Clarion flung Isla to the side where she slammed into an iron pillar with a sickening thud, and dropped to the floor. Blood gushed from her forehead. Abandoning my pretence, I was on my feet and at the lady’s side in a moment. She looked up at me in confusion and fear. Conscious, at least.
‘Watson!’ came a strangled cry from over my shoulder.
Clarion had fallen upon Holmes and the two of them rolled on the platform, struggling for the gun. Next to them loomed the opening into the bubbling mash below.
Before I could respond, August Bell Clarion had Holmes pinned against the railing blocking the opening to the mash tun. The fiend slammed a knee into Holmes chest, and I heard the crack of a rib. Holmes cried out in pain. I ran to help my friend and the two of us struggled mightily with Clarion at the edge of the opening.
But both of us were hurt, and my right arm was virtually useless. The villain was a whirling dervish of hatred and fury. He punched me hard in my wounded shoulder and the shock of pain sent me reeling. As I stumbled back, Holmes leapt onto Clarion, but the fiend twisted, and in a paroxysm of hatred, delivered a second stunning blow to the chest, then grasped Holmes by the shirt and lifted him up, tipping him backwards over the railing. Time slowed as I watched in horror as Holmes fell backward into the steaming mash.
I heard the terrible noise of a splash and rushed to the edge and peered down. In the split second of this distraction I felt myself grabbed and hoisted into the air.
Then I too, was flung down into the vat, and went under, into the mushy liquid. So hot! My God, the burning—
I surfaced, gasping, my feet sliding as I struggled to stand in the soup. The liquid was viscous and slimy. I retched as I inhaled the steamy, odoriferous air. The heat! Agony.
‘Look out!’ cried Holmes and I turned and in the dim light, saw the whirling tines of the rake nearly upon me. I would be pulled under and drowned – but Holmes grabbed me by the collar and yanked me away from the slow moving but inexorable blades. We moved as far from them as possible. The liquid was up to our chests, and it was hard to move on the slippery bottom which seemed to be on a slant towards the centre. A wave of dizziness swept over me.
Holmes’s face was bright red, and he was saying something but the sounds were muffled, distorted. I rubbed my ears trying to clear them.
My skin was on fire. We had minutes – or perhaps seconds – before losing consciousness.
‘The rakes!’ Holmes was pointing, and I followed his gesture to see that the tines of the giant mechanical rake had rotated clockwise and continued to revolve, slowly and relentlessly across the surface of the vat. They were now approaching the ladder. In a moment of apparent insanity, Holmes splashed towards them, positioning himself right under the opening, and flattened himself against the wall of the tank. Clarion could not see him from there. In horror I watched as the rake drew closer to Holmes.
‘Holmes! Move away from there! I shouted.
I heard a laugh and looked up. August Bell Clarion was peering in. I had the vague sensation of a shadow behind him.
Holmes gave me a quick wave and then let out a cry.
The rakes were nearly upon him! They were close, too close! ‘Holmes!’ I cried.
Clarion, eager to witness the demise of Holmes, leaned in through the opening.
Holmes let out a blood-curdling scream, and the villain leaned in further. Suddenly he pitched forward, pushed from behind. I got a quick glimpse of Isla behind him as he tumbled down, his voice piercing the air with his own scream of panic.
The huge body tumbled down, just as Holmes slid out of reach of the machinery. Clarion landed directly on the turning rakes. They squealed and moaned, the tines digging into his body, carrying him down into the steaming mash, his hands flailing wildly just above the surface.
‘Quick Watson, the heat, we must get out,’ said Holmes. The rakes suddenly ground to a halt. Clarion’s body had become entangled under the surface and they were jammed.
Holmes and I clambered over the rake and towards the ladder. My friend propelled me up first as Isla reached down to help me, my wounded shoulder making the climb difficult. As I neared the top I looked down to see Holmes wavering at the foot of the ladder, half in and half out of the mash. His face was terrible; his eyes were shining grey marbles in a bright crimson grimace. He swayed, blinking.
‘Holmes,’ I cried.
