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THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA
RICHARD L. BOYER
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THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES:
THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA
ISBN: 9780857685384
Published by
Titan Books
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First edition: March 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
© 1976, 2011 Richard L. Boyer
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Author’s Note
When your eyes pass over these words, dear reader, I shall be many years in my grave. For a multitude of considerations, some of which will become apparent in the pages that follow, it is necessary to withhold publication of this narrative until after the passing of the people named therein. Accordingly, this manuscript shall lie in the strongbox of Barclay’s Bank, Oxford Street Branch, London, until the year 1975, a round figure I choose arbitrarily with the assurance that, by then, the people who could be injured or offended by what follows shall have long since turned to dust. This I do ordain as a condition and procedure of my last will and testament, to be so carried out by its executor or his appointees.
John H. Watson, MD
London, 1912
Contents
Author’s Note
One: The Tattooed Sailor
Two: What Boatswain Sampson Had To Tell
Three: The Ship Of Death
Four: Red Scanlon At The Binnacle
Five: The Hunter Or The Hunted?
Six: Departure
Seven: Soundings
Eight: New Hope, And A Puzzle
Nine: Confluence
Ten: The Vortex
Eleven: The Beast In Henry’s Hollow
Twelve: Recovery
Thirteen: The Pool
Postscript
Notes
One
THE TATTOOED SAILOR
The summer of 1894 was hot and dry and without noteworthy cases or events, save for the mysterious disappearance of Miss Alice Allistair which threw the Kingdom into shock and sorrow. On a mid-summer holiday to India with her chaperone, she was abducted from a Bombay market without a trace.
Her father, Lord Allistair (whose name was, during the last half of the previous century, upon the tongue and in the mind of every British subject), secretly summoned Sherlock Holmes to his assistance. But weeks passed, and still no word arrived from the East as to the fate of his daughter. Early September found my companion restless, bored, and morose. A trip to Bombay, and a handsome fee paid by his Lordship were in the offing, but still Holmes paced and fretted, fretted and paced, and muttered interminably.
I must here inject the observation, based upon long experience, that for all the excitement of living with the world’s most renowned consulting detective, life with Sherlock Holmes had its drawbacks. He kept odd hours, was often moody and uncommunicative and was, in his personal habits, untidy to the point of slovenliness.
It was early evening of 15 September of the year mentioned when, glancing at Holmes sunk in thought on the divan, I could bear the silence and oppressiveness of our flat no longer. Our quarters reeked of stale smoke and chemical fumes, and Holmes’ insular behaviour and despondent attitude did nothing to relieve the situation. I rose and went over to the bow window, opened it, and allowed the balmy summer breeze to enter – dispelling the fumes and boosting my spirits.
‘Lovely evening, Holmes. Perhaps you would care to join me for a walk?’
‘I think not, Watson. I have enough to occupy myself for the present.’
‘The Bradley forgeries, or the Allistair case?’
‘Both. The first is unimportant, and easy: if the clerk has a limp, he’s guilty. I expect a solution at any moment. The other, more serious one I am powerless to attack without evidence.’
He gazed at the wall, and sank deeper into thought.
I returned to the window. The sky was the brilliant copper colour of the dying sun, fading to dark blue towards the horizon. The faint babble of pedestrians wafted upwards to my ears. Peering down, I could see the sheen of top hats and the lilt of parasols as the couples passed beneath. Their laughter enticed me. Where had they been? Where were they going? More directly: why were we imprisoned in our drab flat, away from it all?
‘I say, Holmes, just a short jaunt – enough to stretch the legs and mind, would be – hullo, what’s this?’
Holmes shot a glance towards the open window. ‘Well, Watson, what is it?’
The clatter of hooves and a pair of wildly veering carriage lamps had drawn my eye. In the fading light I could barely see the driver standing in his box and flailing at the horses with the utmost savagery.
‘It appears to be a drunken cabbie. Poor beasts.’
‘Hardly a drunken cabbie. I’ll wager it’s an ambulance.’
He rose from the divan and joined me at the window. To my utter amazement the vehicle, dashing past the street lamps below, showed itself indeed to be an ambulance; the markings on its side were unmistakable.
‘You astound me, Holmes! How could you tell it was an ambulance?’
‘One can observe with one’s ears as well as one’s eyes. The ambulance, for obvious reasons, has a longer chassis than the four-wheeler cab. A hospital carriage, bouncing over cobblestones, reveals itself by a curious deep rumbling in its timbers which the four-wheeler lacks. This particular sound is also emitted by lorries and dray carts, but given the hour and the vehicle’s speed, we are left with the ambulance.’
