The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

by Mike Ashley (ed)

  "I've never seen anything like it," I said. "Are you sure it is complete?"

  "Oh, it is quite complete," said Holmes, "and exactly what I expected to see. Now, I think it only remains to examine the writing desk."

  The desk yielded little. The pigeon-holes had been cleared and there were two note-pads on the desk from which the upper sheets had been removed.

  "Nothing here, Holmes," I said.

  "I do not know, he replied, and slipping his lens from his pocket began an examination of the blank note pads. "Have you a cigarette, Watson?" he asked, suddenly.

  I took out my case and opened it. "I see," said Holmes, "that the horses have not lived up to your expectations. You are reduced to cheap Virginias. Still, they will suffice," and he took one and lit it.

  After a few vigorous puffs he leaned over the desk and tapped his ash onto one of the note-pads, rubbing it into the paper with his forefinger. After a moment he smiled.

  "See," he said, lifting the pad, "the ash has darkened the paper, except where it has been compressed by the weight of a pencil on the sheet above. Now, what have we here?"

  He held the paper to the light. "We have some decipherable words, Watson, and they seem to be 'poor Tony's death'. Now, what will the second pad reveal?"

  Soon he had applied his process to the second pad and examined it. " 'Lead? Lead? Lead?' " he read from it, "Each time with a question mark. That-seems to be all on this one."

  He crumpled the two ash-stained sheets into his coat pocket and straightened up. "I think," he said, "we should take our farewells of Lady Cynthia."

  While we took tea with Lady Cynthia, Holmes assured her that he expected to unravel the mystery of her father's death and would communicate with her when his researches were complete. I, however, had been growing more mystified at each of my friend's moves and, in the cab back to Baker Street, I said so.

  "Watson, Watson," he said, shaking his head. "It was you who drew my attention to this pretty little puzzle. Since then I have merely pursued a completely logical investigation into the mystery and have been able to acquire certain data which will, I firmly believe, lead me to a successful conclusion. You should know my methods well by now Surely you have some inkling?"

  I shook my head.

  "Then consider these important facts," he said, striking them off on his fingers as he announced them. "Firstly, the people of Addleton believe the Black Barrow to be accursed because grass does not grow and snow does not lie upon it; secondly, the County Medical Officer confirms that a strange disease struck the village after the opening of the barrow; thirdly, Mr Edgar believes, with good reason, that something was removed from the barrow illicitly. Does none of that assist you?"

  I had to admit that it did not, and he shook his head again in wonderment, but offered no further explanation.

  "What will be your next move?" I asked, seeking some indication that might help me.

  "I should have thought," he said, "that that also would have been obvious to you. We must go to Addleton and view the locus in quo, indeed the scene of the crime."

  "But I thought you believed there was no crime here!" I exclaimed.

  "I set out," said Holmes, "to solve a medical mystery, but we have stumbled across crime on our path. There has been a crime, Watson. One with very far-reaching consequences."

  The next afternoon found us in Addleton, a stone-built village which consisted largely of one long street with an inn at either end, huddled deep beneath the great square bulk of Addleton Moor. Once we had settled our baggage at the Goat and Boots Holmes sought out the village's only doctor. Doctor Leary was an affable Irishman in his forties, who welcomed us into his surgery.

  "And what," he asked, when we had introduced ourselves, "brings a famous consulting detective all the way from London to Addleton? We have no murders here, Mr Holmes, and apart from a bit of head-thumping among the quarrymen on pay nights we have no other kind of crime."

  "But you have a mystery," said Holmes.

  "A mystery? Ah, surely a man of reason and logic like yourself is not looking into the Curse of the Black Barrow?"

  "Certainly not," said Holmes. "I am, however, looking into events which have led the popular press to allege that the Curse is real, namely the death of Anthony Lewis, the deaths, sicknesses, stillbirths and deformed births that have occurred here, and the recent death in London of Sir Andrew Lewis. Would you deny that they create a curious pattern?"

