Tales From the Deed Box of John H. Watson MD

by Hugh Ashton

  Dressed in our dark garments, and with black cloths tied about our faces, we must have been nearly invisible from only a few yards away. On this moonless night, though Holmes was a matter of feet away from me as we moved through the orchard, I nonetheless lost sight of him on more than one occasion, and was only able to track his progress from the faint sounds that he made. I had confidence that, with Holmes having displayed his usual sagacity in the matter of concealment, there was little or no danger of our discovery.

  On this occasion, since we had a good expectation in our minds of what was about to transpire, the period of waiting did not seem to be so long, as we strained our eyes for the glimmer of light that would show us that the evening’s business was about to begin.

  After what I judged to be about an hour, Holmes grasped my arm, “Do you see that, Watson?” The green light had appeared as a faint glow in the distance toward the lighthouse. “The game is about to commence.” Even though Holmes spoke in a low whisper, his obvious excitement at the events about to unfold before us was almost palpable. After a few minutes, the red light also made its appearance. As we had surmised earlier, the two lights were almost in line with the lighthouse from our position at the side of the cove.

  It was a matter of a few minutes only before the first boat appeared. “I cannot be certain of this,” Holmes whispered to me, “but I would wager that this is a local party from this vicinity. The boats from the other villages round about will be along shortly, I am sure.”

  He was proved correct in his surmise, over the next twenty minutes, about ten boats appeared and beached themselves on the sandy shore of the cove. None of these was a large boat, and each was crewed by two, or at the most three, men, who joined together in a group which as yet lacked a focus. Obviously, they were waiting for the yacht that we had observed last night to come from the lighthouse. As we watched, one of them lit a lantern, and swing it over his head, waving it three times slowly from left to right. From the base of the lighthouse, we saw a similar moving light.

  “Those signals and acknowledgement are to let him know they are all waiting, and there is no danger?” I whispered to Holmes.

  “I am certain of it,” he hissed in return.

  Holmes continued to peer through the field glasses that we had brought with us, and I suddenly felt him quiver with excitement.

  “It is he! I am sure of it!” he whispered to me. “Now we have him, I am sure.”

  In a few minutes, even without the aid of the field glasses, I was able to discern the dark shape of the yacht making its way from the lighthouse towards us. A few minutes more, and we heard the sound of the boat’s dinghy being launched and the regular splashes of its oars as it was rowed towards us.

  Holmes put his lips to my ear. “On my signal,” he said in a low voice, “we will rush into the middle with our lanterns fully open. Attempt to hold your lantern in such a way that the light will dazzle the others without yourself being so inconvenienced. Though I have remarked, I do not expect violence, be alert for any mischief that may occur.”

  The two leading lights had now gone out, and the visitors from the yacht stepped out of the small rowing boat, now beached on the shore. Even in the dim light, it was possible to recognise the tall powerful figure of Sir Roderick. I guessed that Holmes would be experiencing a feeling of inner satisfaction that his deductions of the previous days had now finally proven themselves to be correct.

  “Now, Watson, now!” he hissed at me, and sprang from our hiding place, uttering an unearthly scream of a peculiar calibre, the like of which I had never heard him utter in the past, and which froze the blood in my veins. To me, who knew the source of the sound, it was frightening. To the waiting men, who had no idea of where this uncanny sound was coming, it must have seemed almost supernatural. The effect was to make them freeze and stop in their tracks as if they had been turned to stone by some monster or basilisk.

  “Do not move, or I fire!” he cried, brandishing his revolver, which was clearly visible in the light of the lantern that he carried in his other hand. I followed Holmes, my lantern held high, with my stout stick in my other hand.

  Sir Roderick, for it was indeed he, turned to face Holmes, his face contorted in fury.

  “What the devil do you mean by this, Holmes?” he shouted.

  “I might well ask you the same, Sir Roderick,” replied Holmes calmly. His quiet tone of voice was in complete contrast to the terrifying bloodcurdling scream that he had uttered just a few seconds before.

