Mycroft Holmes

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  “Two steps forward, one step back,” Holmes muttered sullenly as they sidestepped another dead end while trying to locate the next piece of road.

  “So long as it’s not two steps back,” Douglas said evenly.

  Holmes frowned. “Must you always put the positive light on things?”

  “I do it merely to balance you out, Holmes. If not, we would surely have stumbled into a ditch by now.”

  Thankfully, Douglas knew the terrain and could always locate some alternate way for proceeding, and soon the sleepy little town came into view.

  * * *

  Founded some ninety years before, San Fernando had only one throughway, High Street, so baptized because its center was built upon the flanks of two hills. Its sloped appearance made visitors feel disoriented and slightly drunk. Though the buildings had a definite Spanish flavor, most of the inhabitants appeared to be Indian. In fact, Holmes recalled reading that San Fernando had become a hub for Indian immigrants who served as cheap but dutiful beasts of burden for sugar, cocoa, and tobacco growers.

  “Spain has laid the foundation, and India has populated it,” Holmes said, glancing about.

  “The West Indian Petroleum Company has taken up residence here,” Douglas added in a tone that implied he did not much approve.

  “Another employer is surely a good thing,” Holmes suggested. “I assume they are searching for pitch oil?”

  Douglas nodded. “No one argues that this island needs employment, but it is ugly and dangerous work,” he said darkly. “It spews filth into the air and water, and the death rate is quite high, especially among the Indian immigrants who must accept the worst of jobs. Yet it was from them that I learned my trade. What they knew or intuited about tobacco, I could never have gleaned anywhere else.

  “I owe them my livelihood,” he concluded a bit sadly.

  A moment later, a quavering voice called out:

  “Cyrus? Is that you, boy?”

  “Emanuel!” Douglas called back as he halted his horse.

  A toothless, ancient Amerindian waved to them from the other side of the road. Age had not so much bent him as it had whittled him down. He seemed light-boned, as if the most innocuous wind could blow him away. That sense of lightness was enhanced by the long smock-frock he wore that seemed almost as old as the man himself, and that blew like bat wings in any trace of breeze.

  Douglas dismounted and lobbed the reins toward Holmes, then began walking to the old man, his arms wide.

  “You tired old carcass!” he declared, grinning as he approached. “How happy I am to see you again!”

  Emanuel remained where he was. Great tears began to roll down his worn old cheeks. He wiped them away with a hand that was so thin it was very nearly transparent.

  “Whatever is the matter?” Douglas asked, quickening his step.

  “Three-Fingered Eddie is dead,” he declared. “I have been upstairs, comforting his mother and sister, for they are undone.”

  Douglas ran the rest of the way and grabbed the old man by the arms.

  “How?” Douglas asked. “How did he die?”

  “Local boys! On the road that leads from Port of Spain. He was carrying enough victuals to last a week. His throat was cut ear to ear.”

  “Emanuel, what are you saying? That local boys killed him?”

  “Local boys?” the old man repeated. “No, no, they found him! As for who killed him, who can know? But they left him lying in the road like he belonged to no one.”

  Douglas looked over at Holmes, who shook his head.

  Our amateur murderers are starting to become professional, he thought.

  “Ah, such bad news all around, such bad news!” Emanuel cried. “First Eddie, then your family home.”

  “Wait,” Douglas said. “My home… what about it?”

  “Burned!” the old man said. “Burned to the ground.”

  * * *

  At first, Douglas wondered if the old man had grown demented, but as a few more neighbors descended from their houses to greet him and to commiserate, he realized Emanuel was telling the truth.

  “And my family?” Douglas asked. “Are they…”

  He could not say the word. But he was quickly assured that his sister, nieces, and cousins were all safely inland, hiding with other neighbors.

  “No one left in the village,” the old man said. “Everyone too afraid. I myself am staying away from the sea. I cannot bear to witness the graves, day upon day.” His voice broke. He began to sob again. “And all the other houses still stand.” Emanuel mumbled between sobs. “Yours is the only one that burned.”

