“After that he adopted Mary and he gave us all everything we ever asked for, but we have never truly forgiven him. Eric and I became very close and we reasoned that we would be forever dependent on Dad and his money if we did not set out on our own, so we demanded that we go to Sandhurst so we could have a career in Her Majesty’s military forces, and get away and see the world. Dad did not like that idea one little bit, but we dug in and would not give, so he agreed. After we finished up at the Academy, we joined up with the Northumberland Fusiliers, and next thing we know we’re off to South Africa. I will not say much about our time there except that Eric and I had to grow up awful quickly and, we’ve been doing the best we can to forget those years ever since.
“When we come back we find that our baby sister, Mary, has grown up and is now a beautiful young girl of fourteen years and full of pluck, and spirit, and jolly smart. Well, Eric and I are a bit burned up inside from the war, and not interested in getting married or having the life expected of the sons of a wealthy banker. So, we travel around a bit but it’s hard to do that with no money, so we agree to live near to Dad if he will give us a regular allowance. He put us on salary at the bank, but it never amounted to our doing much. But what did happen is that as we spent time around Mary, both Eric and I just fell in love with her. We joked that we both dreamed of being married to her. We are not joined by blood so, strictly speaking, it would not be illegal, even if it was not what is considered proper. Eric and I even agreed that we would share her. We thought that idea was amusing. Dad did not. But then George Burnwell reappeared. We had known him during the war and we knew that he had no money, but he was an absolute master at making us feel good about ourselves when he was with us, so the three of us chummed around.
“Next thing is that George says he has fallen in love with Mary, and Mary says that she is over the moon about George. Eric and I talk this over and we agree that we should be happy about that. Dad would give George a position in the bank in order to keep Mary close, and then we would stay close as well. George was usually fun to be around, and if neither of us could have Mary then, at least, we would all still see each other. So, everything was jolly good.”
Here I interrupted. “Were you not aware of the stories about George from the war? They were rather damning.”
“We were, doctor, we were. But you have been in an overseas war as well, and you know that men do a lot of very strange things out there that they would never do again back home. Eric and I had both killed many decent men who we were told were our enemies, and we stood guard over Kitchener’s concentration camp while the British Empire made thousands of innocent people starve, become diseased, and die. So, we do not put much stock in stories of what happened to men in war. Can you understand that, doctor?”
I could. I had seen enough of it myself.
“Well now,” Arthur continued, “the four of us were having quite a good time, getting on well together. Then just over a week ago dad goes all apoplectic and crazy and accuses us of stealing his files, the ones he keeps in his safe and have all the secrets about all his slimy, immoral, noble clients. Eric and I knew straightaway what had happened. We knew that neither of us had taken the files but that Mary also knew the combination. Once when Eric and I were reciting it, she overheard us, and she is as smart as a whip, so she remembers it. We sat her down and demanded to know what she was up to. She explains that it is only fair. The three of us were born into money by sheer good luck and had done nothing to deserve it. George, who she wanted to marry, was born poor. We all knew that the rich lords and ladies in that file paid off all sorts of folks to keep their mouths shut about their perverted misdeeds, and all George was going to do was to become one more mouth that was paid to keep shut. And he would put the files back in a few days and that would be the end of it.
“My brother and I were not very happy about it, and we had heard rumors at the Beryl Bikers about George’s palling around with some of the nasty fellows who called themselves the Anarchists, but Mary pleaded with us. She said that if we informed on George to Dad, it would ruin her life. So, we decided to take the more chivalrous view and preserve her secret. But then the first family that George tries to manipulate were those disgusting pieces of filth, Lord and Lady Haircut. George’s scheme did not work and the entire country was mocking him. We assumed he would try again, but it would still be another one of those parasitical noble families, so we were not going to fight him over it and run the risk of a horrible exposure of the woman we loved.
“After the meeting where the Club did the planning for the camping trip, Eric and I concluded that it was too hot to be in the city and so we left and came early up to the Peaks. We heard nothing about the murder of the girl in Belgravia. Had we heard about it, we would have known that George was involved, knowing as we did his hatred for Major Atherley. But it was not until Mary phoned the campsite and got the proprietor to fetch us to the phone, and told us everything, that we knew what an unspeakable, horrible mess we were part of, and our sister had helped to create. So over we came.”
