Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of The Pigtail Twist

by M J H Simmonds

  The effect of her presence upon Shiner was extraordinary. His puzzled look continued for a moment but then his eyes widened and his mouth began to open slowly. He seemed to be attempting to speak but no sound emerged. His jaw hung open. His lips quivered, shortly followed by his hands and soon, it seemed, his whole body was shaking.

  Gregson finally broke the silence. “Gentlemen, may I introduce Mrs Sarah Shiner, née Hardcastle.”

  “But how, how?” stammered Shiner, his face now deathly white, despite its years of exposure to the harsh African sun.

  “Please, let me explain,” declared Holmes, as I rose and offered up my chair to Mrs Shiner. She sat down silently and looked directly at her husband with a calm, emotionless face. As I moved to stand behind her, I glanced over to see Lestrade, whose shocked expression showed that he had been kept as much in the dark about this development as had I.

  “I approached this case as I would any other,” began Holmes. “I looked for all of the available evidence and followed whatever clues I could find. While others were making assumptions, I simply stuck to the facts that were known.”

  “The unusual activity surrounding Harrison’s will gave me our first clue, although the full truth behind it did not come to light until the very end of the case.”

  “Although this was all completely unknown to you, Shiner, it seems that Harrison made several changes to his will shortly before he was killed. This made me wonder if he had not already suspected that somebody in the village might have wished him harm. This made the presence of the newcomers into the village of even greater interest. It took a relatively short time to exclude most of the other suspects, which left us with only two realistic possibilities. Professor Seaworthy, despite having lied about everything from his profession to his very name, seemed an unlikely candidate, due to his supposed old age and slight frame.”

  Holmes subtlety waved away my exclamation of surprise at this revelation, before continuing.

  “However, all of this speculation was soon rendered obsolete by the abscondment of ‘Wergeld’. He had realised how close we were to identifying him as the main suspect, so he chose to leave as soon as darkness could provide him with the cover he required.”

  “Before we chased you the length of France, we had already uncovered your true identity and Doctor Watson, here, had determined much of your life in Africa. But despite the rapid linear course we were taking, my mind was constantly drawn back to the matter of the will. It was clear that something was wrong, but it was not until we returned to England with you as our guest, that I could finally put all of my efforts into solving the problem of the legacy.”

  “I was certain that Williams, Harrison’s solicitor, was deeply involved and after expending a huge effort persuading him of the essential nature of his testimony, and swearing to keep his name out of the official reports, he finally acquiesced.”

  Holmes voice cut through the atmosphere like a blade of the brightest light. All but one of the faces of his audience was open with surprise and incredulity. Only Mrs Shiner sat expressionless and unmoved as Holmes continued.

  “The tale he recounted was one of desperation, betrayal, violence and duplicity, but also one of friendship, hope and love.”

  “Poor Mrs Shiner suffered terribly at your hands. You, sir, are a drunk and a bully, a man who thrives on inflicting violence upon those physically weaker than himself. Harrison may have been your friend at first, Shiner, but after many years of suffering your behaviour, he began to detest and fear you in equal measure. Your arrogance and inebriation hid these simple truths from you. If you could not persuade, you would threaten, and after a while you could no longer tell the difference between the two.”

  “Harrison had formed a close friendship with your wife, one to which you, in your myopic state, were completely blind. He knew how you had abused her, mentally and physically. How you beat her and shouted at her all manner of foul abuse. She would run to him in tears and beg his help to rid her of you, once and for all.”

  “But Harrison was no murderer, no cold blooded killer. Beneath your cruel, drunken exterior he could still see his old friend, the one with whom he had shared so much hardship and eventual success. He deliberated and schemed until he came up with a plan that would both save his friend and punish her tormentor.”

  “Once again, as with all great plans, simplicity was the key factor. Mrs Shiner had to disappear in a way that would be both convincing and plausible. Harrison knew that to make the plan practical and believable he must utilise all of his local knowledge, while also encompassing Mrs Shiner’s existing habits.”

