Ralph's death."

"But," Holmes said, "the evidence of Ralph's demise bizarre, grotesque – were fixed to the ceiling not the floor."

"Yes. Tarquin told me to look up – just as later, now I think on it, you, Mr Holmes, had to tell the engineer Bryson to raise his head, and his face twisted in horror." He studied Holmes. "So, a breaking of the symmetry at last. Tarquin knew where to look; Bryson did not. What does that tell us?"

Holmes said, "By looking down, by seeking traces of Ralph on the couch, the floor, we demonstrated we had not understood what had happened to Ralph. We had to be shown – as had Bryson! If Bryson had sought to murder Ralph he would have chosen some other method. Only someone who has studied the properties of a gravity field changed by the Inertial Adjustor would know immediately how cutting that cable would kill Ralph."

Tarquin sat very still, eyes covered. "Someone like me, you mean?"

Wells said, "Is that an admission, Tarquin?"

Tarquin lifted his face to Holmes, looking thoughtful. "You do not have any proof. And there is a counter-argument. Bryson could have stopped me, before I cut through the cable. The fact that he did not is evidence of his guilt!"

"But he was not there," Holmes said evenly. "As you arranged."

Tarquin guffawed. "He was taking breakfast with my sister-in-law! How could I arrange such a thing?"

"There is the matter of Bryson's breakfast egg, which took unusually long to cook," Holmes said.

"Your egg again, Holmes!" Wells cried.

"On that morning," said Holmes, "and that morning alone, you, Mr Brimicombe, collected fresh eggs from the coop. I checked with the housekeeper. The eggs used for breakfast here are customarily a day or more old. As you surely learned as a child fond of the hens, Tarquin, a fresh egg takes appreciably longer to cook than one that is a day or more old. A fresh egg has a volume of clear albumen solution trapped in layers of dense egg white around the yolk. These layers make the egg sit up in the frying pan. After some days the albumen layers degenerate, and the more watery egg will flatten out, and is more easily cooked."

Wells gasped. "My word, Holmes. Is there no limit to your intelligence?"

"Oh," said Brimicombe, "but this is – "

"Mr Brimicombe," Holmes said steadily, "you are not a habitual criminal. When I call in the police they will find all the proof any court in the land could require. Do you doubt that?"

Tarquin Brimicombe considered for a while, and then said: "Perhaps not." He gave Holmes a grin, like a good loser on the playing field. "Maybe I tried to be too clever; I thought I was home clear anyway, but when I knew you were corning I decided to bluff you over Bryson to be sure. I knew about his involvement with Jane; I knew he would have a motive for you to pick up – "

"And so you tried to implicate an innocent man." I could see Holmes's cool anger building.

Wells said, "So it is resolved. Tell me one thing.Tarquin. If not for your brother's money, why?"

He showed surprise. "Do you not know, Bertie? The first aviator will be the most famous man in history. I wanted to be that man, to fly Ralph's craft into the air, perhaps even to other worlds."

"But," Wells said, "Ralph claimed to have flown already all the way to the moon and back."

Tarquin dismissed this with a gesture. "Nobody believed that. I could have been first. But my brother would never have allowed it."

"And so," said Wells bitterly, "you destroyed your brother and his work – rather than allow him precedence."

There was a touch of pride in Tarquin's voice. "At least I can say I gave my destiny my best shot, Bertie Wells. Can you say the same?"

The formalities of Tarquin Brimicombe's arrest and charging were concluded rapidly, and the three of us, without regret, took the train for London. The journey was rather strained; Wells, having enjoyed the hunt, now seemed embittered by the unravelling of the Brimicombe affair. He said, "It is a tragedy that the equipment is so smashed up, that Ralph's note-taking was so poor, that his brother – murderer or not – is such a dullard. It will not prove possible to restore Ralph's work, I fear."

Holmes mused, "But the true tragedy here is that of a scientist who sacrificed his humanity – the love of his wife – for knowledge."

Wells grew angry. "Really. And what of you, Mr Holmes, and your dry quest for fact, fact, fact? What have you sacrificed?"

"I do not judge," Holmes said easily. "I merely observe."

"At any rate," said Wells, "it may be many years before humans truly fly to the moon – oh, I am reminded." He dug into a coat pocket and pulled out a small, stoppered vial. It contained a quantity of grey-black dust, like charcoal. "I found it. Here is the 'moon dust' which Ralph gave me, the last element of his hoax." He opened the bottle and shook a thimbleful of dust into the palms of Holmes and myself.

I poked at the grains. They were sharp-edged. The dust had a peculiar smell: "Like wood smoke," I opined.

"Or wet ash," Wells suggested. "Or gunpowder!"

Holmes frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose the soil of the moon, never having been exposed to air, would react with the oxygen in our atmosphere. The iron contained therein – it would be like a slow burning – "

Wells collected the dust from us. He seemed angry and bitter. "Let us give up this foolishness. What a waste this all is. How many advances of the intellect have been betrayed by the weakness of the human heart? Oh, perhaps I might make a romance of this – but that is all that is left! Here! Have done with you!" And with an impetuous gesture he opened the carriage window and shook out the vial, scattering dust along the track. Holmes raised an elegant hand, as if to stop him, but he was too late. The dust was soon gone, and Wells discarded the bottle

itself.

For the rest of the journey to Paddington, Holmes was strangely thoughtful, and said little.

The Adventure of the Touch of God – Peter Crowther

It was with a mixture of trepidation and eager anticipation that, on a cold and dank November evening, having just arrived back at our rooms in Baker Street from a day-long symposium on glandular deterioration, I greeted Sherlock Holmes's announcement that we were to journey to Harrogate.

Despite being some 200 or more miles from the capital's bustling familiarity and drudgery (two indistinguishable sides of the same tarnished coin), the trip clearly promised a return to matters of detection. For though Holmes complemented news of our impending departure with the promise of bracingYorkshire air to clean clogged and jaded tubes – of both a bronchial and a cerebral nature – I suspected an ulterior motive.

That is not to say that my good friend was not given to displays of impetuosity. Indeed, he had proven to me on many occasions that he was the very soul of immediacy. It was as though he were cognizant of his own mortality. Sometimes, I even thought that he was frightened of idleness, though he was not a man prone to fear or cowardice. Rather it was, or so it seemed, the prospect of inaction that presented the most serious affront to his sense of being. Action, or "the game" as he liked to regard the often heinous crimes whose unravelling he was frequently called upon to master, was what he was here to do. It was for this singular reason that I so welcomed the prospect.

For myself, however, the approach was entirely different. Somewhat in contradiction to the cautious and even begrudging excitement I have already mentioned, it was my custom to regard the prospect of further nefarious activities with some

apprehension. On the occasion in question, this feeling was particularly pronounced.

"Might I at least remove my topcoat?" I enquired.

"No time for that, old fellow," Holmes blustered. "We are to leave within the hour. Here." He held out to me a single sheet of paper and the envelope in which it had arrived.

Affixing my reading spectacles, I glanced at the letter and its careful and practised copperplate hand. "Read it aloud, old fellow," Holmes proclaimed with a pride that suggested he himself as the missive's author.

" 'My Dear Mr Sherlock Holmes,' it begins," I said. " 'Please forgive the brevity of this note and its undoubted intrusion on your privacy but I am in dire need of advice and assistance on a matter of grave importance.' "

" 'Grave importance', " Holmes said, turning his back to the fire crackling in the grate. "Capital!" He glanced across at me and waved a dismissive hand. "Do continue, Watson."

I returned my attention to the letter.

" 'A situation has arisen,' " I resumed, " 'here in Harrogate which, I feel, requires a level of experience and a depth of knowledge that I am in all honesty quite unqualified to provide, despite some thirty years with the Force.' "

"Force?" I enquired of Holmes. "The sender is a policeman?" "Read on, read on," Holmes instructed, and he walked to the window and stared into the street.

I returned to the letter. " 'We are plagued with a villain the likes of what I have never encountered,' " I read, " 'a madman in whose wake we now have three deaths and little or no explanation as to the reason behind them. It would be not proper for me to outline the manner of these inhuman atrocities in this letter but I feel sure that they will be of sufficient interest to warrant your visiting us at your earliest availability.' "

The letter closed with the writer's assurance that, in the event of our accepting his invitation, rooms would be arranged for us on our behalf at a nearby hostelry, and at no cost to ourselves. It was signed Gerald John Makinson, Inspector of the North Yorkshire Police.

"What do you say to that, Watson?" Holmes said, warming himself against the fire, his back arched like that of a cat.

I did not know quite what to make of it, save that the Inspector's grasp of the King's English was somewhat lacking and I told my friend as much. "For that matter," I added, "who is this Makinson fellow?"

"I was introduced to him by our very own Lestrade, last June as I recall. The fellow was down in London to attend a series of presentations on the increasing use of behavioural science in law enforcement. His address was most enlightening."

"Apparently the meeting made something of an impression," I observed.

"And one beside that of simple grammatical impropriety," said Holmes. He stepped away from the fire and rubbed his hands gleefully before removing his watch from a pocket in his waistcoat. He glanced at the timepiece. "Almost five and twenty past seven,Watson." He returned the watch and smiled, his eyes narrowing. "There is a milk train which leaves King's Cross station at four minutes past ten o'clock. It is my intention that we be on it."

I was about to protest, fully realizing that it would be to no avail, when Holmes turned around and strode purposefully from the room. "Might I rely on you to pack some suitable clothes, old fellow?" he requested over his shoulder. "And please do bear in mind that Yorkshire is not a county renowned for the clemency of its weather, particularly at this time of the year." With that, he slammed his bedroom door.

I glanced down at the single sheet of paper in my hand. It never ceased to amaze me at how little it took to propel my friend to levels of great excitement, and at how quickly those levels could be so attained. It was a trait that was at once both enviable and despairing to behold, for these high moods when he was absorbed in a case were countered by depths of depression when he was not. It was at times such as this that Sherlock Holmes reminded me not so much of a sleuth as of a young schoolboy, so pure were his beliefs and motivations.

I set to preparing overnight bags for the two of us, including sufficient clothes for a few days' stay, and, when Holmes reappeared, we left our rooms and, without further conversation, ventured out into the cold evening.

We boarded the train at five minutes to ten o'clock and made our way immediately to our sleeping compartments. At the prescribed time, the train departed King's Cross and headed

for Yorkshire. As the gently rocking motion of the carriage lulled me towards sleep, I watched the dark countryside pass by the window, noting somewhat ominously that the fog was growing seemingly thicker with each yard we travelled northwards.

We arrived in Leeds at a little after a quarter past six on the following morning.

I had had a reasonable enough night's sleep, the rocking of the carriage keeping me quite comforted. Holmes, however, appeared not to have fared so well and, when I first saw him in the corridor, he looked pale and drawn, his eyes pouched and discoloured. He was fully dressed and clearly ready to disembark and begin the next stage of our journey.

"Sleep well, old fellow?" he enquired in a tone that suggested the answer was less important than the fact that, in his opinion, he had been waiting too long to pose it.

"I did indeed," I replied. "And you?"

He gave a slight grimace and adjusted his gloves. "As you know, I dislike periods of enforced inaction. Periods during which there is little to demand my attention." He clapped his hands together and his face beamed beneath his ear-flapped travelling-cap. "However, we are but some fifteen miles from our destination. There is a train leaving on the half-hour." With that, he lifted his bag and walked along the corridor to the door.

Harrogate is a delightful town, a criss-cross of busy streets and thoroughfares surrounded by an interlocking grid of cultivated grassland called "The Two Hundred Acres" or, more commonly, "The Stray", which we had seen in all of its early-morning, mist-enshrouded finery as we approached the station.

A brisk walk ensued and we arrived at the police station as a distant clock chimed ten, to be greeted by a tall, burly, uniformed sergeant whose face displayed a florid expression and the most singularly inquisitive eyes.

"Now then, gentlemen," he boomed, "and what can we be doing for you this fine morning?"

It transpired that my friend had telegraphed Inspector Gerald John Makinson the previous afternoon, informing him of our intended arrival time. "So you're Mr Sherlock Holmes, then?" the officer enquired.

Holmes set down his bag on the station steps, removed the glove from his right hand and held it out. "I am he," he said.

The officer gave, I thought, a somewhat forced smile and shook the proffered hand once. "And you must be Mr Watson," he said turning to me.

"I am, indeed, Doctor Watson," I said, accepting the hand. The shake was as brusque as his manner.

"I'm Sergeant Hewitt. Come on inside," he said, lifting both of our overnight bags. "There's a fresh pot of tea made and it'll take but a minute to do you some toast. Inspector Makinson will be along presently. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to wait in here, gentlemen," he said, ushering us into a small, square room ringed by chairs around a circular table. He rested our bags on one of the chairs and proceeded to help us off with our coats and hats, which he then placed on a hatstand next to a blazing fire. "Tea'll be along in a minute. Will you be having toast?"

"That would be most welcome," Holmes said.

"Right then, toast it -" The sound of a door banging outside interrupted him and he turned to see who had just entered. "Ah," he said, turning back to us, "Inspector Makinson has arrived. I'll be back presently."

Hewitt stepped back to permit entrance to a short gentleman with quite the most bristling moustache I have ever seen. The man removed his bowler and nodded to the officer who backed out and closed the door gently behind him. "Good morning, gentlemen," he said offering his hand which, ungloved, was freezing cold to the touch. "Gerald Makinson."

We made our introductions and took seats by the fire.

"Mr Holmes, it's a great pleasure to meet you again, sir," Makinson began as he rubbed his hands together vigorously in front of the flames, "though we might've hoped for more pleasant circumstances."

"While Patience may well be a card game from which I have derived some considerable pleasure," Holmes responded with a thin smile, "it is not, I fear, my strongest suit. I wonder if you might give us some indication of your situation. If I am not mistaken there had been further developments in the case even as we were travelling here from London."

"Quite so, quite so. Well, it's like this, gentlemen.

"Almost two weeks ago – the second of November, to be precise – the body of Terence Wetherall, one of the town's most

prominent landlords, was discovered by one of his tenants. Murdered."

The Inspector imbued the last word with an almost absurd theatrical flourish and I had to stifle a smile, thankfully unobserved.

"What was the manner of his death?" Holmes enquired.

"He'd been strangled. No instrument was found but the nature of the marks around his neck suggests some kind of rope or string. We found traces of coarse hair in the wound. But the worst thing was the man's heart had been removed."

"Good Lord!" I ventured.

"Quite, Doctor Watson, his chest had been slit open and the unfortunate organ torn out. It was a messy affair, I can tell you," he added. "There was no indication of careful surgical procedure – we've had a local surgeon examine the wound and it appears that the heart was just pulled out. His chest looked like a pack of wild dogs had been at it…"

"Suspects?"

The Inspector shook his head. "Mr Wetherall was extremely well-liked as far as we can make out. His wife – sorry: widow – knew of no reason why anyone would wish him harm. And certainly she knows of no one who would conceivably wish to defile his body in such a way."

"I wonder if we might see the body," I said.

"Of course, Doctor. You can see them all."

I glanced across at Holmes who tented his fingers in front of his face and carefully studied the tips. "Do continue, Inspector."

At that moment, Sergeant Hewitt reappeared with a tray containing a teapot, three cups and saucers, a small jug of milk, a large plate of buttered toast, a small phial of marmalade and one of honey, and three side plates. It was a meal which, despite its simplicity, was a sight for weary eyes. We set to pouring tea and helping ourselves to the toast, and Inspector Makinson resumed his story.

"A few days later, 7 November, a farmer was brutally slain in the nearby village of Hampsthwaite. Shotgun-blasted in the back of the head, point blank range. He'd gone outside to check his livestock – something he did every evening at the same time – and the killer must've been waiting."

The Inspector took a sip of tea and returned the cup to his saucer.

"And, once again, the heart of the unfortunate victim had been removed, though this time the damage to the body was less.

"The third slaying was last week, the eleventh, and this was maybe the most heinous of them all. A young woman, Gertrude Ridge, a schoolteacher in the town, was reported missing on the morning of the tenth when she didn't appear at school. She was discovered on the embankment by the side of the railway line… or, should I say, some of her was discovered."

Holmes leaned forward. "Some, you say?"

The Inspector nodded gravely and reached for his cup of tea. "Only the torso was found – it was identified by her clothes. Both legs, both arms and the unfortunate girl's head were missing."

"But her heart?" I said.

"Her torso was intact, Doctor Watson. And we've since found both legs, the head and one of the arms."

"Where were these limbs found, Inspector?" Holmes enquired.

"A little way along the embankment, in the bushes."

"Were they close together?"

Inspector Makinson frowned. "Yes, yes I believe they were." "And the embankment has been thoroughly searched?"

"In both directions, and with a toothcomb, Mr Holmes. The other arm wasn't there."

Holmes lifted his coffee and stared into the swirling liquid. "And now you have another murder, I take it."

Makinson nodded and twirled his moustache. "Yes, a fourth body was reported in the early hours of this morning to a Bobby on the beat. Down a small alleyway alongside the market buildings in the town square. Another shotgun blast, this time in the face at point blank range. Took most of his head with it, it did. We identified the corpse from what we found in his pockets. William Fitzhue Crosby, the manager of our local branch of Daleside Bank."

"And the man's heart?" I enquired.

"Ripped out like the first two."

"Who reported the body?" asked Holmes.

"An old cleaner woman for the market buildings. She lives

there all the time. She heard the shot, looked out of her windows and saw the body."

I watched my friend drain his cup and return it to the tray before him. He settled back into his seat and glanced first at me and then at the Inspector.

"Tell me, Inspector," he said at last. "How much disturbance had there been around the teacher's body?"

Gerald Makinson frowned. "Disturbance?"

I recognized a touch of impatience in the way my friend waved his hand. "Blood, Inspector. How much blood was there on the ground?"

"Very little, Mr Holmes. But our doctor tells me that once the heart was removed there wouldn't be much blood loss. The girl's clothes were soaked, mind you."

Holmes nodded. "Were there any traces of blood on the grass leading to and from the severed limbs?"

Makinson shook his head. "None as we could find," he said dolefully.

Holmes considered this before asking, "And what signs were about the body of the banker?"

"Again, very little. We put it down again to – "

"to the removal of the heart."

"Yes," Inspector Makinson agreed.

"Quite so." Holmes nodded slowly and then closed his eyes. "And why would anyone want to steal a heart? Or, more significantly, three hearts plus an assortment of severed limbs and a head? For that matter, why would they leave the young woman's heart in place?"

"It's like I say," said the Inspector, "it's a puzzle and no denying which is, I might add, why I called upon your services. And those of the good doctor," he added with a peremptory nod in my direction.

"And we are both delighted that you did so, Inspector," said Holmes. "But what if," he continued, leaning forward suddenly in his chair, "the murderer simply forgot to take the girl's heart."

"Forgot it!" I was so astounded by the seeming preposterous nature of my friend's suggestion that I almost choked on a mouthful of toast. "Why ever would he do that when that was his entire objective?"

"But was it his objective, old fellow?" said Holmes.

"What are you saying, Mr Holmes?" "Just this: suppose the removal of the hearts was simply to cover up some other reason for the murders?"

"I cannot imagine any reason for murder which is so despicable that the murderer would want to cover it up with the removal of a heart," I observed.

"No, perhaps not, Watson. Not a despicable reason, I agree. But perhaps a reason that might lead us to his identity."

While Inspector Makinson and I considered this, my friend continued.

"Inspector, did your men find any traces of blood or tissue… perhaps even bone fragments… on the wall which took the shotgun blast?"

