Now, listen here, laddie, I normally don’t have truck with ye ravagers of the printed page. If I had me way, I’d’ve given ye a good hiding when ye darkened me doorway, then set the hounds after ye. Ye are lucky, laddie, very lucky, that yer Mr Cooper is such a good and long-time friend o’ mine, and that I don’t hold against him that he edits such a foul and scunner rag, or that he gives employment to such goamless bauheids as yerself. Now, I’ve told ye: aye, I knew the great Sherlock Holmes many years yont, that he was but a bairn to me, and that it was just after he had been sent down. No, I don’t reckon he ever told that sawbones pal of his about what happened awa back then, when he took the train out of Aud Reekie, but do ye want to hear this or no? Fine. Close yer mouth, open yer ears, and put down in yer jotter exactly the words I tell ye, though ye will print what ye want, I reckon.
When first I saw Sherlock Holmes on the railway platform at Kilglarig, I paid the lad almost no attention whatsoever. He was a pale stick of a fellow just alighted off the morning train from Edinburgh, carrying a carpet satchel and looking about. I might have though he was a tad confused, perhaps a first-time visitor to Kilglarig, nae that there was much to see in our wee village, but he seemed to fit in, as if he understood everything his gaze lit upon. It was his air of familiarity, even though he was obviously a stranger to me, that made me dismiss him so quickly. Besides, as the saying goes, I had other kippers to fry.
For several days I had anticipated the arrival of a shipment of geologic samples from Professor Otto Lidenbrock, who had by then returned to his teaching position at the Johanneum in Hamburg. Each day, I had early departed Slate House in time to meet the morning train, and each day, so far, I had returned disappointed. I had, of course, hoped that day would be different, but the scowl from the scunner porter gave me the worst of it afore I even voiced me standard query. I admit I was already put out for the day. No one ever called me a patient man, so when the red-faced fellow, who was nae even a proper Scot but a jump-up from London, gave me a look like curdled milk on cold porridge, I stomped up like I was going to give him a good blatter with me walking stick.
“Don’t give me that impudent look when I haven’t even yet asked ye a single question,” I told him.
“But, Professor MacCullaich, you only ever ask ‘bout one blasted thing,” the porter protested. “Where are the rocks? Is that not what you were going to ask? About them bloody rocks?”
“Aye,” I grumbled, giving him the evil eye, though he seemed nae to have the wits to be moved by it.
“Well, I don’t have anything labeled rocks or addressed to you, do I?” He gave me a smug look. “All I got addressed to anyone in this whole pitiful one-horse dorp is to a Mr Zebra Chilich, and that ain’t you, is it? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got…”
The porter cringed and fell back as I raised me walking stick to give him a few whacks for being so impudent. He would have got a good hiding too, something to remember, but me wrist was seized from behind and I could nae break the grip. I turned, expecting to see someone twice me size, but it was the stick-thin stranger.
“Let go of me this moment!” I yelled.
I was surprised when he instantly released me. I was so taken aback at his sudden compliance I lost me balance, and would have gone aspawling on the platform in front of God and everyone had he nae caught and arighted me. Again, I felt the impression of great strength, as if the stranger, slight though he be, had the means to easily bend a fireplace poker.
“What do ye mean by…” I started to demand.
“Pardon my intervention,” he said calmly, “but I imagine that even in Scotland there are laws against giving people what they so richly deserve?”
Me brow furrowed and I shot a scowl at the porter. Aye, he was just such a Sassenach to swear out a warrant to the magistrate rather than take his comeuppance like a man. I nodded to the stranger.
“You are obviously not Scottish,” he said to the porter. “A Spitalfields man. You were a sailor in the Far East, South China Sea obviously. You ran afoul of the law upon returning to London, but you fear the fellows of your rookery more than the law. To escape both, you took an anonymous post with the Scottish railways.”
The look in the porter’s eyes told me all that had been said was God’s truth. His mouth was agape, and I admit mine was as well, so I shut it and tried me best to look stern, though me former ire had now been replaced by a sense of befuddled wonderment.