“And what,” asked Holmes, “did Mary tell you when she called?”
“She said that she had been the one to deliver the ransom note to the Atherley house, but that George had told her that it was only a demand like he had given to the Hairfields, and that these next folks were far more concerned about their reputations. She did not know anything about the kidnapping or murder of the girl until she read it in the papers the next day. She demanded that George explain, but he said that it was all a terrible coincidence that on the same day he made a demand to be paid to keep his mouth shut someone else, and he has no idea who, went and kidnapped the girl and killed her. He said he had nothing to do with it, and he pretends to be angry because Mary even dared to suspect him.
“Then early last evening he suggests that the two of them go for a romantic ride under the stars and find a lovely place to enjoy a little hanky-panky. Mary said she agreed because she was upset about the tension between them and off they go. They get to the trail leading down into the Kinder Scout Valley and at the bottom George stops and says he has to leave some jerry cans full of petrol for some of the boys who are going on a cross-country ride tomorrow and may run out. She thinks that is very strange but while they are stopped she reaches into her pocket and finds a folded-up set of notes. She uses the torch to read them and sees a note from Mr. Sherlock Holmes, along with a copy of the police report on the murder of the Atherley child and sees that all the evidence points to George.
“I am guessing, Mr. Holmes, that you managed to slip those notes to her.” Holmes nodded in the affirmative.
“She yells at him and screams and he comes over and hits her in the face and knocks her to the ground. He says thank you because she has been very useful to him but within a fortnight he and his friends will have over one hundred families all paying them over five hundred pounds a month each not to cut their children to pieces or burn them alive. She gets up, knowing that she can outrun him, but he hits her very hard on the back of the head with the torch and knocks her unconscious. When she comes to the forest around her is on fire and she runs as fast as she can up the hill and into the village. She asks at the local pub about who is up on Kinder Scout and hears that there is a scout troop, and it’s the May-Bel troop, and then she knows the truth.
“So, she phones me and tells me all the story I have just told you, and then says to get all the fellows with the most powerful machines over here and that we are going to have to ride through a forest fire and rescue the boys before they are burned to death. I tell her that she must be mad and that no one in his right mind would try to ride a motorcycle through a forest fire. And she says that if she has to run through it, then I can jolly well drive through it. Then she hangs up and I take it she started running down the hill and up and through the fire. That was the last I talked to her before meeting up with her where we caught up to the scouts up above the fire line.
“She had injured her ankle wh
en she tripped on a part of a tree branch that had fallen in the fire and it took a bit to get her on the bike, but we made it back.”
Here he stopped for a few moments. “And now we have to sort things out. I suppose we have to find George, and then Mary will have to testify against him. It will not be pleasant.”
“Scotland Yard,” said Holmes, “will have bulletins all over the country and the continent by tomorrow. George will be caught and punished and most likely swing for his terrible deeds. And then he will no doubt receive a more than sufficient punishment thereafter.”
I nodded my agreement. The conversation stopped for a few minutes and we all sipped quietly on our beer.
“It is not,” said Holmes, “a critical part of this case, but I observed that your time at the top of the hill with Miss Holder was much more than necessary to help someone with a damaged ankle get on the back of a motorcycle. Would you mind explaining why it took you so long?”
Arthur Holder said nothing and sipped several times on his beer. “When I reached the top, Mary and the fathers and the marines all started helping the boys get on the bikes and wrapped up in the blankets. Eric took the last remaining father on his bike, leaving only Mary and me. She turned to me and said, ‘Please leave me. I would rather die.’ She sat down on the road and refused to get up and onto the bike. She said, ‘I have loved and been defiled by a monster. I have been his tool. I helped to kill an innocent girl. I do not want to live. Please, Arthur, if you love me, just leave and let the fire take me. It is what I deserve.’
