Unquiet Spirits: Whisky, Ghosts, Murder

by Bonnie MacBird

  ‘It is indeed a puzzler, sir. We have been unable to stabilize the heating element. It is likely we will have to discard the batch. But I will show you, sir.’

  The laird turned back to us with a scowl. ‘You have heard me, Mr Holmes. Be productive, or be gone.’

  He departed the room, having worked himself up to an icy fury.

  Holmes shook his head in disgust.

  ‘You must admit that was not one of our better moments,’ said I. ‘What is it that you found there, Holmes?’

  ‘I will know for sure when I analyse this. Back to the room!’

  CHAPTER 27

  Divide and Conquer

  he moment we had closed the door to Holmes’s room behind us, my friend set about muttering and fussing with some vials of liquid and a flame over near the window, using items he had packed for this purpose. He was examining the residue of what he had found in the warehouse but did not want to talk about it. I will admit to following the first part of this experiment with interest, but waves of exhaustion washed over me as his exploration proceeded.

  Holmes was in the deep grip of what I call his ‘professional enthusiasm’ – which carried him forward with such a zeal that he defied all notions of human endurance. I, however, was not blessed with such a constitution and will admit I fell asleep, shortly after Holmes confirmed that what he had discovered under the casks was dried human blood.

  The next morning, I was awakened by Holmes shaking my shoulder. I groaned and stirred, finding myself stiff. I had fallen asleep, fully dressed, on his divan, and he had clearly thrown some blankets over me. I had no recollection of any of it.

  ‘Watson, wake up. You were still awake when I identified the blood? Ah, yes. Good! Unmistakably, there was violence done back in that warehouse. Some time ago from the looks of it, but the residue not thoroughly removed. I went back for a second look.’

  ‘In the middle of the night, alone? You are mad, Holmes. You endanger yourself!’ I shook my head, feeling it was swathed in a wad of cotton batting. ‘Is there any coffee?’

  ‘I have rung for breakfast to be brought to us here. We have more to discuss.’

  Mungo arrived shortly after with a tray of breakfast which I took from him and closed the door.

  ‘What a family! What a case! Watson, we are challenged to be our best.’ My friend paced back and forth in front of the hearth, on fire himself despite his sleepless night. He stopped and turned to me, with what I recognized was more than a touch of manic energy.

  ‘Have you not slept at all, Holmes?’ I asked.

  He waved his hand in the air dismissively. ‘I have learned little else in the warehouse, Watson. But I remain puzzled by the ghost you said you saw the floating in our hallway. And so I returned to look into it further.’

  ‘Did you see her? It?’ I asked.

  ‘No. But while you continued in the arms of Morpheus, I made a study at the end of the hall. There is a simple stage illusion called “Pepper’s Ghost” with which I am familiar and which could have created the illusion of the semi-transparent, moving figure you described. It would have required a live participant of course, which is another question. But this effect is not possible given the constraints of the room size and shape. There is no way to set up the mirrors and glass which are needed. Nor is there a way for these props to be so easily dismantled and spirited – if you will forgive the pun – away.’

  I poured us both some coffee. ‘And yet I am sure of what I saw, Holmes. Here, eat something.’ I held out a plate of toast.

  He waved it away. ‘I believe you saw something. But we must leave this for the moment, and turn our attention to the late Donal McLaren. Something about the laird’s story does not feel right. I am sure we have not been given the entire picture. If only we could find someone who knew Donal McLaren in the service. Few survived Khartoum, I recall.’

  ‘No British did. Khartoum was chaos, Holmes. I know. I had a friend who served there.’

  ‘A friend, you say?’

  ‘An officer, yes. A Scotsman, Kenneth MacCauley. He served with Gordon but left Khartoum just before the massacre to meet up with the expedition sent to relieve them. It never reached them in time. But he knew everyone at Khartoum.’

  ‘Where is this man now?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, he is in Edinburgh. I visited him once there.’ I helped myself to some smoked salmon and toast.

  ‘Might he have any records, or any photographs perhaps of his regiment?’

