The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part XI

by David Marcum

  “Oh, the motive is obvious. The question is who and how, not why. Persecution like this cannot be allowed to go unpunished. We must go to The Fortress, Watson, consult with Miss Katherine Warburton, and investigate. I believe that you said she is returning to Cumbria today? Wire a message to be left for the young lady at the Ambleside Station and tell her we are coming along behind her, and then pack a bag. There is a train in two hours.”

  As the train pulled out of London and headed north, Holmes spent his time reading the Colonel’s diary in more detail. I was happy to be on a case with Holmes again. Life had been too quiet while my friend was gone. Now he had asked me to join him to solve the case of Colonel Warburton’s madness, and I felt that frisson of excitement that marked our unique relationship rush through my body again.

  Half-way through the trip, Holmes set aside the diary and began to discourse on the history of British railways, Lake District cuisine, and the District’s influence on literature.

  At Ambleside, up the side of a mountain, we were met by Miss Warburton in a hired trap. The air was crisp with a bite to it, and I was glad we had brought our overcoats. We wound through the pretty little town with its narrow, twisting streets until we alighted at the Lake Windermere pier. There the three of us clambered into a dory manned by a sullen, bearded man in rough fisherman clothing. He took our bags and stowed them away. The man must have had his orders previous to our arrival, for he cast off at once and began rowing in a southerly direction.

  “There is a road around the lake to The Fortress,” said Miss Warburton. “But it is long and must make allowance for the terrain. I was about to leave in this trap when the postmaster caught me with your telegram. I arranged this because going by boat is much more direct.”

  Holmes pulled out his pipe and filled it with tobacco from his pouch. He blinked at the sight of the cold lake surface that stretched out for miles before us and the evergreen and oak forest that stood on either side. Hours had passed since we had left London and the sky was darkening. The sun had set before our arrival and twilight was upon us.

  Miss Warburton introduced the fisherman as Mr. Bonner, a worker on the Warburton estate. He grunted and stuck to his oars. I asked him how long it would take to reach The Fortress. “It’ll take as long as it’ll take,” he muttered, giving a sharp glance at my city shoes and soft hands. Sherlock Holmes shifted his feet and let his attention fall on Mr. Bonner.

  “We are fortunate, Watson, to be under the care of Mr. Bonner, an experienced sailor and former member of the crew of the whaler Bailey’s Hope out of Plymouth. I dare say that if we were suddenly attacked by a pod of narwhals, Mr. Bonner would know how to handle them.”

  Bonner never stopped rowing, but his bearded face turned to my friend and he frowned. “How’d you ken that, Mister? ‘Tis true, every word, but I swear I never saw you before in my life, nor your friend, either.”

  Holmes chuckled. He would never admit it, but he loved dazzling people with his observational techniques. “The foul weather gear you are wearing is heavy duty and designed for Artic climes. The coat, hat, gloves, and boots are necessary for a whaling excursion, but very expensive for such berths as the Lake District offers. They are years old, a part of your original ship’s kit. The name of the ship is tattooed on your left wrist, which was visible when you extended your hand to take our baggage. As to the narwhals, that earring hanging from your left ear is crafted from a bit of narwhal ivory. Did you carve it yourself, as some sailors do whilst on long voyages?”

  Bonner’s jaw had slowly dropped as he listened to Holmes, but as the question hung in the air he snapped it shut and bent again to his rowing. Holmes waited with an amicable air for the man’s response, but nothing more was forthcoming.

  Sherlock Holmes asked Miss Warburton about the occupants of The Fortress. Beside her uncle and his wife, their sons Fenton and Farley had apartments in the big house. Farley was about to take his diploma in engineering at Durham University. There were maids, a kitchen staff, a butler called Morell, and several men employed as gardeners and stable workers. It sounded like a large establishment. Miss Warburton admitted that her father had inherited the estate from a rich great-grandfather, who had secured the property in the late 1700’s. The Fortress and the two-thousand acres that came with it had been in the family for generations.