  * * *

  Douglas and Emanuel, astride one horse, with Holmes on the other, rode the four miles from San Fernando proper to Douglas’s family home.

  Though Emanuel had referred to their destination as a “village,” Holmes thought it looked like nothing of the kind. It consisted of a dozen small wooden houses built on a promontory overlooking the sea. Eleven stood, shuttered and all but abandoned.

  One had been burned to its foundations.

  Leaving Emanuel astride the mare, Holmes and Douglas dismounted and began to pick through the rubble, but there was nothing left, apart from a few iron pans lying next to an ancient pot-bellied stove, its flue still rising into the air.

  “Why?” Douglas kept asking. “Why my house? What vengeance is this?”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t vengeance,” Holmes offered. “Was there anything here that held interest? That revealed a clue of some kind? That had worth?”

  Douglas looked at him askance.

  “Anything of worth, or a clue,” he repeated. “I swear to you that there is nothing—was nothing here of worth, unless one factors in the emotional…”

  He looked around helplessly.

  He could not go on.

  It was obvious to both men that the fire had been set intentionally. Burned-out husks of wood, most likely removed from the pot-bellied stove, lay at strategic spots beside piles of clothing now charred beyond recognition. Handfuls of straw had been yanked from mattresses, along with any other flammable material that could be found.

  Holmes surveyed the destruction.

  “They certainly were thorough,” he said.

  “And did nothing to hide their intent,” Douglas added.

  Emanuel, who still had not dismounted, looked down.

  “They?” he asked. “You know who did this, Cyrus?”

  Douglas shook his head. “I will not speculate. But if you hear anything, no matter how strange or improbable, you will tell me, yes?”

  “Of course!” Emanuel declared, looking slightly offended. “But no one could have known what happened. Only the dead know. Ten fresh graves in the cemetery, thirteen in all.”

  “So we heard,” Douglas said vaguely.

  “And more in other villages!” Emanuel proclaimed. “Yes! From here to Icacos. South.”

  The last bit of geography was for Holmes’s sake.

  “Nothing on the other side of the island?” Holmes inquired.

  Emanuel shook his head. “Only this side. The douen leave the east alone.”

  “How many?” Douglas asked. “How many other children have died?”

  Emanuel shrugged. “Three in Icacos, five in La Brea, another three in Point Fortin. Here in San Fernando, we have the most, but no one wants to talk. Because of the footprints.”

  “Footprints?” Holmes inquired.

  “Douen,” Emanuel announced miserably. “Below the cemetery. On the sand.”

  * * *

  Underneath the promontory where the houses stood was a headland—another smaller point of ground that jutted out over the sea. Though a path of sorts led there from the promontory, Emanuel could no longer make the trek down the steep incline.

  Which was just as well, Holmes thought. He and Douglas would traverse the path more quickly without him.

  He took out his handkerchief and patted beads of sweat from his forehead. Even the light traveling suit—t
he one that had provided fodder for Sherlock’s teasing—was too tightly woven for this implacably damp weather.

  As they drew closer to the cemetery, Holmes noticed grass growing, with brown patches here and there as silent witnesses to an unmerciful sun. There were several dozen graves in all, some bearing white crosses, others marked by a simple wreath.

  “That grass does seem at odds with its surroundings,” Holmes said.

  “It is,” Douglas responded as they continued down. “The village elders wanted a proper British cemetery, so they planted grass over Miocene rock and sediment, without much success, I’m afraid.” As they drew nearer, Holmes could see that ten small graves had been freshly dug.

  The children, he thought.

  He fought back the sorts of “what kinds of animals” queries that have no immediate or satisfying response. For him to be effective at all from this point on, he reminded himself, he would have to dismiss anything in himself that was not pure logic.

  Yet it wasn’t just the size of the graves, or the pungent smell of new dirt that drew his attention.