  ‘Why, indeed he does! One is framed over his fireplace. A fine-looking group of men, all of them lost. Tragic. Though I believe General Gordon could not have—’

  ‘At last! We are rewarded with a bit of luck in this case. You must go there at once and retrieve your friend’s photograph!’

  ‘All right. But why?’

  ‘There is something awry with this tale of Donal McLaren, something about his last night here at Braedern. There are missing pieces to this puzzle.’

  I poured Holmes some coffee and placed it in his hand.

  ‘What about Donal’s friend, Holmes? That August fellow, the one who gave you pause?’

  Holmes set down the coffee untouched, and continued to pace.

  ‘Please, Watson, just do as I ask. It is vital to our case.’

  ‘I am not comfortable leaving you alone in this place.’

  ‘I give you my solemn pledge to take the utmost care. You must do this. It is of critical importance.’

  Bravery was admirable, but Holmes’s tendency to neglect his personal safety was a worry. I pressed him to keep my Webley with him at all times. ‘Very well, Watson,’ he conceded at last. ‘But I will stop short of wearing a sprig of rosemary in my buttonhole!’ I failed to find this funny.

  My journey was tedious in the heavy snow, but by the late afternoon, a cab delivered me to the door of Mr and Mrs Kenneth MacCauley in Inverleith Place in Edinburgh. I had wired ahead and was expected.

  The elegant ex-soldier of my acquaintance, his impressive head of thick sandy hair intact, and his moustache of old still elaborately curled, greeted me with enthusiasm at his front door. Behind him stood his wife, a quiet, tiny woman with a warm smile and gentle demeanour. Before long the three of us were seated comfortably in his sitting room, and MacCauley rose, gently took the photograph from the wall, and placed it in my hands.

  Faded very little, the crisp image revealed a virile, spirited group of perhaps twenty men, posed proudly on some steps in Khartoum. Scanning the faces, I looked for one which resembled the portrait of Donal that Holmes and I had seen in Sir Robert’s bedroom. I saw none.

  ‘There he is. That is Donal McLaren,’ said MacCauley, pointing a thick finger at a very large, moustachioed man in the back row, towering above his neighbours. The man had a fearsome scowl. Judging by the daguerreotype I had seen in the laird’s room, this was not Donal McLaren, though who it was, I could not say. ‘Though truth be told, I did not care for the fellow,’ continued MacCauley. ‘The man had a streak of cruelty. But war brings out the worst in some of us.’

  ‘And the best in others,’ said I. ‘Such as yourself, my dear fellow. Not everyone receives a Distinguished Conduct Medal.’

  MacCauley flushed. ‘Many were more deserving.’

  Mrs MacCauley shook her head with a smile, and approaching a small table near the fire, picked up the medal, now displayed in a polished wood and glass box and handed it to me. I admired it, and after another fifteen minutes of pleasant banter and reminiscences, I finally got around to asking MacCauley if I could borrow the photograph. ‘The picture of Donal McLaren would be very useful to my friend Holmes in the case in which we are currently engaged,’ I explained.

  He grew immediately uncomfortable, looked away, at his wife, then down at his drink. Finally he said, ‘I am so terribly sorry, old man. I just cannot part with it. It is, truly, my most treasured possession. Perhaps except for Jenny here.’

  ‘I am not a possession, Kenneth,’ said she, with a light touch
and a pat on his arm. ‘And yet I am yours.’ He laughed and took her hand in his. The warmth between them touched my heart and I felt a pang of longing for my Mary.

  I glanced again at the photograph. If I were an artist, I would try to sketch the man who was not Donal McLaren but who had taken his name. But I lacked the skill.

  ‘Kenneth,’ said the lady. ‘Why not let Dr Watson have the photograph copied? There is a studio over by Inverleith Park where they do such things. Surely you could allow that?’

  ‘Capital idea!’ cried MacCauley.

  But it had grown late and shops were closed. I was enjoined to stay the night at the MacCauleys’ house, and get the photograph reproduced in the morning. Reluctantly I agreed, and cabled Holmes, wondering if indeed word would reach him at remote Braedern. But to return without the photograph was unthinkable. I did not rest easy, despite my hosts’ genial hospitality and a comfortable bed.

