The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part I

by David Marcum

  “I don’t require for you to help the patients, Mr. Holmes. A team of skilled doctors, ably assisted by caring nurses, is laboring night and day to accomplish that herculean task. What I ask of you is to determine from where the plague is originating. We have isolated every patient, and yet new cases continue to occur, almost every day.”[17]

  Holmes frowned. “It was my understanding that such miasmas have been mainly eliminated in no small part due to the sewers engineered by Sir Joseph Bazalgette?”[18]

  “But, Holmes, the plague is mainly spread via rats,”[19] I interjected.

  “That is indeed the accepted hypothesis, Dr. Watson,” replied Sir James. “It is believed that the Black Death first descended upon Europe via grain ships originating from China, which unwittingly harbored the infected rats.”

  “Surely you must have a mechanism in place to safeguard against such an infestation?” asked Holmes.

  “Indeed we do, Mr. Holmes. Like many hospitals, we kept a clowder[20] of Manx mousers, descended from a cat that legendarily sailed about the HMS Ajax at Trafalgar.[21] However, three weeks ago all of our Manx were suddenly found dead.”

  Holmes sat up again. “That is most remarkable.”

  Sir James shrugged. “Is it? I thought it a coincidence, perhaps one that initiated the infestations. So we have taken pains to rectify the situation. We brought in a famous rat-catcher from Shadwell, by the name of Dick Whyte.”[22]

  “But the results have not been satisfactory?”

  “Mr. Whyte continues to catch large numbers of rats, Mr. Holmes, but it has made no impact upon the spread of the contagion.”

  “Then what is your theory?”

  “I came to seek a theory, Mr. Holmes, not to suggest one. However, Dr. Edward Purcell, who we brought in this summer to help us combat London’s outbreak of cholera, suspects that it might have been introduced to the hospital by a coolie from Wapping or Rotherhithe.”[23]

  Holmes glanced at his pocket watch. “The hour is getting late,” he noted, “but hospitals never sleep and rat-catchers are nocturnal beings. Let us waste no more time here, but rather see what we can ascertain tonight.”

  Sir James insisted on driving us to the hospital in his brougham. On the way, I mentioned how odd it was to find a disease typically associated with the history books now stalking the streets of London.

  “Not really, Dr. Watson,” said our new employer. “As you well know, the plague has never entirely vanished. The Ottomans battled it until a few decades ago, and China continues to experience outbreaks.[24] As our means of transportation grow ever more rapid and our world shrinks, diseases long thought past, or even those yet to be discovered, will spread ever so much faster.”

  “So this outbreak is affecting all of London?” inquired Holmes.

  “No, Mr. Holmes, the Board of Health tells me that Charing Cross Hospital is the only one seeing cases so far. They are monitoring it closely, to ensure that it does not spread beyond our walls.”

  “Most singular! When exactly did the outbreak begin?”

  “It was roughly two weeks ago. Dr. Purcell was the first to note the symptoms. The patients all developed high fevers, flushing, blackened tongues, tarry excreta, and finally fits[25] before they died. In the beginning, only those who were already ill seemed to catch it. The first several victims had severe cases of cholera. Dr. Purcell thought that perhaps it was some never-before-seen variant of that great scourge. But as this year’s cholera outbreak waned, our plague persisted. It struck down a man with consumption,[26] another with an inoperable tumor on his liver, and a woman with severe dropsy.[27] And then the most tragic thing of all happened. It struck down one of our physicians.”

  “An elderly practitioner?”

  “Quite the opposite. Dr. Alfred Taylor was but a few years out from his degree at the University of London.[28] He was in the prime of health. A great loss, for his career was considered to be very promising. He was researching the pathology of chorea,[29] and was due to win the Golding prize.”

  “Ah, and will someone else be awarded the prize in his stead?” asked Holmes, mildly.

  Sir James shook his head sadly. “Certainly not! It will be awarded posthumously. Still, we have been fortunate, really, given the history of the medieval plague doctors. Most of them survived little longer than their patients. Every member of the hospital staff has been exemplary in their bravery, for none have deserted their posts.”