Inspector Makinson's eyes widened. "Why, I don't believe we did."

"Quite, Inspector. That fact and the fact that was little or no evidence of blood around the body, despite the removal of the heart, means that the murder was committed somewhere else and the body carried to the alleyway.

"I sense a confusion of red herrings," Holmes continued. "Red herrings?"

"Quite so, Watson," Holmes said as he got to his feet. "But before we go any further, I think we should see the bodies."

Without further ado, Inspector Makinson led us out of the room, along a series of corridors and then down a long staircase.

Finally, we arrived at a large oaken door inlaid with sheets of metal and an iron bar manacled through two support frames. The door opened onto a narrow corridor through whose windows we got our first glimpse of the unfortunate victims.

The entrance to the "resting" room was at the far end of the corridor and, as we walked along, I could not help but stare at the series of cots covered over with bottle-green sheets, and at the unmistakable human shapes beneath.

The room itself smelled of death, the familiar aroma – to me, at least – of putrefying flesh, a mixed scent of ruined fruit and

stale milk. There is something about dead bodies which causes the living to speak in hushed tones in their presence. Indeed, it was several months of concentrated autopsy work before even I myself could overcome the need to affect some kind of

reverence. But a dead body is not a person.This knowledge, too, comes only with practice and repeated exposure.

Makinson walked across to the first cot and crouched down to read the label tied to the support. "This one, Mr Holmes,

is,,

"Could we have them in the order they were murdered, Inspector?" Holmes boomed. "And I don't think there's any need to whisper. Nothing we say in here will be any revelation to the victims."

Makinson stood up, ran a finger across his moustache and coughed loudly. He walked across to the second cot, studied the label and then crossed to the third. "This," he announced in grand tones, "is Mr Wetherall."

I followed Holmes across to the cot and watched as Makinson pulled back the sheet.

Decomposition was well underway, despite the cool temperature of the room.

I could see that the man had been in his mid forties although the sunken eyes and hollowing cheeks were giving him a countenance of someone considerably older. A wide ligature around the neck had discoloured to a dull brown shade.

"What do you make of that, Watson?" Holmes said, pointing to the man's chest.

The wound was extensive, apparently caused by a series of slashes into the flesh, some of which extended vertically from the collarbone almost to the waist while others crossed the sternum either horizontally or diagonally. "These wounds were presumably made to expose the heart," I concluded, "but it looks like a frenzied attack. Considering that the man would have been dead when these were committed, I can only conclude that the murderer was in a terrible hurry. See here, several sections of flesh appear to have been hacked out."

Holmes stepped in front of Makinson, who shuffled to one side, and bent over the body. "Did you find these pieces of flesh, Inspector?"

"No. But we had noticed they was missing. We presumed that the killer took them with the heart."

"By mistake or in haste, you mean?" I shook my head. "That does not make sense. The flesh is entirely separate to the heart. Once exposed – as these wounds would surely have done easily – the heart would be encased within the sternum. You can see where he broke the lower ribs to get at it. Once he had the heart, it would be unlikely that he would take a large piece of flesh with it."

"Then why would he take it?" said Holmes. He turned to the Inspector who started to shrug. "Let us look at the next one, Inspector, the farmer, I believe."

We moved back to the second cot and Makinson pulled back the sheet.

This man had been much older, possibly sixty. The Inspector had been right. The damage to the chest was markedly less than that on the first victim, a simple cross-cut over the sternum and two vertical wounds, each less than a foot in length, which enabled the flesh to be pulled back to expose the heart. "It almost seems to be the work of a different person," I observed. "It's certainly not the work of a professional, however, despite its relative neatness. Perhaps he had more time. Or perhaps he was simply not so nervous."

I pulled the head to one side and looked at the damage at the back. The neck appeared to be almost completely destroyed right up to the hairline. The base of the skull was exposed and fragmented. Bending over, I could see that the wound extended down onto the shoulders.

"I wonder if we might turn him over," I said.

Both Makinson and Holmes stepped forward and, between the three of us, we managed to twist the body onto its side.

The shotgun blast had indeed been concentrated on his lower neck and upper back, right between the shoulder blades. The flesh there had been pulverized exposing portions of the spine and lower shoulder blades, themselves showing some fragmentation.

I bent closer. "That's interesting…"

"What's that, old fellow? Found something?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," I said. "But there does seem to be some indication of another wound."

Holmes and Makinson moved alongside me and looked where I was pointing. Just to the left of the start of the ruination caused by the shotgun blast, a tiny piece of skin appeared to have been removed. That piece of skin could, of course, have been merely the tip of a much larger piece and I mentioned this fact. "One has to consider it as cart tracks disappearing momentarily into

a puddle from which they re-emerge on the other side," I said. "The puddle in this case is the shotgun wound."

"Are you suggesting that something was done to him before the shot was administered?" asked Makinson.

I looked back at the top of the wound, where it met the hairline, and lifted the shreds of loose skin and matted hair. It was as I suspected. The base of the skull was badly depressed, suggesting a hard blow from a solid object.

"He appears to have been struck from behind," I said. "And with a blunt instrument. See, the skin is not broken.The fracture of the skull suggests that such a blow would certainly have rendered the man immediately unconscious and, very probably, would have resulted in his death by haemorrhage. I would need to open up the brain pan to confirm that," I added, "but I would expect to find evidence of subdural haematoma plus bruising on the frontal lobes due to contra-coup."

Holmes was smiling. "Capital, Watson, capital." He strode to the window overlooking the corridor and spread his hands on the shelf. "Before we go any further, let us make one or two assumptions." He turned around and checked them off on the fingers of his left hand.

"The killer murders his first victim by strangulation," Holmes announced. "Then he sets about removing the victim's heart, a process during which a piece of flesh disappears. The means by which the chest is opened up suggests fear or haste… it also, at least initially, makes the disappearance of the piece of flesh seemingly unimportant. I suspect neither fear nor haste played any part in these killings. Rather, it is the work of a severely deranged mind and one that is exceedingly cunning."

He held up a second finger. "The killer strikes again. This time the method of slaying is inconclusive. Initial investigations suggest the cause of death to be a shotgun blast to the back but we now have evidence of a blow to the base of the skull. Which, not unnaturally, prompts the question why should he kill his victim twice? We also have suggested evidence which points to some kind of incision or skin removal immediately below the wound. The wound also extends, almost, to the site of the blow to the skull… as though, perhaps, the murderer were wanting to conceal both of those events.

"Certainly if, as we believe, the strike to the head rendered the victim unconscious at best, then it would have been a relatively simple matter to go about the removal of the heart without the need of further violence. This therefore suggests a further motive for the use of the shotgun, the second red herring."

"Second?" said Makinson.

"Indeed, Inspector. The first one is the removal of the hearts, though quite what such an intrusion could possibly disguise I have, as yet, no opinion. Equally, the reason for the missing flesh or the partial incision is still unclear."

We moved across to the third cot, pulling back the sheet to expose a grisly collection. The young woman's head was propped between the legs while the arm lay before it like some kind of gift and all were set out on the torso as if to resemble a construction puzzle. I lifted first the arm, turning it over in my hands, and then the legs, performing a similar study. There seemed nothing to give any clue for such a crime. I laid the limbs at the foot of the cot and turned my attention to the head.

The woman appeared to have been in her middle twenties. I lifted the head carefully, some hidden and forgotten part of me half expecting the eyes to open and regard me with a cruel disdain, and turned it around. There was a similar depressed fracture to that suffered by the farmer and I was sure, simply by the pulpy feel of the bone around the occipital region, that death would have been instantaneous. I set the head down with the limbs and moved to the torso.

The limbs had clearly been removed by chopping as opposed to sawing and one of the shoulders showed signs of mis-hits, with some cosmetic damage to the edge of the right clavicle. One could only give thanks that the poor girl had been dead when the madman went about his business.

I turned to face Holmes and shook my head. "Nothing here," I said.

"Nothing save for the fact that the arm is missing," Holmes pointed out. "There is clearly some significance in that fact and the fact that the heart has not been removed."

"Why's that, then?" said the Inspector.

"Elementary, my dear Makinson," said Holmes, clearly pleased to be asked to explain his deduction. "I suspect that the killer simply forgot about the heart, being so concerned with his

plan to remove all the limbs and then discard those he did not need. If your men have been as thorough in their investigations around the scene of the slaying as you say – and I have no reason to doubt that such is the case – then the killer must surely have taken the arm with him."

"You mean that he was prepared to chop off everything just to get one of her arms?"

Holmes nodded. "Otherwise, why did he not leave all of the limbs together? For that matter, why remove them and then leave them?"

"Why indeed?" I agreed.

"Let us consider the final body," said Holmes.

The face of William Fitzhue Crosby no longer existed. Where once had been skin and, undoubtedly, normal characteristics

such as a nose, two eyes and two lips, now lay only devastation, a brown mass resembling a flattened mud pie into which a playful child had inserted a series of holes.

The sheer ruination of that face spoke of a hell on Earth, a creature conceived in the mind of Bosch – though whether such a description might not be more aptly levelled at the perpetrator of such carnage is debatable.

"Look at the rear of the head, Watson," said Holmes.

I turned the head to one side and felt the skull: the same fracture was there and I said as much.

"Inspector," said Holmes, "did you know Mr Crosby personally? By that I mean, were he still alive, would you recognize him on the street?"

"I'm not sure as I would, Mr Holmes," said Makinson, frowning. "I don't as doubt that him and me has passed each other by on occasion but -"

Holmes strode purposefully from the cot to the door. "We've finished here, I believe. Come Watson, we have enquiries to make."

"Enquiries?" I pulled the sheet up over Crosby's face.

"We must speak with the relatives of the victims." He walked from the room, pulling his Meerschaum from his pocket. "The game is most definitely afoot. Though, if I am correct, then that in itself poses a further puzzle."

I had grown used to if not tolerant of such enigmatic statements, though I had long since recognized the futility of pressing for more information. All would become clear in good time.

In the early evening we gathered once more at the police station, a full and somewhat depressing day behind us.

The November air in Harrogate was cold but "bracing", to use the Inspector's vernacular. For Sherlock Holmes and myself, however, grown used to the relative mildness of southern climes, the coldness permeated our very bones. To such a degree was this invasion that, even standing before a roaring fire in the Inspector's office, it was all I could do to keep from shivering.

Holmes himself, however, seemed now impervious to the chill as he sat contemplating, staring into the dancing flames.

It had been a productive day.

Due to the fact that William Crosby had no relatives in the town, having moved to Yorkshire from Bristol some eight years earlier, we were forced to call in at the branch of Daleside Bank, on the Parliament Street hill leading to Ripon, there to interview staff as to the possibility of someone having some reason to murder their manager. A tight-faced man named Mr Cardew, enduring rather than enjoying his early middle age, maintained the stoic calm and almost clinical immobility that I have discovered to be the province of bankers and their ilk over the years. They seem a singularly cheerless breed.

When pressed, first by Holmes and subsequently by Inspector Makinson, Mr Cardew visited the large safe at the rear of the premises to see if the money deposited the previous evening was still in place and accounted for. Throughout the exercise, I watched Holmes who viewed the procedure with a thinly disguised disinterest. Rather he seemed to be anxious, as if needing to ask something of Cardew.

Whether my friend would have got around to phrasing his question to such a degree of correctness in his own mind that he would have committed it to speech I will never know for we chanced upon a portrait photograph of William Fitzhue Crosby hanging from the wall outside his office.

The photographer had gone to some considerable trouble to make the finished photograph as acceptable as possible presumably to Mr Crosby – using shadows and turning his subject into profile in order, clearly, to minimize the effect of the banker's disfigurement. But, alas, it had been to little avail.

In the photograph, Crosby's eyes spoke volumes about his attitude to the dark stain which, we subsequently discovered from Mr Cardew, ran from his left temple and down across his cheek to his chin. Those were eyes that barely hid a gross discomfort, hardened around the corners with something akin to outright hatred.

Cardew explained that, in the flesh, as it were, Crosby's stain was a deep magenta. The banker had grown his sideburns in an attempt to hide at least some of it but the effect had been that the sideburn on the left side had been wiry and white.

Believing that the answer to the puzzle involved a killer so mortally offended by such a mark that he would go to great lengths to remove it, we proceeded from the Daleside Bank to the school at which Gertrude Ridge had been, until recently, a teacher, having decided that it might not be necessary to trouble the young woman's grieving parents. On the way, Holmes seemed particularly thoughtful.

The story at the school was similar. Miss Ridge had had a large birthmark on the back of her right hand, stretching up over her wrist to an undetermined point above. Her colleagues at the school had been unable to comment as to how far that might be, Miss Ridge never deeming to appear at school in anything less than a long-sleeved blouse or dress, and even then one with the most ornate ruffled cuffs.

Diana Wetherall and Jean Woodward, widows of, respectively, the deceased landlord and the Hampsthwaite farmer, said that their husbands had suffered similar markings, Terence Wetherall's being a small circular stain about the size of a saucer, situated just to the left of centre of his chest, while Raymond Woodward's disfigurement had stretched across the back of his neck and down between his shoulder blades.

It was I who, eventually, back at the police station, voiced what had been Holmes's concern all along. "We now most probably know the reason for the killings," I said, "but how on earth did the killer know of Wetherall's and Woodward's marks? They were covered at all times when they were not at home."

Makinson frowned and considered this.

Holmes, meanwhile, said, "You say we know why the killer committed the acts, Watson. But do we really know?"

"Why, of course we do," I ventured. "The chap is mortally offended by what are, in his eyes, such abominations and he feels it his rigorous duty to remove them from sight. He came up with the idea of removing hearts simply to mislead us hence, on one occasion, even forgetting to remove the young woman's."

Holmes nodded. "I think you are almost correct, old fellow," he said, in a gentle tone that was anything but patronizing. "However, you have neglected to take into account the fact that the killer first stuns his victims and only then obliterates nature's handiwork. My point is," he continued, "the killer needs to stun his victim without interference with the mark."

"Whatever for, Mr Holmes?" enquired Makinson.

Holmes looked across at the Inspector and gave a thin smile that was devoid of any sense of pleasure. "In order to remove them, Inspector."

"Remove them?" I said. The suggestion seemed preposterous. "Indeed, Watson. Let us adapt the facts as we know them to my proposition.

"Wetherall, the landlord, was stunned or killed by a blow to the head. The killer then stripped his victim to the waist and skilfully removed the birthmark from his chest. Then, in order to conceal his action, he proceeded to open up the chest in such a heavy-handed manner that the disappearance of the piece of skin which once bore the mark would not be so noticeable. He concealed the opening of the chest with the removal of the heart.

"The farmer was next. Again, the blow to the head was the all-important immobilizing factor. Once that had been effected, the killer could concentrate on removing the mark from the victim's neck and back before training a shotgun on the exposed area and destroying all signs. However, the blast failed to cover up all signs of his work, as you noticed, Watson. The removal of Woodward's heart tied his murder into the first death quite neatly."

Holmes cleared his throat.

"Then came the teacher. With her it was more complicated. The position of Miss Ridge's mark – on her arm – was such that a blast to the affected area, once he had removed the skin bearing the mark, could not be the killing factor. Similarly, the removal of the heart would not conceal the removal of the mark. Thus he decided upon the method of removing her limbs, still tying the murder into the first two deaths by peripheral

association, only later to discard the three limbs for which he had no use. The final limb, the young woman's right arm, he discarded far from the scene of the crime and only then when he had removed the affected area.You mentioned earlier that he had forgotten to remove the heart: the fact was that he did not consider it necessary.

"With the banker he returns to the earlier method. A blow to the head, a common element throughout, then the careful removal of the facial skin bearing the mark, and then the shotgun blast to the face, destroying once again the evidence of his real reason for the murder. The removal of the heart ties the crime to the first two and, arguably, to the case of Miss Ridge."

Holmes stretched towards the fire and warmed his hands. "I read the reports from your forensics people, Inspector," Holmes continued. "I was interested to discover that, while there were traces of linen and wool fibre in the farmer's wound, there were no traces of skin except at the very extremities of the blasted area, confirming that, perhaps, a portion had been removed prior to the blast. And as for the banker, Mr Crosby, the gun shot damage to the wall bore no traces of skin or tissue. This indicates that the killing shot and the invasion which preceded it were done at some other location, with a second shot being fired directly at the wall."

"But what other place might that be, Mr Holmes?" Makinson enquired.

"Wherever Mr Crosby went after leaving the bank might give us a clue," Holmes retorted. "I saw from your report, Inspector, that Crosby's apartment showed no signs of anyone being there since the morning: the fire was burnt down and breakfast things were in the sink. It is my opinion that wherever Mr Crosby went early that evening is where he encountered his killer."

"Good lord," I said. I glanced across at Makinson and saw that he looked as queasy as I felt.

"But why would he want these… these marks in the first place? What does he do with them?"

Holmes turned to me. "Watson, perhaps you would be kind

enough to explain the causation of a so-called birthmark?" "Well," I said, "nobody actually knows why they are caused. "They are most common in newborn babies, often called

the 'stork's beak' mark because they occur on the forehead between the eyebrows and on the nape of the neck… as though a stork had had the child's head in its beak. These are transient phenomena that disappear as the baby grows. A popular but incorrect theory is that they are caused by the caul, the inner membrane enclosing the foetus, adhering itself to the child and becoming enmeshed into the child's own skin as it develops in the womb. Such marks are also sometimes referred to as 'God's fingerprints', and to many they signify good fortune."

Makinson snorted loudly. "Doesn't seem much like good fortune to me," he said, "carrying a big red mark on your face all your life."

"As I said, Inspector, these marks usually disappear as the child grows older. The ones that stay are called port wine stains or strawberry naevi, due to their colouring.The technical name is cutaneous haemangiomata, which refers to an abnormally large collection of blood vessels in the skin… an over production, if you will. These are most commonly on the face – the case of Crosby the banker is typical – although they can occur anywhere on the body.

"The port wine stains stay throughout life, although they do lose some of the intense colouring in later years; the strawberry naevi do not usually persist."

Holmes nodded. "Let us imagine that our killer believes the old tale that such signs are the harbingers of good fortune," he said. "It might follow that such a fellow could conceivably feel that to own more of these would be to improve the quality of his life. Someone, perhaps, whose life has not been particularly fortunate."

"You said 'more' of these," I said.

"Yes, I did. I would expect the killer to be equally marked and to have been told, perhaps by his mother, that such a marking meant that he had been touched by God. The fact that his life did not reflect such fortune caused him to think that further marks were needed to change his luck."

I looked across at Makinson. The Inspector seemed unconvinced. "That's as well as maybe, Mr Holmes," he said, "but how does the killer identify his victims? Apart from the teacher and the banker, these marks was covered over all the time they was on public show."

"Perhaps not all the time, Inspector," said Holmes, his eyes

flashing wide. "Tell me, do you have a municipal swimming bath in the town?"

Makinson shook his head. "No, nearest swimming bath is in Leeds.

Holmes smiled, and this time the smile did have traces of pleasure. "Watson," he said, unable to keep the excitement from his voice. "For what is Harrogate renowned?"

"Renowned? Harrogate?" I searched my brain for some clue as to what my friend had in mind. "Other than a cold wind that would not be out of place at the North Pole, I cannot imagine," I said at last.

"The water, Watson!"

"Water?" I still failed to grasp the significance.

"Harrogate is a spa town, famed for the so-called medicinal and curative properties of its water, taken from natural springs. Is that right, Inspector?"