The young fellow looked to me. “I take it, you know of no one in Kilglarig with the unlikely name, Zebra Chilich?”
“Nay,” I told him. “The lad is daft!”
The stranger shook his head. “Less daft and more linguistically ignorant, trying to pronounce something unfamiliar.” He looked to the porter. “Show us the cargo destined for Mr Zebra Chilich.”
“How you know those things ‘bout me?” the porter demanded.
“Do as ye’re told,” I snarled.
The porter glared at us, seeing an old man and a man nae much more than a boy. But he’d also seen me swing me walking stick, and how easily the stranger had stopped me arm.
“All right, all right,” the thick-headed porter finally said. “It’s again’ the rules, but if it’ll get rid of you two loonies, fine.”
We followed the porter into the darkness of the freight carriage, him leading us past cargo destined for villages further up the rails to some crates marked for Kilglarig. He pointed to one in particular.
“There you be, Zebra Chilich, stenciled right above Kilglarig,” the lout proclaimed. “I don’t know who that is, but it ain’t you, so I got to cart this in so the stationmaster can…”
“Zerbrechilich,” the young man said.
“Well, ain’t that what…”
“It is German for ‘fragile’,” he continued. “On the ends of the crate is stenciled the word Gesteinsprobeh, another German word, meaning ‘rock samples’.”
“Me specimens!” I exclaimed.
“If you will turn the crate over,” the young man said, “you will discover the real name of the intended recipient.”
“Of all the stupid things…” I started to say.
“Who you calling stupid!”
“Ye, ye queern-headed fool!” I shouted. “Ye loaded the damn thing in downside-up, ye goamless bawheid! Now, get that out to me cart, and be quick about it, ‘less ye want yer employers to ken what a witless dolt ye be, and our constable to ken ‘bout a knave who should be tossed in the chokey. Move it!”
For an instant I thought the porter would attack me, but the fire in his eyes was quenched by his rank cowardice. He unlashed a hand-truck from the wall, wrestled the crate onto it, and wheeled it out onto the platform.
“I cannae thank ye enough, young man,” I told him. “I ken the stationmaster would have eventually sorted out that fool’s mess, but I am eager to…” I paused, rather abashed. “I am letting me emotions run afore me manners. I am Professor Angus Hamish MacCullaich…”
“Yes, of the University of Edinburgh, author of ‘The Evidence of Anomalous Fossils in Igneous Strata’ and ‘Identifying Geologic Location Markers Through Microscopic Examination,’ and, of course, other papers, but those are the most important.”
“Aye, they are,” I replied slowly, stunned to immobility, while the porter puffed away from us. “But I’m surprised ye ken them.”
It was quite unusual for me to be recognized outside Edinburgh, for though the Kilglarig villagers who had truck with me called me by me title, it was purely honorific; to them, I was merely the ill-tempered old man who lived in Slate House, a baukie-bird of a gaffer who loved his aqua-vitae almost as much as he loved tramping about the land looking for odd bonny rocks, and who had to be tolerated because he was rich, hot headed, and quick to swing his walking stick at slow-witted bawheids. And, in all that, they were more right than wrong, weren’t they?
“I read anything that interests me,” the young man said. “Any monograph that furthers my practical knowledge.”
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“It’s the first time any of me papers have been accused of being practical,” I told him. “I take it ye are a university man, then?”
He glanced down, then up. “Cambridge, until recently.”
“Ah, I see.”
“My name is Sherlock Holmes.”
I offered him me hand, we shook, and I motioned for him to accompany me as I headed to me cart. “I am pleased to meet ye, Mr Holmes. I do nae ken how to thank ye for quickly sorting out me problem back there.”
“It was nothing,” he said. “Anyone with a working knowledge of German could have cut through the Gordian knot he made of the word. It was immediately obvious to me that the crate had been loaded into the luggage van with the address facing downward.”