And then as I watched, a huge white hand flashed upwards from the steaming mash and grabbed Holmes by the neck, pulling him backward and down. With a strangled cry he went under.
‘Holmes!’ I attempted to back down the ladder but Isla had an iron grip on my collar and stopped me.
I turned to see the two men floundering and struggling in the grey soupy liquid, primordial creatures battling to the death. As Clarion pulled himself free, the rakes resumed their relentless journey and the splashing figures veered, flailing wildly, from the path. They went under, surfaced, and went under again.
I heard Isla McLaren’s voice shouting but I could not make out the words.
Suddenly there was the sound of metal grinding on metal and the rakes came to a stop.
But where was Holmes?
The surface of the mash, swirling from the rakes and the men battling to the death grew still and deadly calm.
‘Holmes!’ I cried.
Suddenly there was a flurry of splashing liquid and a figure, covered completely in the slurry, raised above the surface, brandishing the knife, the fabled knife. Was it Holmes?
The dripping arm came down and splashed the surface of the mash, then came up again, and again. A stain of pink bloomed in the surrounding liquid. There was a wild splashing nearby, and then stillness.
But who had been stabbed? I wrenched free from Isla McLaren’s grasp and leapt from the top of the ladder and back down into the mash.
The knife-wielding figure stood and faced me, only shoulders and head visible, covered with the greyish stuff.
‘It is over, Watson,’ said the familiar voice, slurred and hesitant. Thank God, it was Sherlock Holmes. Then the great man passed out, and sank backward into the liquid.
I caught him and for a moment we both went under. I was aware only of grasping his jacket, and his own hand grasping my arm. Then overwhelming heat, and then blackness.
I came to some minutes later, lying on a hard surface with the sensation of something soft and freezing cold on my neck and wrists, and strong draughts blowing on my hot, wet clothes. I opened my eyes and all was a blur. Turning my head I made out Holmes’s prone figure next to mine. We were lying on the metal platform near the mash tun.
Isla McLaren’s face swam before mine. ‘Dr Watson!’
Then everything went black again.
I later learned what had transpired. August Bell Clarion escaped from being trapped in the rakes and attacked Holmes, who managed to disable him by stabbing him with the jack-knife. Clarion fell once more, mortally wounded and was, at last, fatally trapped by the rakes. He suffered a heinous death from stabbing, heat and blood loss, and ultimately suffocation as the rakes pinned him just below the surface.
Isla had sounded the alarm and almost immediately two men, including the groundskeeper Ualan Moray, arrived in time to turn off the machine and fish Holmes and me out of the deadly vat before we drowned or died of heatstroke. More help came in the form of Alistair, who had eventually begun to worry about his wife and had arrived on the scene with several men in tow.
Snow was applied to our necks, wrists and bodies to bring out temperature back to normal. Although dangerously near death from hyperthermia, we were alive only because the heating unit and temperature gauge in the mash tun had been faulty. Had it been working as usual we would have been boiled alive.
Alistair directed others in the unenviable task of removing the remains of August Bell Clarion from the mash tun. By luck, the skilled Doctor MacLeish was still on the property. Holmes and I were transported to the castle and attended to through the night by the good doctor an
d her assistant.
Two days passed, and Holmes and I recovered with cooling baths and rest. My shoulder needed nothing more than a few stitches but I will admit to a great exhaustion, and welcomed a small amount of morphine, though Holmes refused. Instead he dealt with the Aberdeen and London authorities who arrived to gather the bodies of August Bell Clarion and Donal McLaren and take statements from everyone involved. I was dimly aware that Holmes exchanged several cables with Mycroft.
It was very early the third morning that we were recovered enough to depart Braedern, which the newspapers, in the wake of the multiple tragedies, were now referring to as ‘cursed Elsinore’. None of the family was in evidence as our luggage was loaded, but as we settled into a carriage the boy Calum Moray ran up. He carried a small package and handed it up to Holmes. ‘From Mrs McLaren,’ he said, shyly.
