Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons

by James Lovegrove

  To prove both theories to his satisfaction, Holmes first climbed halfway up the rock’s slope. Perching on the edge, some ten feet high, he jumped. He landed safely, albeit a trifle awkwardly, jarring his knees. Had there been someone below, not only would it have cushioned the impact, but this other would have been knocked flat and left stunned by the weight of an attacker descending from above with some force.

  Next, Holmes took himself beneath the overhang. There was a cleft in the rock whose dimensions were more or less those of a coffin laid upright. Snug within, he was afforded a severely restricted field of vision, and by the same token it was safe to presume that only a person approaching from dead ahead would have a chance of spying him. Anyone coming by from either side would not realise he was there until the very last moment.

  It was while he was ensconced inside this natural concavity that Holmes’s sharp eye alighted upon a proper clue at last. Wedged into a fissure by his shoulder, only just visible, was the stub of a small cigar. He extricated it carefully using a penknife.

  To one well versed in the intricacies of tobacco in all its forms – one who had authored more than a few monographs on the topic – identifying the brand of cigar was child’s play. Given the narrow diameter of the stub, it must belong to that subset of the cigar, the cigarillo. Close inspection, including several deep sniffs, denoted that the tobacco itself came from Nicaragua and was grown in one of the valleys famed for the crop in that country, either the Estelí or the Condega. The cut of the leaves with which the cigarillo was wrapped, and the tight clockwise spiral of the rolling, enabled Holmes to state with complete confidence that the manufacturer was the Vargas y Araya company.

  “In case you didn’t know, Watson, Vargas y Araya are one of South America’s premier cigar producers,” he said, “and their operations are based in Costa Rica.”

  “Costa Rica,” I echoed.

  “Let it sink in. Give it a moment to percolate.”

  “Costa Rica!” I exclaimed. “Birthplace of Jack Stapleton.”

  “Precisely.”

  “But then, the smoker is very likely to have been Stapleton.”

  “Stapleton may well have a preference for tobacco from his native land.”

  “And therefore the cigarillo stub is proof that he faked his death.”

  “It is certainly suggestive of that.”

  At Crookback Samuel, Holmes slipped the cigarillo stub into one of the small envelopes he kept on his person for collecting evidence. Pocketing this, he checked at his feet for fallen tobacco ash, which might give him some inkling as to how long the smoker had stood there and what sort of smoker he was. He could be the type who left the coal to grow long and drop off of its own accord, or he could be the type who punctiliously tapped off the excess ash. This, in turn, would give Holmes some insight into the nature of the man.

  He was not hopeful of finding any ash, however, and indeed the search was to no avail. There was precious little space around his feet to begin with, given the dimensions of the cleft, and wind and rain had long since scoured that small patch of ground clean.

  Holmes then delved further into the fissure with his penknife. The smoker could have used the narrow crevice as a makeshift ashtray, in an effort to avoid leaving traces of his presence. There was no ash there either, in the event, although the fissure did offer up a small reward in the form of a spent match.

  The placement of match and the cigarillo stub were, Holmes averred, illuminating. It was self-evident that someone had secreted himself in the cleft beneath the overhang and, while loitering there, indulged in a smoke. When had this happened? If not kept in a humidor, tobacco grows stale swiftly, and Holmes, who had made a detailed study of the rate at which tobacco’s freshness declines, could tell from the texture and odour of this particular cigarillo that it had been smoked somewhere between eight and eleven days earlier. It was a broad margin, but nevertheless the date of Lady Audrey’s death fell firmly within that period.

  A cigarillo was a quick smoke compared to a cigar, although not as quick as a cigarette. On average it took fifteen to twenty minutes from start to finish. Yet this cigarillo had not burned all the way to the end. A couple of inches remained when it had been discarded. Why would the smoker not have enjoyed it to the full? One possible explanation was that he had been interrupted. He had had to dispose of the cigarillo hastily, sending it the way of the match he had used to light it.

  There were two possible conclusions to be drawn from all of this. One was that the person had simply taken refuge in the cleft in order to shelter from bad weather. Running contrary to that, however, was the fact that the weather had been, according to Sir Henry, balmy all that week.