"Why, yes it is, Mr Holmes," said the Inspector.

"And you have in the town a bath which enables people to bathe their bodies in these waters?"

"A Turkish bath and such, yes," said Makinson. "I've never been, myself, of course, but I believe as how they're popular with some people." He paused. "Run by a queer sort of fellow, they are," he added.

Holmes leapt to his feet. "Queer, you say? With a birth-mark?" Makinson shook his head. "No, no birthmark – at least none as is visible."

Holmes visibly shrank in size, the excitement evaporating almost as quickly as it had appeared. "Then why queer?"

"Well, he's…" Makinson seemed to be having trouble describing the fellow and I was about to prompt him when he added, "he's sort of big on one side and smaller on the other."

"That's it, Holmes!" I shouted. "Is one half of his body visibly larger than the other, Inspector? Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes, his head is mis-shaped and one arm is longer than the other. His leg is longer on that side, too, and he walks with a limp because of it."The Inspector shook his head at the thought. "Strange fellow and no denying."

I turned to Holmes. "Henri hypertrophy," I said. "Caused by an underlying brain haemangioma, beneath a port wine stain; it means an increased blood flow through the mark results in a disproportionate growth on one side of the body. He's our man," I said, "I'd bet my pension on it!"

"What is the name of this fellow?" Holmes enquired of the Inspector.

"His name is Garnett, as I recall, Frank Garnett. The spa baths stay open until ten o'clock in the evening," the Inspector said. He removed his watch from his waistcoat pocket and flipped open the casing. "Five and twenty to nine," he said.

Holmes sprang for the door, grabbing his hat, scarf and coat on the way. "Come, Watson, Inspector… there's no time to lose."

Minutes later we were on our way by carriage, driven by a hard-faced Sergeant Hewitt through a blustery, moonless night.

The Pump Rooms in Harrogate are situated down Parliament Street and on the left towards the Valley Gardens, a scenic spot favoured in the daylight and early summer evenings by young couples and nannies walking their charges. When we arrived, Holmes leapt from the carriage and burst through the doors.

A matronly woman wearing a pince-nez and seated behind a desk in the foyer got to her feet, her hand to her throat.

"My apologies for our entrance, madam," Holmes began, "but I am with Inspector Makinson, here, and Sergeant Hewitt of the Harrogate police, and my colleague Doctor Watson, and we are on a matter of grave importance. Tell me, if you can," he said, "the whereabouts of your colleague, Mr Frank Garnett."

"Why, Frank's in the shower room," she said. "Whatever do you need him for?"

"No time to explain," said the Inspector. "Which way's the shower room?"

The woman pointed towards a double door to the right of the foyer. "Is it about his accident?"

"Accident?" I said.

"He's hurt himself. Bandages all over the place."

Makinson frowned and led the way.

Through the doors we were on a long corridor from the end of which we could hear the unmistakable sound of water running.

"You and Mr Watson stay back, Mr Holmes," Makinson barked. "Jim, you stick with me. But go gently now," he added, "we don't want this fellow to get away."

Holmes reluctantly stepped back to allow Sergeant Hewitt to take the lead with the Inspector. We reached the end of the corridor and stood before a door bearing the sign Showers. Makinson leaned his head against the door and listened. A faint whistling could be heard with the running water.

Makinson took hold of the handle. "Right, Jim?"

Sergeant Hewitt nodded.

"Right, gentlemen?"

Holmes nodded.

The Inspector turned the handle and rushed into the room.

Some fifty yards away from us was what seemed to be a tall man, standing in profile, brandishing a broom which he was using to sweep water across the floor and into an empty communal bath beside him. At the sound of our entrance, he turned to face us and I saw immediately that the other side of his body was noticeably smaller. His right wrist was tightly bandaged and one side of his face was covered in gauze, held in place by sticky tape. A further bandage was wrapped about his neck like a scarf.

"We need to talk to you, Mr Garnett," Inspector Makinson said.

Garnett hefted the broom and threw it in our direction. Then he glanced across to the wall for an instant, as though considering something, before turning quickly and heading towards a door at the rear of the room. He moved awkwardly and within but two or three steps he listed to one side, like a ship encountering stormy seas, and plunged head first into the empty bath. There was a single strangulated cry followed by a crash.

We ran across to the bath-side and looked over.

Garnett lay some seven or eight feet directly beneath us, on his back, one leg doubled up beneath him and his arms spread-eagled as though he were relaxing on his bed. A pool of blood was spreading beneath his head.

Without a second thought, I sat on the edge of the bath and lowered myself down until I was standing alongside Garnett. He had lifted one hand and was pulling back the bandage on his wrist. With a gasp of horror, I watched a piece of shrivelled flesh fall from beneath the bandage onto the bath floor. His eyelids flickering, Garnett then proceeded to undo the buttons of his shirt, beneath which I could see a further bandage.

I knelt down and took hold of the hand, feeling for a pulse. It was there but only weak and fluttery. Garnett's lips were already turning blue.

He pulled the hand free and, in one movement, tore the bandage from his face. Crosby's stained cheek flesh lifted with it for a second and then slid down to cover Garnett's mouth.

"How is he, Doctor Watson?" Makinson asked softly.

I shook my head and watched as Garnett took the grisly trophy from his mouth and clasped it tightly. He began rubbing it feverishly between thumb and forefinger.

"Make me well again," he muttered hoarsely. "Make me well again…"

"Shall I get an ambulance, sir?" Sergeant Hewitt asked. I looked up at him and shook my head.

Makinson had clambered down to join us, watching as I undid the tape affixing the bandage to Garnett's chest. I had no doubt what we would find beneath that bandage and no doubt what lay beneath the one about his neck.

"Why did you do it, Frank?" Makinson said softly, kneeling by the man's head.

Garnett muttered something seemingly in response.

I had now exposed Garnett's chest and, as I expected, the skin which he had removed from Terence Wetherall. But beneath even that was a further mark, a port wine stain of such volume and intensity that, despite what the man had done, my heart went out to him. Garnett's own birthmark was clearly malignant, its surface covered by clusters of small pustules many of which had burst open and were weeping a pungent gelatinous liquid.

Makinson leaned closer to Garnett's face, his ear against the man's mouth. "I can't hear you, Frank."

Garnett whispered again and then settled back against the floor, still.

The Inspector knelt up and whispered, "Who?" but there was no response. He got to his feet. "He's gone, poor devil." "What did he say?" I asked.

"He said she told him as how it'd get better… that he'd been touched by the Almighty and how he mustn't complain." Makinson shook his head. "But he said it hadn't got better, it had got worse. He asked me to forgive him. That was the last thing he said."

"Who's 'she'?" asked Sergeant Hewitt.

Makinson shrugged. "He didn't say. Someone who cared for him, I expect."

As I clambered out of the bath, Holmes was standing by the wall holding in his hands a walking stick bearing an elaborately carved head for its handle.

"That must've been what he was thinking about," said Sergeant Hewitt. "When he seemed to hesitate."

"He needed it to walk," Holmes said. He handed the stick to the policeman, running his slender fingers across the handsome features of the heavy ivory handle. "But I think he used it for other things, too, Sergeant," he said. Then he turned around and walked back towards the foyer.

When I got outside, Sherlock Holmes was standing on the steps staring into the wind.

"He thought he had been touched by God, Watson," he said as I walked up beside him. "But the truth was God had turned his back on him. In fact, God had turned his back on them all."

I did not know what to say.

Then Holmes turned to me and smiled, though it was without any trace of humour. "I find God does that far too often these days," he said. Then he thrust his hands into his coat pockets and walked alone towards the waiting carriage.

The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter – Basil Copper

The Adventure of the Suffering Ruler – H. R. F. Keating

Eighteen ninety-five also saw the recorded cases of "The Solitary Cyclist", "Black Peter" and "The Bruce-Partington Plans", as well as several unrecorded cases, amongst them that of Wilson, the notorious canary trainer and the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca. There have been many attempts at recounting the episode of the notorious canary trainer and I an: suspicious of all of them. And since there was no Cardinal Tosca, I have as yet not been able to identify what case Watson was referring to.

1896 is something of a mystery year. There are very few recorded cases until the autumn, and there is some dispute as to whether "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" belongs in 1895, 1896 or 1897, but it is certainly one of these three. I favour 1896 if only because I suspect Watson was giving us a clue as to Holmes's

whereabouts that year. Holmes could not, originally, investigate the Carfax mystery because he was involved in the case of old Abrahams, who was in mortal fear of his life. In fact Holmes believes, perhaps with a degree of wry delight, that he should not leave the country because Scotland Yard needed him. No matter how puckish a comment, this may have been, it is likely that Holmes was involved in a major investigation for Scotland Yard, and that possibly it had taken him abroad at some time. The Yard's files are blank on this, and the year remains a mystery. There is doubtless a further clue at the start of "The Veiled Lodger", one of the cases which took place at the end of 1896, where Watson refers to attempts that had been made in senior circles to gain access to Watson's files and papers. He drops a hint that if any more of this happens then the case of "the politician, the lighthouse and the trained cormorant" would be revealed. Despite playful attempts by some to reveal this story, its facts have remained a mystery.

Nevertheless by the close of 1896 Holmes was clearly back in circulation. Watson records the case of "The Sussex Vampire" in addition to "The Veiled Lodger", and my researches have unearthed three other cases.

"The Adventure of the Suffering Ruler" perhaps indicates that Holmes's recent pursuits had put a significant strain upon his deductive skills. H.R.F. Keating, that renowned author of crime stories had, I believe, a certain pleasure in bringing this story back from the dead.

In "The Repulsive Story of the Red Leech" we have what is evidently a second episode that relates to this title, as Watson's earlier reference to it suggested it happened in 1894, and the incident in "The Inertial Adjustor" seems to support that statement. David Langford's computer skills tracked down clues via the Internet which first alerted us to the facts in this case which he has now brought together for the first time. Roger johnson, another formidable Sherlockian, spent much time investigating the case of Henry Staunton, and has now completed it in "The Adventure of the Grace Chalice".

It was in the early autumn of 1896 that, returning one day from visiting by train a patient in Hertfordshire and being thus in the vicinity of Baker Street, I decided to call on Sherlock Holmes, whom I had not seen for several weeks. I found him, to my dismay, in a sad state. Although it was by now late afternoon he was still in his dressing-gown lounging upon the sofa in our old sitting room, his violin lying on the floor beside him and the air musty with cold tobacco smoke from the neglected pipe left carelessly upon the sofa arm. I glanced at once to the mantelpiece where there lay always that neat morocco case which contained the syringe. It was in its customary place, but, when under pretence of examining the familiar bullet-marked letters "VR" on the wall above, I stepped closer, I saw that it lay upon the envelope of a letter postmarked only two days earlier.

"Well, Holmes," I said, jovially as I could, "I see that your bullet holes of yore are still here."

"It would be strange indeed, Watson, had they disappeared," my old friend answered, with somewhat more fire than he had earlier greeted me.

He laughed then in a melancholy enough fashion.

"Yet I could wish that they had vanished between one night and the next morning," he added. "It would at least provide my mind with some matter to work upon."

My spirits sank at the words. Holmes had always needed stimulation, and if no problem was there to arouse his mind a seven per cent solution of cocaine awaited.

"But have you no case on hand?" I asked.

"Some trifling affairs," Holmes replied. "A commission for the Shah of Persia, a little question of missing securities in Pittsburgh. Nothing to engage my full attention. But, you, my dear Watson, how is it that you have been visiting a patient in Hertfordshire?"

I turned to my old friend in astonishment. I had said nothing of the reason for my being in the vicinity.

"Oh, come, doctor," he said. "Do I have to explain to you once again the simple signs that tell me such things? Why, they are written on your person as clearly as if you carried a newspaper billboard proclaiming them."

"I dare say they may be, Holmes. But beyond the fact that Baker Street station serves that particular county and that I

nowadays visit you chiefly when I chance to be in the locality, I

cannot see how this time you can know so much of my business." "And yet the moment you removed your gloves the characteristic pungent odour of iodoform was heavy in the air,

indicating beyond doubt that your excursion had been on a professional matter. While your boots are dust-covered to the very tops, which surely means that you travelled for some little time on a country lane."

I glanced down at my boots. The evidence was all too plain to see.

"Well, yes," I admitted. "I did receive this morning a request to visit a gentleman living near Rickmansworth whose condition

was causing him anxiety. An unhealed lesion on the abdomen complicated by brain fever, but I have high hopes of a good recovery."

"My dear Watson, under your care who can doubt of that? But I am surprised to hear that your practice now extends to the remote Hertfordshire countryside."

I smiled.

"No, no. I assure you none other of my patients necessitates any journey longer than one performed easily in a hansom." "And yet you have just been down to Hertfordshire?"

"Yes. I was called on this morning by the manservant of a certain Mr Smith, a trusted fellow, I gathered, though of

European origin. He told me that his master had instructed him to seek out a London doctor and to request a visit as soon as possible. Apparently, Mr Smith has a somewhat morbid fear of

any of his close neighbours knowing that he is ill and so prefers a physician from a distance, even if the visit means a considerably greater financial outlay."

"You were well remunerated then?"

"I think I may say, handsomely so."

"I am not surprised to hear it."

"No, there, Holmes, you are at fault. My services were not asked for because of any particular reputation I may have. In fact, the manservant happened to be in my neighbourhood upon some other errand and, so I understand, simply saw my brass plate and rang at my door."

Holmes raised himself upon one elbow on the sofa. His eyes seemed to me to shine now with a healthier light.

"You misunderstand me, Watson. You had already indicated that your services were called upon more or less by chance. But what I was saying was that the size of your fee did not surprise me, since it is clearly evident that you were required for a quality quite other than your medical attainments."

"Indeed?" I answered, a little nettled I must confess. "And what quality had you in mind?"

"Why, distance, my dear fellow. The distance between medical adviser and patient, and the complete discretion that follows from that."

"I am by no means sure that I understand."

"No? Yet the matter is simple enough. A person living in a remote country house, a gentleman for whom monetary considerations have little weight, sends a trusted servant to obtain the immediate services of a London doctor, of any London doctor more or less, and you expect me to be surprised that you received a fee altogether out of the ordinary?"

"Well, Holmes," I replied, "I will not disguise that my remuneration was perhaps excessive. But my patient evidently is a wealthy man and one prey to nervous fears. He trusts, too, to receive my continuing attentions from week to week. The situation does not strike me as being very much out of the ordinary."

"No, Watson? But I tell you that it is out of the ordinary. The man you attended this afternoon is no ordinary man, you may take my word for that."

"Well, if you say so, Holmes, if you say so," I replied.

Yet I could not but think that for once my old friend had read too much into the circumstances, and I quickly sought for some other subject of conversation, being much relieved when Holmes too seemed disinclined to pursue a matter in which he might be thought to have me at a disadvantage. The remainder of the visit passed pleasantly enough, and I had the satisfaction of leaving Holmes looking a good deal more brisk and cheerful than he had done upon my arrival.

I went down to Hertfordshire again a week later and found my patient already much better for the treatment I had prescribed. I was hopeful enough, indeed, to feel that another two or three weeks of the same regimen, which included plenty of rest and a light diet, would see the illness through.

It was just as I stepped back from the bed after concluding my examination, however, that out of the corner of my eye I detected a sharp movement just outside the window. I was so surprised, since there was no balcony outside, that something of my alarm must have communicated itself to my patient who at once demanded, with the full querulousness of his indisposition, what it was that I had seen.

"I thought I saw a man out there, a glimpse of a face, dark brown and wrinkled," I answered without premeditation, so disturbed was I by an aura of malignancy I had been aware of even from my brief sight of that visage.

But I quickly sought to counteract any anxiety I might have aroused in my already nervous patient.

"Yet it can hardly have been a man," I said. "It was more likely a bird perching momentarily in the ivy."

"No, no," Mr Smith said, in sharp command. "A face, A burglar. I always knew this house was unsafe. After him doctor, after him. Lay him by the heels. Catch him. Catch him."

I thought it best at least to make pretence of obeying the peremptory order. There would be little hope of calming my patient unless I made an excursion into the garden.

I hurried out of the room and down the stairs, calling to the manservant, who, I had gathered, was the sole other occupant of the house. But he evidently must have been in the kitchens or elsewhere out of hearing since I had no reply. I ran straight out of the front door and looked about me. At once, down at the far side of the garden, I detected a movement behind a still leaf-clad beech hedge. I set out at a run.

Holmes had been right, I thought, as swiftly and silently I crossed a large, damp-sodden lawn. My patient must be a man of mystery if he was being spied upon by daylight in this daring fashion. His cries of alarm over a burglary must, then, be false. No ordinary burglar, surely, would seek to enter a house by broad daylight.

My quarry had by now gone slinking along the far side of the beech hedge to a point where I lost sight of him behind a dense rhododendron shrubbery. But I was running on a course to cut him off, and I made no doubt that before long I would have the rogue by the collar.

Indeed, as soon as I had rounded the dense clump of rhododendrons, I saw a small wicket gate in the hedge ahead with the figure of the man who had been spying on my patient only just beyond. He appeared from his garb to be a gypsy. In a moment I was through the gate, and in another moment I had him by the arm.

"Now, you villain," I cried. "We shall have the truth of it."

But even before the man had had time to turn in my grasp I heard from behind me the sound of sudden, wild, grim, evil laughter. I looked back. Peering at the two of us from the shelter of the rhododendrons was that same brown, wrinkled face I had glimpsed looking in at my patient's window. I loosened my grip on the gipsy, swung about and once more set out in pursuit.

This time I did not have so far to go. No sooner had I reached the other side of the shrubbery than I came face to face with my man. But he was my man no longer. He wore the same nondescript clothes that I had caught sight of among the brittle rhododendron leaves and his face was still brown-coloured. But that look of hectic evil in it had vanished clear away and in its place were the familiar features of my friend, Sherlock Holmes.

"I am sorry, Watson, to have put you to the trouble of two chases in one afternoon," he said. "But I had to draw you away from that fellow before revealing myself."

"Holmes," I cried. "Then it was you at the window up there?"

"It was, doctor. I knew that it was imperative that I myself should take a good look at this mysterious patient of yours, and so I took the liberty of following you, knowing that this was your

day for visiting the case. But you were a little too quick for me in the end, my dear fellow, and I had to beat a more hurried retreat than I altogether cared to."

"Yes, but all the same, Holmes," I said. "You cannot have had any good reason to suppose that it was necessary to spy upon my patient in that manner."

"No good reason, doctor? Why, I should have thought the third finger of his right hand was reason enough, were there no other."

"The third finger of his right hand?"

"Why, yes, my dear fellow. Surely you are not going to tell me that you noticed nothing about that? Come, I was at that window for little more than three or four minutes and I had grasped its significance long before you turned and saw me."

"Now that I think about it," I replied, "my patient does wear a finger-stall on the third finger of his right hand. Some trifling injury, I suppose. It certainly could in no way contribute to his condition."

"I never suggested that it did, doctor. I am sure you know your business better than that. Trust me, then, to know mine."

"But does his concealing that finger have some significance?" I asked.

"Of course it does. Tell me, what does a man customarily wear upon his third finger?"

"A ring, I suppose. But that would not be upon the right hand, surely?"

"Yes, Watson, a ring. You have arrived at the point with your customary perspicacity. But why should a man wish to conceal a particular ring? Tell me that."

"Holmes, I cannot. I simply cannot."

"Because the ring has a particular meaning. And who is it who would wear a ring of that nature? Why, a monarch, of course. I tell you that man in bed there is a king, and he is hiding for some good reason. There can scarcely be any doubt about that."