  The next morning brought blue sky and a layer of ice over all of Edinburgh. Upon my early arrival at the photography atelier I was met with further delay. To copy the photograph was an arduous process. With no negative from which to strike a print, they would be obliged to light and photograph the print itself, very carefully to ensure the details of the faces would be captured. Anything less would not serve, and I left them with the admonition to take extreme care with the original. The process would take several hours. I left my friend MacCauley’s precious possession with them and strolled out into the chilly streets, impatient and eager to return to Holmes.

  As I wandered down Inverleith Street, I paused to buy a hot bridie from a street vendor. The smell of the Scottish meat pie reminded me pleasantly of some days spent in Edinburgh. It was then that I caught sight of a strange, foreboding edifice looming off to my right. It was Fettes College – where Holmes had gone as a youth! I stared up at the curious construction. It was an imposing building, complex with extravagant ornaments everywhere – gargoyles, bartizans, gilded ironwork. It had a kind of French Gothic sensibility reminding me of châteaux of the Loire Valley, yet with other influences I could not name.

  I had two hours and nothing to do. It was with a small tremor of conscience that I turned my steps up the hill. I had no idea that my idle curiosity would turn out to be a journey into one of Holmes’s darkest secrets.

  CHAPTER 28

  Fettes

  ooking back now, it was an unusual path I chose. I approached the enormous main building and was further stuck by the strange moodiness of the place. It towered several storeys high with jagged spires and medieval turrets. Gargoyles peered down at me from a dark facade, and the entire edifice had a kind of frightening aspect. Or perhaps severe would be a better word. If black magic were legitimised as a scholarly pursuit, this might be its home. I approached and noticed a stone ribbon bearing the motto, ‘Industria’ and a large carving of a honeybee. How strange that Holmes or his family would have chosen such a place.

  I walked around to the back of the building looking for a place to sit, and found a snowy park with a convenient bench. I brushed it with my gloved hand, set a newspaper down and took a seat. Nearby were a number of spirited boys, perhaps twelve to fifteen years of age, bundled against the cold and taking advantage of the break in the weather to pelt one another with snowballs. I was wondering idly what Holmes was like at this age when a short, stocky man in his mid-fifties, his white, wispy hair escaping a tweed cap, strolled by walking a small grey terrier dog. Glancing my way, he moved on, then suddenly stopped and turned back. He stared at me with a penetrating gaze that could paralyze a student. Despite myself, I stiffened in alarm.

  ‘Dr Watson? Are you by chance Dr John H. Watson?’ enquired the man. His accent was that of an educated Scotsman, his voice high pitched and piercing. I felt as though I were about to be quizzed on a chapter I had failed to read.

  ‘Yes, I am he. Have we met, sir?’

  He smiled. ‘We have not, Doctor, but I feel as though I know you. You see, I read your story in Beeton’s Christmas Annual. You are a friend of the detective Sherlock Holmes?’

  ‘I am. But how do you know me, sir?’

  ‘I saw your picture in The Illustrated Police News. Beeton’s got you all wrong.’

  I could hardly fathom it!

  He stepped forward and offered me his hand. ‘I am Dr Gordon Jennings, assistant headmaster,’ the man continued and his lopsided smile dispelled the fearsome first impression. ‘Of course you are wondering at my interest. I knew young Master Sherlock well in the brief time he attended Fettes. How happy I am to hear he is thriving and has found his metier, and a friend such as yourself. Come inside, please, have tea! We shall talk in my rooms.’

  My delight was tempered by a vague sense of guilt at the curiosity I felt. How might Holmes feel if he ever discovered this visit? But, I reasoned, this short excursion would make my time pass quickly. I glanced at my pocket watch. I had an hour and a half before the photograph would be ready.

  We entered the grand structure that was the main building at Fettes, and arrived directly into an impressive hall, where an enormous fireplace, portraits of the founder, and various banners and awards were designed to impress the visitor. We faced a vast, imposing staircase with barley sugar bannisters leading to a landing that branched off to the left and right.

