Authors: Donald Thomas
Tags: #Private investigators, #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction, #General, #Holmes; Sherlock (Fictitious character), #Detective, #Mystery, #Detective and mystery stories; English, #England, #Suspense, #Private investigators - England, #Fiction - Mystery, #Watson; John H. (Fictitious character), #Mystery fiction, #Traditional British, #Short Stories, #Mystery & Detective - Traditional British, #Mystery & Detective - Short Stories
Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective (10 page)
BOOK: Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective
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“Oh no, my dear fellow. I believe you have entirely failed to understand the nature of the problem. More is at stake than this. Far, far more.”
3
T
he next morning saw us on the train to Cambridge, Ely, King’s Lynn and finally across the new river bridge to Sutton Cross. The fog dispersed on the northern outskirts of London. A fine October day with a pale blue sky faded to a yellow edging at the horizon. One sees almost nothing of the Cambridge colleges from the railway and very little of the fine medieval cathedral towers of Ely. But Holmes was not concerned with the view. He had wired Inspector Lestrade at Scotland Yard, mentioning our interest in the case of the missing brothers and requesting him to smooth our path with the Lincolnshire constabulary as far as was possible. Lestrade’s reply suggested that if we wished to waste our time over a commonplace case of “missing from home” or “found drowned,” we were welcome to do so.
he next morning saw us on the train to Cambridge, Ely, King’s Lynn and finally across the new river bridge to Sutton Cross. The fog dispersed on the northern outskirts of London. A fine October day with a pale blue sky faded to a yellow edging at the horizon. One sees almost nothing of the Cambridge colleges from the railway and very little of the fine medieval cathedral towers of Ely. But Holmes was not concerned with the view. He had wired Inspector Lestrade at Scotland Yard, mentioning our interest in the case of the missing brothers and requesting him to smooth our path with the Lincolnshire constabulary as far as was possible. Lestrade’s reply suggested that if we wished to waste our time over a commonplace case of “missing from home” or “found drowned,” we were welcome to do so.
Holmes read a good deal on train journeys but always with a set purpose. I could never imagine him feeling that he should cultivate the charm of Jane Austen or the melodrama of Sir Walter Scott. On the other hand, he would immerse himself in certain works of Robert Browning or Thomas Hood. He admired their insight into macabre aberrations and the “morbid anatomy” in the personalities of men and women. If he read for pleasure, it would be with his pipe, a pouch of shag tobacco, and something like the Notable British Trials volume of Dr William Palmer, “The Rugeley Poisoner.”
He spent the journey to Sutton Cross dipping into several books which had been packed into his portmanteau. The subject-matter on such journeys was not designed to encourage conversation from our fellow passengers. In the past we had Maudsley on
Insanity,
Stevenson on
Irritant Poisons,
and on the most trying occasion of all, Krafft-Ebing’s
Psychopathia
Sexualis. Holmes had perused this volume unremittingly for two hours in a corner seat, opposite a rural dean returning to his Oxford-shire parish.
Insanity,
Stevenson on
Irritant Poisons,
and on the most trying occasion of all, Krafft-Ebing’s
Psychopathia
Sexualis. Holmes had perused this volume unremittingly for two hours in a corner seat, opposite a rural dean returning to his Oxford-shire parish.
On this occasion, his choice was unexceptionable. From Liverpool Street to Cambridge, his attention was held by Shakespeare’s
King John.
Thereafter, he was absorbed by Professor Plucknett’s edition of
Pipe Rolls of the Plantagenets.
I knew only that these were official records of the reigns of Henry II or King John.
King John.
Thereafter, he was absorbed by Professor Plucknett’s edition of
Pipe Rolls of the Plantagenets.
I knew only that these were official records of the reigns of Henry II or King John.
At King’s Lynn, we changed from the London express. A local train ran unevenly along the last few miles of the Norfolk coast and across the wide estuary of the Wash into Lincolnshire. It paused at every little platform and country halt, under the vast open skies of the fens and among the numerous marshes and waterways that ran everywhere. Here and there were glimpses of creamy breakers and a brown tide drawing away across long gleaming expanses of sand. Such was the North Sea or “The German Ocean,” as some people still called it.
At length the carriages of this local train rattled over an iron bridge, across a wide river with flat muddy banks, and drew into the wooden platform of Sutton Cross. Holmes had wired for rooms at the Bridge Hotel, not because it was the best but because it was the only accommodation which the village could boast. It rose white, foursquare and a century old, beside the river, within a stone’s throw of the railway halt. This hotel was to be what he called our “base of operations.” We briefly made ourselves known there and deposited our possessions. I noticed that Holmes had brought his black leather Gladstone bag as well as his portmanteau. Its principal contents appeared to be the jeweller’s lens, the hydroscopic balance, and the carborundum wheel with a clamp which held it to the table-edge.