To my mind, there was at least room for a measure of disagreement with this conclusion. Smith was perhaps a name that anyone wishing to live anonymously might take, but certainly my patient had shown not the least trace of a foreign accent, as he was surely likely to do if he were the ruler of one of the lesser European states whose appearance, especially since he wore a full beard, might be unknown to me. Yet he did have a manservant of European origin, though here again this was not an altogether uncommon circumstance for a single English gentleman who might be something of a traveller. I would have liked to put all these doubts and queries to my friend, but from the moment that he had told me what he had deduced from my patient's concealed finger he lapsed into one of those moods of silence well familiar to me, and for the whole of our journey back to London he uttered scarcely a word, little more than to say to me at the station in Hertfordshire that he had a number of telegrams which he needed urgently to despatch.

I was curious enough, however, to find an opportunity of visiting Baker Street again next day. But, though I found Holmes fully dressed and a great deal more alert than on my last visit, I was unable to obtain from him any hint about the direction of his inquiries. All he would do was to talk, with that vivacity of spirit which he could display whenever the mood took him, about a bewildering variety of subjects, the paintings of the Belgian artist, Ensor, the amorous adventures of Madame Sand, the activities of the Russian nihilists, the gravity of the political situation in Illyria. None was a matter on which I felt myself particularly informed, yet on each Holmes, it seemed, had a fund of knowledge. At length I went back to my medical round not one whit better able to decide whether my Hertfordshire patient was no more than the nervous Englishman, Mr Smith, whom he seemed to be, or in truth some foreign potentate sheltering under that pseudonym in the safety of the Queen's peace.

The following morning, however, I received a telegram from Holmes requesting me to meet him at his bank in Oxford Street at noon "in re the hidden finger." I was, you can be sure, at the appointed place at the appointed hour, and indeed a good few minutes beforehand.

Holmes arrived exactly to time.

"Now, my good fellow," he said, "if you will do me the kindness of walking a few yards along the street with me, I think I can promise you a sight that will answer a good many of the questions which I have no doubt have been buzzing in your head these past few days."

In silence we made our way together, along the busy street. I could not refrain from glancing to left and right at the passers-

by, at the cabs, carriages and vans in the roadway and at the glittering shopfronts in an endeavour to see what it was that Holmes wished to show me. But my efforts were in vain. Nothing that I saw roused the least spark in my mind.

Then abruptly Holmes grasped my arm. I came to a halt. "Well?" my companion demanded.

"My dear fellow, I am not at all clear what it is to which you are directing my attention."

Holmes gave a sigh of frank exasperation.

"The window, Watson. The shop window directly before you." I looked at the window. It was that of a photographer's establishment, the whole crowded with numerous likenesses of persons both known and unknown.

"Well?" Holmes demanded yet more impatiently.

"It is one of these photographs you wish me to see?" I asked. "It is, Watson, it is."

I looked at them again, actors and actresses, the beauties of the day, well-known political figures.

"No," I said, "I cannot see any particular reason for singling out one of these pictures above any of the others. Is that what you wish me to do?"

"Watson, look. In the second row, the third from the left." "The Count Palatine of Illyria," I read on the card below the portrait which Holmes had indicated.

"Yes, yes. And you see nothing there?"

Once more I gave the photograph my full attention. "Nothing," I answered at last.

"Not the very clear likeness between the ruler of that troubled state and a certain Mr Smith at present recovering from illness in Hertfordshire?"

I examined the portrait anew.

"Yes," I agreed eventually. "There is a likeness. The beards have a good deal in common, and perhaps the general cast of the countenances."

"Exactly."

From an inner pocket Holmes now drew a newspaper cutting. "The Times," he said. "Of yesterday's date. Read it carefully." I read, and when I had done so looked up again at Holmes in bewilderment.

"But this is a report of the Count Palatine appearing on the balcony of his palace and being greeted with enthusiasm by a vast crowd," I said. "So, Holmes, how can this man in the photograph be my patient down in Hertfordshire but two days ago?"

"Come, Watson, the explanation is childishly simple."

I felt a little aggrieved and spoke more sharply than I might have done in reply.

"It seems to me, I must say, that the sole explanation is merely that my patient and the Count Palatine of Illyria are not one and the same person."

"Nonsense, Watson. The likeness is clear beyond doubt, and nor is the explanation in any way obscure. It is perfectly plain that the man glimpsed at a distance by the crowd in Illyria is a double for the Count Palatine. The situation there, you know, is decidedly grave. There is the most dangerous unrest. If it were widely known that the Count was not at the helm in his country, the republican element would undoubtedly make an attempt to seize power, an attempt, let me tell you, that would in all likelihood be successful. However, you and I know that the Count is seriously ill and is living in Hertfordshire, under your excellent care, my dear Watson. So the solution is obvious. With the connivance of his close circle the Count has arranged for a substitute to make occasional public appearances in his stead in circumstances under which he will not easily be identified."

"Yes, I suppose you must be right, Holmes," I said. "It certainly seems a complex and extraordinary business though. Yet your account does appear to connect all the various elements."

"It connects them indeed," Holmes replied. "But I think for the time being we can assure ourselves that all is well. Do me the kindness, however, doctor, to let me know as soon as there is any question of the Count becoming fit enough to resume his full powers."

It was, in fact, no later than the following week that I was able to give Holmes the reassuring news he had asked for. I had found my patient very far along the road to recovery, and though, not wishing to let him know that Holmes had penetrated his secret, I had not said to him that quite soon he would be ready to travel, I had left his bedside with that thought in my mind. In consequence I went from the station at Baker Street on my return directly to our old rooms.

"He is distinctly better then?" Holmes asked me.

"Very much so, I am happy to say.The lassitude that originally gave me cause for anxiety has almost completely passed away." "Bad. Very bad, Watson."

"But surely, Holmes…"

"No, Watson, I tell you if the Count's enemies should gain any inkling of the fact that he is likely to be able to return to Illyria in the near future, they will stop at nothing to make sure that he never crosses the Channel."

"But, Holmes, how can they know that he is not in Illyria? You yourself showed me that extract from The Times."

"I dare say,Watson.Yet an illusion of that sort cannot be kept up indefinitely. No doubt the conspirators watch every appearance the supposed Count makes upon the Palace balcony. At any time some small error on the part of the substitute may give the game away. Very possibly that error has been already made and suspicions have been aroused. Remember that I myself was not the only spy you caught down in Hertfordshire a fortnight ago."

"The gipsy, Holmes? But I thought he was no more after all than a passing gipsy."

"Quite possibly he was, Watson. Yet did it not strike you as curious that the fellow was skulking in the grounds of the house?"

"Well, I had supposed that he had in fact never penetrated the garden itself."

"Indeed, Watson? Then it is perhaps as well that I have taken an interest in the matter. We should not wish the Count Palatine to fail to reach his homeland in safety. You have said nothing of his rapid recovery to anybody but myself?"

"Of course not, Holmes. Of course not."

Yet just one week later as, making what I hoped might be my last visit into Hertfordshire, I approached my mysterious patient's residence I was reminded with sudden shame that I had in fact spoken about his recovery outside the house the previous week when I had been talking to the manservant who had driven me back to the station in the dog-cart, and I recalled too that I had spoken in tones deliberately loud and clear so as to make sure that I was understood by this foreigner. I was debating with myself whether those words of mine could perhaps have been overheard then by some lurker, when my eye was caught by just such a person within some fifty yards of the gate of the house itself, an individual who seemed by his dress to be a seaman. But what was a seaman doing here in Hertfordshire, so far from the sea?

I decided that it was my duty now at least to deliver an oblique warning to the Count Palatine's faithful manservant, even though I still did not wish to disclose that I knew through Holmes whom he served. I succeeded, I hope, in giving him some general advice about the dangers of burglars in the neighbourhood, advice which I hoped would alert him without betraying what Holmes and I alone knew. I was relieved, too, when my patient, having declared his intention of visiting a Continental spa now that he felt so much better, asked if his servant could collect from me a supply of a nerve tonic I had prescribed sufficient to last him for a number of weeks. I gladly arranged for the man to come to me next day for the purpose, thinking that I could in this way get the latest tidings before the Count Palatine – if indeed this were the Count Palatine – left our shores.

My anxieties over the lurking seaman I had noticed by the house gate proved fully justified when the manservant called on me the day afterwards. He reported that he had encountered this very fellow in the garden at dusk the night before, and that he had given him a thorough beating before chasing him from the premises. I decided it would be as well to visit Holmes and report on the favourable turn to the situation. It ought, I believed, to assuage any fears he might have. Instead therefore of returning home to lunch I called in at my club, which lies between my house and Baker Street, to take some refreshment there.

It was while I was hastily consuming a boiled fowl and half a bottle of Montrachet that the place next to me at the table was taken by an old acquaintance, Maltravers Bressingham, the big-game hunter. I enquired whether he had been in Africa.

"Why, no, my dear fellow," he replied. "I have been shooting nearer home. In Illyria, in fact. There is excellent sport to be had in the wild boar forests there, you know."

"Indeed?" I answered. "And were you not disturbed by the state of the country? I understand the situation there is somewhat turbulent."

"Turbulent?" Bressingham said, in tones of considerable surprise. "My dear fellow, I assure you that there are positively no signs of unrest at all. I spent a week in the capital, you know, and society there is as calm and as full of enjoyment as one could wish."

"Is it indeed?" I said. "I believed otherwise, but it must be that I have been misinformed."

Sadly puzzled, I left the club and took a hansom for Baker Street. I found Holmes in bed. I was more dismayed at this than I can easily say. A fortnight before, when I had first called on him after a period of some weeks, he had been lying on the sitting room sofa certainly and in a condition I did not at all like to see. But his state now seemed a good deal more grave. Was that indomitable spirit at last to succumb totally to the sapping weakness which lay for ever ready to emerge when there was nothing to engage the powers of his unique mind? Was the world to be deprived of his services because it held nothing that seemed to him a worthy challenge?

"Holmes, my dear fellow," I said. "What symptoms affect you? Confide in me, pray, as a medical man."

In response I got at first no more than a deep groan. But I persisted, and at length Holmes answered, with a touch of asperity in his voice which I was not wholly displeased to hear.

"Nothing is wrong, Watson. Nothing. This is the merest passing indisposition. I do not require your professional services."

"Very well, my dear fellow. Then let me tell you of events down in Hertfordshire. I trust they will bring you not a little comfort."

But even as I spoke those words, my heart failed me. Certainly I had what had seemed glad tidings from Hertfordshire. But my news was of the foiling of an apparent attempt on the Count Palatine of Illyria, a ruler whom I had believed, on Holmes's authority, to be needed urgently in a country prey to severe unrest. Yet I had heard not half an hour before from an eye-witness of impeccable antecedents that there was no unrest whatsoever in Illyria, and if that were so was not the whole of Holmes's view of the situation a matter for doubt?

Yet I had broached the subject and must continue.

"I happened on my final visit to our friend, Mr Smith, the day before yesterday to notice lurking near the gates of the house a person dressed as a seaman," I said.

Holmes in answer gave a groan yet louder than any before. It caused me to pause a little before continuing once more, in an altogether less assured manner.

"I considered it my duty, Holmes, to warn Mr Smith's manservant of the presence of that individual, and to hint in general terms that the fellow might be some sort of burglar intent on the premises."

Another deep groan greeted this information. Yet more falteringly I resumed.

"This morning, my dear chap, the manservant called to collect from me a quantity of nerve tonic that I had prepared for his master, and he told me that he had surprised just such a mysterious seaman in the grounds of the house last evening and that he had – "

Here my hesitant account abruptly concluded. Holmes had given vent to yet another appalling groan, and I was able to see, too, that he was holding his body under the bedclothes in an altogether unnaturally stiff position.

A silence fell. In the quiet of the bedroom I could hear distinctly the buzzing of a bluebottle fly beating itself hopelessly against the window panes. At last I spoke again.

"Holmes. My dear old friend. Holmes. Tell me, am I right in my guess? Holmes, are you suffering from the effects of a thorough thrashing?"

Another silence. Once more I became aware of the useless buzzings of the fly upon the pane. Then Holmes answered. "Yes, Watson, it is as you supposed."

"But, my dear fellow, this is truly appalling. My action in warning that manservant resulted in your suffering injury. Can you forgive me?"

"The injury I can forgive," Holmes answered. "The insult I suffered at the hands of that fellow I can forgive you, Watson, as I can forgive the man his unwitting action. But those who were its cause I cannot forgive. They are dangerous men, my friend, and at all costs they must be prevented from wreaking the harm they intend."

I could not in the light of that answer bring myself to question

in the least whether the men to whom Holmes had pointed existed, however keenly I recalled Maltravers Bressingham's assertion that all was quiet in Illyria.

"Holmes," I asked instead, "have you then some plan to act against these people?"

"I would be sadly failing in my duty, Watson, had I not taken the most stringent precautions on behalf of the Count Palatine, and I hope you have never found me lacking in that."

"Indeed I have not."

"Very well then. During the hours of daylight I think we need not fear too much.They are hardly likely to make an attempt that might easily be thwarted by a handful of honest English passersby. And in any case I have telegraphed the Hertfordshire police and given them a proper warning. But it is tonight, Watson, that I fear."

"The Count's last night in England, Holmes, if indeed…"

I bit back the qualifying phrase it had been on the tip of my tongue to add. Common sense dictated that the terrible situation Holmes foresaw was one that could not occur. Yet on many occasions before I had doubted him and he had in the outcome been proved abundantly right. So now I held my peace.

Holmes with difficulty raised himself up in the bed.

"Watson," he said, "tonight as never before I shall require your active assistance. We must both keep watch. There is no other course open to me. But I fear I myself will be but a poor bruised champion should the affair come to blows. Will you assist me then? Will you bring that old Service revolver of yours and fight once more on the side of justice?"

"I will, Holmes, I will."

What else could I have said?

The hour of dusk that autumn evening found us taking up our watch in Hertfordshire in that same thick rhododendron shrubbery where Holmes had hidden in the disguise of an old, wrinkled, brown-faced fellow at the beginning of this singular adventure. But where he had from deep within that leafy place of concealment looked out at the mellow brightness of afternoon, we now needed to step only a foot or two in among the bushes to be quite concealed and we looked out at a scene soon bathed in serene moonlight.

All was quiet. No feet trod the path beyond the beech hedge. In the garden no bird hopped to and fro, no insect buzzed. Up at the house, which beneath the light of the full moon we had under perfect observation, two lighted windows only showed how things lay, one high up from behind the drawn curtains of the bedroom where I had visited my mysterious patient, another low down, coming from the partly sunken windows of the kitchen where doubtless the manservant was preparing the light evening repast I myself had recommended.

Making myself as comfortable as I could and feeling with some pleasure the heavy weight of the revolver in my pocket, I set myself to endure a long vigil. By my side Holmes moved from time to time, less able than on other such occasions in the past to keep perfectly still, sore as were his limbs from the cudgel wielded, with mistaken honesty, by that European manservant now busy at the stove.

Our watch, however, was to be much shorter than I had expected. Scarcely half an hour had passed when, with complete unexpectedness, the quiet of the night was broken by a sharp voice from behind us.

"Stay where you are. One move and I would shoot."

The voice I recognized in an instant from the strength of its foreign accent. It was that of Mr Smith's loyal servant. Taking care not to give him cause to let loose a blast from the gun I was certain he must be aiming at our backs, I spoke up as calmly as I could.

"I am afraid that not for the first time your zeal has betrayed you," I said. "Perhaps you will recognize my voice, as I have recognized yours. I am Dr Watson, your master's medical attendant. I am here with my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, of whom perhaps you have heard."

"It is the doctor?"

Behind me, as I remained still as a statue, I heard the crunching of the dried leaves underfoot and a moment later the manservant's face was thrust into mine.

"Yes," he said, "it is you. Good. I was keeping guard because of the many rogues there are about here, and I saw in the bushes a movement. I did not like. But it is you and your friend only. That is good."

"You did well," Holmes said to him. "I am happy to think that the Count has another alert watcher over him besides ourselves."

"The Count?" said the servant. "What Count is this?"

"Why, man, your master. There is no need for pretence between the three of us. Dr Watson and I are well aware that the man up in the house there is no Mr Smith, but none other than the Count Palatine of Illyria."

Holmes's voice had dropped as he pronounced the name, but his secrecy was greeted in an altogether astonishing manner. The formerly gruff manservant broke into rich and noisy laughter.

"Mr Smith, my Mr Smith the Count Palatine of Illyria?" he choked out at last. "Why, though my master has travelled much, and though I began to serve him while he was in Austria, he has never so much as set foot in Illyria. Of that I can assure you, gentlemen, and as to being the Count Palatine…"

Again the manservant's laughter overcame him, ringing loudly into the night air.

I do not know what Holmes would have done to silence the fellow, or what attitude he would have taken to this brazen assertion. For at that moment another voice made itself heard, a voice somewhat faint and quavering coming from up beside the house.

"What is this? What is going on there? Josef, is that you?"

It was my patient, certainly recovered from his nervous indisposition enough to venture out to see why there was such a hullabaloo in his grounds.

"Sir, it is the doctor and, sir, a friend of his, a friend with a most curious belief."

At the sound of his servant's reassuring voice my patient began to cross the lawn towards us. As he approached, Sherlock Holmes stepped from the shrubbery and went to meet him, his figure tall and commanding in the silvery moonlight. The two men came together in the full middle of the lawn.

"Good evening," Holmes's voice rang clear. "Whom have I the honour of addressing?"

As he spoke he thrust out a hand in greeting. My patient extended his own in reply. But then, with a movement as rapid as that of a striking snake, Holmes, instead of taking the offered hand and clasping it, seized its third finger, covered as always with its leather finger-stall, and jerked the protective sheath clean away.

There in the bright moonlight I saw for the first time the finger that had hitherto always been concealed from me. It wore no heavy royal signet ring, as indeed was unlikely on a finger of the right hand. It was instead curiously withered, a sight that to anyone other than a medical man might have been considered a little repulsive.

"You are not the Count Palatine of Illyria?" Holmes stammered then, more disconcerted than I had ever seen him in the whole of our long friendship.

"The Count Palatine of Illyria?" Mr Smith replied. "I assure you, my dear sir, I am far from being such a person. Whatever put a notion like that into your head?"

It was not until the last train of the day returning us to London was at the outskirts of the city that Holmes spoke to me.

"How often have I told you, Watson," he said, "that one must take into account all the factors relevant to a particular situation before making an assessment? A good many dozen times, I should say. So it was all the more reprehensible of me deliberately to have imported a factor into the Hertfordshire business that was the product, not of the simple truth, but of my own over-willing imagination. My dear fellow, I must tell you that there were no reports of unrest in Illyria."

"I knew it, Holmes. I had found out quite by chance."

"And you said nothing?"

"I trusted you, as I have trusted you always."

"And as, until now, I hope I have been worthy of your trust. But inaction has always been the curse of me, my dear fellow. It was the lack of stimulus that drove me to deceit now. You were right about your patient from the start. He never was other than a man with a not unusual nervousness of disposition.You were right, Watson, and I was wrong."

I heard the words. But I wished then, as I wish again now with all the fervour at my command, that they had never been uttered, that they had never needed to be uttered.

The Repulsive Story of the Red Leech – David Langford

"Our client, Watson, would seem somewhat overwrought," remarked Sherlock Holmes without lowering his copy of The Times.