“And the details about that scunner porter?” I prompted. “How did ye ken so much about him from a glance.” I paused and gave him a baleful look. “The rascal was nae aknown to ye, was he?”
“No, not at all,” Holmes assured me. “At his first word, I had his city of birth, at his second, his home within a few streets. The dialects of London are a study of mine. With but a few sentences I can plot a man’s journey, from birth to instant. As to his trade, his gait revealed him as a man accustomed to walking a rolling deck, the browning of his skin was not gained in London, or Scotland for that matter, and the skill of the flesh artist—his tattoos—revealed all his ports of call, though he does take care to keep them hidden, a sense of caution flung to the wind during his argument.”
“Aye, that’s all well and good, I suppose, and does sound rather obvious when all laid out…”
Sherlock Holmes sighed softly.
“…but what about his criminal past?’ I demanded. “Surely, ye can’t claim to ken the heart of a man just from looking at him, which is beyond even the vicar at the kirk.”
“No, matters of the heart are a mystery to me, and ever will be, I fear,” Holmes admitted. “But just beneath his collar are two pale scars, parallel to each other, the result of a branding initiation by the criminal brotherhood of the rookery in Shoreditch. The fact he has taken pains to hide the marks tells me he was not honest with his employers. The fact that he has taken such a low and obscure post tells me he is on the run from the police, and, since he is not hiding among his brother thieves and cut-purses, that he is also at odds with his brethren in the rookery, who are much more dangerous than the police. His trespasses against the law are not serious enough to issue a general hue and cry, so he remains a rather minor villain on the run, more pathetic than dangerous.”
I shook me head in wonderment. In days of old, such a young man as this Sherlock Holmes might have been beset upon by the Witchfinder General, but there was no denying the iron logic of his summations. By that time, we had reached the cart, and the porter had placed the crate in the bed, and none too softly, and now stood about looking like a lost doddie, and nae as intelligent by half.
“Be about your business, ye menseless galik!” I told him.
“But…my time…my trouble…” he muttered.
“Time and trouble?” I shouted. “Time and trouble is what ye cost me. Bless me but I do nae ken why I should nae take it out of yer worthless hide.”
The porter scurried away, and I was glad to see his back. I turned to me young acquaintance.
“I am pleased to have met ye, Mr Holmes,” I said. “Ye have a keen mind and a sharp wit, I’ll say that much.” I paused. “Have ye considered applying to…”
He shook his head. “The pace was much too slow, the methods of teaching unsuited to this burgeoning age of steam and galvanic energy, and not at all compatible with my nature, or my goals.”
“And what be those goals, if I may ask?”
“I see myself in the role of a consulting detective.”
I frowned. “A policeman? An enquiry agent? A worthy goal, I suppose, for some, but…”
“Nothing of the sort,” he assured me. “Such investigators are bound by rules inimical to the pursuit and attainment of justice. More than that, though, the very environment in which they work fosters the belief that some people, by birth, rank or achievement are above or beyond the law. They are not.”
“But the law is nae always itself just,” I pointed out.
“No, it is not,” he agreed, and there was such a hardness in his tone and his eyes that I decided not to pursue the question further, though I did wonder what could have happened in so short a life to have such an effect on the young man.
“What brings ye to these parts?” I asked. “A man of yer insight would do well in London, whatever yer profession.”
“No doubt I shall base myself in London eventually, for that is where the forces of history and society seem to converge in this age,” young Holmes conceded. “But, for the moment, I am content to roam for as long as two years, observing the world and the ways of its peoples. Also, there are many avenues of research I would pursue, in the fields of chemistry, botany, geology and biology, that would be most ill-suited in an urban environment.”
“Well, I am glad to see that University has nae left ye though ye have left University,” I quipped, feeling a bit more smug than I should have allowed myself, as it turned out.