  As I followed Dr Jennings up these stairs towards his private rooms, I asked about the unusual motto carved outside. Jennings explained, ‘It is our school emblem, and part of the benefactor’s coat of arms. Our motto is “Industria” – the busy bee. I remember Master Sherlock quite liked it.’

  My host led the way down some long hallways, and an even longer stone corridor to a narrow circular staircase, and presently I found myself seated in his private quarters in the eastern wing of the school. It was comfortably furnished with two sagging armchairs near a cheerful fire. Scattered around were a profusion of books which spilled from crowded bookcases into dusty stacks scattered about the parquet floor, and an ink-stained standing desk. A tall, narrow window looked out on gothic ramparts. Dr Jennings called for tea, and launched without preamble into a reminiscence he seemed compelled to relate.

  ‘It was 1870 and your friend was fifteen, perhaps sixteen years old. It was our first year as a school, and his last before University.

  ‘Fettes, as you know, or perhaps you do not, Doctor, was originally conceived by its founder as a place for poor boys to get a good education. However, from the very start, we took in non-Foundation children as well. And most of these, like young Sherlock, were English and well to do. I cannot remember precisely from where he hailed, only that he was a paying student, who had been attending elsewhere, but that his parents wanted him moved for his last year before University.’

  ‘Why, I wonder?’

  ‘I do not remember why, only that it was regarded as being “for his own good”. That is a sentiment often voiced where children were concerned.’

  I nodded and he continued, poking at the fire as he did so.

  ‘I need to give you some background about the school,’ he said. ‘Fettes was created in a kind of reaction to the prevailing notion of education at the time. Charity schools then were often rather punitive in nature, and as a result of their desire to improve, rather than educate their charges, the children who attended them usually ended up resentful, dishonest, and rebellious.’

  ‘Any child would, I expect,’ said I.

  ‘But the emphasis at Fettes was to be on scholarship. Here, that meant the classics, rhetoric and history. Mathematics and science were given short shrift.’

  ‘That is odd, given Holmes’s temperament. I wonder, then, why his parents chose it for him,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘The theory was to mould the “gentleman”. Science and mathematics were considered crass, perhaps even a bit vulgar.’

  ‘Vulgar? How strange! The very studies that save lives, build engines, and invent the future were considered low status?’

  ‘Well, not fit for a true gentleman.
You must have felt from time to time that men of science – such as yourself – are looked upon by some as, well, highly skilled tradesmen. Ah, tea has arrived.’

  As a school prefect busied himself in setting out an antiquated tea service on a table by the window, my host got up and waved the young man away. ‘Thank you, Peter, that will be all.’ He then felt the temperature of the teapot with his fingertips, checked the colour, and laid out the cups himself. Outside the window behind him, a snow-tipped gargoyle leered down at the distant courtyard. The grey terrier dozed by the fire. I felt as though I had stepped back in time.

  I pondered his last words. It was true even now that the work of a doctor was considered wet and dirty enough to garner disrespect from the upper classes – except, of course, when our expertise was urgently required. The detective’s trade was even worse. It implied association with the criminal classes, and a certain kind of physicality that smacked of effort and sweat.

  Despite this, Holmes retained the unmistakable deportment of a gentleman. Knowing him as I did, it was no affectation, but rather a deeply ingrained sense of who the man was. I took it for granted that Holmes had grown up with a certain level of privilege, although he never spoke of it, and his Spartan ways (except for a certain erratic vanity of dress) did not in any way speak of an expectation of luxury.

  The old man finished his fussing and, retrieving two steaming cups of tea, returned to his chair opposite mine, placing one cup before me.

  ‘A remarkable Souchong, try it. And yes, how very odd this anti-science attitude strikes us today in our second Age of Enlightenment, does it not?’ he said.

  I nodded and took a sip. The tea was smoky and excellent. ‘Very good,’ I said.

  ‘And now to your friend. I remember his first day, distinctly. As assistant headmaster, it was my duty to greet new boys as they entered our school for the first time. Young Sherlock arrived late, two weeks into the autumn term.’ The old man gave a little chuckle. ‘He was immediately dubbed “Daddy Long Legs”, a schoolboy sobriquet which he despised.’