by Gorman, Ed
“You are to tell me a tale of your frontier days, and I am to solve it?” he asked blandly, but the subtle angle of one eyebrow told me he was intrigued.
“Yes, if you can.”
“What if you haven’t the data?”
“Then we shall proceed directly to the brandy and cigars.”
“It’s a formidable challenge.” To my great relief, he lifted himself in the air by his hands and crossed his legs underneath him, reaching when he had done so for the pipe laying cold on the side table. “I cannot say I’ve any confidence it can be done, but as an experiment it has a certain flair.”
“In that case, I shall tell you the story, and you may pose any questions that occur to you.”
“From the beginning, mind, Watson,” he admonished, settling himself into a comfortable air of resigned attention. “And with as many details as you can summon up.”
“It is quite fresh in my mind again, for I’d set it down in the volumes I was just mulling over. As you know, my residence in America was relatively brief, but San Francisco lives in my memory quite as vividly as Sydney or Bombay — an impetuous, thriving little city nestled among the great hills, where the fogs are spun from ocean air and the sunlight refracts from Montgomery Street’s countless glass windows. It is as if all the men and women of enterprise across the globe determined they should have a city of their own, for the Gold Rush built it and the Silver Lode built it again, and now that they have been linked by railroad with the eastern states, the populace believes nothing is impossible under the sun. You would love it there, Holmes. One sees quite as many nations and trades represented as in London, all jostling one another into a thousand bizarre coincidences, and you would not be surprised to find a Chinese apothecary wedged between a French milliner and an Italian wine merchant.
“My practice was based on Front Street in a small brick building, near a number of druggist establishments, and I readily received any patients who happened my way. Poor or well-off, genteel or ruffianly, it made no difference to a boy in the first flush of his career. I’d no long-established references, and for that reason no great clientele, but it was impossible to feel small in that city, for they so prized hard work and optimism that I felt sudden successes lay every moment round the next corner.
“One hazy afternoon, as I’d no appointments and I could see the sun lighting up the masts of the ships in the Bay, I decided I’d sat idle long enough, and set out for a bit of exercise. It is one of San Francisco’s peculiar characteristics that no matter what direction one wanders, one must encounter a steep hill, for there are seven of them, and within half an hour of walking aimlessly away from the water, I found myself striding up Nob Hill, staring in awe at the array of houses.
“Houses, in fact, are rather a misnomer; they call it Nob Hill because it is populated by mining and railroad nabobs, and the residences are like something from the reign of Ludwig the Second or Marie Antoinette. Many are larger than our landed estates, but all built within ten years of the time I arrived. I ambled past a gothic near-castle and a Neo-Classicist mansion only to spy an Italianate villa across the street, each making an effort to best all others in stained glass, columns, and turrets. The neighborhood — ”
“Was a wealthy one,” Holmes sighed, hopping out of his chair to pour two glasses of claret.
“And you would doubtless have found that section of town appalling.” I smiled at the thought of my Bohemian friend eyeing those pleasure domes with cool distaste as he handed me a wine glass. “There would have been others more to your liking, I think. Nevertheless it was a marvel of architecture, and as I neared the crest of the hill, I stopped to take in the view of the Pacific.
“Standing there watching the sun glow orange over the waves, I heard a door fly open, and turned to see an old man hobbling frantically down a manicured path leading to the street. The mansion he’d exited was built more discreetly than most, vaguely Grecian and painted white. He was very tall — quite as tall as you, my dear fellow — but with shoulders like an ox. He dressed in a decades-old military uniform, with a tattered blue coat over his grey trousers, and a broad red tie and cloth belt, his silvery hair standing out from his head as if he’d just stepped from the thick of battle.
“Although he cut an extraordinary figure, I would not have paid him much mind in that mad metropolis had not a young lady rushed after him in pursuit, crying out ‘Uncle! Stop, please! You mustn’t go, I beg of you!’