We were alone, but I had grown accustomed to the little puzzles which my friend was amused to propound. A glance at the window showed nothing but grey rain over Baker Street. I listened with care, and presently was pleased to say: "Aha! Someone is pacing outside the door. Not heavily, for I cannot discern the footsteps, but quite rapidly – as indicated by the regular sound from that floorboard with its very providential creak."

Holmes cast aside his newspaper and smiled. "Capital! But let us not confuse providence with forethought. That board has been carefully sprung in imitation of the device which in the Orient is known as a nightingale floor. More than once I have found its warning useful."

As I privately abandoned my notion of having the loose plank nailed down and silenced, there was a timid knock at the door.

"Come in," cried Holmes, and in a moment we had our first sight of young Martin Trail. He was robust of build but pale of feature, and advanced with a certain hesitation.

"You wish, I take it, to consult me," said Holmes pleasantly. "Indeed so, sir, if you are the celebrated Dr Watson."

A flash of displeasure crossed Holmes's face as he effected the necessary introductions; and then, I thought, he smiled to himself at his own vanity.

Traill said to me: "I should, perhaps, address you in private." "My colleague is privy to all my affairs," I assured him, suppressing a smile of my own.

"Very well. I dared to approach you, Dr Watson, since certain accounts which you have published show that you are not unacquainted with outré matters."

"Meretricious and over-sensationalized accounts," murmured Holmes under his breath.

I professed my readiness to listen to any tale, be it never so bizarre, and – not without what I fancied to be a flicker of evasiveness in his eyes – Martin Traill began.

"If I were a storyteller I would call myself hag-ridden…

harried by spirits. The facts are less dramatic, but, to me, perhaps more disturbing. I should explain that I am the heir

to the very substantial estate of my late father, Sir Maximilian Traill, whose will makes me master of the entire fortune upon attaining the age of twenty-five. That birthday is months past: yet here I am, still living like a remittance-man on a monthly allowance, because I cannot sign a simple piece of paper."

"A legal document that confirms you in your inheritance?" I hazarded.

"Exactly so."

"Come, come," said Holmes, reaching for a quire of foolscap and a pencil, "we must see this phenomenon. Pray write your name here, and Watson and I will stand guard against ghosts."

Traill smiled a little sadly. "You scoff. I wish to God that I could scoff too. This is not a document that my hand refuses to touch: see!" And, though the fingers trembled a little, he signed his name bold and clear: Martin Maximilian Traill. -

"I perceive," said Holmes, "that you have no banking account."

"No indeed; our man of business pays over my allowance in gold. But – good heavens – how can you know this?"

"Yours is a strong schoolboy signature, not yet worn down by repeated use in the world, such as the signing of many cheques. After ten thousand prescriptions, Watson's scrawl is quite indecipherable in all that follows the W. But we digress."

Traill nervously rubbed the back of his right hand as he went on. "The devil of it is that Selina… that my elder sister talks to spirits."

I fancied that I took his point a trifle more quickly than the severely rational Holmes. "Séances?" I said. "Mischief in dark rooms with floating tambourines, and the dead supposedly

called back to this sphere to talk twaddle? It is a folly which several of my older female patients share."

"Then I need not weary you with details. Suffice it to say that Selina suffers from a mild monomania about the ingratitude of her young brother – that is, myself. Unfortunately she has never married. When I assume formal control of our father's fortune, her stipulated income from the estate will cease. Naturally I shall reinstate and even increase the allowance… but she is distrustful. And the spirits encourage her distrust."

"Spirits!" snapped Holmes. "Professor Challenger's recent monograph has quite exploded the claims of spirit mediums. You mean to say that some astral voice has whispered to this foolish woman that her brother plans to leave her destitute?"

"Not precisely, sir. On the occasion when I was present for sisters must be humoured – the device employed was a ouija board. You may know the procedure. All those present place a finger on the planchette, and its movements spell out messages. Nonsense as a rule, but I remember Selina's air of grim satisfaction as that sentence slowly emerged: beware an ungenerous brother. And then, the words that came horribly back to mind on my twenty-fifth birthday: fear not the hand that moves against its own kin shall suffer fire from heaven.

"And my hand did suffer, Dr Watson. When I took up the pen to sign that paper in the solicitor's office, it burnt like fire as though in my very bones!"

I found myself at a loss. "The pen was hot?"

"No, no: it was a quill pen, a mere goose feather. Our family lawyer Mr Jarman is a trifle old-fashioned in such matters. I do not know what to think. I have made the attempt three times since, and my hand will not sign the document. Jarman is so infernally kind and sympathetic to my infirmity, but I can imagine what he thinks. Could some kind of mesmerism be in operation against me? What of the odic force? Some men of science even give credence to the spirit world – "

"Pardon me," said Holmes, "but with my colleague's permission I would like to administer two simple medical tests. First, a trivial exercise in mental acuity. This lodging is 221b Baker Street, and it is the seventeenth of the month. How rapidly, Mr Traill, can you divide 221 by seventeen?"

As I marvelled and Traill took up the pencil to calculate, Holmes darted to his cupboard of chemical apparatus, returning with a heavy stone pestle and mortar. In the latter he had placed a small mirror about three inches square. Looking at Traill's paper, he said: "Excellent. Quite correct. Now, a test of muscular reactions – kindly shatter this glass now."

Traill performed the feat handily enough, with one sharp tap of the pestle, and stared in puzzlement. It resembled no medical procedure that I knew.

Holmes resumed his seat, rubbing his hands in satisfaction. "As I thought. You are not in the slightest superstitious, Mr Traill; I guessed as much from the tone in which you spoke of spirits. A mathematical result of thirteen does not make you flinch, nor did you hesitate before breaking a mirror. You are masking your real concern. Why do you consult a doctor? Because you fear madness."

With a sob, Trail buried his face in his hands. I stepped to the gasogene and spirit-case, and mixed him a stiff brandy-andsoda with Holmes's nodded approval. In another minute our client had composed himself, and said wryly: "I see that I have fallen among mind-readers."

"My methods, alas, are more prosaic," said Holmes. "Inference is a surer tool than wizardry. I now infer that there is some special circumstance you have yet to reveal to us, for I recall no history of insanity in the family of Sir Maximilian Traill."

"You are troubled and overwrought," I put in, "but speaking as a doctor I see no sign of madness."

"Thank you, Dr Watson. I will begin again, and tell you of the red leech.

"My lodgings are in Highgate and – since the allowance from my father's estate frees me from the need to seek employment – I have fallen into the habit of walking on Hampstead Heath each morning, in search of inspiration for the verses by which I hope one day to be known. (The Yellow Book was good enough to publish one of my triolets.) Some friends used to chaff me for being a fixed landmark at luncheon-time, when I generally enjoyed a meal of sandwiches and a bottle of Bass in the vicinity of the Highgate Ponds." Traill shuddered. "Never again! I remember the day quite vividly: it was a warm Tuesday, perhaps six months ago…"

"Prior to your twenty-fifth birthday?" asked Holmes sharply.

"Why, yes. I sat on the grass in a reverie, idly watching someone's great black retriever splash in and out of the water. I was thinking of foolish things… my sister's maggot of distrust, and the structure of the sestina, and The Pickwick Papers – you will remember Mr Pickwick's investigations of tittlebats and the origin of the Hampstead Ponds which lie across the heath. My thoughts were very far away from the heath. Perhaps I even dozed. Then I felt a hideous pain!"

"On the back of your right hand?" said Holmes.

"Ah, you have seen me rub it when troubled."

"Already my methods are transparent to you," Holmes remarked with pretended chagrin.

I leaned across to look. "There is a mark resembling a scald, or possibly an acid-burn."

"It was the red leech, doctor. You will surely have heard of it. A repulsive, revolting creature. The thing must have crept on me from the long grass; it clung to my hand, its fangs – or whatever such vermin possess – fixed in me."

"I know of no such leech," I protested.

"Perhaps it is a matter which does not concern a general practitioner," said Trail with a hint of reproach. He plucked a folded piece of paper from his wallet, and handed it to me; it was a newspaper clipping. I read aloud: "Today a warning was issued to London dwellers. Specimens of Sanguisuga rufa, the highly poisonous red leech of Formosa, have been observed in certain parkland areas of North London. The creature is believed to have escaped from the private collection of a naturalist and explorer. A representative of the Royal Zoological Society warned that the red leech should be strictly avoided if seen, for its bite injects toxins with long-lasting effects, which may include delusions, delirium or even insanity. The leech is characteristically some three to four inches in length, and is readily distinguished by its crimson hue."

"Most instructive," said Holmes dreamily.

Traill continued: "The horror was unspeakable. The leech clung to my hand, biting with a burning pain, rendering me too horrified to move. I was lucky that a doctor was passing by, who recognized the awful thing! He plucked it from my flesh with a gloved hand and threw it aside into the undergrowth.

And then, straight away, on the grass of Hampstead Heath, this Dr James unpacked his surgical instruments from his black bag and cut the mouth-parts of the horrid beast out of my hand, while I averted my gaze and struggled not to cry out. `A narrow escape young fellow,' he said to me. 'If my eye had not been caught by the press report' – and here he handed me the scrap of paper which you hold – 'it might have gone badly for you. There is something in Providence after all.' I thanked Dr James profusely, and at my insistence he charged me a guinea. Although he had dressed the tiny wound carefully, it was painful and slow to heal.

"And now you know why I fear madness. My mind seems unclouded, but my senses betray me – the leech-bitten hand burns like fire when I try to move against my sister's wishes, as though her infernal spirits were real after all."

"Quite so," said Holmes, regarding him with intense satisfaction through half-closed eyes. "Your case, Mr Trail, presents some extraordinarily interesting and gratifying features. Would you recognize Dr James if you met him again?"

"Certainly: his great black beard and tinted glasses were most distinctive."

This seemed to cause Holmes some private merriment. "Excellent! Yet you now consult the estimable but unfamiliar Watson, rather than the provenly knowledgeable James."

"I confess that in my over-excitement I must have misheard the address Dr James gave to me. There is no such house-number at the street in Hampstead where I sought him."

"Better still. The time has come to summon a cab, Watson! We can easily reach the Highgate Ponds before twilight."

"But to what purpose?" I cried. "After six months the creature will be long gone, or dead and rotted."

"Well, we may still amuse ourselves by catching tittlebats – as Mr Pickwick chose to call sticklebacks. The correct naming of creatures is so important, is it not?"

All through the long four-wheeler cab ride I struggled to make sense of this, while Holmes would talk of nothing but music.

In the bleak grey of late afternoon, Hampstead Heath was at its most desolate. A thin, cold rain continued to fall. The three of us trudged through wet grass on our fool's errand.

"I must ask you for a supreme effort of memory, Mr Traill," declared Holmes as the ponds came into view. "You must cast your mind back to that Tuesday in the spring. Remember the pattern of trees you saw as you sat on the ground; remember the dog that pranced in the water. We must know the exact place, to within a few feet."

Traill roamed around dubiously. "It all looks different at this time of year," he muttered. "Perhaps near here."

"Squat on your heels to obtain the same perspective as when you sat," suggested Holmes. After a few such reluctant experiments, our client indicated that he was as close as memory would take him.

"Then that patch of hawthorn must be our goal – the leech's last known domicile," Holmes observed. "Note, Watson, that this picnic-spot is several yards from the beaten path. The good Dr James must have been quite long-sighted, to see and recognize that leech."

"He might easily have been taking a short cut across the grass," I replied.

"Again the voice of reason pours cold water on my fanciful deductions!" said Holmes cheerfully. As he spoke, he methodically prodded the hawthorn bushes with his walking-stick, and turned over the sodden mass of fallen leaves beneath. He seemed oblivious to the chill drizzle, now made worse by a steadily rising wind from the east. A quarter of an hour went miserably past.

Then – "A long shot, Watson, a very long shot!" cried my friend, and pounced. From a pocket of his cape he had produced a pair of steel forceps, and from another a large pill-box. Now something red glistened in the forceps' grip, and in a trice the thing was safely boxed. Traill, who had given an involuntary cry, backed away a step or two with an expression of revulsion.

"Another of the vile creatures?"

"I fancy it is the same," Holmes murmured. And not a word more would he utter until we were installed in a convenient public house which supplied us with smoking-hot whisky toddies. "It is villainy, Mr Traill," he said then. "One final test remains. I experimented not long ago with a certain apparatus, without fully comprehending its possibilities in scientific detection…"

It was late night in Baker Street, and the gas-mantles burnt fitfully. A smell of ozone tinged the air, mingled with a more familiar chemical reek. Holmes, as he linked up an extensive battery of wet cells, expounded with fanciful enthusiasm on the alternating-current electrical transmission proposals of one Mr Nikola Tesla in the Americas, and of how in the early years of the new century he fully expected electric lighting to be plumbed into our lodgings, like the present gas-pipes. I smiled at his eagerness.

At length the preparations were complete. "You must refrain from touching any part of the equipment," Holmes now warned. "The electrical potential which drives this cathode-ray tube is dangerously high. Do you recognize the device, Watson? The evacuated glass, the tungsten target electrode within? It has already been employed in the United States, in connection with your own line of work."

The tangle of glassware, the trailing wires and the eerie glow from the tube made up an effect wholly unfamiliar to me, reminiscent perhaps of some new scientific romance by Mr H.G. Wells. It was only very gingerly that young Traill placed his right hand where Holmes directed.

"I have seen something a little like this before," he mused. "Old Wilfrid Jarman's brother dabbles in electrical experiments. He vexed Selina once with a tedious demonstration of a model dynamo."

"Healing rays?" I asked. "Earlier in the day we spoke of Mesmerism, which according to my recollection was a charlatan's ploy to heal by what he called animal magnetism. Has electrical science made this real at last?"

"Not precisely, Watson. The apparatus of Herr Doktor Röntgen does not heal, but lights the way for the healer. In years to come, I fancy it will be remembered as the greatest scientific discovery of the present decade."

"But I see nothing happening."

"That is what you may expect when there is nothing to see. – No, Mr Traill, I must entreat you to remain quite still. The rays of Röntgen, which he has named for algebra's unknown quantity X, do not impinge on the human eye. That faint glow which you may discern is not the true glow, but secondary fluorescence in the glass."

I pondered this, while Holmes kept a wary eye on his pocket-watch. "Very well," he said at last. "You may lift your hand now, but have a care…" And he took up the mysterious sealed envelope on which Traill's hand had rested. "What the eye cannot see, a photographic plate can still record. I must retreat to the darkroom and – lift the veil of the spirits. Kindly entertain our guest, Watson."

Traill and I stared at each other, lost in a mental darkness deeper than that of any photographic darkroom. Infuriatingly, I knew that to Holmes this night-shrouded terrain of crime was brilliantly lit by the invisible rays of his deductive power.

Nor was I much the wiser when morning came. Holmes, dancing-eyed and evasive, had bundled Traill into a homeward-bound hansom and directed him to return to Baker Street after breakfast, when the case would be resolved.Then he had settled into his favourite chair with his pipe and a pound of the vilest shag tobacco: I found him in the identical position when I arose from sleep.

Over breakfast, he unbent a trifle. "Well,Watson, what do you make of our case?"

"Very little… I had thought," I ventured, "that you would dissect or analyse the leech itself and perhaps identify its toxins."

"The naked eye sufficed." He pulled the red thing from his dressing-gown pocket and tossed it casually on to my plate of kippers, causing me to recoil in horror. "As you may readily discern for yourself, it has been artfully made from rubber."

"Good heavens!" I studied the ugly worm more closely, and was struck by a thought. "Holmes, you suspected this artificial leech from the outset, or the excursion to Hampstead Heath would have been futile. What gave you the clue? And has Trail! deceived us – are we the butts of some youthful jest?"

Holmes smiled languidly. "In a moment you will be telling me how obvious and elementary was the reasoning that led me to distrust that repulsive object. Look again at the newspaper cutting."

I took it from his hand and examined it once more, to no avail.

"Setting aside the fact that the type fount does not correspond to that of any British newspaper known to me (the work of a jobbing printer, no doubt)… setting aside the extreme unlikelihood that such a striking report should have escaped my eye and failed to be pasted into our own celebrated index volume… may I direct your attention to this red leech's scientific name?"

"Sanguisuga rufa," I repeated. "Which I should say means something like 'red bloodsucker'."

"You are no taxonomer, Watson, but you are a doctor – or, as some country folk still call the profession, a leech. Can you bring to mind the Latin name for the leech once used in medicine?"

"Hirudo medicinalis, of course. Oh! That is strange…"

"In fact, Sanguisuga is not a scientific class name. It is poetic. It was used of leeches by Pliny. Our villain, who may or may not be 'Dr James', knows his Latin but not – if I may so phrase it – his leechcraft."

I said: "How obvious and elem… that is, ingeniously reasoned!"

Holmes inclined his head ironically. "Here is our client at the door. Good morning, Mr Traill! Dr Watson has just been explaining with great erudition that your red leech is a fake – a rubber toy. And now the chase leads us to Theobald's Road, to the law office of Jarman, Fittlewell and Coggs, where today you will at last claim your inheritance. Watson, that excellent revolver of yours might well be of use."

"My reconstruction," said Holmes as our cab rattled through a dismal London fog, "is a trifle grisly. There you were, Mr Trail, arguably somewhat drowsy from the compounded effects of warm weather, literary reveries and a bottle of Bass. Your habit of picnicking near the Highgate Ponds is well known to your friends – even, I dare say, your sister?"

"That is so. In fact, Selina has publicly twitted me more than once for what she calls my shiftless habits."

"Thus the miscreant 'Dr James', whose appearance is a transparent disguise but whose true surname I fancy I know, had little difficulty in locating you. It was easy for him to approach you stealthily from behind and drop or place this little monstrosity upon the back of your hand as you sprawled on the grass." He displayed the leech once more.

"The thing still revolts me," Traill muttered.

"Its underside seems to have been coated with dark treacle: that would provide a convincingly unpleasant-looking and adhesive slime. But in addition, the 'mouth' section was dipped in some corrosive like oil of vitriol – see how it is eaten away? That was what you felt."

Again Traill convulsively massaged the back of his hand. "But, Mr Holmes, what was the purpose of this horrid trick? It strikes me that your investigations have made matters worse! Before, I could blame my hand's infirmity on the leech poison. Now you have eliminated that possibility and left me with nothing but madness."

"Not at all. You will be pleased to hear that the apparatus of Röntgen pronounces you sane. We have eliminated the impossible story of the leech. There remains another, highly improbable explanation, which we will shortly confirm as true. By the way, may I assume that either Wilfrid Jarman or his brother was present on the occasion when that planchette spelt out such a disquieting message?"

"Yes, Basil was there. The brother."

"The brother who dabbles in electrical devices. I wonder if he applied his ingenuity to enlivening those séances. In any case, according to my researches, it is far from difficult for a determined hand to influence the oracle of the ouija board. But here we are! Watson, I am sure you have change for the cabman."

Jarman, Fittlewell and Coggs, solicitors and commissioners of oaths, occupied a fourth-floor set of offices. Without a great deal of ado we were shown into the large, dim room where Wilfrid Jarman awaited. He was a plump and kindly looking man in late middle age, whose baldness and pince-nez spectacles were slightly reminiscent of Mr Pickwick. A frowsty legal atmosphere exuded from numerous shelves of books bound in dull brown calf. Holmes's nostrils widened like a hound's as he keenly sniffed the air. I unobtrusively followed suit, and thought to detect a trace of not unfamiliar chemical whiff.