  “The grave heads point east,” he said. “An old Christian tradition to be sure, but an odd one in a place like this, as they seem to be all but snubbing the sea.”

  “They point toward Mecca,” Douglas said.

  “Mecca? But why, when most bear crosses?”

  Douglas shrugged. “There is such a mixture of religions here, and all of us are neighbors. Since Muslims are required to point east in death, and the Christians had no objections, the community elders declared that all graves would point toward Mecca, and all the families complied.”

  “Quite reasonable,” Holmes admitted.

  Then, looking toward the shoreline, he added, “Douglas, do you not find it curious that the douen have been calling children only on this side of the island?”

  But Douglas did not answer.

  He was staring at the sand below.

  28

  THE FOOTPRINTS COULD HAVE BELONGED TO A FIVE- OR SIX-YEAR-OLD child. They traversed the sand from one pathway to another—some fifty yards apart—that led down to the beach.

  At first glance, it appeared as if someone had simply walked backward, for play. It was only upon drawing closer that the anomaly became all too clear—the right foot was where the left foot should be, while the left was in place of the right.

  “The prints are unusually well placed,” Holmes remarked. “Far enough from the shoreline that the water will not take them, protected from the wind by that overhang in the rock, yet still visible from the little cemetery.”

  “An important element,” Douglas agreed, “if they are meant to serve as a warning.”

  Holmes nodded. “They are the final convincing that people need.” He stared out at the water. “It seems rather obvious,” he continued, “that the douen and lougarou are meant to keep people away from the shoreline. But why?”

  The two men scrutinized the footprints for any sign of tampering, then explored the area for indications of boats that might have docked with contraband. But there was nothing of the sort. It did not appear as if any boat had touched the shore at all, much less one laden with goods. There were only claw prints left by birds, along with the occasional flipper marks of leatherback sea turtles coming up out of the water, and then padding back into the sea again.

  “No boats?” Holmes asked, stating the obvious.

  “My neighbors pick cotton, tobacco, and sugar,” Douglas said. “I know of no fishermen here.”

  Then he stared at the prints again. “I suppose someone could train a small child to walk backward with its legs crossed,” he mused, “but the child would have to execute the maneuver perfectly the first time. For some fifty yards, with no assistance.”

  Holmes nodded. “And the prints would not be so perfectly weighted, nor so precisely equidistant. No,” he said, “I believe I know how it was done, although the ‘how’ isn’t really pertinent.”

  With that, he started back up the path leading to the promontory.

  “Not pertinent?” Douglas exclaimed, watching him go. “It may not be pertinent to you, but it is very much pertinent to me!”

  “To what purpose?” Holmes called back. “Since it is obvious to us both that the source isn’t supernatural, what does it matter how the unscrupulous fool the gullible? It will get us no closer to the truth, and besides, you shall figure it out for yourself soon enough, if you will but think a moment!”

  With that, he hurried along.

  Douglas hastened after him.

  “For the love of all that is sacred, Holmes,” he growled. “Will you tell me what you know about the footprints?”

  Holmes halted mid-step. When he turned to look at Douglas, one of his eyebrows was raised in a most superior manner.

  “I do not know, Douglas. I only surmise.”

  “Well, surmise, then,” Douglas said, an edge to his voice, “and pray do it quickly, for this is growing tedious.”

  Holmes took a deep breath, and exhaled.

  “Very well,” he said. “If we must waste the time to satisfy some morbid curiosity… think of geta.”

  “Geta,” Douglas repeated. “You refer to the sandals that geishas wear?”

  “Precisely. But instead of two horizontal ‘teeth’ that support the sandal, picture only one. Vertical, and molded like a little backward-facing foot—the right on the left, the left on the right. Once that is constructed,” Holmes went on, “one need only possess marginally good balance to make the prints.