  “Harrison knew well that Mrs Shiner walked along the cliffs most evenings and this gave him the germ that became the heart of his stratagem. He created a model, some of Mrs Shiner’s clothes hung upon a frame of dry sticks and twigs. To this, he added some stones, for ballast, lightly attached with fine twine. As a final touch, he cut his hand with his belt knife and added a goodly amount of blood to the clothing. He then took this model up onto the cliffs and awaited Mrs Shiner.”

  “Once she had had rendezvoused with Harrison upon the cliffs, the pair hid and waited until dusk. From his years in the fishing trade, Harrison knew exactly when the fleet would set sail for a night’s fishing. When he spied the small boats closing in on their location, he hurled the model into the ocean. The watching crews must have gasped in horror as they saw the familiar figure of Mrs Shiner tumbling from the cliffs into the ocean below. As expected, the waves crashed the fragile structure against the rocks and the thin wooden sticks inside were snapped and crushed. The remaining clothing was therefore freed to churn in the wash until, eventually, parts of it washed up upon the rocks and shore, to be found the following day.”

  “Once completely dark, but before the fishermen could return to raise the alarm, Harrison led Mrs Shiner back into town, disguised beneath a hooded cloak, and onto a boat that he had arranged to set sail that very night. As a token of her gratitude and affection, she had presented to Harrison her family brooch, which he wore with pride, once he had left Africa for good. She landed in Spain ten days later, and from there, journeyed on through Europe and back to England.”

  “After changing her name, Mrs Shiner found work at a girl’s school in Northumberland, rising from teaching assistant to head of year and eventually taking over as headmistress. Once Harrison had returned to England and made his fortune, he reconnected with Mrs Shiner and they secretly remained in contact until his untimely death. Somehow suspecting that his end might be near, he had changed his will to ensure that a substantial legacy would be left to Mrs Shiner. Not willing to expose his dear friend’s new identity to the possibility of revenge by her husband, he concocted an elaborate scheme of creating two subsequent wills that would ensure that she would receive what he had intended, but in total secrecy.”

  Holmes was clearly approaching his final pronouncement, but he was suddenly silenced when Shiner, who had remained quiet for the duration of Holmes’ discourse, let out a pitiful scream and fell forward, head first, onto the desk. I quickly moved forwards and gently lifted his head. His eyes were half-open, but his face had tightened into a lop-sided expression of agony. He shook for a moment and then he stilled. The left side of his face hung down, his limbs had lost all of their strength. He slumped back into his chair and slipped slowly to the floor. I instinctively called out for help, but I already knew there was little that could now be done for him.

  “What is going on?” demanded Lestrade, in a fluster.

  “A massive stroke,” I replied. “We need to get him to a hospital.”

  Gregson opened the door and shouted for help. Lestrade stood up and hovered above me. Holmes sat and watched, one eyebrow slightly raised. But amongst all of the commotion, one thing sticks in my memory more than anything else. As all was noise and chaos around her, Mrs Shiner rose and slowly, but gracefully, glided out
of the room, her fixed expression never changing.

  Chapter Twenty - Broken Flake

  Monday 7th July 1884

  Shiner clung onto life for a further five days but eventually passed away without uttering another word. A coroner’s court subsequently determined him to have been responsible for the death of Harrison and the case was thus officially closed. Holmes kept his promise to Williams, who entirely escaped mention. Somehow, he also managed to spare us from having to justify our, legally rather dubious, capture and imprisonment of Shiner.

  We left the court in mixed spirits. I was happy with the outcome, natural justice had, after all, prevailed. But Holmes was agitated, unsatisfied that after so much work his quarry had escaped facing judgement in a court of law.”

  “Holmes, old boy, you won. You should be happy, or at the very least, satisfied. The villain is no more. We were as sure of his guilt as anyone could ever possibly be. So what if God has taken him before the hangman? Surely, it makes no difference,” I insisted.