Jarman was greeting our client, saying, "I am most pleased, Martin, that you feel equal at last to your little ordeal. So many people take fright at a simple affidavit or conveyance! But you must introduce your friends."

The formalities over, Jarman indicated the bulky document that lay on his desk. "A tiresome necessity," he said with a shrug. "Believe me, my dear boy, I would readily dispense with it – but we lawyers must live by the law, or where would we be?"

The question being unanswerable, Traill muttered something suitably meaningless.

"Look!" cried Holmes suddenly. "That face at the window! We are being spied upon!"

Our heads jerked around to the large office window, which showed only the dim and fog-shrouded skyline across Theobald's Road. The solicitor even took a ponderous step or two towards the window, before turning back and stating acidly: "Mr Holmes, we are on the fourth floor. And expert cat-burglars do not commonly risk their necks for legal paperwork."

Holmes made some feeble apology and mentioned trouble with his nerves. I recognized the signs of a ruse, and on reflection thought that – out of the corner of my eye – I had seen his hand dart to the broad desktop. But all seemed unchanged.

"Let us deal with the business at hand," said Jarman, placing a finger on the thick paper where the signature was to go.

Traill took up the quill pen and dipped it in ink. He hesitated. His trembling hand moved forward, back, and then resolutely forward again. The air seemed suddenly charged with menace. From behind the desk Jarman smiled indulgently, and seemed to shift his weight a little to one side. For an instant I thought I felt, rather than heard, a faint sourceless whining.

Simultaneously, Trail snatched his hand back with a cry, and there was an explosion of blinding, dazzling light from the desk. Jarman's thick voice uttered an oath. I clapped my hand to my revolver, but the room was blotted out by coruscating afterimages. White smoke swirled. Slowly some shreds of vision returned.

" 'Tis sport," Sherlock Holmes quoted, "to have the engineer hoist with his own petard."

"I felt my hand burning again," said Traill. "But that great flash was not my nerves, nor spirits either."

The fat solicitor's hand seemed burnt as well, from the flare; he cursed in a low, filthy undertone.

Holmes said briskly, "Forgive my theatricality. It seemed a useful notion to slip a flat packet of magnesium flash powder,

appropriately fused, underneath that interesting document. Mr Jarman's office may appear old-fashioned, but it conceals some thoroughly modern equipment – specifically, a high-frequency Tesla coil within the desk, which is activated when Mr Jarman chooses to step on a particular floorboard. Within a limited area, its rapidly fluctuating electromagnetic field has the effect of heating metals to a painful temperature. This heat detonated my little flash charge."

"Metal?" said Traill, now still more puzzled. "I wear no rings."

"True enough. But your right hand contains a steel needle, inserted there by the false Dr James under the pretext of removing the poisoned mouth-parts of the red leech."

I was thunderstruck as I realized the fiendish ingenuity of the plot. Even the quill pen was part of the design, for a steel nib would instantly have given the game away. And of course that faint smell in the air was the sulphuric-acid reek of hidden wet-cell batteries. Meanwhile, Jarman uttered a forced laugh. He appeared to be sweating profusely. "What a farrago of nonsense! Such a thing would be impossible to prove."

"On the contrary, I have photographed it by means of X-radiation." Holmes drew something from one of his capacious pockets. "This shadowgraph shows the bone structure of Mr Traill's right hand. Bone, being less previous to the rays than flesh, appears as nearly white. Here is the solid white of the needle, lying between the metacarpal bones."

Traill shuddered again.

"No doubt we will find that Mr Jarman cannot account for his time on that Tuesday six months ago when you had your famous adventure on Hampstead Heath… ah, Mr Jarman, you are smiling. Therefore you have an alibi, and the deed was done by your good brother Basil, who likes to experiment with electricity. What, no smile now?"

I had belatedly trained my revolver on Jarman.

"What was the purpose of this terrible charade?" asked Traill.

"It is possible," said Holmes gently, "that you are no longer heir to a great estate. If the assets or a large part of them have somehow slipped through the fingers of Jarman, Fittlewell and Coggs, then it naturally became necessary to delay – by fair means or foul – your legal acquisition of Sir Maximilian's fortune. We shall find out when, as Mr Jarman very nearly put it, those who lived by the law shall perish by the law."

"Mr Sherlock Holmes, you are an officious meddler," stated Jarman, gazing intently at my friend. "And you over-reach.Your remarks are slanderous, sir. A true accounting of the estate's affairs lies here upon my desk, and will show no defalcation: perhaps you would care to glance through the record?" The lawyer tapped his scorched index finger upon the book in question, a heavy ledger with a tarnished brass clasp that lay askew upon a mound of papers near the desk's far edge. "Within, all your questions are answered."

For half a minute, Holmes's right hand had lain concealed within the folds of his bulky Inverness cape. Now he reached forward to the ledger, but did not flick open the clasp as I had anticipated. Instead he swiftly lifted the entire tome clear of the papers, and two oddities were made manifest. First, from the underside of the book's brass clasp there trailed a long, springy, shining copper wire which vanished into the artfully disarrayed papers. Second, Holmes's hand was seen to be sheathed in a heavy, rubber glove.

"How many volts, Mr Jarman?" he enquired pleasantly. "Hundreds? Thousands? I presume this jest was ultimately intended for Mr Traill, whose death would have bought you yet more time. My admiration for your ingenuity increases."

Wilfrid Jarman's composure was broken at last, and with an inarticulate cry of rage he stepped to one side, reaching into a drawer. Even as I realized that his hand now held an old-fashioned pistol, he had dextrously placed himself so that Holmes lay in my line of fire. I flung myself uselessly forward, to see Jarman aiming at point-blank range while Holmes flung the ledger in what seemed a futile shielding gesture. Blue-white sparks flew. The pistol's flash and bang echoed with dread authority in the musty room. Then a heavy body fell to the floor. There was a long silence.

"I suspect that our friend did not finish pulling the trigger," said Holmes, whose austere face was now very pale. "His infernal electricity exploded the shell in the breech, even as it struck him dead. Gun-barrels, as well as copper wires and brass clasps, are excellent conductors of electrical current. – Watson, I must trouble you to bind up my shoulder. The bullet did not

go entirely astray." He bent over to scrutinize the corpse more closely. "As he truly said, that ledger contained the answer to all questions. The rictus of his features is characteristic of electrically-induced spasms and convulsions. Best not to look, Mr Trail. Some things are even less pleasant to gaze upon than the red leech."

Some time afterward, at the trial which concluded with the sentencing of the co-conspirator Basil Jarman to a long term of hard labour, we learned that almost half of the Traill estate still remained. Thus our client continued his life of idle literary dabbling, while his blameless sister Selina presumably receives a sufficient allowance to fritter away on psychic mediums.

Besides his own substantial fee, Holmes somehow contrived to retain a small souvenir of the case. To this day, our untidy mantelpiece in 221b Baker Street boasts a matchbox best not opened by the unwary, for its coiled rubber occupant is repulsive to the eye. The box is labelled in Holmes's own neat hand: Sanguisuga rufa spuriosa. I have my doubts about the Latin.

The Adventure of the Grace Chalice – Roger Johnson

"Watson," said Mr Sherlock Holmes from the bow-window, where he had stood for the past half-hour, gazing moodily down into the street, "if I mistake not, we have a client."

I was more than pleased to hear the excitement in his voice. Holmes had been restlessly unemployed for nearly a week, and neither his temper nor mine had been helped by the dull, leaden skies of March with their intermittent showers, which caused my old wound to ache abominably.

"A prosperous man," he continued. "Purposeful and not without self-esteem. Ah, he has paid off the cab and is approaching our door. Let us hope that he brings something of interest." He turned away from the window, and at that moment we heard a determined ring upon the front-door bell. Within a minute our good landlady had shown into the room a plump man with heavy jowls and thick grey hair.

"Gentlemen," said our visitor, as the door closed softly behind Mrs Hudson, "my name is Henry Staunton, and I am the victim of a most audacious theft!"

"Indeed?" replied Holmes, calmly. "Pray take the basket-chair, Mr Staunton. Your name is, of course, familiar to me as that of a connoisseur of objets d'art. Has some item from your collection been stolen?"

"It has, sir. It has! I shall come straight to the point, for I dislike circumlocution, as, I am sure, do you. Besides, I wish to have the matter settled without even the least delay. You must know, then, that I recently acquired from old Sir Cedric Grace the celebrated golden cup known as the Grace Chalice. I may say that it cost me a very considerable sum – a pretty penny,

sir! But I do not grudge it, for the chalice is unique, quite unique.

"Now, before depositing it with my bankers, I determined to retain the chalice at my house for a short while, so that I might study it thoroughly. I live at The Elms at Hampstead, a very desirable residence, near the Heath and somewhat away from the main thoroughfare. Ahem! I kept the chalice in a safe in my study, securely built into the wall, and hidden behind a looking-glass. You may imagine my distress – my utter distress, sir – when, this very morning I discovered the safe unlocked and the chalice gone!

"I am a man who values his privacy, Mr Holmes, and I have no desire to admit the official police to my property. Instead, I am resolved to rely upon your skill and discretion in the matter." He made a little flourish with his hand, and I remembered my friend's assessment of him as a man not lacking in self-importance.

Holmes himself sat quietly, his eyes closed and his long legs stretched out before him. "That is very good of you, Mr Staunton," he replied blandly. "You will appreciate, however, that I must have all the details, however trivial they may seem."

"Of course, sir, of course. Well, my maid, Robinson, called me at seven o'clock this morning, rather earlier than usual, and she was in a most agitated state. Rather than trust to her somewhat incoherent account, I went myself directly to my study, where I found that the safe door stood open and that the study window was broken. Here, plainly, the miscreant had gained entrance, inserting his hand through the broken pane and unlocking the casement. I observed also a double line of footsteps running across the bare, damp earth from the high garden wall, and returning thither."

This case presents some curious features," remarked Sherlock Holmes, glancing intently at our client. "Are we to understand that your study overlooks bare ground?"

Staunton permitted himself a pained chuckle. "No doubt it seems odd to you, sir," said he, "but the matter is simply explained: the ground has been prepared for the laying of a new lawn, and the turves have not yet been laid. A fortunate thing, as I am sure you will agree, sir! Most fortunate, for now we have the clearest clues to the thief's means of entrance and egress.

Naturally, I have left strict instructions that the footsteps are to be left untouched."

"Naturally," agreed Sherlock Holmes. "Very well, Mr Staunton. I think that we had better come at once and investigate the scene of the crime. Watson, will you call a cab?"

On the short journey to Hampstead, we learned that our client was a bachelor, living quietly with the immediate household of a maid, a cook and a single manservant. He kept no dog, for he disliked the creatures, and his only recreation was to play cards twice a week – for money, he admitted with candour with a cousin, a retired gunsmith named George Cresswell, who lived at Mill Hill. Under Holmes's determined questioning, he further confessed that although none of his servants knew of his remarkable purchase he had mentioned it to his cousin. "But you may dismiss any suspicion of George," said he, "for he remarked only that I ought to deposit the cup in a bank-vault as soon as possible. Besides, sir, my cousin would have no cause to steal from me. I should tell you that as a result of our card-playing I am in his debt for a tidy sum."

At The Elms, which struck me as a large house to be run by a staff of only three, we were first shown the windows of the upper rooms where the servants slept and then led to the far side of the building, where the crime had been committed. It was plain that if the burglar were sufficiently quiet the servants need have heard nothing. Staunton himself admitted to being a very heavy sleeper.

Holmes made a minute examination of the very clear footsteps that ran, just as we had been told, directly from the high garden wall to the study window and back. The damp earth had preserved the impressions wonderfully, and since no one had had occasion to trespass upon this smooth, bare patch there were no other prints to be seen.

"Our burglar could hardly have left plainer traces if he had intended to," remarked Holmes to me. "There are two very singular features here, however. For instance, it would appear that our man let himself down from the wall with commendable delicacy, for there is no indication that he jumped, and we look in vain for the marks of a ladder. Hum – size ten boots, new or recently soled. A long stride. Just so! Mr Staunton, describe your cousin, if you please."

Our client looked up hastily from a self-conscious glance at his own small feet. "Really, sir!" said he. "I fail to… Oh, very well! George Cresswell is a large and strong man, quite as tall as yourself, Mr Holmes. He is fifty-four years of age, with thick hair, still dark brown, a heavy brown moustache and – er somewhat faded blue eyes. And – oh, dear! Yes, I do believe that he takes a size ten in boots."

"Quite so," replied my friend. "Now, let us turn our attention to the study. Ha! This window has been broken in a most professional manner, with the noise muffled by a sheet of strong paper smeared with treacle. Well, well. And what shall we find in the room itself?"

The furniture of the study, itself of much interest, held an eclectic accumulation of antiques, witness to Henry Staunton's abiding pursuit. On the thick carpet were muddy patches leading from the window to the opposite wall, where the door of the safe stood open, just as our client had described it. There was little to be learned from the safe, even by such an expert as Sherlock Holmes. We could descry faint smears that might have been made by gloved fingers, and the lock was quite undamaged, indicating that it had been opened with a key. To my friend's questions, Mr Staunton admitted reluctantly that George Cresswell might have had the opportunity within the past few weeks to take an impression of the safe key. Plainly the thought distressed him, for he seemed truly fond of his cousin, but it was clear to me that the evidence grew ever stronger against the retired gunsmith.

Shortly afterwards, Holmes and I left The Elms, with assurances of that we should certainly pursue the case. My friend was manifestly unsatisfied with his investigation so far, and I in my turn recalled an earlier remark of his that had puzzled me. "You suggested," said I, "that there was yet another odd feature about the footsteps in the garden. What was it?"

He looked at me in his singular, introspective fashion. "You did not notice it? Why, it was simply that at no point did the steps returning from the house overlap those made in going to the house."

While I pondered up this, he continued, "My next move must be to call upon Mr George Cresswell – I have his address – and I think that I shall go alone. Time may be of importance now."

I returned to Baker Street to find our old friend Mr Lestrade of Scotland Yard waiting in our sitting room, positively bursting with news. "It's the Freeling case, Doctor," he explained. "You'll remember that the man escaped from Chelmsford Prison a couple of weeks ago? Well, we think that we've found him. I put it like that because the man we have is very dead and savagely mutilated."

I recalled the case well. Esme Freeling was a smooth, elegant and dangerous man who preyed upon the weak. He was a proven card-sharp, a known blackmailer and a suspected murderer. Holmes had been responsible in part for his arrest and incarceration, and would certainly wish to know of this strange and brutal conclusion to a wicked career.

"It's not a nice thing, Dr Watson," said Lestrade. "The man's face has been quite burned off with acid. Horrible, it is. He was killed by a savage blow to the head, and then… Well, there's not enough of his face left to identify him, but all the rest fits. He's a big man, muscles well developed from rowing, thick brown hair. We found him, of all places, in Highgate Cemetery, behind one of the tombs. But here's an odd thing, now – every single label had been removed from his clothes! Well, perhaps he was going about incognito, but it seems he couldn't escape his fate."

Declaring that he would wait until Holmes returned, Lestrade accepted a cigar from me, and we sat in companionable silence until Holmes entered the room, grim-faced, with the news that George Cresswell had not been seen for nearly two days. "Our client wished to keep this matter confidential," he remarked, "but it seems that we shall have to call in the police after all."

Upon hearing Lestrade's information, he shrugged his thin shoulders and said, "Then let us go and see the last of the Freeling case."

I had seen many unpleasant sights during my time as an Army Surgeon, but nothing quite as grisly as that which lay on a white marble slab in the mortuary at Highgate. Yet to Sherlock Holmes this hideous and pitiful object was not the mutilated shell of a fellow man but merely an object of professional study. Gently he raised the dead head and carefully scrutinized the great bruises at the base of the skull. Then, after a brief glance at the raw wound that had once been a human face, he turned his attention to the muscular

arms. He ran his sensitive fingers over them and, taking the hands in his own, he closed the fists.

"Feel those forearm muscles, Watson," he commanded. "Their condition should be of interest to a medical man."

The muscle of the right forearm indicated considerable strength, consistent with what we knew of Esme Freeling, but that of the left astounded me. It stood out like an egg, and was by far the most highly developed I had ever seen.

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "This man must have been left-handed and immensely strong."

"Freeling was strong, sir," said Lestrade, in response to my friend's questioning glance, "but there's nothing in the files about his being left-handed. Besides, his only sport was rowing, and that would tend to develop both arms equally. Are we to take it, Mr Holmes, that this is not Esme Freeling?"

"Just so," replied Holmes. "I know of only one activity that can cause such muscular development in a man. The muscle swells like that through years of taking the recoil of a rifle. You know little of this as yet, Lestrade, but Watson is informed. Look at the man, Doctor! Look at his tall stature, his thick brown hair, his large feet. Imagine the moustache and the pale blue eyes, and now tell me who he is."

"Why," said I, "surely this can only be the retired gunsmith, George Cresswell!"

"Precisely. We have encountered a singularly brutal and fortunately unsuccessful attempt on the part of a very wicked man to disguise the identity of his victim. Lestrade, I must ask you to restrain your natural impatience until later this evening, for I have to make a few further enquiries. Then, I think I can promise that you shall have your murderer."

My own impatience must have been quite as great as the police detective's, and how either of us contrived to bear the waiting I cannot say. Holmes had left us directly, and did not return to our lodgings until the evening was far advanced, but the expression upon his face was one of satisfaction. The three of us proceeded immediately to Hampstead, where we were joined by two uniformed constables from the local Police Station.

Henry Staunton was not pleased to see our companions, but his demeanour changed upon hearing Holmes's bleak announcement of the disappearance of Mr George Cresswell. This fact, said my friend, meant that the theft of the Grace Chalice must inevitably become a matter for the police.

"Dear me," observed our client, sententiously. "Such a wicked crime – wicked, sir! Who would have thought it?"

"Who indeed?" replied Sherlock Holmes. "Murder is a very wicked crime, Mr Staunton. And when you add to that the attempt to defraud the insurance company…"

Staunton's face had turned very pale, and his fleshy features seemed to sag. "Really, sir, I – I fail to understand you!" he blustered.

"Oh, it won't do, you know. Really it won't. Mr Lestrade here has a warrant, and we intend to search this house until we find the Grace Chalice – Hold him, gentlemen!"

Staunton, his face twisted with inexpressible malice, had sprung for the door, but in a flash the two constables were upon him. He put up a considerable struggle, but at last I heard the satisfying click of handcuffs.

"I told you," said Holmes later, when the precious cup had been retrieved from its hiding-place beneath a flagstone in the cellar of The Elms, "that I had some more enquiries to make this afternoon. Well, I discovered, as I had suspected, that our client had gambled heavily upon the Stock Exchange in recent years and, not to mince words, he was now over head and ears in debt. This, of course, was in addition to the large sum that he owed to his easy-going cousin. His plan, clearly, was to stage this false robbery, collect the insurance money, and then to sell the chalice. His cousin was murdered to provide a scapegoat for the crime, and to ensure that the gambling debt need not be paid. The escape from prison of Esme Freeling was merely a fortunate coincidence. There was more to the murder, however, for Henry Staunton hated his cousin as only a mean man can hate a generous and contented one.