Had it not been for the case upon which we were embarked, I should have found a week or so at Sutton Cross very agreeable. The fresh wind from the North Sea and the tranquil pastureland made a pleasing contrast to Baker Street. As it was, Holmes had already wired for an appointment in an hour’s time with the Reverend Roderick Gilmore, rector of the parish. This good man was formerly a contemporary of Holmes’s elder brother, Mycroft, at Trinity College, Cambridge. That seemed enough to be going on with.
We found Mr Gilmore at home, a comfortable middle-aged man who owed his incumbency to the fact that the living of St Clement’s, Sutton Cross, was in the gift of Trinity College. He, like Brother Mycroft, had distinguished himself in the Mathematical Tripos but preferred a quiet living on the Suffolk coast to a college fellowship. He talked as if we were old acquaintances, showing off the fine nave of his church with its Norman bays and clerestory, its fourteenth century south aisle. As we sat at tea in his study, the lattice windows looked out across the yew-hedged churchyard towards a bright afternoon sky above a calm sea. I thought that had life called upon me to be rector of Sutton Cross, I should have been well content.
After we had complimented him upon his church and his grounds, he said meekly,
“We are also rather proud of our little railway bridge. It was built by Robert Stevenson, you know.”
We murmured our approval and then Mr Gilmore came quietly to the reason for our visit.
“It is a bad business altogether that we should have lost the two Chastelnau brothers in this manner. A very bad business. They were not greatly liked and, indeed, they refused to consider themselves my parishioners but that makes the tragedy all the more poignant.”
Holmes put down his teacup.
“We understand from Miss Alice Chastelnau that you and the sexton were on the roof of the tower last Sunday evening, when the beacon was lit. You saw two men fighting—or, at least, struggling?”
Mr Gilmore looked mournfully at us.
“I heard a single gunshot just as we climbed the tower. It was a shotgun without doubt, such as most of the hunters carry here. The Chastelnau brothers at the Old Light were the nearest inhabitants to the marshes and the mudbanks. Like many others, they sometimes used a gunshot as a convenient signal to one another. Yet it was far too late for a hunter to be out on normal business. The dusk and the mist were setting in. All the fishermen had already been out to their nets to retrieve their catch. The fowlers and the eel-catchers had long come in.”
“Which surely makes it strange that the brothers should still have been out there?” I said.
“Not exceptionally strange, doctor. It is true that one man should have remained to guard the Old Light—or at least should be absent for as short a time as possible. Yet it is not human nature for one brother to ignore a possible distress signal fired by the other. After all, they were never out of sight of the Old Light and its beam was in no danger of extinction at that time. Besides which, the Old Light is hardly a landmark like the Eddystone or the Bell Rock. It serves little purpose but to mark the river estuary for such vessels as pass. They no longer enter the river nor even approach it since the bridge was built to carry the railway across. Its lantern will be done away with before long, mark my words. Who would want the job? Who would choose to be a keeper, living well beyond any other habitation, surrounded by the marshes and the mudflats?”
Holmes interrupted this a little too brusquely.
“Tell me, Mr Gilmore, what did you and your sexton see from the tower?”
“
See
?” Gilmore shook his head. “It was difficult to see very clearly, Mr Holmes. They were some distance off, half a mile perhaps, and the light was almost gone. It was very hard, by then, even to tell the appearance of their clothing. The mist was coming in with the tide. If they were carrying lanterns, which surely must have been the case, they were not shining towards us. Though I could not swear to it, I believe there was a second gunshot—the second barrel perhaps. What I saw was not so much a prize-fight with fists, not a striking of blows. It was far more like a wrestling match, as if for the possession of some object.”
See
?” Gilmore shook his head. “It was difficult to see very clearly, Mr Holmes. They were some distance off, half a mile perhaps, and the light was almost gone. It was very hard, by then, even to tell the appearance of their clothing. The mist was coming in with the tide. If they were carrying lanterns, which surely must have been the case, they were not shining towards us. Though I could not swear to it, I believe there was a second gunshot—the second barrel perhaps. What I saw was not so much a prize-fight with fists, not a striking of blows. It was far more like a wrestling match, as if for the possession of some object.”
“Who possessed it in the end?”
Mr Gilmore shook his head.