  I thought about the costume of the plague doctors, with its heavy waxed overcoat, brimmed hat, glass-eyed mask, and cone-shaped beak, and shook my head at the terror that might be unleashed were such signs of imminent death to make a return to the streets of London. These grim ponderings were cut short by our arrival at the hospital.

  Although it had once been situated near the similarly-named railway station, the building now lay just off the Strand on Agar Street. The ionic capitals flanking the front door and gleaming white façade inspired confidence, and gave little hint of the terrible pestilence that currently ravaged the inhabitants. As we were about to mount the front steps, Holmes placed a hand on my shoulder. “Watson, there is no need for you to go any further. I will gladly report back to you what I discover.”

  I frowned. “Whatever are you talking about, Holmes?”

  “Death might stalk these halls, Watson. There is no need for you to expose yourself.”

  “Do not be ridiculous, Holmes. I have faced greater dangers than this, and I still have the Jezail lead in my shoulder to prove it.”

  He shook his head. “But you had no other to think of when you braved those perils. Now you do.”

  I nodded in sudden comprehension. “Ah, I see, Holmes. But Mary understands who it is she married. The Reaper may walk in the door of my consulting room at any moment. Should I bar it as well?”

  Holmes smiled. “Capital! Well, I must admit that I am glad to have you at my side, Watson. I am somewhat out of my element, but we are very much in yours.” He turned to his client. “Now, Sir James, if you will be so kind as to point us in the direction of Mr. Dick Whyte, we will begin our investigation with him. We will look for you in your office when we are finished.”

  The hospital director reminded us that Mr. Whyte had not been entrusted with the true reason for his sudden employment. He then indicated that the rat-catcher’s wagon could be found parked by the side entrance off William IV Street, named in honor of our great Queen’s father. Holmes nodded and turned his steps in that direction. The four-wheeler proved to be easy to identify, for it was a ramshackle affair whose weathered boards looked as if they were on the verge of utter collapse. A sorry nag, far past the time when it should have been put out to pasture, was harnessed to the front, slowly grazing from a feed bag. The conveyance was deserted when we arrived, though we could hear rustling and squeaking sounds coming from within the locked compartment, which suggested that the man’s outings had thus far been successful.

  We had not long to wait before the owner made his appearance. Mr. Whyte was a middle-aged man with huge black whiskers, and his mouth was only visible from where his beard parted to permit the blackened stem of a pipe. He wore an eccentric scarlet topcoat, waistcoat, and breeches, with a huge leather belt from which hung a series of small cast-iron cages. The rodent occupants of these cages were clearly terrified by a small black and tan terrier that nipped at them constantly. As the man drew nearer, he seemed alarmed to find us inspecting his wagon.

  “What gives, Guv’nor?” he cried, briefly removing the pipe from between his lips.

  “You are Mr. Dick Whyte, I presume?”

  “I give my name only in return for another, Mister Questioner.”

  “My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my associate, Dr. Watson.”

  He shrugged. “What of it?” he asked in a surly tone.

  “I have been retained by
Sir James Saunders to inspect the hospital for potential sources of contagion. You have a very dangerous profession, Mr. Whyte.”

  “No more than some. I’ve a mate who lost his leg working the rails, and another who drowned off Gravesend. But my beauties rarely bite, Mr. Holmes.” The pipe rapidly returned to his mouth between sentences, such that I doubted that he ever took a breath directly from the air.

  “Are you not concerned about disease?” inquired Holmes.

  His face twisted in disdain. “Nah, I am well protected from that.”

  “Really?” said Holmes, his eyebrows rising. “How so?”

  The man stared at Holmes for a moment, and then shrugged again. “I guess there is little harm in letting you onto my little secret. Do you know, Mr. Holmes, the occupation of the only people to uniformly survive the greatest malady of them all, the Black Death, which some have blamed on my beauties?”

  “No, I am afraid not.”

  “It is said that none who kept a tobacconist shop died, Mr. Holmes. Thus, the finest Virginia leaf is my charm,” said he smugly, emitting a great cloud of blue smoke.