"As you may have surmised, Watson, it was the supposed burglar's footsteps that first suggested to me that all was not right. They appeared to lead from the garden wall, but there was no evidence that anyone had ever come over that wall. More important was the singular fact that the outgoing steps did not overtread those incoming. The two lines of prints were

close but quite separate. Now, what burglar would ever tread so artistically? There could be but one explanation: the footsteps did not, in fact, lead from the wall to the study and back, but from the study to the wall and back. In all probability, then, our client himself was responsible for this mummery, and had he not stepped too carefully the fact of an inside job would have been plain to the meanest intelligence. For the rest, he wore boots – new ones, you will recall – fully three sizes too large for him, and strode out manfully to give the impression of a taller man. We may eventually find the boots, but I fear that they have been destroyed."

On this point, however, Holmes was wrong. It is a matter of record that the boots were discovered, carelessly discarded, in the attic of The Elms, and proved to fit exactly those damning footsteps in the garden. This was the final link in the chain of evidence that took Henry Staunton to an unmourned death on a cold morning at Pentonville Prison.

The Case of the Faithful Retainer – Amy Myers

Watson secured publication of several cases that happened in 1897, including "The Abbey Grange", "The Red Circle", "The Devil's Foot" – the case that nearly saw the end of Sherlock Holmes "The Dancing Men" and "The Missing Three-Quarter". There were certainly other cases during the year, but the only one that we have been able to date conclusively is "The Case of the Faithful Retainer". We have been fortunate that this case survived amongst the papers of the family of M. Auguste Didier, the master-chef whose investigations Amy Myers has been reconstructing. I am indebted to her for allowing me access to these papers.

"You are correct, my dear Watson. The hour may indeed have come when it is in the interests of our great nation that your readers should be permitted to know the full truth behind my indisposition of 'ninety-seven'."

As so often in the past, my old friend had correctly broken into my thoughts. "How could you know – " I began. But why should I be amazed that his powers of observation and deduction remained undimmed, infrequently though circumstances had permitted me to visit Mr Sherlock Holmes, during his years of retirement on the Sussex downs? We were taking our ease in his pleasant farm garden, on a summer day in 1911, and I had been studying the grave news reported in my newspaper.

Holmes shrugged. "You are absorbed in The Times report of this Agadir crisis. I noted your frown, and the fact that you read the report several times; hence my conclusion that you consider that the sending of the gunboat to Morocco demonstrates that a certain great European nation is once more flexing its muscles,

and casting its shadow over the peace not only of Europe but of the British Empire itself, was simplicity itself. It was then but a small step to deduce from your unconscious glance towards me that in your opinion the unfortunate case of the faithful retainer should now be made known to the world. I agree, but masked, I must insist, in suitable anonymity."

"Of course, Holmes," I replied stiffly, somewhat offended that my old friend could imply I had so little delicacy as to reveal the identities of those involved in the services to the nation that had led to Holmes being offered a knighthood in June 1902, the coronation month (had not illness postponed the celebration) of our late and gracious monarch, Edward the Peacemaker. For reasons that must perforce remain undisclosed, these services had been rendered some years earlier, in the spring and early summer of '97, at a time when the world supposed Holmes to have been ill, a fiction at which I have hitherto been obliged, from the highest of motives, to connive. His iron constitution, I wrote – truthfully – showed some symptoms of giving way. It did not in fact do so.

On a chilly day late in February 1897 Holmes and I were lunching in the Baker Street rooms, when a telegram arrived. This was hardly an unusual occurrence, but my engagement with Mrs Hudson's mutton chop ceased immediately when Holmes's face was suddenly transformed, flushed and with a glitter in his eyes, followed by an expression of extreme thoughtfulness. He handed the telegram to me, his brows drawn into two dark lines. It read: "Come at once. My club Mycroft."

"When Brother Mycroft commands, and during the hour of luncheon at that, we may be sure that weighty matters are afoot, Watson."

"Shall I accompany you, Holmes?"

"Why, certainly. We leave immediately. Mrs Hudson will no doubt forgive our abandonment of her excellent treacle pudding. I smell danger in its place, though of a form which I trust should have no need of your pistol."

Within the half hour we were being ushered into a private room of the Diogenes Club in Pall Mall, one of the few places where speaking was permitted in this club of most unclubable gentlemen. There we found not only Mycroft awaiting us, but three other most distinguished visitors. The remains of a hasty luncheon suggested they had been foregathered some time. One of the visitors we recognized instantly and indeed Holmes had undertaken cases for him on former occasions. If anything were needed to convince us of the seriousness of the circumstances that called us here, it was the presence of the elderly Lord Bellinger, once more Premier of Britain. The second was Sir George Lewis, solicitor in delicate matters to the highest in the land. He too was no stranger to Holmes, though my presence brought a swift frown to his face which was only removed by a nod from Lord Bellinger. The third, a keen-eyed tall man of about thirty-five, was introduced to us as Mr Robert Mannering, a name familiar to us as Lord Bellinger's Adviser on European Affairs. He had inherited the mantle, though not yet the high office, of the late Trelawney Hope, Lord Bellinger's Secretary for European Affairs at the time of the Adventure of the Second Stain. Holmes' brother Mycroft sat in the midst of the group, a huge and ungainly spider in the centre of the web of Government diplomacy and intrigue.

"I had not thought we should yet again have need of your services, Mr Holmes," the Premier began. "Your brother informs us you are exceptionally busy at the moment."

"That is so."

"We have to ask you to lay all else aside, save that which we are about to ask you to undertake."

"That is scarcely feasible, Lord Bellinger." Holmes was taken aback at this request. "There is the interesting case of the Vanishing Pedlar, and the affair of the Ten Black Pillowcases."

"Insignificant trifles, Sherlock," Mycroft rumbled.

From no one but his brother would Sherlock Holmes have accepted this without considerable demur.

"Well, well, that may be debated on a future occasion."

"Let me explain, Mr Holmes. I act on behalf of a -" Sir George coughed slightly as though he were unwilling even to commit himself so far, "- a noble client of the highest station, who is concerned on behalf of his mother, a – um – lady of venerable years," Lord Bellinger and Mr Mannering's eyes were momentarily averted from us, "who is held in highest public esteem and affection and who has no knowledge whatsoever of the events that I am about to relate to you. Nor must she ever have. That is mandatory. His mother – let us call her Lady X – "

"If you insist," Holmes agreed in a bored voice.

"Lady X," Sir George continued hurriedly, "is mistress of an exceptionally large household in London and several country residences. She was widowed early after a most happy marriage, and though blessed with a large and loving family, inevitably as each in turn chose matrimony she came more and more to rely in her private life on a large group of retainers, and one in particular, a loyal and faithful servant who was her personal attendant and confidant to a degree that aroused the disquiet of some of her advisers, though he was an honest enough fellow."

"To the point, Sir George. I believe this loyal and faithful retainer of yours to be dead these fourteen years," Holmes said, displaying some impatience.

Sir George bowed his head in slight amusement, despite his obvious anxiety. "As always you are correct, Mr Holmes. He died in one of Lady X's larger country residences and afterwards his effects were naturally returned to his family in Scotland. He left no will, and her ladyship made the request of his appointed executor that such correspondence as had passed between them, on matters concerning the estate and so forth should be extracted and returned to her. This was done, or so it was believed."

"Believed?"

"We have reason to believe that one letter never reached the security of Lady X's archives. The librarian keeps the correspondence under lock and key, not to mention his own coded system. He is positive it has not been touched since it entered his possession. I need hardly say he himself is above suspicion.Yet this morning, Mr Holmes, I received an unsigned letter informing me that the writer had in his possession a letter from Lady X to her retainer and was prepared to part with it for a suitable sum."

"On a matter concerning the estate?" Holmes queried politely.

Sir George hesitated, and Robert Mannering after a nod from Lord Bellinger replied for him. "We must rely on your complete discretion, Mr Holmes, Mr Watson."

"You may be assured of it," my friend replied coldly.

"This letter, a copy of which was enclosed, was written during the retainer's last illness, which was a highly infectious one precluding any visits by Lady X to his bedside. It was a letter of warmth, full of affection and gratitude for the years of devoted service and friendship that he had given her."

"Come, come, Mr Mannering. We trifle."

"By an enemy," Robert Mannering continued steadily, "that letter, assuming it to be no forgery, might be capable of grievous misinterpretation by those who seek an opportunity for mischief."

"If that is the case," I said eagerly, "why has nothing been heard of it for fourteen years?"

"Good,Watson," Holmes cried. "However, an event is to take place this summer which must surely rank above all others in placing Lady X at the forefront of world attention. At such a time the letter, if it fell into the wrong hands, might well be used to devastating effect."

"To ruin her reputation?"

"Worse, Watson. To besmirch not only England, but the Empire itself, if I am not mistaken.Why else should the Premier's Adviser on European Affairs be with us today?"

"You are not mistaken, Mr Holmes." Lord Bellinger spoke

gravely. "We must buy that letter back." •

"Pray let me see the copy, and the letter to you, Sir George."

After a moment's hesitation, Sir George handed both to him. "It will tell you nothing. It came by hand from an unknown messenger."

"Nothing in itself inevitably conveys information," Holmes remarked, scanning the contents. Both were penned in a bold black copperplate, and the letter to Sir George was brief: "The writer is prepared to part with the original of the enclosed letter for a sum to be arranged. The crest will prove its provenance. The personal columns of the daily newspapers will convey my next instruction."

"They are written by hand," Holmes observed to his brother.

Mycroft chuckled. "I can supply names, Sherlock."

I was bewildered at this exchange, and indeed I was only now appreciating the gravity of the whole affair. Holmes did not pursue the subject.

"We would ask you to carry out the negotiation on our behalf, Mr Holmes," Sir George said.

"I believe my services may be required for more than mere barter," Holmes replied quietly, "or Mycroft alone would be handling this affair."

"Why, Holmes?" I was startled, but the expression on Lord Bellinger's face confirmed it.

"Ten years ago this month, Watson, there was another occasion of equal importance to Lady X yet nothing was heard of this letter then. Does that not suggest that the writer of the letter is no ordinary sneaksman, but plays for large stakes and to whom, since time appears no object, the game is of more importance than the outcome? A dangerous opponent, Watson. Ten years ago – correct me if I err, Mr Mannering – the leader of the European power who now casts envious eyes on Britain's prosperity, had not yet succeeded his father on the throne, and moreover his country had a great and wise Chancellor to guide it. Today, however, the son rules alone, and through jealousy, his relations with England are currently so bad that he would stop at nothing to mar the additional prestige that this summer will undoubtedly bring to Lady X and the British Empire."

"I fear you are right, Mr Holmes," Robert Mannering said heavily, "and that this affair will by no means be a straightforward financial transaction."

"What then?" I asked, as no one spoke.

"There will be other bidders, Watson," Holmes replied. "It remains to be seen whether we shall be permitted to be one of them."

"But Sir George's letter – "

"The game, Watson, the game."

Readers of my chronicles may recall the name which was now to be mentioned, and whose dramatic introduction to my friend I stated that I might some day recount. I am now able to do so, for Sir George said briskly: "All the more reason that the world must not know that you are involved, Mr Holmes. I have already taken the liberty of arranging for you to visit Dr Moore Agar of Harley Street who will issue instructions to you to surrender all your cases and take a complete rest, lest you suffer a breakdown of health. The newspapers will be informed of this. Dr Agar is well accustomed to such confidential work on our behalf."

Holmes, who prided himself, despite his addiction to the notorious drug, on his strong constitution, reluctantly concurred.

In order to maintain the fiction we hailed a cab even for the short distance from Harley Street to our Baker Street rooms. No sooner had we entered than he flew to his index of biographies.

After a mere ten minutes he exclaimed, "I have it. The chief player in our game, Watson."

"Who is he, Holmes?"

"What man would play such a game for its own sake? I sought a woman.You may have wondered what I found informative about the handwriting. Why, nothing, save that its use told me that the writer did not fear discovery. It followed that we dealt with no common criminal but with someone well acquainted with the highest circles in the land and who gambled that the identity of the thief would be nothing compared with the need to recover the letter. It also follows that the thief is unlikely to be British with a social position to be maintained at all costs. The Baroness Pilski is most certainly our thief." He brandished the heavy volume in the air. "A redoubtable lady, Watson, deserving of our respect. Her late husband fled to England after the failed uprising of the Poles in 'sixty-three and, of an émigré family herself, she married him in 'seventy-nine at the age of twenty-three. For some years a lady-in-waiting to Lady X, she resigned the position ten years ago and has since employed her skills to wreak damage to whom and where she chose.You may recall I crossed swords with the lady in the curious incident of the Limping Jarvy."

"Cannot Lestrade arrest her?"

"Tut, tut, our friend will be prepared for such a move. It is the letter we seek, Watson. No, we must wait upon events."

We did not have long to do so. Three days later, at breakfast, Holmes, deep in his study of The Times, startled me with a glad cry. "By Jove, I have it!" His long forefinger pointed to a notice in the personal column.

"The butler is a reptile who sleeps in the shadows until summoned by Zeus," I read. "A cipher, Holmes?"

"I think not, Watson. Until summoned bears no hint of the cipher about it. The butler of course refers to our faithful retainer, Zeus the Thunderer to The Times, and the reptile – well, that is surely obvious." He had sprung to his feet and seized a timetable from the shelves.

"The Reptile House of the Zoological Gardens." I rose eagerly, ready to depart at once.

"Pray resume your seat, my dear fellow. See, our express train departs at eleven forty-five and that is time enough for you to consume Mrs Hudson's excellent muffin in its entirety."

"But where are we going?"

"Why, to Cornwall."

He would say no more, and shortly before midnight we were established in a tolerably comfortable inn after a drive from the small country railway station of St Erth. On our way I had glanced at a signpost, dimly lit by the cab's lamp: "The Lizard".

"The reptile, of course," I exclaimed.

"It is always 'of course' after my explanations, Watson, never before, I note."

It was unusual for my friend to speak so sharply and a measure of the anxiety that preyed upon him.

Next day we found ourselves a small cottage on a grassy headland near Poldhu Bay, in order to further the fiction of complete rest for my friend. Rest? I have seldom known my friend so restless during the weeks that followed. As day followed day, and bluebells replaced the primroses, daffodils and violets in the tall grassy banks that bordered the quiet lanes, and still nothing appeared in the newspaper, I became concerned once more about his health. The ancient Cornish language, as I recounted in an earlier chronicle, did indeed arrest his attention at this time, convinced as he became that it was rooted in the Chaldean, but it could not sufficiently occupy that great mind. Had it not been for the horrible affair of the Devil's Foot which so unexpectedly cropped up in the nearby hamlet ofTredannick Wollas, I should indeed have prescribed the rest Dr Agar had supposedly ordered. After the case was solved, however, he relapsed into the same silent preoccupation, with such feverish eyes that made me wonder if the Devil's Foot root we had both imbibed in his quest for experimentation had not had lasting effects.

However I awoke one morning to a grey spring day, promising yet more of that soft and gentle rain with which Cornwall is so plentifully endowed, and Sherlock Holmes was standing by my bedside. Gone were the signs of feverishness, replaced now with the vital strength I had come to know so well.

"If ever I am presumptuous enough to place my services at the disposal of the nation, Watson, pray remind me of the faithful retainer. We return to London today, and by heaven I trust we are not too late." He spoke gravely.

"For what reason, Holmes?" I struggled from my bed.

"Why, to study the Chaldean language, my dear fellow." But the words were kindly spoken, not with the mocking sharpness of the last few weeks.

In a jolting restaurant carriage on the Great Western Railway I ventured to press for an explanation of our sudden departure. Even The Times had remained unread today.

"Come, Watson, surely with this excellent sole before us you can adopt Mr Auguste Didier's methods, even if mine remain unfathomable to you?"

"Isn't he that cook fellow at Plum's Club for Gentlemen who solved one or two cases?"

"Indeed he is I was curious enough to pay him a visit in `ninety-six after the remarkable affair at Plum's. I cannot approve all his methods, since he will have it that detection is not purely a science, whereas I maintain that it is entirely a process of logical deduction. He holds that cookery is akin to detection in the assembling of ingredients and their selection, and fashioning into a palatable dish requires a measure of creativity. I doubt if Mrs Hudson would agree. However, consider, Watson, the ingredients in the puzzle before us."

"The letter, the Baroness – "

"And other bidders, Watson. That is deduction, not creativity. We may also deduce that the Baroness would assume that this affair is too important for my services not to be called upon. It follows, if the Baroness acknowledges this, then so do the other bidders. I have been an ass, Watson." His bantering tone returned to its former anxiety.

"I assumed," he continued, "that the message which sent us scurrying so precipitately to Cornwall was from the Baroness. It was not. It was placed in order to throw me off the scent, no doubt by another bidder, and it succeeded."

"But nothing has appeared in The Times."

Holmes replied sombrely: "How do we know the summons will be in The Times? The original instruction stated merely the daily newspapers. Fortunately Mrs Hudson is under instructions to throw nothing away in any circumstances. Let us trust that two months' supply of the London newspapers from the Daily Graphic to the Financial Times awaits us in Baker Street. By God, Watson, if I have thrown our chance away -' He broke off, rare emotion consuming him.

"Who might such a bidder be?" I asked quietly.

"You will recall the matter of the Bruce Partington Plans in `ninety-five; Mycroft informed me there were few who would handle so important an affair. The only contenders worth considering were Adolph Meyer, Louis La Rothière and Hugo Oberstein. The villainous Oberstein now resides in prison, and thus we are left with La Rothière and Adolph Meyer."

"Meyer must surely be our man," I exclaimed.

"For once I agree, Watson. He still resides in London at 13 Great George Street, Westminster. La Rothière has been known to me for some years, and I believe we may dismiss him. I have made it my business, however, since 'ninety-five, to find out what I can of Adolph Meyer. The gentleman is plump, portly, a friendly soul, with a passion for music though his execrable taste runs more to Mr John Philip Sousa than to the classical. He favours the tuba, not the violin. Inside that affable shell, however, beats the heart of as evil a man as ever lived. He is unofficial agent to the Baron von Holbach. The name means nothing to you, Watson? I am hardly surprised. He does not seek the limelight, but his Machiavellian hand was behind Bismarck's dismissal, the Kruger telegram, and countless other intrigues. He has the ear of the Kaiser, whereas the Chancellor himself remains unheard. He is no friend to England, and Meyer is his tool. Watson, if I could choose my enemy, send me one that wears the face of evil."

"And you are convinced he is involved in this affair?"

"Yes. He now knows me well enough to fear my powers though how can I call them powers when my wits have deserted me? Two months in Cornwall, and the Empire at risk!"

He remained plunged in gloom until the train steamed into Paddington station. I shall long remember his long figure hunched at my side as if to spur the cab the faster to Baker Street. On entering the familiar rooms, he did not even wait to remove his ulster (for although it was May, the cool night air had been chilly) and despite the late hour plunged towards the tidy but huge piles of newspaper carefully stacked by Mrs Hudson.

Seldom have I felt more useless. No sooner had I read and absolved a newspaper of containing anything to do with our current problem than Holmes would seize it from me to ensure

I had missed nothing. After three hours I could endure no more and retreated to my bed for what remained of the night. I left

Holmes surrounded by newspapers, now in untidy heaps all around him, and occasionally scribbling a note on a pad. When I awoke in the morning, he was still where I had last seen him, red-eyed but still alert.

"I have it, Watson." He pushed the pad towards me.

I stared at his work in horror. It consisted merely of childish doodles; circles, squares, dots, crosses, and pin men and women. "Holmes, my dear fellow, what is this?"

"Hah!" he cried, as he saw the expression on my face. "You believe I have over-indulged in the syringe! No, my dear fellow.