‘Bravo!’ I cried.
‘But only half the puz
zle it seems,’ said Holmes, as he leaned further out of the window and swept his eyes anxiously over the horizon.
‘I have a strong suspicion that in addition to the misfortune in this neighbourhood, there is occurring at this very moment elsewhere in London a catastrophe of great magnitude, perhaps a large fire, that we shall no doubt read about in tomorrow’s newspapers.’
This stream of inferences so stunned me that I remained speechless. Holmes observed the puzzled expression on my face.
‘Come now, Watson, you’re a medical man and know ambulances: was there anything amiss?’
‘No,’ I replied after some thought, ‘except that some unfortunate –’
‘Tut, man! Not anything else?’
I shook my head.
‘Let me enquire then, how it happens that you were unable to determine the vehicle’s identity until you saw the markings on the door?’
Once again, as in so many instances during my long association with my friend, I felt embarrassment at having overlooked the obvious.
‘The bell. There was no bell!’
‘Precisely. The warning bell carried by our ambulances was not sounded. This explains both the erratic path of the carriage – attempts made by the driver to avoid running down pedestrians – and the rather frenzied behaviour of the driver himself, both interpreted by you as being brought about by an excess of drink.’
Holmes continued to scan the horizon and the streets below. He charged his pipe and, between staccato puffs of smoke, muttered to himself.
‘Of course there is always the question as to why the bell wasn’t sounded...’
‘A new driver...’
‘No. The man’s skill in handling the team and avoiding people shows that he is quite experienced. The walk that you mentioned earlier has suddenly taken on a new attraction. Let us be off.’
‘Of course it’s obvious,’ he remarked as we scurried down the staircase, ‘that the ambulance was bound from St Thomas’ Hospital.’
‘Hah! I’m afraid you’re wrong there, old fellow; you seem to slip a bit, Holmes, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ I said with some smugness. ‘Here I shall use your own methods against you. You seem to overlook Charing Cross which, although situated in the same general direction as St Thomas’, is considerably closer. Logic decrees therefore, that the wagon came from there, since all possible haste was necessary.’
‘Excellent, Watson! Really, you quite outdo yourself!’
I was deeply flattered, for Holmes was not a man to shower praise about willy-nilly.
‘It is a pity you are mistaken,’ he added.
‘What makes you so sure?’ I retorted, somewhat piqued.
‘Once again, you have failed to observe completely. Did you see how the driver plied his whip?’
‘He was quite zealous.’
‘So much so in fact that you cried “poor beasts”. Did you also observe the horses themselves as they passed beneath the street lamps? Their flanks were frothed with sweat. These two observations together force us to conclude that the horses had come from the direction of Charing Cross Hospital, yet a much greater distance. The point of departure was therefore St Thomas’.’
Once explained, the conclusion seemed simple.
‘But you have done well in using logic, Watson, because we see that the illogical has happened: instead of coming from the nearest hospital, the ambulance has come across town. That is interesting. Also the want of a bell arouses our curiosity. Perhaps we can fit these two pieces together. We know the driver did not neglect to ring the bell – he is too experienced for such an oversight. What does this leave us with?’
We were walking south down Baker Street towards Portman Square, but engrossed as I was in the puzzle the evening’s beauty escaped me. I plied my brain to the questions Holmes had raised.
‘The bell was then either broken or missing,’ I suggested.
‘Exactly! Which indicates that this particular ambulance, being ill-equipped, was not intended for use. It was, then, dragged out of the repair shop at a moment’s notice, and from the wrong hospital at that. Does this suggest anything to you?’
‘Of course – all of the regular carriages were engaged!’
‘Ah! But engaged for what purpose? Obviously they have hurried to the scene of some terrible calamity. I’m quite certain it is a fire. Why a fire? Well, what else could it be? Flood? Certainly not; the river is normal and we’re in want of rain. Earthquake? Preposterous. Mass murder? In America perhaps, but never here. No, it is a fire that has occurred, and I –’
‘What is it?’
I observed on Holmes’ face the look of eagerness that told me of a new development at hand.
‘See that crowd there by the kerbside? There’s our ambulance too. I just saw Lestrade making his way into the centre of it, and I fear that this personal tragedy may have sinister overtones. Come on, hurry up! We want to arrive before the police make a total ruin of things.’
We fought our way through the knot of curious pedestrians. Arriving towards the middle of it, I could hear Lestrade’s gravelly voice barking orders to subordinates and onlookers alike. In the gaslight, that was partially blocked by the crowd, I could see a dark form sprawled in the gutter.