  “Surely you noticed that they were heavier at the heel,” he continued, “then heavier again at the toe. It was as if someone were rocking their foot forward, the way one does a stamp.”

  “Astonishing,” Douglas muttered, looking back at the prints to confirm what Holmes said.

  “If ‘astonishing’ refers to me,” Holmes replied, “then I accept. As for the information itself? Useless. What is important now is what one can see from the beach that one cannot see from the promontory. Anything you can call to mind?”

  “Nothing,” Douglas responded. “Although we can have a look round and see,” he added doubtfully as he followed Holmes up the path.

  They returned to the promontory to find Emanuel still astride the horse, fast asleep. Douglas gently awakened the old man and helped him to dismount, though he did so carefully, as Emanuel was not only disoriented by being awakened but had grown quite sore from sitting so long with his legs splayed.

  Then Douglas unsaddled the horse, propped up a blanket against a nearby poui tree, and settled Emanuel underneath its shade and gigantic yellow blooms.

  That done, he and Holmes walked to the edge of the cliff and looked out.

  * * *

  The haze had dissipated. The sun was beginning to set, painting the sky green, gold, and violet. It was unquestionably lovely, but there was nothing unusual that could be seen from the beach but not the promontory.

  “Effluence,” Douglas said.

  “Yes,” Holmes agreed brusquely. “Detritus of some kind. That is what can be seen close up. But there was none on shore—at least, not yet.” He turned and made his way back to the burned-out husk, then began to poke around again amongst the ashes.

  Douglas looked out a moment longer, then joined him.

  The two continued to poke about in silence for a while. Something was occurring to Holmes, and he did not like it one little bit—for though it might answer their latest riddle, it made him gullible, to say nothing of culpable.

  “Were you expecting the letters from your suppliers to arrive here?” he ventured.

  “Yes,” Douglas said. “That is, no—they would first arrive at the post office in San Fernando, then a neighbor would pick them up and bring them here.” By habit, he looked over toward the pot-bellied stove.

  “The post is usually waiting at the kitchen table,” he explained. “Emanuel is the one most likely to…”

  When he realized what he was saying, he stood up, brushed the
ash off his knees and ran back to the poui tree.

  “Emanuel!” he shouted so as to awaken him. “Did you collect my letters?”

  “When?” the old man asked, gazing up at him with rheumy eyes.

  “Did you collect my letters at any time?” Douglas repeated. “Any time in the last month?”

  “Of course,” Emanuel said. “That is what neighbors do.”

  “When was the last time…?”

  “That I gathered your post? Not yesterday, so it must have been the day before… Why? Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, no, you did everything fine,” Douglas said, leaning down and patting Emanuel on the arm. “Get some rest. We will be headed back to town soon.”

  He returned to the ruined house and squatted next to Holmes, who was investigating broken crockery.

  “The letters are one with the chairs and table,” he sighed, indicating the mounds of ash by the pot-bellied stove.

  Holmes felt a wave of nausea assail him.

  “Georgiana knew about them,” he said.

  Douglas scrutinized him. “And how would she know that?”

  “Because I told her.” Holmes exhaled loudly and closed his eyes. “Whatever your suppliers may’ve written,” he continued, “was threatening enough that she and those beastly men came to search the property. When they could not find what they wanted, they burned down the house so that no one else would find them.”

  “But I only asked them to report back on disappearances and deaths. Facts that can be easily unearthed, once someone is in this vicinity. So what could possibly be so terrible that—”

  “Cyrus?” a quavering voice interrupted.

  Douglas turned. Emanuel was standing behind him, smiling.

  “Yes, Emanuel, what is it?” Douglas asked, forcing a smile in return.

  “With all this commotion, I have not had the chance to congratulate you on your engagement.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, what is wrong with me?” Emanuel said. “Never grow old, Douglas. Never, for it is a terrible fate indeed. Promise me you will not.”

  “Yes, yes, I promise,” Douglas assured him. “But what were you saying about an engagement?”