  The Cabinet Minister drew himself up to his not inconsiderable height. “I think you forget my position, Mr Holmes,” he replied. His voice was now as calm as that of my friend, but with an unmistakeable undertone of menace. “I am in a position to make your existence more than a trifle uncomfortable in the future, and indeed, I could make it certain that you would never be able to exercise your pernicious arts in this country ever again.”

  “I think not, Sir Roderick,” replied Holmes. “You hardly imagine that I am doing this on my own account, do you?”

  “There is only one man in this kingdom who would have the power to engage you in such a matter,” sneered Sir Roderick.

  “Indeed that is so,” replied Holmes, “and it is he who has engaged me to investigate this affair.”

  While this exchange had been taking place, I had noticed one of the ruffians from Sir Roderick’s boat moving stealthily in Holmes’s direction. With horror, I observed that he held a knife in his right hand, with which it appeared he was prepared to attack Holmes. I dashed forward, raising my stick high in the air, and brought it down hard on the wretch’s forearm as he was in the instant of striking forward with the blade. There was a loud crack as the bone shattered, and a clatter as the knife dropped to the ground.

  Holmes turned briefly in the direction of the sounds and took in the situation at a glance. “My sincere thanks to you, Watson,” he remarked. “It would seem that despite Sir Roderick’s protestations, some of the gentleman here would have matters that they would sooner keep hidden.” He turned to Sir Roderick again. “May I suggest that you dismiss your minions, so that we may continue our conversation more privately?” he invited.

  “Then we can keep the money, sir?” one of the sailors asked Holmes.

  For a few seconds, Holmes appeared to be taken aback. “I think that had better be left with me, don’t you?” he invited, after a few moments’ consideration. Sir Roderick watched with what appeared to be mounting fury as the visitors to the cove deposited envelopes and packets at Holmes’s feet, but he was powerless to resist with the other’s revolver held to his temple, which not only prevented him from resisting our efforts, but also acted as a deterrent to any who might feel inclined to attack either Holmes or myself.

  When the last of these packets appeared to have been delivered, Holmes turned to the assembled men. “I suggest that you leave now, and never return. Your services in this area are no longer required.” As they departed, he turned to Sir Roderick, whose face was now a mask of rage.

  “Do you realise what you have done?” he fairly screamed at Holmes.

  “I have an idea,” replied my friend, smiling.

  “In a few minutes, you have completely destroyed the work of several years.”

  “For which the world and especially those poor wretches who you have enslaved to your drug will be profoundly grateful, should they ever discover the truth. I regard your recent actions in this area as being totally despicable, and unworthy of an English gentleman, let alone a Minister of the Crown.”

  Sir Roderick had the grace to appear somewhat abashed. “What do you propose doing?” he asked Holmes.

  “I am bound to make a report to the Prime Minister,” replied Holmes. “Following that, the matter is in his hands, not mine. He will, I am sure, recommend some course of action to you, and I would be extremely surprised if it encompassed your remaining in the Cabinet.”

  “I am ruined, ruined! Have you any idea what you have just done?�
�� he asked again.

  For answer, Holmes gestured to me to pick up the envelopes and packets that had been deposited by the boatmen.

  “I think it is time to examine the boat in which you arrived,” he said to Sir Roderick, after I had retrieved the last of these envelopes. Some were of considerable weight and heft.

  Some of the baronet’s arrogance and bluster returned to him. “You may search as long and as hard as you please, Mr Busybody Holmes,” he retorted. “I can assure you that even you will find nothing.”

  Holmes regarded his opponent keenly in the light of the lantern that he shone into the other’s face. “I see you are telling the truth,” he said at last. “I now perceive that we should have made this expedition last night.”

  “You are clever, Mr Holmes,” sneered Sir Roderick. “A little too clever for your own good, I would say.”