Holmes untied the package. It was the small Goethe book he had remarked upon in Isla’s room. He opened it and the frontspiece page, previously missing, fluttered out. He quickly replaced it but I saw his own familiar handwriting in an inscription. I knew at once it must have been his gift to Charlotte.
He thanked the boy, and we departed.
Holmes closed his eyes as the carriage drew us over the snowy hill and away from Braedern Castle and the doomed McLaren Distillery. I looked back at the forlorn and windswept buildings and the castle, rising like a jagged, black dinosaur from the snowy hill. I was never so happy to leave a place in my life.
CHAPTER 41
221B
t was a full week after our return to London that I managed a visit to 221B. The snow in London had persisted and the Christmas season with its attendant noise and jollity was hard upon us, turning every shop window and street corner into a postcard illustration. I found it a welcome antidote to the darkness and drama we had faced in Scotland, yet I knew it was a season that little comforted my friend.
It would be another two weeks before the case involving a goose and a stolen jewel would distract his feverish mind, and I had heard from Mrs Hudson that aside from a small mystery involving a pickled brain stolen from Bart’s collection, a matter he solved in three hours, Holmes had had little to occupy him.
As I ascended the stairs at 221B, I felt a prickle of concern. I could never be precisely sure which version of Holmes would greet me when I arrived at our former shared lodgings. But a lively Paganini violin piece floated down from his rooms, giving me hope.
He must have noted my approach, for Holmes stopped playing and threw open the door. ‘Watson!’ he cried. ‘You have come at the perfect moment!’ To my surprise, he was well rested and sleek, wearing his finest waistcoat, though topped with his blue dressing gown.
Setting down his violin, he embraced me in an unusual display of warmth. Behind him a crackling fire burned cheerily and some pine boughs and candles on the mantle had displaced the usual clutter. On the dining table, a generous display of cakes and sandwiches had been laid out by Mrs Hudson. I felt suddenly that I had wandered into some alternate 221B.
‘Holmes,’ I said. ‘I am delighted to see you thus. What is your news?’
He had barely recounted his small triumph with the stolen brain when, to my complete surprise, Mrs Hudson announced that Mrs Isla McLaren had arrived for a visit. She swept into the room, festively attired in a gown of pine green and Christmas red with her usual touches of tartan trim. Taking in the newly cosy ambience with a smile, she greeted Holmes warmly. Pretending polite indifference which fooled no one, he invited her to sit and take tea.
For the next hour, this fine lady sat before the fire with us, during which time the three of us cleared up most, if not all of the remaining mysteries of the dramatic events at Braedern.
Cameron Coupe, she related, had survived his terrible injury and to our great surprise, was being looked after by the laird, who saw past the man’s more bizarre actions to the loyalty beneath the surface. Puzzling to me, but perhaps Coupe was the son the laird deserved, I thought. I wondered what their future held.
The eldest son, Charles, had been charged with arranging the bombing down in Montpellier but somehow had escaped on a technicality, and while free of gaol, was so disrespected in his field that he would never be allowed near a distillery again. Catherine had left him and returned to her family. The McLaren plant was closed, presumably for ever, and the castle had been put up for sale.
‘What of the ghost of the Lady Elizabeth McLaren?’ I asked.
Isla looked uncomfortable. To my surprise, so did Holmes.
‘I think I saw her,’ I admitted. ‘The first night we were there. And then again.’
Holmes would not meet my eyes.
‘Mr Holmes did as well,’ said Mrs McLaren. ‘Did you not, Mr Holmes? You were shouting at something the night Dr Watson was gone.’
‘A trick of the light, that is all.’
Isla held his gaze then shrugged. ‘How curious. Well in any case, you should know that Anne’s remains were found, exactly where one might expect, and have been given a proper burial, Mr Holmes. The apparition of Mrs McLaren has not been seen since.’
Holmes murmured his approval, then handed Mrs McLaren a small volume of Scottish poetry. ‘From Hatchards, in return for the Goethe,’ said he. ‘Note the inner rhyme schemes in these early Scottish sonnets. You may wish to challenge yourself further.’