  "There certainly seems to be a connection though, like you, I reject the supernatural explanation," said Dr Leary. He groped in his pocket for his pipe and lit it. When it was well alight he continued.

  "I came here, you know, fresh from Medical School. I thought I'd found a nice pitch", he said. "A pretty village, a bracing climate, clean water, nice people and nothing much to worry me or them except old age and quarry accidents. And so it was for the first few years, then they opened the Black Barrow, and if it wasn't cursed then it certainly deserves to be so."

  "What did you make of the sickness that affected the excavators?" Holmes asked.

  "Very little, I admit. It was not serious and it might have had a number of causes. They were sweating away up on the Moor in the summer sun, some of them young fellas who were more used to a pen than a pick. I thought it could be a touch of the sun and I treated it as such."

  "And young Lewis?" said my friend.

  "That, of course, was different. At the time I made no connection with the archaeologists. He came to me first with burns on his hands. I thought he had picked up something too

  hot with both hands. He said that he had not, that he had red patches appear on his hands for no reason and then open up like burns. I treated him with salves and wondered if it was some foreign skin disease, for he told me he had been abroad as a child."

  The doctor puffed at his pipe, reflectively. "Then it got worse. He had fainting fits, headaches, nausea — soon he was too weak to leave his bed. His father sent the best of Harley Street to help me, but they were helpless. We could only watch him fade away."

  "And how did the sickness spread?" enquired Holmes.

  "Very quickly," said Leary. "Though it was never as fierce as in young Lewis. The next was the boot boy at the Goat. He died some weeks after the young man. It seems he had been in the habit of slipping into Lewis's room in his spare time and listening to tales of soldiering and the silly lad must have caught his death from Lewis. Then there was old McSwiney. He was a retired peeler who spent all his time in the Goat. He was old enough to go at any time if he hadn't pickled himself in alcohol, but he'd never had much in the way of sickness until the end. He had the vomiting and that, but not the burns, but it was clear it was the same thing."

  "That was when I called in the County Officer of Health. We went over everything, the food and drink at the Goat, the water, the bedding, everything. There was nothing to find, the place was as clean as a whistle."

  "Your Medical Officer seems to think the disease is waterborne," said Holmes.

  "Rubbish!" said Leary. "He says that because he can't think of anything else. We have deep limestone wells here. I've had the water under a microscope, Mr Holmes. There's nothing in it except a few extra salts that people pay for in fancy spas."

  "And what do you make of it, Dr Leary?"

  "I've racked my brains for ten years," he said. "I know no more about that disease now than I did then, except one thing. As well as the deaths we had a few cases that were milder. When the deaths and the sickness stopped we thought it had gone, but then there came the births you have heard about. I didn't see how it could have been the same thing, but now I'm sure it was."

  "And what made you so sure?" asked Holmes.

  "Geography," said Leary. "Lewis died in the 'Goat' the boot boy died in the 'Goat', McSwiney drank in the 'Goat',

  those who had the sickness drank in the 'Goat', though not so

  much as McSwiney, Lord save him. When the stillbirths and the deformities occurred I saw the same pattern
. They were all

  at that end of the village, close to the 'Goat'. And I'll tell you one more thing. All of the women were already pregnant when Lewis died."

  He knocked out his pipe on the fender. Holmes steepled his fingers in front of his face for a moment, then looked up at the Irishman. "Is it over?" he asked.

  "Oh yes. It's over — for now. But we don't know what it is or how it came here. I can't tell my people that it won't happen again."

  "I hope," said Holmes, "that I can give you that assurance in the very near future. Is there anything else at all that you believe may help us?"

  Leary laughed. "They say there's a bright side to everything. You won't have seen it in the papers, for they only deal in bad news, but we did have two miraculous cures at the same time."

  "What were they?" said Holmes.

  "One was Mary Cummins, the daughter of the landlord at the 'Goat'. She was seventeen at the time, a sweet, pretty

  thing, but she started with blinding headaches, dizziness,

  fainting. This was before the barrow was opened, when there was no thought of a new sickness. Nothing I could do

  for her made any difference. Soon she had spells when her mind wandered. I began to wonder about a tumour on the brain, but do you know that while others were sickening she suddenly got well? She lost all her symptoms and she's as right as rain to this day.