“The same might be said of you, Professor MacCullaich,” he murmured. “You have been on sabbatical from the University of Edinburgh for some three months. You are at odds with the current administration about certain controversial theories and are unsure you wish to return, yet your desire for research, no matter the cost to your reputation, or pocketbook, continues…some might claim with a degree of fanaticism. You daily engage in long treks locally, collecting geologic samples, ignoring the pain of your arthritis, which has increased recently. Lately you have become fascinated in a group of standing stones, a megalithic henge erected by a long-vanished people. The ancient structure is located in a clearing in a wide clearing near a very large river, surrounded by a thick and long-neglected stand of forest.”
I bristled and sputtered at his impudence. It was one thing to see his trickery (or so I still thought at the time) used to confuddle a loutish oaf like the porter, but quite another to have it turned upon meself. As I decided whether to thrash me new acquaintance with me walking stick—though I rather doubted it considering how easily he had stayed me hand earlier—I gazed into his face looking for some trace of mockery, for I had endured more than me share of it from inferiors, but I saw nothing but placidity, and maybe a very faint hint of amusement, which I could nae rightly deny him under the circumstances. In seconds, me ire subsided.
“Aye,” I agreed, grudgingly.
“That you are on sabbatical from the University is evidenced by your protracted presence in the village, and away three months by the wear upon your walking stick, which was presented you just four months previously,” Holmes explained. “Absenting yourself at a time of year not associated with the start of sabbaticals indicates your conflict with the administration. You ignored instructions to cease your investigations into the hollow nature of our terrestrial sphere, for such are the claims of Professor Lidenbrock, whose samples reached you today, resulting in a mutually agreed absence. Your eagerness to receive the samples speaks to your desire to pursue the matter, and your zeal by the fact that you bore the cost of freighting the samples, despite a frugal nature,”
“All quite true, Mr Holmes,” I admitted. “The fools refused to consider the validity of Lidenbrock’s theories, they have put me into the cold, ignoring me own reputation. However, I am surprised ye ken anything of Lidenbrock and the hollow Earth. The results of his expedition to Snaefellsjokull in Iceland were suppressed, for the most part, except for a sensational pamphlet in French.”
“I make it my business to know many odd things about remote reaches of the world and the people inhabiting them,” Holmes said. “I knew of the professor’s expedition from an acquaintance in the Royal Geographic Society, but the pamphlet you mention was forwarded to me by an aunt on my mother’s side who knew of my penchant f
or collecting odd facts.” The corners of his mouth tugged upward slightly. “I have not yet decided whether to consign the information to the box room of my brain or to disregard it.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but decided nae to press the matter since there were other questions in need of answers.
“How could ye possibly ken me activities or the state of me health?” I demanded.
“Your journeys are written in the scuffs upon your shoes and walking stick, in the dust upon your clothing, in splashes of mud and in the streaks caused by various rocks and minerals, by leaves of trees in your cuffs and traces of moss upon your knees,” Holmes said. “There are many small scars upon your hands from a lifetime of collecting specimens, as well as tiny cuts attesting to more recent activities. You prominently carry a journal in your jacket pocket, with writing instruments, and your place is held by a paper marker upon which you have sketched, and over-sketched, the layout of an ancient henge, as well as views of various standing stones.”
“Hmph,” I grumbled. “And me pains?”
“A prescription for the local chemist half protruding from your lower right pocket,” he replied, pointing. “It is a strong dosage,” he added as I pushed the slip out of sight. “But, strong as it is, it does not halt the pain, which is an indication of the passion you feel for your chosen field of study.”
Part of me still wanted to thrash him soundly for impertinence, but I could nae fight the grudging admiration I had for a young man with such an inquisitive and analytical mind. Had he been me student, he would never have been sent down, no matter the provocation, and I cursed the bawheids who had done him such a thing. In that instant, I understood that Sherlock Holmes and I were in nae so different straits. And, curse me, I felt an unwonted sense of pity for the lad, bordering on the mawkishness I had always detested in others. I suppressed me feelings beneath a grumble.
Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2) Page 19