  Holmes burst into a hearty laugh. “Then I too must have little to fear, Mr. Whyte, for Dr. Watson here has often accused me of poisoning myself with a surfeit of tobacco.[30] Now then, perhaps you might deign to show me your catch for the evening?”

  Whyte’s brusque manner appeared to have vanished after the discovery of this shared habit, and he proudly displayed for us his rats. From a distance, I gazed at the pack with some revulsion, but Holmes bent close and stared at them with his singular intentness. Finally, he straightened up, a gleam in his eyes which suggested that he had seized upon some irregularity.

  He turned to the rat-catcher and glanced at his terrier. “That is a fine dog you have there, Mr. Whyte. It is a fortunate thing that you brought a canine to assist you, given the sudden deaths of all of the cats that once lived on site.”

  Whyte grinned broadly. “Tommie here is a grandson of the famous Jacko himself.[31] There has never been a finer ratter, Mister. A far sight better than some mangy cats!”

  Holmes nodded. “You may have noted, Watson, during the period when we shared our lodgings, that there were some nights when I would never return home?”

  I was surprised by this sudden non sequitur, but managed to stammer a response. “I have so remarked, upon occasion.”

  His face lit up with a whimsical smile. “I have several small retreats scattered about London, most of which can be found in less than salubrious locales.[32] It may surprise you to learn that one such refuge lies over a boxing den in Cambridge Circus which, in its former life, served as a rat-baiting pit. The denizens of that spot are still to be found in great numbers.”

  “I fail to comprehend your point, Holmes.”

  He shook his head. “That is because you see, but do not fully observe.” He turned to the rat-catcher. “Tell me, Mr. Whyte, these are old English rats, are they not?”

  The man’s expression turned wary. “That’s right.”

  Holmes smiled. “Also known as the black rat, or ship’s rat? Where exactly did you find them, Mr. Whyte?”

  “In the hospital, of course.”

  “Indeed? For black rats are nigh impossible to find in urban London now that they have been replaced by the Norwegian, or brown, rat.”[33]

  Whyte suddenly turned a ghastly color and looked from one to the other of us like a hunted creature. “I don’t know what you mean,” he stammered.

  “I submit,” said Holmes in his sternest tone, “Mr. Whyte, that you poisoned the clowder of Manx that once lived in this hospital so that the Director would be forced to hire you to take over the business of keeping it free of rats. And that you introduced a pack of ship’s rats, collected by you on the wharfs, to this building, thereby introducing a terrible contagion. I am afraid that you will procure a charge of manslaughter, at the very least.”

  Whyte was shaking his head violently. “No, Mister, I swear it’s not true. I never killed no cats! You are right about the black rats, but they were never set free in the hospital. I just bring them along for show, pretending that I caught them here, since they pay me by the rat. Truth be told, this place has no rat problem. It’s as clean as a whistle. If I didn’t pad my catch, I wouldn’t make a shilling in this gig.”

  Holmes stared at the man intently for a moment, and then laughed sharply. “I believe you, Mr. Whyte. I suggest that you terminate your employment forthwith and return to your former haunts of Shadwell. I shall inform Sir James of your departure.”

  “Whatever you say, Mister!” the rat-catcher exclaimed. Within moments, he and his terrier were planted upon the wagon’s seat and his nag was being whipped into motion.

  Holmes watched them go for a moment and then turned to me with a chuckle. “I have been pursuing a red herring, Watson. Given the veritable den of thieves that constitutes greater London, it is perhaps of little surprise that there should be two villains in this case, a small one in the form of our Mr. Whyte, and somewhere else a much more important one. William of Ockham would be much displeased.[34] Still, we have learned a few facts of note from Mr. Whyte.”

  “We have?”

  “Oh, yes, Watson. We shall docket those for the time being and see what additional matters will bear upon it. What steps would you propose to take now, Watson?”

  “I would inspect the medical files of the victims in an attempt to find some common link.”

  “Excellent, Watson! The same thought had occurred to me. Let us rejoin Sir James and have him grant the necessary access.”