  The alternative conclusion, and the likelier, was that the person had been waiting for someone. To pass the time, he had lit a cigarillo. Soon, perhaps sooner than expected, he had heard footfalls belonging to the man or woman whose arrival he anticipated. Doing away with his cigarillo, he had stepped out to accost the newcomer.

  Was it beyond the bounds of probability to suggest that the one being accosted was Lady Audrey? If so, then the odds were good that the smoker of the cigarillo was her murderer.

  “Not a marauding man-sized moth after all,” said Holmes, “just a man.”

  “Or,” I countered, “a man with a marauding man-sized moth that he controlled.”

  “Well, maybe.”

  “And,” I added, “not just any man but Jack Stapleton.”

  “Again, maybe. Whoever he was, if he was lying in wait for Lady Audrey, then he was familiar with her habits. He knew of her evening walks, most likely through observation of the comings and goings at the Hall. He knew her route might well take her past Crookback Samuel, which was, anyway, an unimprovable hiding place. That he felt in need of tobacco implies that he wished to quell his nerves or, equally, that he was a fellow of considerable composure and sangfroid, able to smoke a casual cigarillo while contemplating murder. Whichever is the case, we may say with some assurance that the killing of Her Ladyship was not spontaneous and opportunistic but premeditated and planned. The killer, furthermore, had a predilection for cigarillos manufactured in Costa Rica.”

  It was at this point during Holmes’s survey of the crime scene that his solitude was intruded upon. All at once, as he emerged from the cleft, he was beset by a barking, leaping hound.

  Chapter Eleven

  SWIFT AND NEAR-TOTAL EXSANGUINATION BY METHODS UNKNOWN

  I started in my seat, feeling a sudden thrill of horror.

  At this, Holmes burst out laughing.

  “Oh, Watson!” he cried. “Your face is a picture! Don’t think I am ignorant of your antipathy towards canines. I have noted your tendency to shy away from even the smallest and most inoffensive dogs, even the ones that are little more than balls of cotton wool with eyes. It has been thus since our time on Dartmoor in ’eighty-nine, and I suspect that therein lies the true reason behind your decision to stay in London rather than return to the West Country – not a superfluity of patients but chronic cynophobia.”

  “No, no, not at all.”

  “Come on, old fellow. Don’t deny it.”

  Somewhat abashed, I relented and nodded.

  “There,” said Holmes. “It is better to admit these things than cover them up. That way, we all know where we stand.”

  “And to think I used to be rather fond of dogs,” I said. “That bullpup I once had, back when we first met, was an adorable little scamp.”

  “Yes. A pity he couldn’t be housebroken.”

  That was all too true, alas, and I had not been happy when Mrs Hudson told me either the pup must go or I did, although I fully understood why she gave the ultimatum. There is only so much floor scrubbing and carpet cleaning a woman can be expected to do. Happily, her spinster sister in Chatham had been willing to adopt him, and by all accounts the two of them, lady and dog, had become boon companions.

  At any rate, it was no phosphorescent hellhound that went bounding up
to Holmes on the moor that day, barking volubly. It was a brown curly-haired spaniel, and it was falling over itself in excitement, having, so it thought, flushed this man out from cover as it might a game bird.

  “Hallo!” came a voice. “Is that you, Holmes?”

  The owner of the voice, and of the dog, proved to be none other than Dr James Mortimer.

  The young medic was little altered in appearance, Holmes told me. That same beaky nose. Those same gold-rimmed glasses perched atop it, through which a pair of keen grey eyes peered. That same rake-thin physique, which the intervening years had neither added to nor subtracted from. His posture was somewhat more stooped now, so that the forward thrust of his head was more pronounced, but his clothing still had the endearing shabbiness of old.

  “And his battered, dog-chewed Penang lawyer?” I said, referring to Mortimer’s walking stick, the one from which Holmes had been able to deduce a remarkable quantity of data about its owner’s profession, personality and inclinations without yet having met the man. “Was he carrying it as ever?”