  Holmes chose to ignore this, and turned to me. “Come, Watson, our work here is done. Let us to the police station where we are expected,” he remarked significantly. “I would not advise following us,” he added to Sir Roderick. “Though the local police do not know the reason behind the Home Secretary’s personal request to them, I am confident that they will do their duty in ensuring that we come to no harm.”

  “You will still suffer for this!” fairly screamed Sir Roderick. “I am not without influence in certain areas, and my agents have powers beyond your reckoning.”

  “I fear that you somewhat underestimate my powers of reckoning,” smiled Holmes. “I am well aware of your influence in certain circles, and so, may I add, are various others with whom you and I have mutual acquaintance.”

  Sir Roderick snarled. There is no other word to describe the animal-like noise that he produced in answer to Holmes’s words. “I will see you in hell!”

  “We will see about that,” Holmes replied. “I expect at least one of us to take up abode in that region at some time in the future.”

  The other seemed ready to spring on us, but checked himself as Holmes waved his revolver in a significant manner.

  “Adieu, Sir Roderick,” Holmes called gaily over his shoulder as we left the orchard.

  -oOo-

  “Surely it was obvious from the time that I discovered the beer bottles, even if some of the details were not readily apparent,” Holmes said to me as we sat in our rooms in Baker Street a few days later.

  “Not to me,” I confessed.

  “At the time, I remarked on the significance of those bottles, did I not? It was obvious that there was a group of men, almost certainly engaged in some clandestine activity, who met in order to exchange some kind of goods of such a value to make it worthwhile their doing so. You yourself suggested several items that might form the subject of such transactions. We rejected the romantic notions of pearls or other jewels, given their relative rarity in that area. Had the location being closer to London or some other major metropolis, I might have given more credence to that theory, but in a remote rustic area it was somewhat inconceivable that this would be the case.”

  “I follow you so far,” I replied. “So much is logical.”

  “We had already determined, had we not, that the items so exchanged would be small and valuable, ruling out the possibility of their being more conventional contraband. I confess that I was somewhat at a loss to determine the exact nature of these goods until I suddenly recollected Sir Roderick’s skill in the field of chemistry. What, I then asked myself, could be the result of Sir Roderick’s efforts in that field? It did not take me long to determine that the answer was probably some kind of narcotic drug. The exact nature of such a drug, until we actually visited Sir Roderick, and you supplied me with the article in your medical journal dealing with the same, escaped me.”

  “You had already linked this mysterious nocturnal gathering with Sir Roderick, then?” I asked him.

  “I could see no other way in which Sir Roderick could be acquiring his income. I had already examined the relevant records of the Stock Exchange, and the Prime Minister had already given me authority to search through the records of his bankers, in which I discovered nothing untoward. It was obvious that any source of his wealth was being acquired through cash transactions, rather than any financial manipulations on paper. This argued that the transactions were being carried out between him and a lower class of person, rather than between him and his peers.The combination of the expensive cigar end and the common beer bottles we discovered in the orchard also supported this theory.”

  “I do not follow your reasoning here, Holmes,” I exclaimed. “You clearly remarked to me on that occasion that the smoker of that cigar was missing a prominent tooth, a right incisor if I recall correctly, and I clearly observed that Sir Roderick was in possession of all his teeth, at least those at the front of his mouth.”

  Holmes smiled at me. “Your memory is not at fault. Have you never heard of dentures?”

  “Of course,” I replied, “but what reason could ever convince you that Sir Roderick’s teeth were false?”

  “There were two points on that matter that were convincing. The first was Sir Roderick’s refusal to sample the apple that I offered him when we visited his house.”

  “Ah, those apples,” I remarked ruefully. “I remember them well.”