  In the office of the Director, Holmes quickly recounted what had transpired with the rat-catcher. Sir James absorbed this news with little expression other than a small frown, and then agreed to show Holmes the records of the stricken patients. “They are all in Dr. Purcell’s office. If you will follow me, gentlemen?”

  The place in question proved to be a good-sized chamber, half of which was lined with bookcases, while the other portion was set up as a chemical laboratory. In the former sat a heavy oaken desk upon which lay several theatre playbills and a stack of manila folders filled with handwritten papers. The broad, low tables of the laboratory side were littered with curved retorts, test-tubes, measures, litmus-paper, glass pipettes, and a formidable array of bottles filled with all manners of solutions and dry materials.

  Holmes surveyed the place quietly. “What exactly is Dr. Purcell working on in here, Sir James?” he asked, waving his hand towards the chemical apparatus.

  “Ah, yes, well, the man is a veritable genius. When he is not directly attending to patients, Dr. Purcell is always experimenting on new compounds which might help alleviate the suffering of our patients. When he first arrived, he was working on developing anti-cholera agents, but he has since shifted his aims towards trying to find some vaccine against the plague. His work is being supported by our great patron, Miss Vivian Crawford, heiress to the Crawford paper fortune.”

  “Is such a thing really possible?” I inquired.[35]

  “Dr. Purcell believes so. He has taken for his inspiration the fabled ‘Four Thieves Vinegar.’”

  I shook my head. “I am not familiar with that particular medicinal.”

  “It was the secret recipe of a medieval gang of burglars from Marseille who used it to protect themselves from the plague while they plundered the homes of the sick and the dead.”

  “Dr. Purcell clearly believes that it is composed of vinegar, wormwood, marjoram, sage, cloves, rosemary, camphor, and several other herbs which I do not immediately recognize,”[36] said Holmes as he inspected the contents of the tables. He turned back to the Director. “Well, Sir James, Watson and I will now spend some time perusing these charts in order to determine if we can find some common thread that binds these victims together.”

  With that dismi
ssal, Sir James left us to this work, which proved to be exceedingly dull. Hours of attempting to decipher the nigh illegible scrawl of a hurried physician strained my eyes mightily, and at one point I closed them for a minute of rest. The next thing I knew, Holmes was shaking me awake.

  “My dear Watson,” said he, smiling. “Let’s return you to your home. There is nothing more to be learned here tonight.”

  “I am very sorry, Holmes,” I replied, stretching. “Did you learn anything of note?”

  “No, but the hour is early, metaphorically-speaking. I have hopes that tomorrow will bring some progress.”

  The following morn, my wife and I were breaking our fast when the clang of the bell announced the arrival of an early visitor. At this hour, I presumed it to be a patient and put on my coat so as to be ready to receive them. To my surprise, it was Sherlock Holmes who stood upon my step.

  “Good morning, Watson. How long is your docket of patients this morning? Do you think Jackson or Anstruther would handle them for you?”

  “Yes, certainly. Have you solved it, then?”

  He shook his head ruefully. “Not yet, Watson, not yet. But I think it possible that Dr. Purcell might have something interesting to tell us, and I knew that, having begun upon a case, you would be loath to not see it through to the end.”

  “Of course. I would be happy to accompany you.”

  “Very good. He lives not far from here, in Harley Street, but in the interest of time, I have engaged a hansom.”

  The residence of Dr. Purcell proved to be one of the somber, flat-faced, ochre-colored brick townhouses wherein the great specialists of the age practiced their arts. The door was answered by Dr. Purcell’s valet who, at the presentation of our cards, admitted us into the well-appointed sitting room. There we were soon joined by a middle-aged woman. Even in the long-past bloom of youth she could not have been considered handsome, for she had a thin pointy nose, protuberant eyes, obstinate chin, and the deep lines of her cheeks suggested that the frown that lay upon her face was perpetual. The cut of her gloomy black dress harkened from many seasons ago, and from her neck dangled a pair of silver pince-nez upon a brown silken cord.