  “Very much so,” my friend said.

  Holmes and Mortimer shook hands vigorously, while the spaniel gambolled around them.

  “I was out taking my morning constitutional,” Mortimer said, “and spied you from afar. I thought to myself, ‘Dear me, if it isn’t Sherlock Holmes. I must go and greet him.’”

  “Rather far from your usual stamping ground, aren’t we?” said Holmes. “As I recall, you live over at High Barrow.”

  “Oh no. Not these days. I’ve moved to Merripit House, just up the road from here. You know it, of course.”

  “Jack Stapleton’s one-time residence.”

  “It must seem an odd choice, I realise,” said Mortimer. “A cottage in the middle of nowhere, its recent past chequered, to say the least. But that is precisely why I have taken it. Given its dark associations, the owner was having trouble finding a tenant, meaning I was able to negotiate a very reasonable monthly rent. A country doctor does not make nearly as much as his city equivalent, and every penny counts. Besides, I find the place agreeable. Galen and I are very happy there. Aren’t we, Galen?”

  “That would be this lively fellow.” Holmes indicated the dog, which was still leaping about their legs, its tongue lolling, its tail spinning like a child’s paper windmill.

  “Not bothering you, is he?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “He’s still only a year old and not quite out of his puppyish ways. I bought him as a replacement for Asclepius, my last spaniel. The one that had the misfortune of…”

  Mortimer did not finish the sentence, and did not need to. Holmes knew as well as he did the fate that had befallen Galen’s predecessor, which had been of the same breed and colouration. It had been killed and eaten by Stapleton’s hound, in a ghastly act of canine cannibalism.

  “It took me a goodly while to get over the loss of Asclepius,” Mortimer went on. “But Galen has been proving a more than adequate substitute.”

  A few further pleasantries were exchanged, then Mortimer said, “Actually, it comes as no great surprise to see you here, Holmes, what with this recent terrible business at the Hall. I take it Sir Henry has engaged your services to look into Lady Audrey’s death.”

  “Not he but a friend of his.”

  “And is Dr Watson with you?” said Mortimer, glancing around as if Sherlock Holmes’s constant companion must perforce be nearby. “I don’t see him.”

  “Not this time, alas,” Holmes replied. “He is too busy. You yourself know all too well how it goes in general practice. Either flood or trickle, and right now it is flood.”

  “Shame. I should have been happy to renew his acquaintance. He is a first-rate fellow.”

  “The best.”

  “I suppose that, in pursuit of your goal, you are inspecting the spot where Lady Audrey came to grief.” Mortimer shuddered. “On such a beautiful morning, one could almost forget that something so dreadful happened here.”

  “Sir Henry said you were of invaluable help to him in that regard.”

  “I did what I could,” the other man said with a modest shrug. “What any friend would. Any doctor, for that matter. I even volunteered to conduct the autopsy. It made sense, since Lady Audrey was already a patient of mine, as is Sir Henry. Being familiar with her case history, I would know if she had some pre-existing condition that might have brought about her death. I was likely to know, too, which blemishes upon her person were ante-mortem and which were fresh. It was not an easy task, I must say.”

  “I should imagine not.”

  “Lady Audrey was my patient, yes, but I considered her a friend too. You see, I’d known her longer than Sir Henry. I became the physician for her family, the Lidstones, shortly after I moved from London to Devon. That was in ’eighty-seven, a couple of years before Sir Henry came into his legacy and arrived at the Hall. Such a charming, vivacious thing, she was. She and he made a wonderful match. I was best man at their wedding, in fact. Did you know that?”

  “I did not. I was invited to attend, as was Watson, but just then – it was early 1890, was it not? – we were abroad, pursuing the notorious French swindler, le Duc d’Alençon. This was the culmination of an investigation that had encompassed three of the noble houses of Europe and occupied over a month of my life, and affairs had reached such a critical juncture that I could not possibly abandon them. Monsieur le Duc, with his network of chambermaid spies and his rather brilliant cryptographic system involving knots in items of laundry, was as slippery a felon as can be imagined. I am pleased to say that he now languishes in La Santé prison in Paris.”