  Jeramiah Warburton had loved the military since he was a child. He enlisted in the Horse Guards in his twenties, and after he became the family patriarch, he had seen his brother through medical school, used his money to advance in the Army, and married late to Miss Katherine Murphy of the Sligo Murphys. She had died young when her husband was stationed abroad, and our client had been raised by her aunt and a succession of governesses.

  After nearly an hour, our dory approached a pier that extended out from a rocky point crowned with the faded grey stones that supported the Warburton Fortress. Bonner slipped the boat into a covered boathouse and secured the lines. A winding staircase took us up to a path that led to the main house. In the dark of the evening, we could pick out the rough limestone walls glowing at the edges of windows lit by the gleam of oil lamps.

  Holmes stopped suddenly and turned to Miss Warburton. “Who has had access to your father’s cottage since he was removed to the asylum?” She looked at him in wonder. “Why, no one, Mr. Holmes. I locked the door myself and I have the only key.”

  “So the cottage is secure?”

  “Quite.”

  Holmes nodded and proceeded to the front door. We were greeted there by the butler Morell, a silent man who handed off our hats and coats to an equally silent maid. We were greeted in the hall by Dr. Warburton, an imposing man with slicked back yellow hair, and his short, round wife. I viewed Dr. Warburton with interest. He leaned on a stick and was too thin, with yellowish, papery skin. It was clear to my trained medical eye that he was well into the final stage of his illness and did not have many months left.

  “Katherine, we have been worried about you. How could you go down to London without telling your aunt and me?”

  “I left you a note, Uncle Isaiah.”

  “Highly irregular, my dear. Are this the gentleman you mentioned you were going to consult?”

  “Yes. This is Dr. John H. Watson and his friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes. This is my uncle, Dr. Isaiah Warburton, and my aunt Susan.”

  We nodded to the pair, neither of whom extended a hand. Our bags were dispatched to our rooms and, over a cup of tea in the library, Miss Warburton explained that we had accompanied her to The Fortress to examine Colonel Warburton’s effects in order to form a theory as to why he became mad.

  Dr. Warburton and his wife exchanged a glance. “I know you have been very upset lately, dear Katherine,” cooed Mrs. Warburton, “but do you think this course is wise? Dear Jeramiah has been in his new home for nearly a month now, and he seems happy enough.”

  “That place may be the best thing for him, but I want to know why he became ill,” said our client. “Do not interfere, please, Aunt. What do you suggest as our first move, Mr. Holmes?”

  “The day is nearly spent and we have had a long trip. Let us repair to our rooms and rest. A little sustenance on a tray for each of us would be welcome, since it is past the dinner hour. Could that be arranged, Miss Warburton?”

  The daughter of Colonel Warburton nodded. Her aunt, nominal mistress of The Fortress, tightened her lips but rang the bell. When the butler appeared, Mrs. Warburton gave orders, and then her husband escorted us to the curving staircase that led upstairs. Miss Warburton went to her apartment, while Holmes and I were taken to a suite of three rooms on the same floor.

  The Warburton mansion was shaped like the letter U, two stories high, with the center block housing the main rooms and the wings containing several three or four-room suites. Ours consisted of two small bedrooms and a sitting room whose windows looked over a view of the lake, the wa
ter barely visible as the moon rose behind the building.

  A maid appeared first, lighting the fires and turning down the narrow beds. Trays of food soon appeared. Mrs. Warburton may have had to obey the requests of the daughter of the house, but apparently she did not feel she had to extend the resources of the house to do so. Thin cold sandwiches were good enough for her uninvited guests, along with pickles and more tea. Sherlock Holmes surveyed the spread and laughed.

  “Eat hearty, my friend,” he chuckled. “If this is what we get for dinner, I cannot predict what our hosts might offer for breakfast. As for me, I am more interested in what is in Colonel Warburton’s diary than in food.”

  As I ate what was before me, Holmes sat on the floor and divided up the pages of the manuscript. He set the main stack to one side and spread several pages out in a semi-circle before him. After the sandwiches were gone, I joined him. He took up the first page on his left.

