5. Secondary sure enough: just as Patience was finishing her tale, James McCarthy burst in to say that he’d just found his father beaten to death by the side of Boggart Pool and would somebody please help. James McCarthy’s right hand and sleeve were smeared with fresh blood. Not only did the men who accompanied James back to the pool find the body of Charles McCarthy lying face down with the left-rear portion of his skull beaten in, they also could not help but notice James McCarthy’s rather bulky shotgun lying just a few paces away, clean, loaded and ready for action.
6. Tertiary sure enough: James McCarthy was promptly arrested. It would be fair to say things did not go well for him at Tuesday’s inquest, which returned a verdict of “willful murder” and insured that the magistrates who saw him Wednesday opted to have him held until the next assizes. Despite the early stages of the case, they made sure to ask James how tall he was and how much he weighed, to make sure they had the proper length of rope standing by. You know… just in case.
7. Just as I was beginning to wonder how on earth Grogsson could ever assume young James to be innocent, our deliberations were interrupted by Alice Turner. She found us at our hotel and launched into a diatribe regarding James McCarthy’s unimpeachable character and certain innocence. For a moment, I supposed Grogsson may have fallen back to old ways and had only come to summon me because he was trying to impress the pretty young lady. Except… she wasn’t all that pretty. Now don’t get me wrong: as the only heir to a father who owned enough of the local countryside to be considered something of a private empire, she must have been quite the marriage prospect, even if she’d had one extra foot and twenty-eight extra teeth. Still, Grogsson treated her as nothing more than a confederate—the only other person to assume James’s innocence.
8. There was a romantic connection between Alice and James. Though she made some attempts to hide it, it was clear to me that Alice Turner had grown rather accustomed to gazing longingly at James McCarthy’s rugged, handsome face. The enjoyment of this process would be decreased, she reasoned, if James were to become dead. Indeed, the prospect of their marriage had been brought up by his father a few times (and certainly not deflected by young Alice, who had a dress concealed in a box in her closet for just such an occasion). Her own father had seemed incensed by the idea she should marry James, despite the prodigious amount of time he himself spent in the company of the young man’s father. As both of the old fellows were widowers, Alice found herself with no mother whose opinion she could try to sway. Though her father’s refusal to let them wed had disappointed Alice, it was nothing compared to the sadness she drew from James’s indifference towards the idea. James, it seemed, had developed a habit of deflecting the topic whenever it arose. Alice, it seemed, had developed a habit of drinking sherry and crying in the seed shed.
9. These events had shaken the whole community, no doubt, but none more so than John Turner. He had been in ill health for some time and—following the news of his old acquaintance’s violent demise—had taken to bed. A remarkable downturn followed and now his life was despaired of.
The day was fairly well along by the time I had gathered this wealth of testimony, and already I was tired. Though it had been only a few hours, the urge to return to Mary was particularly vexing that day. The more I tried not to think of it, the more my anxiousness at our separation grew into a nagging headache. Grogsson’s frequent, loud, grammatically incomplete attempts to add detail to the case did not help assuage this phenomenon. I was interested to know what Lestrade knew of the matter, yet despite Grogsson’s insistence he was in the area, we did not encounter him. We did, however, have a note to drive out to the nearby jail and interview young James McCarthy.
Which is where things got rather peculiar.
To start with, the man was preternaturally handsome. He might have been merely superior, if it were not for one contributing factor: he seemed to have no idea how attractive he was. Did James’s shoulders bulge with sinewy muscle? Well in his mind that was just handy for digging ditches and moving hay. Was his jaw tough and square? Good; that might help if ever a horse should kick it. Were all his teeth straight and white and gleaming? All the better for chewing undercooked potatoes. This strange ignorance of one’s own allure—whether it appears in male or female—is enough to drive most eligible suitors mad with frustration and desire.
When the jailor let us in, James was slouching smoulderingly against the back wall of the cell.
“Oh… hello…” I said, then, “Forgot what I was going to say for a moment… Ah! Yes. My name is Dr. John Watson. Inspector Grogsson here seems to think you are innocent of your father’s murder. Is that correct?”
“Sure,” he replied.
Grogsson gave me a rough nudge and said, “See?”
“Well yes, Torg, but I’ll confess I’d hoped for a bit more to go on. Mr. McCarthy, what can you tell me about the scene of your father’s death?”
“Already told ’em all I know,” he said. “I’d just come home from a… well… a visit to Bristol.”
For a man who was protesting his own innocence, there was something particularly guilt-soaked about the way he said “visit”.
I filed it for future inquiry and asked, “How long had you been away?”
“Three days. I’d got back just a minute before. Dad was gone and I had nothing to do, so I grabbed my ol’ shooter and went out to get a rabbit or two.”
“So you weren’t following your father to Boggart Pool?” I asked.
“Nope. Rabbit hutch is on the other side, that’s all.”
It was an extreme coincidence. Yet if he was lying, he was doing it with the practiced coolness of a hardened criminal. I cocked my head with wonder.
“Then… when did you realize your father was ahead of you on the path?”