  “On its own, that would have told me nothing, but it provided additional circumstantial evidence that made me suspect Sir Roderick still further. Wearers of false teeth typically are not that desirous of biting into such fruit. The unfortunate accident to your own tooth, Watson, was actually of considerable value to me. While you were having your tooth attended to, I was in the fortunate position of being able to examine the dental records of the patients, unknown to the dentist, and, as I had suspected, Sir Roderick was among their number. From them I was able to confirm positively that Sir Roderick’s right incisor was indeed a prosthesis. In addition, as you no doubt remarked for yourself, the chemical stains on the fingers of his right hand told me plainly that he had been engaging in chemical experiments. All circumstantial evidence only, as I am sure you are about to remark, but an additional nail in the coffin of his innocence.”

  “I begin to understand a little more. But what about the charade with the two Chinamen and the cormorant? That seemed to me to display, if I may say so, more than a touch of the theatrical.”

  Holmes shrugged, as if in apology. “Maybe it was,” he confessed. “However, it was the best I could devise on the spur of the moment. I had determined that Sir Roderick was using the lighthouse for his own purposes. That fact has since been confirmed, by the way, by Trinity House, whose authorities have interviewed the lighthouse keeper there and ascertained that for several years he had accepted money from Sir Roderick in return for the use of certain buildings there as laboratories for Sir Roderick’s chemical work, including the manufacture of the ‘Heroin’, though he appears to be innocent of any other involvement in the business. He must, however, have had his suspicions about the nocturnal sailings of Sir Roderick’s yacht, somewhat aptly named Morpheus.”

  “Sir Roderick’s rent was presumably of sufficient magnitude as to ensure his silence, I take it?”

  “Most probably. I was almost convinced beyond all doubt of this, but required still more evidence with which to provide the Prime Minister, as well as to satisfy my own standards. My goal was to prove, at least to my own satisfaction, that Sir Roderick was engaged in some business at the lighthouse, a place, you will surely admit, where he had no business to be.”

  “Surely it would have been possible merely to make your own visit and confirm these matters for yourself?”

  “I would have had no right to enter the premises, and any attempt to force an entry could have rebounded with most unpleasant consequences to the Government if any publicity were to ensue. No, Watson, I had to use some sort of guile in order to establish this fact for myself.”

  “Such as producing a spectacle of such a nature that sheer curiosity would divert Sir Roderick from whatever he was doing a
t the time, in order to watch it?”

  “Indeed, Watson. Although such evidence is once again merely circumstantial, the importance of discovering Sir Roderick at the lighthouse dressed in a laboratory coat, in combination with the other clues I discovered, would be sufficiently damning to Sir Roderick’s prospects. The appearance of the exotic Chinese fishermen, and their strange method of obtaining the fish from the sea would be, I was sure, of sufficient novelty to draw out not only the lighthouse keeper, but any other inhabitants of the buildings, including Sir Roderick, to observe this strange phenomenon.”

  I shook my head. “I can see why you did not wish to involve the police,” I said, “since an open scandal was to be avoided, but it does seem to me that the use of a trained cormorant in order to flush out your quarry was somewhat excessive in its quaintness.”

  Holmes chuckled in reply. “You may well be right there. But the results have been highly satisfactory, it must be admitted. As to the events on the final night, I have to confess I was somewhat mistaken in my first assumption of the events that were to transpire.”

  “I was expecting Sir Roderick to be distributing the ‘Heroin’ to his crew, and yet we saw none, did we not?”

  “I, too, was expecting the same, and it puzzled me briefly. When Sir Roderick brazenly invited me to search his boat, and I looked into his eyes, it was clear that there was no point in my doing so – there would be nothing to be found.”

  “What, then?”

  “For reasons best known to Sir Roderick, and the chain of malefactors responsible for the distribution of this foul substance, my surmise, which I have no doubt has been confirmed by Sir Roderick in his interview with the Prime Minister, is that the drug was distributed on the first night to the boatmen, who then received payment for it from those who push the substance into the market, as it were, and then bring the money to Sir Roderick on the following night, presumably retaining some portion of it as payment for their services.”