  “Yes, I suppose, on that point, you are right, dear Watson. But I cannot help but feel that Shiner may have taken his secret to the grave.”

  “What secret? Surely, we know all that we can possibly know about this affair,” I replied.

  “Not all, Watson. How did he kill Harrison? That is his secret and one which I am no closer to solving than I was on that first day when I arrived at Bedhurst Hall.”

  “It is over, Holmes, does it even matter?” I asked.

  I have decided not to record Holmes’ exact response, suffice it to say, that he disagreed.

  Chapter Twenty One - The Pigtail Twist

  Tuesday 22nd July 1884

  Two weeks had passed since the Shiner case had been closed by the courts. Holmes had kept himself busy with chemical experiments and the writing up of copious notes regarding this and all of his other recent cases, but the frustration at not being able to completely solve the crime hung over him like a dark cloud, threatening, at any moment, to become a storm.

  The summer evening was warm and we had opened wide the bay window to allow in some cooling fresh air to compete with the swirling smoke of our pipes.

  “Look Holmes, you must stop obsessing over this case. It has gone and anything you might now discover can no longer have any material impact,” I declared.

  “You are quite right, Watson, yet an incomplete case is anathema to me.” Holmes tapped out the detritus from the bowl of his dark dank pipe into the fireplace.

  “Why don’t you try some of this?” I asked, offering Holmes my leather tobacco pouch. “I picked it up at H&S in Bedford.”

  Holmes took a chunk of the dark, hard-packed plug tobacco and nonchalantly rubbed it up in his hands. He then packed his pipe, lit it with a single match and puffed away, contentedly.

  “This is very good, Watson. Dark and cool, just like the weather this evening,” he smiled. For all of his machine-like qualities, Holmes could, on rare occasions admittedly, relax and act like a normal human being.

  I let out a short chuckle in response and picked up my new briar, which I had acquired at the same time as the plug tobacco. I examined the fine brown and gold swirls of the bird’s eye grain and contemplated what a small thing of beauty had been hand-carved from the fifty-year-old root of a Mediterranean bush. I broke off a piece of plug, rubbed it up and half-filled my virgin briar. As I put the remainder of the tobacco back into its pouch, an amusing thought struck me.

  “Well Holmes, it appears that, for once, this tale will not have a twist in it,” I grinned.

  Holmes smiled in agreement and took a deep pull upon his pipe. Suddenly his eyes widened and he slowly removed the stem of his pipe from between his lips. His mouth remained open for a few seconds and I could see that he was formulating a new theory or idea, right in front of my eyes.

  “Are you alright, Holmes, you look suddenly troubled?” I asked, as Holmes stared blindly into the distance, his mind fully occupied with this new deduction.

  “Ha! Watson, yes, that’s it!” he suddenly exclaimed. Holmes then began to laugh. He laughed long and loudly, his whole body shaking.

  “Whatever do you mean? The solution? You have it?” I stammered.

  “Not I, old chap, you,” Holmes finally replied, once he had regained control over his convulsing body. “You have cracked it! Well done Watson,” he laughed.

  “What on earth are you talking about, Holmes? What have I cracked? As far as I can see, I merely made a rather poor joke.”

  “Ah yes, but your little pun has finally showed me exactly how Shiner committed his evil act. And once again, of course, it was simple but brilliant,” Holmes explained.

  “What did we find at the murder scene? On the ground surrounding Harrison?” he asked, still grinning widely.

  “Let me see. There was a cigar, a sprinkling of ash and some dark flakes of tobacco,” I replied, still completely unaware of where Holmes was heading.

  “Yes, dark flakes and, in addition, an oily residue was found upon Harrison’s neck. Do you not see it yet, Watson?”

  “No, not at all,” I sighed, as I took another puff upon my pipe.

  “What did Shiner have upon his person when he was examined at the scene?” Holmes demanded, with growing excitement.

  “He did have a pouch filled with an unusually large amount of rubbed up flake tobacco with him, as I remember. But how could he have killed Harrison with a large leather pouch full of broken flake?” I asked, incredulously.