  “Here we have mention of the first time he heard a voice. It happened five months ago, during Christmas month. He was alone in his bedroom. He wrote that the voice was hollow and repeated the words, ‘You know what you did. You know what you did.’ He searched the room and found nothing. He then went from room to room and discovered that there was no explanation for the voice. He dismissed it as some kind of recollection of the battle and went to sleep.

  “That might have been it, but he heard the voice repeat those words twice during the next twenty-four hours, and frequently over the next months, always at night or in the middle of the night. He began to fixate on the words, wondering which of his many faults were being highlighted. He became anxious. He began sitting up late, waiting for the mysterious voice. It was one night while he sat looking out the sitting room window into the darkness that he first saw the floating figure.”

  “Yes. He was deep into the clutches of his delusions.”

  Sherlock Holmes picked up another page from the floor. “He saw a white, flapping figure moving under the trees between his cottage and the cliff. There was a waning moon and he saw it through the branches. Colonel Warburton described the figure as ‘luminous and grey’. It came from the north and vanished into the trees on the south. Soon after it disappeared, he heard the voice again, saying, ‘You know what you did.’ He slammed the shutters shut and hid under his bedclothes until dawn. He didn’t sleep all night.

  “He got little sleep, according to his diary, after that. The image kept appearing, irregularly, for the next three months. Frequently the voice was also heard. Sometimes it came soon after the colonel sighted the white figure. He began to fear that his mind was going. He didn’t dare tell his daughter. He thought she would mention it to his brother and Isaiah would seek to put him away if he thought the colonel was crazy.

  “He wrote that Isaiah was jealous of him because he was the first-born. He believed his brother was plotting against him and that he would snatch the first opportunity given to ‘depose’ him. He knew Isaiah was ill, but wouldn’t admit to himself how badly off he was.”

  “Paranoia can be a symptom of melancholia,” I remarked.

  “He also didn’t want to worry his daughter. He loves her very much. He began to have suicidal thoughts.” Holmes picked up another piece of paper. “He began to sleep more. He would wake up in places other than his bedroom. Once in the kitchen, once in the front hall. The culmination of these ‘sleep walking’ episodes came when he found himself in the woods above the cliff outside his cottage. There was a storm that night, and he came to his senses soaking wet and covered with leaves and twigs. He made it back to his rooms without anyone seeing him, but the incident frightened him.

  “He started to hide the kitchen knives all over the cottage. Miss Warburton noticed and quietly took them away. She found it increasingly difficult to hide her worries from her father. He could tell that from her behavior. Finally one night, he saw the white figure from the window while she was there. He crashed through the glass after it. She screamed for help and Bonner and Morell chased after him. They caught him on the edge of the cliff and dragged him back to the cottage. He made his last entries in the diary that night under guard. The next day his daughter, on her uncle’s advice, signed the papers that put him into the asylum.”

  I shook my head. “A sad, sad case. He once was an honorable officer, a credit to his regiment. The breakdown of a mind is a terrible thing.”

  Holmes gathered up the papers and got to his feet. “I think we have done everything we can do tonight, Watson. Tomorrow we shall examine the scene of the crime.”

  The scene of the crime? I was not convinced there had been a crime. As I lay in my bed that night, I gazed out the window and watched the half-moon suspended in the black sky above. I remembered my old commanding officer, his bright blue eyes snapping in amusement at the banter at the evening mess, and the way he sat on his horse as he reviewed the troops. Finally I rose and drew the curtains to shut out the moon. Only then could I sleep.

  The next morning began with a bright sunrise. Holmes roused me out and, fueled by only a cup of coffee, we joined Miss Warburton on the side terrace. The colonel’s cottage was situated only four-hundred feet away, behind some outbuildings and a line of low shrubs. It was a one-story red brick building with a slate roof. When we stood on its tiny front porch, we could see the line of trees between the cottage and the shore cliff on the left.