  The other was old Mrs Henty, next door to the pub. Her daughter-in-law was the mother of one of the deformed babies, but Mrs Henty had a persistent eczema on both forearms. She'd had it all her life, she told me, but it vanished in days."

  "Astonishing," said Holmes. "Now, Doctor, we have taken up enough of your time. I assure you again, that I believe I am well

  on the track of this thing and will let you know my conclusions." We dined that night at our inn and had the good fortune to be waited upon by the same Mary Cummins that Dr Leary had

  mentioned to us. Whatever her difficulties of ten years ago, she was now a buxom, raven-haired countrywoman in her middle twenties, vigorous and witty.

  After dinner we established ourselves beside the fire in the back parlour, where Mary brought us our drinks.

  "Miss Cummins," said Holmes, "may I ask if you know why Dr Watson and I are in Addleton?"

  She smiled. " 'Tis no business of mine," she said, "but I hear tell you've come about the Black Barrow."

  "Perhaps you would sit with us for a moment," he suggested. "You are right that we are investigating the singular disease that affected the village when the barrow was opened."

  She took a chair and he continued. "I believe that, so far from being one of the sick, you actually recovered from an illness at that time. Would it embarrass you to tell us about it?"

  "Not at all, sir," she replied. "I had been ill for nearly two years and getting worse all the time. First it was giddy spells, then faints, then cruel headaches and sometimes I seemed to lose my wits altogether. Dr Leary tried all sorts but it kept getting worse. He said I should have to have an operation on my head and I was rare frightened, but then, so fast as it came, it was gone, and as true as I'm sitting here I've never known a day's sickness since."

  "Remarkable," said Holmes. "And to what do you attribute you cure?"

  "Well, they say as all the sickness came out of that old barrow, and if it did, I say as my cure came out too."

  Holmes eyed her, thoughtfully. "You remember young Mr Lewis?" he asked.

  "Indeed I do," she said. "Poor young man. He was all in trouble with his father and then to die like that."

  "Did you know him well?"

  She blushed prettily. "Well, sir, when he was well he would make up to me. No more than was proper, though. And I daresay I was younger then and looked after him a bit special because of it."

  "Did he ever show you, or tell you, what he had in his possession?" asked Holmes.

  "How did you know about that?" she asked. "He said as no one knew he had it and I must keep his secret."

  "You need not fear my knowing, Mary," said Holmes. "May I ask what it was?"

  "Well, I had gone to his room one day, to tidy up, you know, and he came in. Now father's always been very strict about me not lingering in guests rooms when they're there, so I made to go, but Mr Lewis said, 'Let me show you something.' He pulled his trunk out from under his bed and he took out a great old pot, a big round earthenware pot with a lid. 'What's that?' I said, and he smiled and said, 'That's the strangest thing in the world. It'll be the making of me,' then he took my hand and put it on the pot and it was warm outside, like a brick that's been in the oven."

  "I pulled my hand away, but he turned the lamp down and says 'Look at this, Mary.' He lifted the lid off that pot and there was a beautiful blue light came out of it, all shimmering like water. It took my breath away, I tell you. 'Whatever's in there?' I said, and he smiled again and said 'My fortune, Mary. No matter what my father may do,' and he closed the lid again."

  "And what did you think it was?" enquired my friend.

  "To tell the truth, I thought it was magic. I've never seen the like before or since." She got up from her chair. "I'll tell you something else, Mr Holmes, that I've never told nobody sometimes I think it was what he had in that funny old pot that cured my brain. Now that's daft, isn't it?"

  "You may very well be right, Mary," said Holmes. "If we might ask one more favour — is Mr Lewis's old room occupied?" "No, sir," she said. "Did you wish to change?"

  "Not at all," said Holmes, "but I would like a glimpse of that room."