“When he started shouting, ‘Coo-ee! Coo-ee!’ I called out a hello and asked him what he was doing there, but he got pretty worked up to see me. Said I was crowding him and couldn’t a man get his privacy. And I said I wasn’t crowding him, I was looking for rabbits, and he said, ‘Leave!’ and I said, ‘No, you ain’t the boss of the pond!’ and we sort of got into a row.”
“Yes,” I noted, “Patience Moran says she saw you. She says you raised your fist at your father, as if to strike him.”
James shook his head sadly. “Yeah. I guess I did. I feel just awful about it. That’s why when they arrested me I told ’em it’s no less than I deserve.”
“Probably to the detriment of your legal defense,” I noted. “But here is the thing, Mr. McCarthy: only a few minutes passed between when Patience left and when you must have set out after her. There would certainly have been enough time for you to kill your father, but very little time for much else. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Sort of?” he said with a shrug. “I stormed off—it’s what I always did when father got hot. I heard a bit of noise behind me, which, I figured, was just Pops letting off steam. Kickin’ bushes and such. He’d do that sometimes. But it didn’t sound quite usual, you know? Too many heavy, wet thuds and splashing. I almost kept walking, but… well… it just wasn’t right, so I turned back. Which is when I tripped over the gray cloth.”
“Gray cloth?” I said, “I don’t think anyone mentioned finding a gray cloth.”
“No cloth,” Grogsson said.
I looked back and forth between Grogsson and McCarthy for clarification. McCarthy was first to speak. “I only saw it for a moment. I mean… I’ll swear I did. It looked like a cloak or a coat, or something. But I didn’t pay it much mind, because that’s when I saw Father lying there.”
The flash of pain and regret that crossed his features seemed entirely genuine. Despite the ill history between the two men, the actual act of seeing his father lying mortally wounded seemed to have greatly affected young James. I thought a moment and asked, “How did you get blood on your sleeve?”
“I ran over there to check on him! He was trying to say something to me—tell me something
about a rat.”
“A rat?”
“That’s what he said. Erm… I think. He tried to say it a couple of times, but then… his words left him, and…”
“And that’s when you went to get the lodge-keeper?” I asked.
“It was the closest place.”
“And how do you account for your arriving so soon after little Patience, having spent so much time at the scene of the murder?”
He shrugged again and suggested, “Longer legs?”
“And did you see the strange gray cloth again?” I wondered.
“Not that I can remember.”
“Indeed. Just one more question, Mr. McCarthy: do you know anybody besides your father who spent a great deal of time in Australia?”
“Well sure. John Turner. That’s where they met, you know. In the gold fields west of Melbourne.”
“West of Melbourne, you say? Hmmm… Thank you, Mr. McCarthy. I promise to do my utmost to aid you in your case.”
I shook his hand, turned and left. As we stepped back into the afternoon light, Torg Grogsson grumbled, “See? In-uh-sint. Right?”
“I do believe he is.”
“Whut now?”
“I rather think I’d like to ask John Turner about the whole affair.”
Torg gave a resolute grunt of assent.
“Got your handcuffs?” I asked.
Another grunt.
“Capital. Shall we?”
* * *
John Turner’s house was not so grand as I might have thought. It was certainly more than enough to accommodate an old widower, his daughter, and their servants. It just wasn’t quite what I’d have expected for a man who owned half a county and wanted to remind everybody of the fact. We were met by Turner’s butler, who informed us that his master was not receiving visitors at the moment, because his attentions were currently engaged with the process of… well… dying.
“A very reasonable response on most days,” I told the man. “Yet, this is official police business and—as it may reflect meaningfully on his legacy—John Turner would likely want to deal with it before he goes. Please inform him of the extreme urgency of this interview.”
The butler gave a deep sigh and said, “Very well. You can wait with the others.”
Apparently, John Turner had a rather full schedule his last day on earth. The butler led us up some stairs to a little antechamber just outside Turner’s bedroom where I found Warlock Holmes sitting on a bench beside Vladislav Lestrade—Scotland Yard’s droopiest vampire.
“Holmes! Lestrade! What are you doing here?”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Holmes cried, leaping to his feet. “What are you doing here? Lestrade, Grogsson, I am disappointed in you! I thought we agreed Watson must never be involved in supernatural investigations! And now I find you’ve dragged him down to a valley jammed full of murder fairies? For shame!”
“I thought you said it was a boggart,” said Lestrade.
“Well… nearly the same thing,” Holmes replied. “You’ve got fairies, you know. And then pixies, who are fairies, but they’re also a bit of a bastard. Boggart—as far as I understand the speech of the fey—means ‘partly fairy, total bastard’, so they must be handled with some care.”
Lestrade gave a groan of strained patience and said, “The only thing that must be handled, Holmes, is a man named James who has killed his father.”
“Oh, right by the side of Boggart Pool? Take my word for it: anyone who doesn’t think Charlie McCarthy was slain by evil fairies is a perfect dummy!”
“I’m afraid you are both wrong,” I whisper-hissed. The butler had gone inside Turner’s chamber to announce us, but I did not want him to overhear what I was about to say. “I am evermore confident that the murderer is none other than John Turner, who now lies expiring in that very room.”