“The man she’d addressed as her uncle gained the kerb not ten feet from where I stood, and then all at once collapsed onto the pavement, his chest no longer heaving and the leg which had limped crumpled underneath him.
“I rushed to his side. He breathed, but shallowly. From my closer vantage point, I could see one of his limbs was false, and that it had come loose from its leather straps, causing his fall. The girl reached us not ten seconds later, gasping for breath even as she made a valiant effort to prevent her eyes from tearing.
“‘Is he all right?’ she asked me.
“‘I think so,’ I replied, ‘but I prefer to be certain. I am a doctor, and would be happy to examine him more carefully indoors.’
“‘I cannot tell you how grateful we would be. Jefferson!’ she called to a tall black servant hurrying down the path. ‘Please help us get the Colonel inside.’
“Between the three of us, we quickly established my patient on the sofa in a cheerful, glass-walled morning room, and I was able to make a more thorough diagnosis. Apart from the carefully crafted wooden leg, which I re-attached more securely, he seemed in perfect health, and if he were not such a large and apparently hale man I should have imagined that he had merely fainted.
“‘Has he hurt himself, Doctor?’ the young woman asked breathlessly.
“Despite her evident distress, I saw at once she was a beautiful woman, with a small-framed, feminine figure and yet a large measure of that grace which goes with greater stature. Her hair was light auburn, swept away from her creamy complexion in loose waves and wound in an elegant knot, and her eyes shone golden brown through her remaining tears. She wore a pale blue dress trimmed with silver, and her ungloved hand clutched at the folds in her apprehension. She — my dear fellow, are you all right?”
“Perfectly,” Holmes replied with another cough which, had I been in an uncharitable humour, would have resembled a chuckle. “Do go on.”
“‘This man will be quite all right once he has rested,’ I told her. ‘My name is John Watson.’
“‘Forgive me — I am Molly Warburton, and the man you’ve been tending is my uncle, Colonel Patrick Warburton. Oh, what a fright I have had! I cannot thank you enough.’
“‘Miss Warburton, I wonder if I might speak with you in another room, so as not to disturb your uncle while he recovers.’
“She led me across the hall into another tastefully appointed parlour and fell exhaustedly into a chair. I hesitated to disturb her further, and yet I felt compelled to make my anxieties known.
“‘Miss Warburton, I do not think your uncle would have collapsed in such a dramatic manner had he not been under serious mental strain. Has anything occurred recently which might have upset him?’
“‘Dr. Watson, you have stumbled upon a family embarrassment,’ she said softly. ‘My uncle’s mental state has been precarious for some time now, and I fear recently he — he has taken a great turn for the worse.’
“‘I am sorry to hear it.’
“‘The story takes some little time in telling,’ she sighed, ‘but I will ring for tea, and you will know all about it. First of all, Dr. Watson, I live here with my brother Charles and my uncle, the Colonel. Apart from Uncle Patrick, Charles and I have no living relatives, and we are very grateful to him for his generosity, for Uncle made a great fortune in shipping during the early days of California statehood. My brother is making his start in the photography business, and I am unmarried, so living with the Colonel is for the moment a very comfortable situation.’
“‘You must know that my uncle was a firebrand in his youth, and saw a great deal of war as a settler in Texas, before that region was counted among the United States. The pitched fighting between the Texians — that is, the Anglo settlers — and the Tejanos so moved him that he joined the Texas Army under Sam Houston, and was decorated several times for his valour on the field, notably at the Battle of San Jacinto. Later, when the War between the States began, he was a commander for the Union, and lost his leg during the Siege of Petersburg. Forgive me if I bore you. From your voice, I do not think you are a natural-born American,’ she added with a smile.
“‘Your story greatly interests me. Is that his old Texas uniform he is wearing today?’ I asked.
“‘Yes, it is,’ she replied as a flicker of pain distorted her pretty face. ‘He has been costuming himself like that with greater and greater frequency. The affliction, for I do not know what to call it, began several weeks ago. Indeed, I believe the first symptom took place when he changed his will.’