  She offered to take us up at once, and led us to a room at the end of the main landing. Holmes stood in the middle of the little, low-ceilinged bedroom, then stepped to the casement. "You can see the Moor from here," he observed, "and whose is that cottage next door?"

  "That's old Mrs Henry's," said Mary. "She had a cure too. All her skin trouble went. Poor Mr Lewis, and little Georgie the boot boy and old McSwiney, they all went and all them others was sick, but Mrs Henty and me we seemed to get the good side. Funny, isn't it?"

  "It is certainly strange," said Holmes, and led the way out of the room.

  Holmes was down early in the morning, at the breakfast table before I joined him. He was in high good humour, though a cold snap in the night had brought a sprinkling of snow to Addleton.

  "What next?" I asked him, having virtually abandoned any attempt to understand his enquiries.

  "I told you, Watson. We have come here to view the locus in quo, and once the village photographer arrives, we shall pay a visit to this ill-famed barrow."

  We had finished our breakfast when Mary informed us that Mr Swain, the village photographer, awaited us in the parlour. He greeted us cheerfully and offered the opinion that it would be pretty on the Moor in the snow.

  We took the inn's pony-trap and, loading Mr Swain's equipment, set out for the Moor. Although the top of Addleton Moor lies at about 1,100 feet above sea level, a decent track winds up from the village at one corner and, even with a slight covering of snow, we had no difficulty in reaching the top.

  On the exposed top the snow lay thicker, a blanket of white that glittered in the morning sun. All around us hummocks in the snow revealed the presence of burial mounds, each casting a pale lilac shadow in the white. Holmes stood up in the trap and gazed around him.

  "Ah! There it is!" he exclaimed, and pointed.

  Ahead of us and to our left a dark mark broke the whiteness and, as we moved towards it, we could see that it was another tumulus, bare both of snow and vegetation, exposing raw earth.

  "Have you ever photographed the Black Barrow before?" Holmes asked the photographer.

  "No, sir. That would be a wasted plate. Nobody hereabouts would pay for a picture of that thing," he replied with some vehemence.

  We drew to a halt close to the Black Barrow and Mr Swain set up his camera under Holmes's directions. I walked around the mound, finding it nothing more than a heap of compacted soil, unrelieved by any blade of grass. Its lower edge was
ringed with flat stones and, looking closely at its surface, it was possible to see where Sir Andrew's men had cut their trench through its centre. Apart from its nakedness, there was nothing to distinguish it from any of the forty or fifty mounds round about. One did not have to be superstitious to find something disturbing in that patch of dead, dark, soil.

  I stepped aside while Mr Swain exposed half a dozen plates and then we were back in the trap and returning to the village.

  Holmes was still in good spirits over luncheon, so that I queried his mood. "I have every right to be cheerful, Watson. This morning's excursion gave me the final piece of evidence. Nature has assisted my enquiry, though I made assurance doubly sure and asked Mr Swain for his photographs."

  Mr Swain joined us over coffee, rather nervous and apologetic. "I do not know what has happened, Mr Holmes," he said. "The general views of the Moor are crystal clear, as they should have been with this morning's light, but all four plates of the barrow are spoiled. Look," he said and laid the box of plates on the table.

  Holmes took each plate in turn and held it up to the window, passing each to me when he had done with it. Two were fine panoramas of the snowclad Moor but each of the others was just a swirl of fog.

  "But this is exactly what Edgar said happened to his plates!" I exclaimed.

  "Precisely," declared Holmes, "and thereby our case is closed. I am deeply grateful to you, Mr Swain."

  The confused photographer took the money that Holmes offered, thanked him and left rapidly, as though he feared my friend would change his mind.

  When the coffee was done Holmes drew out his watch. "We might", he said, "catch the mid-afternoon express to London. Would you be so kind as to ask the boy for our bags and the reckoning?"

  On the way back to London Holmes discoursed wittily on anarchists and poisoners, on underworld argot and a dozen different topics, but I heard him with only half an ear for my mind was churning in its attempts to make sense of what Sherlock Holmes evidently regarded as a successful enquiry. At length I could stand it no longer.