  Miss Warburton produced a key and unlocked the front door. Before us was a narrow hallway. A row of hooks held a coat and a hat, suitable for colder weather, on our left. Beyond that was an open set of pocket doors that led to a small sitting room, holding a number of books. A cast-iron fireplace stood to the right of the door. An overstuffed high-backed winged armchair was positioned by the window on the far wall. It offered a clear view of the aforementioned line of trees that led up to the cliff’s edge. The walls held shelves of books covering the dull dove grey wallpaper. There was a wooden straight chair and two small tables bearing oil lamps. A faded blue rug took pride of place on the wooden floor. The front window looked over the path we had used to approach the house. Thick brick-red curtains hung at every window of the cottage.

  To the right of the hallway was another room of the same size, also equipped with pocket doors, set up as a Spartan bedroom. It had a matching fireplace to the left of the entrance and contained little besides an iron bedstead, a chest of drawers, a small rug, and a battered military foot locker. The wallpaper in this room was a muted brown. A wash stand stood by the window on the right. That window looked toward the shrubs and sheds that separated the gamekeeper’s cottage from the main house. The most notable item in the room was an odd-looking handcrafted Afghan rifle, most likely taken as a souvenir, that hung over the bedroom’s front window. Afghan tribesmen were famous for the hand-forged rifles they created in the hills to fight their enemies. Beneath it was placed the foot locker. “Col. J. Warburton” was stenciled on the lid.

  In the back were domestic offices, including a modest kitchen, pantries, a coal bin, and a back door that led to a walled kitchen garden. It was complete with a garden shed and a pair of apple trees set against the back stone wall.

  Holmes lost no time. Pulling out his magnifying glass, he began to examine the contents of the cottage. He took the bedroom first. I kept Miss Warburton out of his way as he systematically covered every item the room contained. She was fascinated to see him at work - opening drawers, examining bedclothes, crawling along the floor and into the corners, lifting the lid of Colonel Warburton’s foot locker and poking about in the contents. He examined the fireplace, looked under the drugget that covered the center of the room, and even peered through his lens at every inch of the brown wallpaper. He spent extra time on the wall against which the headboard of the bed was placed. I could see no reason why the paper there drew his attention. Finally he left the bedroom and moved on to the sitting-room.

  Again he was very thorough. He searc
hed that room by opening each book from the many on the shelves, again lifting the rug, poking his long fingers into the armchair’s stuffing, and even checking the levels on the oil lamps. Again he paid particular attention to the wallpaper of the room. At one point he picked up a volume from the table closest to the armchair and handed it to me. It was the copy of last year’s Beeton’s Christmas Annual that Miss Warburton had mentioned as her father’s favorite reading material.

  I cannot describe the feelings that washed over me as I gazed on the cover of my feeble effort to tell of my friend’s extraordinary powers of observation and deduction. We had had many adventures together since that first one. Some had gone well and others had ended in stalemate or failure. Yet the case I had entitled A Study in Scarlet still held a special place in my heart.

  To think that my poor attempt at storytelling had comforted my old commanding officer! I tried to imagine him in his chair, holding the little volume and turning the pages as he read it again for the nth time. My heart grew warm as I thought of the old man, beset with fears for his own sanity, losing his worries by following our cab to No. 3 Lauriston Gardens, or trekking over the wild landscape of the American West in words that I had written down.

  Sherlock Holmes had moved away from the armchair to check out more shelves of books. I laid the copy of Beeton’s back on the little table with a humble heart. An author is always gratified to hear that his readers think highly of his efforts. In this case I felt unworthy. I moved away from the armchair and went out to the hall, where I paced up and down until Holmes had finished his labours in the sitting-room and moved on to the back of the house.

  Here he was no less thorough in his investigation. Holmes peered into the pots and pans stored on the kitchen shelves, sifted through the stove’s ashes, tapped the white-washed walls, turned over every lump of coal in the bin, and even used his magnifying lens to examine the cracks between the flagstones that formed the floor. Finally he opened the back door and walked outside. There he briefly searched the little garden shed, paced along the stone walls of the kitchen garden, and then circled the cottage. That last maneuver took a long time, as he poked and pried at what seemed every exterior brick within his reach.