It was obvious that Lestrade viewed Holmes’ presence with a mixture of relief and annoyance.
‘It beats me, Mr Holmes,’ he remarked, ‘how you seem to materialize on the spot when there’s been murder done.’
‘Murder,’ said Holmes, visibly quickening. ‘Watson, our evening stroll grows more engrossing by the minute. With your permission, Lestrade, I should like to examine the corpse.’
When the crowd of onlookers was sufficiently dispersed, the three of us were at liberty to examine the body in detail. The victim was a middle-aged, powerfully-built man with thick, dark hair and beard and a swarthy complexion. The man appeared to be diving headlong into the street; his feet remained strewn on the kerb – his head and shoulders shoved forward into the paving stones. A pool of blood had collected on the pavement beneath the open waistcoat and blouse which Lestrade drew back. The cause of death was immediately apparent. A horrid gash, extending up the trunk from the waist to the left shoulder, and terminating in a series of smaller slashes, had brought a quick and brutal end to the victim. The wounds were so vast and grotesque that, despite my medical experience, I was shocked and repelled in the extreme.
‘Not a pretty sight, if I may say so,’ said Lestrade. ‘But then murder never is, no matter the method.’
‘From these tattoos on his arms and chest and from the look of his clothes, he appears to have been a seafaring man,’ observed Holmes. ‘Has the body been moved?’
‘Not to our knowledge,’ returned Lestrade. ‘The constable who discovered him is Roberts – a good man mind you – but for the life of him he’s unable to track down one witness to this affair. The crowd drew him to the discovery. But as to what occurred, we are unable to locate one shopkeeper, resident, or passer-by who can give us the slightest account.’
‘That is odd, considering it is a natural evening to be outdoors. There are many people on the streets tonight. Given the nature of the wounds and the physique of the deceased, one must assume there was a struggle, at least an outcry. It is very singular that the event failed to draw anyone’s attention.’
Here my companion paused and looked, not without remorse, at the body sprawled beneath him in the gutter.
‘Of course, since we have no living witnesses to aid us in our enquiry, then the dead man must tell the story.’
Holmes then proceeded to examine the body to the minutest detail. He skipped nothing, examining his clothing, particularly the shirtcuffs and pockets, the torn waistcoat and ripped shirt, the boots, the tattooed chest (butchered though it was), and concluded by thrusting his nose into the dead man’s whiskers and sniffing vigorously. The next instant he was gone, pacing up and down the street and puffing furiously at his pipe, glancing in all directions.
Havi
ng become accustomed to this sort of behaviour on the part of my companion, I fell into conversation with Lestrade, remarking how strange it was that no excitement had been aroused during the murder, and how odd it was that not a mark of identification, nor any personal possessions for that matter, was found on the body. The attendants having placed the body on a litter, I watched Lestrade conversing with several correspondents who had been waiting at the edge of the crowd. I was thus engaged when I heard Holmes calling to us.
‘Up here, Watson, Lestrade. Come up, this may interest you!’
Looking up past the glare of the street lamps, we caught sight of Holmes’ angular face peering from the rooftop directly above.
‘Take the second door there – the plain one, not the storekeeper’s.’
Leaving two constables to dispatch the ambulance, we clambered up the narrow and dingy staircase which led unobtrusively from the street. At the first landing we found Holmes waiting for us. He led us up another flight of stairs and then through a narrow door of crude wood.
‘This is the stairway that leads to the roof. Lestrade, if you’ve your dark lantern, now’s the time it would be helpful.’
We found ourselves on a flat rooftop with a facade about three feet high on the Baker Street side, in front. Holmes, having taken the lantern from Lestrade, walked to a corner of the roof and let the beam fall upon a crumpled handkerchief.
‘There’s a piece of evidence for you, Lestrade. Perhaps you can smell the chloroform from here.’
‘Yes, so it is...’ mused the detective, somewhat chagrined at Holmes’ astuteness. ‘But how the devil did you seize on this place?’
‘Logic, my friend. Consider this: a large, muscular man in the prime of life has been brutally murdered with a dagger. The body is discovered on a busy London thoroughfare. Yet, in spite of these two things, no one seems to have witnessed the deed. To explain this, we must either assume that our citizens are deaf, dumb, and blind, or we must seek a more rational explanation: that the man was murdered elsewhere and his remains deposited on the kerbside. But how deposited? A passing carriage would be a means, but it would be noisy and conspicuous. The absence of alternative explanations has led us to this rooftop where, as you can see, the evidence suggests the murder was committed.’
The Giant Rat of Sumatra Page 1