“‘How so? Was it a material alteration?’
“‘Charlie and I had been the sole benefactors,’ she replied, gripping a handkerchief tightly. ‘His entire fortune will now be distributed amongst various war charities. Texas War for Independence charities, Civil War charities. He is obsessed with war,’ she choked, and then hid her face in her hands.
“I was already moved by her story, Holmes, but the oddity of the Colonel’s condition intrigued me still further.
“‘What are his other symptoms?’ I queried when she had recovered herself.
“‘After he changed his will, he began seeing the most terrible visions in the dark. Dr. Watson, he claims in the most passionate language that he is haunted. He swears he saw a fearsome Tejano threatening a white woman with a pistol and a whip, and on another occasion he witnessed the same apparition slaughtering one of Houston’s men with a bayonet. That is what so upset him, for only this morning he insisted he saw a murderous band of them brandishing swords and torches, with the identical Tejano at their head. My brother believes that we have a duty as his family to remain and care for him, but I confess Uncle frightens me at times. If we abandoned him, he would have no one save his old manservant; Sam Jefferson served the Colonel for many years, as far back as Texas I believe, and when my uncle built this house, Jefferson became the head butler.’
“She was interrupted in her narrative as the door opened and the man I knew at once to be her brother stepped in. He had the same light brown eyes as she, and fine features, which twisted into a question at the sight of me.
“‘Hello, Molly. Who is this gentleman?’
“‘Charlie, it was horrible,’ she cried, running to him. ‘Uncle Patrick ran out of the house and collapsed. This is Dr. John Watson. He has been so helpful and sympathetic that I was telling him all about Uncle’s condition.’
“Charles Warburton shook my hand readily. ‘Very sorry to have troubled you, Doctor, but as you can see, we are in something of a mess. If Uncle Patrick grows any worse, I hate to think what — ’
“Just then a great roar echoed from the morning room, followed by a shattering crash. The three of us rushed into the hallway and found Colonel Warburton staring wildly about him, a vase broken into shards at his feet.
“‘I left this house once,’ he swore, ‘and by the devil I will do it again. It’s full of vengeful spirits, and I will see you all in hell for keeping me here!’
“The niece and nephew did their utmost to calm the Colonel, but he grew even more enraged at the sight of them. In fact, he was so violently agitated that only Sam Jefferson could coax him, with my help, toward his bedroom, and once we had reached it, the Colonel slammed the door shut in the faces of his kinfolk.
“By sheer good fortune, I convinced him to take a sedative, and when he fell back in a daze on his bed, I stood up and looked about me. His room was quite Spartan, with hardly anything on the white walls, in the simple style I supposed was a relic of his days in Texas. I have told you that the rest of the house also reflected his disdain for frippery. The bed rested under a pleasant open window, and as it was on the ground floor, one could look directly out at the gardens.
“I turned to rejoin my hosts when Sam Jefferson cleared his throat behind me.
“‘You believe he’ll be all right, sir?’
He spoke with the slow, deep tones of a man born on the other side of the Mississippi. I had not noticed it before, but a thick knot of scarring ran across his dark temple, which led me to believe he had done quite as much fighting in his youth as his employer.
“‘I hope so, but his family would do well to consult a specialist. He is on the brink of a nervous collapse. Was the Colonel so fanciful in his younger days?’
“‘I don’t rightly know about fanciful, sir. He’s as superstitious a man as ever I knew, and more afeared of spirits than most. Always has been. But sir, I’ve a mind to tell you something else about these spells the Colonel been having.’
“‘Yes?’
“‘Only this, Doctor,’ and his low voice sunk to a whisper. ‘That first time as he had a vision, I set it down for a dream. Mister Patrick’s always been more keen on the bogeymen than I have, sir, and I paid it no mind. But after the second bad spell — the one where he saw the Tejano stabbing the soldier — he went and showed me something that he didn’t show the others.’