“That I cannot tell you. I do not think we saw the end of the affair between them. It was not done with before the darkening twilight and the mist obscured them completely. It appeared to me as if the first man snatched at the second. That second man fell but struggled free and scrambled up again. Then the first man brought him down and this time pulled him up. There was too little light to see more. I explained all this to Inspector Wainwright, but I do not know how much I could swear to in court.”
“We expect to meet Mr Wainwright this afternoon, at the Old Light.”
“Wainwright is a good man, Mr Holmes. As to the nature of the struggle between the two brothers, the greater danger would be for them to get lost among the tide and the quicksands. But that could hardly happen with the beacon on the church tower lit and the Old Light clearly visible with its beam flashing out to sea in a constant direction. That was why I was most anxious to see our beacon lit upon the tower. Moreover, these brothers had known the sands and the mudflats all their lives. All the same, neither has been seen again and so we must suppose that the two men in the dusk were they.”
“And that was all?”
“There was one thing, Mr Holmes, which I told Inspector Wainwright. In the hope we could retain communication with them, the sexton went down from the tower and came up with a rook rifle. He fired a single shot into the air, in case they could reply and tell us where they were. I heard no more but a muffled shot or breaking surf can be much the same at that distance.”
I intervened in what was, after all, my case.
“Were they greatly disliked in the village?”
Mr Gilmore paused, choosing his words with care.
“I should rather say they were mocked, Dr Watson, and that a hatred of those who abused them was their response. Local people can be very cruel at a time of misfortune. After old John Chastelnau died, the oil-cake manufactory failed. You can still see the rough stone building, just opposite the Bridge Hotel. Those who had disliked the old man’s miserliness—and some who scoffed at his second marriage to a younger woman—took no care to conceal their satisfaction at the failure of the enterprise. There was a fight outside the Bridge Hotel one evening. Roland Chastelnau broke a man’s nose after insults were exchanged. Sir Walter Butt, the magistrate, discharged both men with a caution, for fear of making matters worse. After that neither of the brothers entered the inn or the church again. Indeed, they were already strangers to the church.”
“Did their animosity extend to each other?”
“I was once told that they fought like two ferrets in a sack. That was the exact phrase used to me. I cannot believe it was as bad as that. Of course, they subsisted by tending the Old Light. I understand they were paid out of the county rate. Their accommodation was provided by the barrack-room under the lantern.”
“And what else?” I inquired, “How did they feed themselves?”
Mr Gilmore looked as if he thought I might have known without asking.
“Roland was the hunter and fisherman. Even for those who are not hunters by profession, the snaring or shooting of wild-fowl, geese, or the eel-catching and fishing nets for small fry commonly become additional trades. Abraham was the brother who usually took the watch and kept the light flashing out to sea. He also cultivated a vegetable plot just above the river bridge on the far side. How they lived otherwise, I cannot say.”
“They had no inheritance?”
“I do not think they had anything except debts from the oil-cake works when the business was sold. They belong to that class of our nation, Dr Watson, who live like serfs on next to nothing but never quite fall to the level of the workhouse. They seldom attract the attention of their betters until some mean crime or scandal breaks open in the columns of the press. Let us hope this is not a case of that kind.”
“And what of their sister, Miss Alice Chastelnau?”
Mr Gilmore brightened up at her name. He gave a brief smile and his voice became more buoyant.
“I know little of Alice Chastelnau, though I met her when she attended her father’s funeral, and also concerning the arrangements made for it. I met her again at the death of her step-mother several years later. Miss Chastelnau lived in the village before my time and left it when she was still a girl. Indeed, I cannot recall that I have ever met her apart from those two occasions. Her health was a little delicate. She seems by all accounts an admirable young woman and has fulfilled her promise in the little school at Mablethorpe.”
“There has never been a young lady in the lives of either of the two brothers?” I asked carefully.
Mr Gilmore inclined his head.
“Not that I am aware of. I believe I should know of it, for gossip of that kind spreads very quickly through a village.”
There was a finality in these words which indicated that the Rector of Sutton Cross had said all that he proposed to say on these matters. As we stood up and thanked him, however, Sherlock Holmes inquired,
“May we see the tower and the beacon? I believe it would help us to get the lie of the land and I should not wish to trouble you a second time.”
Mr Gilmore did not quite slap us on the back. However, the expression on his face suggested that the opportunity to show off another of his treasures was entirely welcome.
I had been conscious during our discussion in the rectory study that Holmes had said nothing whatever about the pebble which Miss Chastelnau had left for our examination. As we now walked back towards the church, my friend inquired,
BOOK: Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective
5.81Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
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