‘Thank you, but …’ She looked puzzled.
‘Really, Mrs McLaren. Your secret was out when I noticed the collection of poetry in your room, the inks and pens on your desk, and the fact that no one else saw the sonnet you described having arrived in the basket upon Fiona’s return.’
But of course! The sonnet sent back with Fiona had been penned by Isla, no doubt to attract Holmes with the puzzle! It had almost worked.
‘Nicely done, Mr Holmes,’ said the lady.
‘Frankly, no one else seemed capable. What I wonder about, however, is the one you wrote to Dr Paul-Édouard Janvier in Montpellier.’
I had completely forgotten. Janvier had told us the last of the three threatening notes he received was in rhyme!
‘That was yours as well, was it not?’
Isla flushed and nodded. ‘I regret writing that.’
‘What was your motive?’
‘Charles asked me for the favour. It was a distracting challenge. I never thought for a moment he would make good on the threat.’
A woman bored is a danger, her own husband had said. All too true, in Isla McLaren’s case.
‘You should apply your gifts with more discretion in the future,’ said Holmes.
‘I shall keep that in mind,’ said she. ‘But I have come for more than a social visit, Mr Holmes. I have something I know will interest you.’
The lady took from her handbag a large brown envelope, and from it withdrew a series of grotesque, fading photographs. Moving the refreshments aside, she spread them out on our dining table. Against the background of holiday cheer and domestic comforts, we found ourselves drawn in a tight circle, peering at the sordid tableau.
For there were the police photographs of the scene of the late Charlotte Simpson’s death. Strangely, in that room, they had the effect of a death mask thrust into the centre of a child’s party.
Holmes studied them. ‘The pillows,’ he said, finally. ‘They are not as you described.’
‘True,’ said Isla.
There was a sofa in the picture, near where the body of a young woman hung from a ceiling light. Every pillow was in its proper place. But, as Isla pointed out, these pillows had not been so when she had arrived on the scene. Instead, they had been spread around as if from a struggle.
‘Had I seen these photographs, I would have deduced the obvious,’ she said.
Holmes stared at the photos, a grave expression on his pale face. ‘Yes, as would I. August Bell Clarion was wise to stage the scene to eliminate any sign of the struggle which you did not register at the time. It is no wonder that everyone from the police to the family accepted the theor
y that the poor girl …’ his voice trailed off.
‘That she killed herself, yes,’ said Isla McLaren.
‘She was capable of it,’ said Holmes. ‘I knew it. And I believe you knew it as well. It was what drove you to rush to her on that day.’
The lady was silent.
‘I am afraid I rebuffed you unkindly, madam,’ said Holmes. ‘For that I apologize. Your resemblance to Charlotte was, well, somehow I must have seen …
But not observed, I thought.
‘You need not apologize,’ said she. ‘I, on the other hand saw a decent, if somewhat rude young man, with perhaps too much conceit about his own intellectual gifts. That fit exactly with the Sherlock Holmes my cousin described so long ago.’
‘She thought me rude and conceited?’
Mrs McLaren just stared at him. ‘And loved you in spite of it.’
Holmes cleared his throat and pointedly returned to studying the photographs.
‘You did not notice the pillows awry when you first got there?’ he queried.
‘I did not. Remember that I was but twelve years old and had walked in on the scene of my dear cousin’s death. My only thought was to try to save her, because to my self-obsessed child’s eyes, she could not possibly have thought to leave me in this way.’
‘And she did not,’ I said. ‘I doubt she would have left either of you in this way.’
For several long minutes Holmes flipped through the other photographs, studying them with care, and then finally set them down. Mrs McLaren gathered them up and replaced them in the brown envelope, which she tucked inside her handbag.
For a full minute the three of us sat there in silence. Holmes closed his eyes, and was lost in his thoughts. I saw through his stoicism to his deep pain.
Isla McLaren regarded my friend. A look of concern passed over her and she glanced at me.
‘Holmes,’ I said gently. ‘It is time to release this ghost.’
Unquiet Spirits: Whisky, Ghosts, Murder Page 35