Lestrade gave an audible scoff so I began to lay out my case. “Look here: James and Charles McCarthy were both present at Boggart Pool—that much has been established. But what if there was a third man present?”
“There is no reason to suspect a third,” Lestrade interjected.
“Ah, but there is! A third was expected. Let us recall that Charles McCarthy had an appointment at that pool with an unknown man. We do not know the identity of this person, but we do know that McCarthy tried to call out to him with the phrase, ‘Coo-ee, coo-ee.’ Now, that is an odd sound in this part of the world, but it is a common way to hail somebody in Australia.”
“Ah, but nobody actually saw Charlie McCarthy utter this call,” Holmes pointed out. “Anybody present may have made that noise—a noise which I believe James McCarthy misheard. It was in fact, ‘Squee! Squee!’ which—as everybody knows—is the war cry of the Northumbrian battle-pixie!”
“Oh? Really?” said Lestrade. “Everybody knows th—”
“Yes! Everybody!”
Even Grogsson had to shake his head at that one. He offered a comment that was—in the finest thread of his own deductive style—perfectly simple, yet also incisive. “Dis not North Um Bree Yah.”
“He’s got you there, Holmes,” I laughed. “Besides which, I have more evidence of a third man’s presence. Let us not forget the gray cloak.”
“Oh no,” moaned Lestrade. “Please don’t remind him of the gray cl—”
“Ah-ha! The gray cloak!” Holmes thundered, waving his finger in the air. “That is what first caught my attention. It was during a simple visit from Lestrade, you see. He was telling me the tedium of his current case, which had no feature worthy of my interest until—until—he mentioned the strange appearance and disappearance of the gray cloak! That was when I knew I must involve myself!”
“Why?” I wondered.
“Well, because… who do we know who wears a gray cloak?”
“Anybody, Holmes,” Lestrade groaned. “Just anybody.”
But Holmes shook his head and proclaimed, “Herne the Hunter!”
“Who?” said Torg and I together.
“Herne the Hunter!” said Holmes. When we continued to stare at him, uncomprehending, he gave a frustrated click of his tongue and demanded, “Herne! The antler’d king of night! Leader of the Wild Hunt! With his gray cloak and his owl! Do you not remember your Shakespeare?
“Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner:
You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Received, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.”
I shook my head in disbelief and asked, “Holmes, did you just quote Shakespeare at us?”
Yet my own wonder was nothing compared to Lestrade’s, who added, “Did you just accurately quote Shakespeare at us?”
Holmes harrumphed. “I have always been a lover of theater, you know that. And did you hear? The verse references Windsor Forest! That’s where we are! Right now!”
“We know where we are, Holmes,” Lestrade grumbled.
“Oh, then did you also know this is far from the only thing our beloved Bard teaches us about fairies? We also learn that fairies sometimes take an interest in a comely man-child, if ‘fair virtue’s force perforce’ do move them. And I don’t know if you’ve met James McCarthy yet, but let me tell you: he is a smoking-hot pile of fair virtue’s force. Might not they have acted on his behalf?”
“Yes, I saw,” I conceded. “Though I would ask that you entertain—just for a moment—the idea that the cloak might belong to a mortal man.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t though.”
“Well, it might.”
“Except that it doesn’t.”
“Holmes! Look. Let us say the cloak belonged to the man who Charles
McCarthy was scheduled to meet at Boggart Pool—a man who wished him ill, and whom he met in Australia. Let us presume the man is in the area to keep his appointment. Yet, as he draws near the appointed place, he is surprised to find the two McCarthys arguing. Perhaps something that was said set him off. Perhaps the unknown man always intended ill. Whatever the cause, when James leaves, the criminal sees his chance to strike Charles. The old man is distracted—kicking bushes, making threats and not paying attention to anything but his retreating son. Our murderer grabs the closest weapon he can find—likely a good-sized rock—approaches Charles McCarthy from behind and does the deed. But here is the catch: he discards his cloak so it is not in his way. The sounds of the scuffle bring James back. The murderer has time to conceal himself, but not his cloak. He had to wait until James was occupied with his dying father before reclaiming the cloak and making his escape.”
“It is possible,” Lestrade admitted, “but not probable. So much stealth on the part of the murderer. Such a particular course of events; if even one element is out of place the whole story collapses. Here is a much more likely answer: James McCarthy bashed his father’s head in with the butt of his shotgun.”
“Bah!” Holmes shouted. “’Twas a fairy that did it! They can be quite mischievous, you know. Have you ever been walking down a deserted country lane when suddenly a pebble thwaps you in the back of the ear? You turn to look to see who threw it, but no one is there! That is how the mysterious boggarts let mortal man know they have not yet abandoned this world!”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Except he didn’t get thwapped in the ear, did he, Holmes? He got the back of his skull crushed.”
“Well, it must have been a big one, then.”
“It wasn’t a big fairy,” said Lestrade, his voice pregnant with strained patience. “It was the back of a gun.”
“Except,” I said, raising one finger, “that it demonstrably wasn’t. The gun was clean. No blood on the stock. No bits of hair and skin. The idea that it inflicted so terrible a wound and stayed pristine is risible.”
The Finality Problem Page 8