See, this may be the saving of us." He thrust a copy of the Daily Mail before my eyes, stabbing with his finger at a message on the front page personal column. The issue was dated 9 March.

"The circle contains a stop," I read. "A cipher, Holmes?" I tried once more.

"You think of nothing save cryptograms, Watson. No, no, this explains why we may yet be in time. There is nothing more until the messages resumed early this month." He placed a second sheet before me.

"Turpin has a dog," I read. Against it, in Holmes's neat handwriting, was written: "issue of 6 May." Underneath were

more senseless jumbles of words. "Cupid strikes the right fox

four times"; that was the issue of Monday, the 10th. Thursday the 13th bore the legend: "The smiling cook bears a cross".

Friday the 14th: "The pinman and the pageboy take nine paces", and yesterday's, the 18th, the day of our return: "The circle has a cross."

"Surely you are mistaken, Holmes? I have passed over many such messages in the personal columns. Why pick upon these?"

"My dear fellow, have you no eyes?" He thrust under my nose the sheet of doodles to which I have already referred. "We

await only the time of our rendezvous. The date we have."

He paced the room in a state of combined exhilaration and disquiet, ignoring my request for further enlightenment. "Thank God we are in time."

"You speak in riddles, Holmes."

"Cannot you see," one finger impatiently jabbed at the doodles. "Well, well, perhaps you cannot. Argot, my dear Watson,

is a language even more worth studying than the Chaldean, and of more practical use. Consider what profession our Baroness follows."

"Lady-in-waiting?"

"Burglar, Watson. She has joined the underworld, what more natural than that she should amuse herself with burglar's argot? How often have you passed a garden fence with such childish scrawls chalked upon it? Frequently no doubt, and thought nothing of it. Yet such scrawls are the living language of two groups of outsiders in our world, burglars and tramps. Each has their own code – yes, Watson, your code at last, but these marks are the code of the illiterate. Since prehistoric times, drawings in simple form have portrayed messages left for those that come after. A burglar or a tramp goes about his trade with the same dedication as Mr Didier for his. Where the latter collects ingredients, our lawless and vagrant friends deal in information: which servants have been squared, for example."

"Ah! The cook bears a cross."

"You excel yourself,Watson," Holmes murmured. "Similarly they convey how many live in the house, whether there are dogs, how many servants, the best means of access; tramps have a similar code, more concerned with what their brethren might expect from the house. Here before us is all we need to know."

"Turpin?" I enquired.

"An exception, but simple enough. An acquaintance with the Dover Road should tell you that Turpin is associated with The Old Bull coaching inn on the summit of Shooter's Hill in Kent. Hence the reference to a dog. The old Old Bull no longer exists, but a new hostelry of the same name stands there."

"The meeting is there?"

"No, Watson, no. 'Cupid strikes the right fox four times'." He pointed to the doodle of an arrow with the figure 4 written by it. "At the foot of Shooter's Hill stood the old Fox in the Hill public house, conveniently close to the gallows to whet the lips of the onlookers. Both are now vanished, but again a new public house stands close to the old. The hill is lined with villas and I have little doubt that the fourth on the right from The Bull is our place of rendezvous and that therein works a cook who will no longer qualify for the title of faithful retainer. She has been squared, and the gentleman and male retainer of the household step out at nine o'clock, we are informed."

"And the day, Holmes?" I was by amazed at the depth of my friend's knowledge of the underworld.

" 'The circle has a cross'. A tramp sign conveying that the householder is religious. A little more obscure, but let us take the religious connection. We lack a date and Ascension Day is tomorrow, Thursday the 20th."

"Suppose it implies Whitsun?"

"Would the gentleman of the house then leave it at nine o'clock? He would be in church or at breakfast. No, no, it is tomorrow, and surely today the last piece of the jigsaw must fall into our hands."

At this moment Mrs Hudson brought in the daily newspapers and with an eager cry Holmes sprang across the room to receive them from her hands. Mrs Hudson cast one look at the state of the room, then wisely departed without comment.

"I have it! See here,Watson.The cross gains a leg." In triumph he added it in pictorial form to his list. "Eleven o'clock."

"Should we not ask Lestrade to seek out the Baroness?"

"And lose the only hope we have of recovering the letter? No, Watson, we shall attend this auction sale. We are permitted to bid any sum, but I have other plans – I recommend you bring your pistol."

His pipe then claimed his attention, and it was not until the cab was taking us to Charing Cross station that I was able to ask Holmes why the Baroness had gone to so much trouble to disguise the rendezvous.

He answered readily enough. "Because I know our good friend Lestrade is hot on the track of both the Baroness and Meyer, though he has orders not to take them up. Why else did the first message, 'The circle contains a stop' appear? It conveys: `Danger of being quodded'. The Baroness feared arrest and that is what gave us our second chance, Watson, the delay between the messages. There must be no question of failure now."

We descended from the London, Chatham and South-Eastern Railway train at half-past ten at Blackheath station, whence it was but a short drive up from the village to the wild heathland and the Dover Road, and then to Shooter's Hill. All conversation had ceased, and one might well have imagined us

as Scarlet Pimpernels in a desperate race to Dover. Indeed, our own mission was of even more importance. Our driver halted at an old mounting block near the summit of the hill and no

sooner was he paid than Holmes was striding eagerly down the hill back towards London, ignoring the dust thrown up by

passing vans and carriages. A milk cart swayed dangerously

near, its measuring cans almost catching my friend, and its driver grinning infuriatingly. The air was sweet and fragrant

after the smoke of London, and in the villa gardens late tulips, giving way to the blue and purples of May, made a pretty sight after the grimy and blackened buildings bordering the streets of London.

However, we had no time to linger over such pleasures. Already Holmes was striding up the path that led to the tradesmen's

door of a sizeable villa. I struggled to keep abreast of him, but

by the time I reached the door he was already rapping upon it for the second time. When no answer came, he thrust it open,

having found it unlocked. I patted the pistol in my pocket for reassurance, as I followed him in. There was something about the place I did not like. Perhaps it was its silence, its grey coldness. We walked into a surprisingly large and airy kitchen, and the sensation of an empty house intensified.

"We are somewhat early," I commented, merely for the sake of breaking the silence to counter my unease.

"Hush." Sherlock Holmes walked through into the main house, and hard on his footsteps, I came to the parlour door. This too was open.

The house was empty of life indeed, but the appalling sight that met our eyes told us that life had not long fled from it.

My hand was at my pistol even as my eyes took in the terrible

scene before us. Sprawled on the Persian rug before the hearth was a woman's body, clad in black bombazine, and its sightless,

staring eyes turned horribly towards us; blood covered the

carpet and was splattered on the walls. There was no weapon to be seen, only a profusion of blood to suggest a stab wound

in the chest. But there was worse. By the window overlooking

the rear garden lay the body of another woman. This one was of a somewhat younger woman, perhaps forty, old for the mob

cap and print gown she wore. The maid had died in the same appalling way as her mistress, whom I presumed to be the cook-housekeeper. I hurried to confirm what I knew must be the case, that there would be no pulse to be found in either.

"Is there life, Watson?"

"In neither, Holmes," I replied quietly, rising to my feet after a brief examination of both bodies. "What devilry is this? To stab the housekeeper and the maid?"

He made an impatient gesture. "You see, but you do not observe, Watson. This may well be the housekeeper, but that is no serving maid. What maid could afford such kid boots, or keep her hands in such fine condition? See the nails – and this." Gently he removed the cap and long, well-cared for auburn tresses tumbled from it. "No maid's face either, Watson. It is that of an adventuress who has lived by her wits these last few years and now died by another's. The Baroness did not deserve such a fate, of that I am sure. The maid's outfit was doubtless to give her anonymity until she could be sure of the identities of any bidders."

"And the letter?"

Holmes shrugged. "We can search, but we will not find. You will have noticed my silence on the way here. I had reasoned that the cross with the leg indicated eleven o'clock, since nine o'clock, with the leg on the other side, would hardly have been practical with the man of the household leaving at that precise hour, a deduction which the Baroness was fully capable of appreciating I would surely make. We were meant to arrive too late, Watson."

"She would hardly have connived at her own murder, Holmes," I protested.

"The game was planned to a different end, Watson. Had Meyer not been the evil monster he is, I have little doubt we should have arrived, only to have the cook hand us a note from the Baroness mocking us for our tardiness. As it is -" He broke off, as the door opened behind us.

"Good morning, Mr Holmes, Dr Watson." Lestrade's eyes went to the bodies. "A pretty pickle," he remarked after a moment.

"Meyer has preceded us both, Lestrade. I have no doubt that a certain rotund milkman I observed on his cart was he."

"Shall I set my men after him, Mr Holmes? We can hold him and search his house."

"And he will have the letter safely stowed elsewhere. He must hand it to his European masters."

"Every port will be watched. Even callers to the Legation." "Good, good," Holmes muttered absently.

"Suppose he sends it to von Holbach by mail or smuggles it by boat?" I asked.

"Such a prize is too valuable for that," Holmes replied. "No, he will hand it over personally."

"Then it won't be in Germany," Lestrade declared stoutly. "And we'll be watching lest von Holbach comes here, and hold him."

"On no account do so, Lestrade. Von Holbach is known to us, an agent who would then doubtless be sent would not be. Let the game continue."

The days then weeks passed, while Holmes fretted. The newspapers carried a short paragraph about an unfortunate stockbroker who had returned to find his home full of police constables, and his cook together with a total stranger, who was as yet unidentified, lying murdered on his floor.

As June opened, a heightened sense of excitement swept through London as it prepared for Her Majesty Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee on the 22nd of the month. Carpenters were already at work on a huge stand in Whitehall, another in the churchyard of St Martin's Church, and a colossal one by St Paul's churchyard. Large sums were being demanded of the visitors now flocking into London from all quarters of the globe, for space at windows. From the eleventh of the month when the official programme was published, the sole topic of conversation wherever one walked or dined was Jubilee Day. Everywhere, that is, save in our Baker Street rooms, where my friend paced in silence save for a few days when he disappeared, and, I suspected, disguised as a beggar or postman, tramped the streets of London in search of his prey.

Even Mrs Hudson's patience wore thin, as the air became thick with smoke, and meal after meal was returned uneaten. Pursuing the fiction of his illness, he avoided going out save in disguise, keeping the curtains drawn much of the time.

Of Adolph Meyer there was no sign whatsoever. Lestrade swore he had not left the country, but he was not to be found in London. His servants professed not to know his whereabouts. A watch on the Legation ensured he had not sought sanctuary there. Towards the end of the week of the 13th, decorations began to blossom all over the city, transforming grey stone into a veritable bower of flowers and coloured flags. Favours sprouted in buttonholes and hats, and bicycles and carriages streamed with red, white and blue.

Returning to Baker Street late on Saturday the 19th, I found to my relief that Sherlock Holmes was at last disposed to talk. "Sir George visited me today. Watson, he has come."

"Who, Holmes?"

"Von Holbach himself. He lodges at the Legation. He has no official invitation, of course, for his master's regrettable severing of friendly relations between his nation and ours at Cowes in 'ninety-five means that not only can he not cross the Channel, but his eminence grise is not officially welcomed here either."

"Then when Meyer goes to deliver the letter, we have him."

"He would be arrested before he pulled the bellrope. No, he will seek some other means." Holmes picked up his violin and I knew we were in for another long spell of waiting, though the sands of time were running out fast.

My friend's violin droned on that evening and again on the Sunday morning, the usual sign of great pressure bearing upon him. The hot, stifling air around us in the darkened rooms bore insupportably in upon me. "Holmes," I cried, "at least play some recognizable tune."

A screech from the fiddle. "Tune,Watson?" my friend replied icily. "What could my poor violin choose to please you? "God save the Queen" might be appropriate. Or a Sousa march? The Ride of the -Watson!" he exclaimed, "I have not been using the wits God granted me." In a moment, the violin lay disregarded on the table as his eyes took on the gleam with which I was so familiar.

"I grow dangerously near that practice of which our friend Mr Didier might approve, but I have always distrusted, that of assuming an end as yet unsupported entirely by fact. We have very little time left to us. Logical deduction is our only hope. The Times of yesterday, if you please, Watson, and the Jubilee programme you so kindly purchased for Mrs Hudson."

When I returned from my errand, having promised to return the booklet to her possession, he snatched the programme from my grasp, and after a few moments' perusal cried: "Come Watson, you will need your best straw hat, your smartest cane, and that unfortunate blazer you purchased for boating."

"Where are we bound, Holmes?" I asked eagerly, relieved beyond measure that at last we were taking action. "Shall I have need of my pistol?"

"To take a solitary turn round St James' Park, Watson?" he jested. "I trust not. Though you go alone, the ducks are not thought to be a hazard."

My hopes fell. I was in no need of a constitutional walk, but of a resolution of this affair. However, he was in no mood to bandy words; he was set upon my taking this walk.

"Very well, Holmes," I agreed, albeit reluctantly.

"Good old Watson. And after your stroll, I recommend to your earnest attention the concert advertised to begin at the St James's Park bandstand at noon."

"Concert, Holmes? Good heavens, how can I think of music at such a time as this?"

"What more obvious place for us to meet, my dear fellow?"

Relieved that Sherlock Holmes had indeed some plan in mind, I took a cab to the Birdcage Walk entrance to the park and had it not been for the urgency of the dark situation in which we were placed, would have enjoyed my stroll in this delightful park, now crowded with Jubilee visitors. Children bowled hoops in and out of the promenaders round the lake, sweethearts floated in a blissful world of their own, flowers spread a carpet of colour before my eyes, and as I crossed the bridge the sun chose to appear. The weather had been capricious for some time, but nothing could dim the enthusiasm of these crowds.

I obediently took my seat at the bandstand, towards the back of the rows of seats as befitted my cavalier holiday appearance. A travelling ice-cream vendor wheeling his bicycle passed by, as I looked anxiously for Sherlock Holmes. There was no sign of him. The front rows were filled with those of high social standing, amongst whom the ticket-seller was now moving, a rough-looking fellow despite his peaked cap and crumpled navy uniform. The German band, usually resident in Broadstairs in Kent, was already preparing to play by the time the ticket collector reached me; I handed over the sixpence demanded of me, my thoughts elsewhere.

"The game is afoot, Watson."

The hoarse whisper as the ticket collector bent down to retrieve a fallen coin startled me. But why should I have been surprised to see Sherlock Holmes himself, presently the most unremarkable ticket collector the Royal Parks had ever boasted? He passed on, exchanging a few gallant remarks with the young lady next to me, which made me wonder if my friend had not courted more young ladies than he acknowledged, whether in pursuance of his profession or otherwise.

Of course. A brass band concert. Holmes was expecting Meyer himself to be in the audience, and for von Holbach to join him. But when? The concert proceeded without incident, though I was scarcely in a mood now to appreciate it. A rousing selection of Gilbert and Sullivan choruses concluded the concert, and the audience rose for the National Anthem, sung with deep feeling and solemnity on this opening day to the week's festivities. I was in great anxiety. Holmes had vanished, the band was packing its instruments, and the audience was drifting away. Now was the time and yet I could see no one amongst the groups of lingering spectators to answer Holmes's description of Meyer.

At last I spotted Holmes, on the platform, and hurried as unobtrusively as I could to be at hand. He was busy helping the band with their instruments and the music stands, no doubt to gain a vantage point over the audience. A few people had mounted the bandstand to congratulate the players, and I watched an insignificant man in mackintosh and Homburg hat approach the tuba player to shake his hand, though a less musical instrument I have yet to hear.

"Watson!"

Holmes's shout sent me running for the steps to his aid, as unbelievably he hurled himself between the two men. Amid the general alarm, the tuba player recovered his balance and aimed a vicious blow to Holmes's body sending him staggering back. I caught a glimpse of the most malevolent eyes I have ever seen, and then he was pinioned, by myself and, I recognized with relief, Lestrade. I had not recognized him, in his guise as ice-cream vendor. His whistle was even now summoning his constables.

"Herr Meyer, we meet again. I trust you enjoyed the sea air at Broadstairs." Holmes addressed the handcuffed Meyer. "And now the letter, if you please."

"Too late," he cried in triumph.

Horrified, I remembered the other man. There was no sign of him.

"Holmes, von Holbach has gone," I groaned, blaming myself.

"That is only to be expected, Watson. He is a diplomat." "You are remarkably cool, Mr Holmes," Lestrade said. "I take it this letter is of little importance then?"

"On the contrary, it is perhaps the most vital instrument for the maintenance of peace in Europe since the Treaty of London guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality in "thirty-nine."

An evil smile came to Meyer's lips as he saw Holmes examining the music stand. "The peace is lost, Holmes," he chuckled, as Lestrade finished a fruitless search of his pockets, hat and shoes.

"Do not be so sure, Meyer," my friend said quietly, his lean figure bending down to pick up Meyer's tuba.

It was from there, deep and safe within the confines of the bell, that he plucked a sheet of paper. I caught a brief glimpse of a familiar and illustrious crest before Holmes whisked it from our sight. "It is Sunday, Watson. But somehow I think Sir George will forgive us if two informally dressed visitors call upon him at his home."

Jubilee Day promised little sunshine as Holmes and I took our places in the seats reserved for us at a window in Whitehall. The grey old road, however, was ablaze with colour, both from the decorations and the scarlet coats of the soldiers lining the route.

"You have not explained, Holmes, how it was you picked upon the very place where the fateful meeting was to take place."

"A matter of deduction, my dear fellow. Meyer could not be found in London. Constabularies the country over had been instructed to watch for him. Useless. He could not appear there or in London in his own guise."

"But he made no attempt to disguise his heavy beard and figure."

"The best disguise is in the eye of the observer, not the face of the quarry. You saw a tuba player; I saw what I expected. Meyer simply absorbed himself into the part of the bandsman."

"Excellent, Holmes."

"Not at all. Once one recalled the man's passion, it was merely a question of scanning the programme for suitable venues. I have listened to many execrable brass bands in the course of the last week. For a violin player it was torment."

Fortunately the sudden noise from the crowd distracted his attention from my involuntary smile.

As the Colonial troops began to pass the sun shone out at last, and "Queen's weather" blessed us for the rest of that memorable day. After the Colonial contingent came the advance guard of the Royal procession. The mass of colour, scarlet, gold, purple and emerald, was followed by an open carriage drawn by eight cream-coloured horses. In it, sat a small figure, clad in black, with touches of grey, quite still under a white sunshade. Gone now was any desire to feast the eye on dazzling colour; for a moment the crowd was silent, even the sound of the horses' hooves could be heard. The carriage had no escort; nothing could come between Her Majesty and her people. Then the roars of the spectators rose to the sky.

Holmes's eyes followed the carriage as it made its way along Whitehall." I am told that when in due course circumstances permit, I may expect a knighthood."

"Holmes, my dear fellow, that is no more than you deserve," I replied warmly.

"You are mistaken, Watson. I shall, should a knighthood be offered, be obliged to refuse it."

"Refuse, Holmes?" I was astounded." Surely such an honour can be nothing but welcome."

He brushed this aside with a smile. "You know my methods, Watson. I would consider the majority of my cases more suitable to be worthy of such an honour than this present affair. As an exercise in the pure logic of deduction it has proved disappointingly simple."

"Simple, Holmes?" I rebutted this argument energetically. "With such an enemy, and so much at stake?"

"Yet the game so narrowly won." We watched as the carriage finally disappeared from our view. "No, Watson, they may keep

their honours, and I shall continue to remain Their present and future Majesties' most loyal and faithful retainer, Mr Sherlock Holmes."