“‘What was it?’
“He walked over to where the Colonel now slept and pointed at a gash in the old uniform’s breast, where the garment had been carefully mended.
“‘The day Mister Patrick told me about that dream was the same day I mended this here hole in his shirt. Thought himself crazy, he did, and I can’t say as I blame him. Because this hole is in exactly the spot where he dreamed the Tejano stabbed the Texian the night before. What do you think of that, sir?’
“‘I’ve no idea what to think of it,’ I replied. ‘It is most peculiar.’
“‘Then there’s this third vision,’ he went on patiently. ‘The one he had last night. Says he saw a band of ‘em with torches, marching toward him like a pack of demons. I don’t know about that. But I sure know that yesterday morning, when I went to light a fire in the library, half our kindling was missing. Clean gone, sir. Didn’t make much of it at the time, but this puts it in another light.”
Sherlock Holmes, who had changed postures a gratifying number of times during my account, rubbed his long hands together avidly before clapping them once.
“It’s splendid, my dear fellow. Positively first-class. The room was very bare indeed, you say?”
“Yes. Even in the midst of wealth, he lived like a soldier.”
“I don’t suppose you can tell me what you saw outside the window?”
I hesitated, reflecting as best I could.
“There was nothing outside the window, for I made certain to look. Jefferson assured me that he examined the grounds near the house after he discovered the missing firewood, and found no sign of unusual traffic. When I asked after an odd hole, he mentioned a tall lilac had been torn out from under the window weeks previous because it blocked the light, but that cannot have had any bearing. As I said, the bed faced the wall, not the window.”
Holmes tilted his head back with a light laugh. “Yes, you did say that, and I assure you I am coming to a greater appreciation of your skills as an investigator. What happened next?”
“I quit the house soon afterward. The younger Warburtons were anxious to know what had transpired in the sick room, and I comforted them that their uncle was asleep, and unlikely to suffer another such outburst that day. But I assured them all, including Jefferson, that I would return the following afternoon to check on my patient.
“As I departed, I could not help but notice another man walking up the side path leading to the back door. He was very bronzed, with a long handlebar moustache, unkempt black hair, and he dressed in simple trousers and a rough linen shirt of the kind the Mexican laborers wore. This swarthy fellow paid
me no mind, but walked straight ahead, and I seized the opportunity to memorize his looks in case he should come to have any bearing on the matter. I did not know what to make of the Colonel’s ghostly affliction, or Jefferson’s bizarre account of its physical manifestation, but I thought it an odd enough coincidence to note.
“The next day, I saw a patient or two in the afternoon and then locked my practice, hailing a hack to take me up Nob Hill. Jefferson greeted me at the door and led me into a study of sorts, shelves stacked with gold-lettered military volumes and historical works. Colonel Warburton stood there dressed quite normally, in a grey summer suit, and he seemed bewildered by his own behavior the day before.
“‘It’s a bona fide curse, I can’t help but think, and I’m suffering to end it,’ he said to me. ‘There are times I know I’m not in my right senses, and other times when I can see those wretched visions before me as clear as your face is now.’
“‘Is there anything else you can tell me which might help in my diagnosis?’
“‘Not that won’t make me out to be cracked in the head, Dr. Watson. After every one of these living nightmares, I’ve awakened with the same pain in my head, and I can’t for the life of me decide whether I’ve imagined the whole thing, or I really am haunted by one of the men I killed during the war in Texas. Affairs were that muddled — I’ve no doubt I came out on one or more of the wrong Tejanos. So much bloodshed in those days, no man has the luxury of knowing he was always in the right.’
“‘I am no expert in disorders of the mind,’ I warned him, ‘although I will do all I can for you. You ought to consult a specialist if your symptoms persist or worsen. May I have your permission, however, to ask a seemingly unrelated question?’
“‘By all means.’
“‘Have you in your employ, or do any of your servants or gardeners occasionally hire, Mexican workers?’