  “Well, you missed a joyous occasion,” said Mortimer. “I am also godfather to their son, young Harry, whom I helped deliver. No reason you should know that either. Harry’s christening was another joyous occasion. But now we –” He broke off. “I’m sorry, Galen really is bothering you, isn’t he?”

  The spaniel was now on its hind legs, pawing at Holmes’s thigh. Holmes was steadfastly not giving it the attention it craved.

  Mortimer made a swift double cluck of the tongue, and at this command the dog returned to all fours and trotted over to its master’s side. Mortimer passed it his walking stick.

  “There, boy. Amuse yourself with that instead.”

  The spaniel took the bulbous-headed Penang lawyer in its mouth and strode off. Settling down on its haunches nearby, it held down the ferrule end of the stick with a forepaw and gaily gnawed the handle end.

  “As you are here, by great good fortune,” said Holmes, “perhaps you can assist me, Mortimer.”

  “In any way I can, Holmes.”

  “I know from Sir Henry that when Lady Audrey was killed, you came and took charge of the body. May I ask you a couple of questions concerning that?”

  “You may.”

  “First of all, where did you find her lying?”

  Mortimer studied the scene, clearly casting his mind back to the fateful episode. Then he indicated a patch of grass situated some three yards along the base of the rock from the overhang. “Just there.”

  “You are certain?”

  “Quite certain. The events of that night are etched in my memory.”

  “And how did she look? Sir Henry has been somewhat forthcoming on that front, but he is not what one would call a dispassionate witness.”

  “Neither am I, to be honest.” The physician took a deep breath as if to steel himself. “She was prone.”

  “Sprawled?”

  “Yes. And her head was turned.”

  “Meaning the side of her neck, and the carotid artery on that side, was exposed.”

  “Yes.”

  “And in her neck, through the skin and the wall of that artery, an incision had been made,” said Holmes.

  “I would describe it more as a perforation.”

  “You examined the body in the morgue, so you will be able to furnish precise details about this perforation.”

  “There is no reason
why I cannot, as it is a matter of public record,” Mortimer said. “The wound was half an inch in diameter, but deep, created by a sharp implement of some kind.”

  “Was the hole perfectly round?”

  “Oval, I would say. As if some metal tube or cylinder had been inserted, forcefully and at an angle.”

  “A metal tube such as a needle with a relatively broad diameter.”

  “Possibly. Not necessarily.”

  “And the angle, was it downward?”

  “Downward, yes, towards the clavicle.”

  “In such a way that the tube would catch the outflux of blood being impelled up towards the brain by the heart.”

  “Yes. It was the carotid artery on the right side of her neck, and as you may or may not be aware, the contents of that blood vessel – rising as it does from the brachiocephalic artery, which in turn rises from the aorta – are under some considerable pressure and, if freely released, are apt to spray out in a jet to a distance of several feet.”

  “Yet, by all accounts, few bloodstains were in evidence on the ground,” said Holmes, “or on Lady Audrey’s clothing, for that matter.”

  “Suggesting that the implement involved – tube or cylinder or whatever it was – was hollow and that the exiting blood was channelled through it into some receptacle.”

  “You have heard, of course, about the sightings of a giant, vampiric moth in the region.”

  Mortimer nodded. “Several of my less sophisticated patients are quite agitated about it. They’re a superstitious lot, country folk, and anything that carries even a whiff of the unearthly will have them muttering prayers under their breath.”

  “What is your opinion? Do you think the moth is pure bunkum? A hoax, perhaps?”

  The other man’s expression turned pensive. His head moved from side to side, pendulum-like, as he deliberated.

  “I have spoken to more than one farmer who has lost livestock lately in bizarre and gruesome circumstances,” he said eventually. “No question, something has been wounding and killing sheep on Dartmoor. Whether this bloodletting fiend is a giant moth, I can only speculate. Equally, whether Lady Audrey fell victim to such a creature is open to debate. All I know for certain is what I observed upon her body.”