  “Because it was not rubbed up flake, Watson. It was a pigtail twist!” Holmes declared, loudly.

  I struggled for a moment but then I saw it clearly, as if I was a packhorse whose blinkers had been removed from their eyes.

  “Pigtail twist? Well, yes, that might work,” I speculated.

  “Pigtail twist is, as you know, Watson, a form of tobacco rolled, pressed and packed until it forms a rope which is then curled into a ball or cylindrical shape. It is an ideal way of keeping tobacco from drying out over long periods of time. One can also break off small pieces and chew these. This makes it particularly popular with sailors, where smoking by the crew is forbidden on many vessels.”

  “Shiner had eight or nine ounces in his pouch when we examined it,” Holmes continued. “This would have formed a length of ‘rope’ of perhaps forty inches or more, easily long enough to strangle a man, and strong enough, too, if doubled up.”

  “Dear God, Holmes, you are right. The tobacco noose might just have had sufficient strength to commit the terrible act before, presumably, snapping and scattering those flakes upon the ground. It would also leave a dark oily residue upon the neck of the victim.”

  “And then came the most ingenious part,” Holmes added. “He then simply pulled apart the ‘rope’ until it became just a pile of loose flakes lying innocuously within his leather pouch.”

  There followed a long pause. Once the shock of Holmes’ revelation had sunk in, I finally broke the silence.

  “What an incredible and singular murder weapon. It seems Shiner was indeed a most creative thinker despite his evil nature. I can see why the police underestimated him.”

  “Indeed, he was a man born with a fine mind, who would have had a bright future had his life developed differently. Instead, he drifted through life using his physical size to bully those closest to him into meek acquiescence and turning to drink when things went against him. Yet, despite years of abusing himself thus, he somehow retained his brilliant mind and planned and executed this most imaginative and daring scheme. I may abhor the man and his actions but I must admire the mind that created such an accomplished stratagem, one that very nearly confounded the local police, Scotland Yard’s finest and even myself.”

  I inwardly smiled at Holmes’ self-defined investigative hierarchy. Of course, he was being completely dispassionate in his a
ssessment of the abilities of each group, but it was still amusing to hear him place himself at the very top of such a pyramid.

  “Holmes, we must now inform Gregson and Lestrade, I am sure that they would be keen to hear the final piece of the puzzle,” I suggested.

  “Oh, I don’t see why we need to do that, Doctor,” my old friend grinned. “After all, the case is officially closed, what good would it do now? And think about it, Watson, would the avid followers of your accounts of our cases not be delighted to be able to read the final problem solved exclusively in your own words?” Holmes replied, with the merest hint of sarcasm and a definite twinkle in his eyes.

  “Oh my goodness,” I suddenly spluttered. “I have just remembered something ghastly. On the day that I made my investigations in and around Bedden, I visited Colonel Fauwkes at Bedhurst Hall.”

  “Yes, I am aware of your visit, your work showed some promise,” Holmes replied, in a manner that I took to be encouragement.

  “Well, somehow Wergeld’s, or rather Shiner’s, pouch had been left out on a table in the entrance hall,” I said, rather sheepishly.

  “What of it?” Holmes asked, without enthusiasm.

  “Well, I had run out of tobacco and here was a pouch full of it, maybe as much as nine ounces. It was just sitting there, slowly drying out now that it had all been rubbed up. It was just going to go to waste, I concluded, so I took a little, maybe an ounce, no more, and refilled my own pouch. I thought it could not do any harm, could it? But, Holmes, what have I done?” I asked, with a feeling of rising panic.

  “Ha-ha!” Holmes laughed, loudly. “Watson, not only have you destroyed vital evidence, you have smoked part of the actual murder weapon!”

  Seeing Holmes howling with laughter quickly eased my concerns and I could now see the situation for what it was, absurd, bizarre, but also darkly comical. I was soon laughing along, heartily, with my friend.