“I said all sorts of encouraging things to her, but she just kept telling me to leave her alone, that she wanted to die. So, I told her that I loved and if she would get up and onto the bike, I would marry her and be the father of her children and love her for the rest of my life. She just looked at me with a great sadness and said, ‘I know you love me. I know Eric loves me. I have already brought enough misery to you both and to dad. I will not spend the rest of my life with you and your brother hating each other because one of you married me. Please go and let me die.’
“So, I said to her, I said, ‘Eric and I rode side by side all the way here and we had to shout at each other, but we made an arrangement. With George out of the picture, one of us now could marry you. He agreed to let me marry you and to be the best man at the wedding.’
“She looked up and it was clear she did not believe me. ‘What did you have to give him?’ she asked. ‘Your portion of your inheritance?’
“‘More,’ I said. ‘I told him he could have my Brough if I could have you.’
“She looked up at me with her mouth wide open, all incredulous. ‘You gave up your bike?”
“‘For the woman I love,’ I said.
“‘You love me,’ she said. ‘You must.’
“‘I do,’ I said. ‘Now get on the bike. It’s going to be my last ride.’
“‘Fine,’ she said. ‘You’re a bloody fool, Arthur, and I’ll marry you.’
“And she got up and got on the bike.”
Did you enjoy this story? Are there ways it could have been improved? Please help the author and future readers of future New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries by posting a review on the site from which you purchased this book. Thanks, and happy sleuthing and deducing.
Historical and Other Notes
The Boer War took place from 1899 to 1902 in what is now South Africa. The tactics used by the British forces of scorching the earth, herding the families of the Boers into concentration camps, and starving them led to the (recorded) deaths of over 25,000 whites and an estimated 15,000 blacks. Over eighty percent of the victims were children. Today we would charge the British leaders with crimes against humanity.
These tactics were strongly condemned both in Britain and throughout the world. However, there is no evidence that the individual soldiers were blamed or ostracized, leading to their alienation or the forming of both law-abiding and outlaw motorcycle clubs. That set of events was borrowed from what happened to soldiers returning from Vietnam.
Both Norton and Triumph motorcycles were in commercial production during the first decade of the twentieth century and were highly popular. The Brough – the Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles – did not appear until after World War One and remained a high-end, custom produced machine. It was the favorite of T. E. Lawrence … and his last.
The scouting movement and the formation of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides swept England and then the western world during the decade before World War One. Hundreds of thousands of boys and girls became members and went on all sorts of wonderful camping outings.
The Peak District is a beautiful, rugged region about four hours north of London. The topography has been somewhat altered in this story to fit the narrative.
It is not recommended that anyone attempt to ride a motorcycle through a forest fire, let alone run through one.
The Adventure
of the Coiffured Bitches
Chapter One
Oscar Wilde versus
John Ruskin
“ART FOR ART’S SAKE,” announced Sherlock Holmes. He had been sitting for some time in silence, puffing on his long pipe and gazing into the fire. I waited for his next utterance, but it did not arrive.
“Indeed,” I eventually added in response. “And just what, Holmes, has that to do with anything on a warm spring morning?”
“I have been reflecting on the relative notoriety of the many cases to which I have contributed my particular abilities. Those that have become recognized, in fact somewhat famous, amongst the great unobservant public—much as a result of your having published sensationalized and romanticized accounts of them—are, for the greater part, those cases that have been trivial with respect to their legality and criminal activity, but peculiar with respect to the application of the art of scientific deduction. In much the same way as our aesthetes, Oscar Wilde, James Whistler and their ilk, are defending art, and demanding that it be understood and appreciated solely for its own intrinsic merit and devoid of any connection to a wider sphere of meaning, so my cases may be valued, respected, and provide the keenest pleasure based only on their own merits, on the elegance and imaginative creativity used therein. That is what I was thinking, Watson. How might you, my friend, respond to my insights?”
For a few seconds I pondered a response. Holmes was clearly in an egocentric and disputatious mood, a result of his having had no demanding cases, either of legal or aesthetic significance, cross our threshold in over three weeks. Notwithstanding my concern for his state of mind, I simply could not let such nonsense pass unchallenged.
“I did not know that an appreciation of artistic theory had become one of your passions,” I said, knowing full well that he had as little knowledge and concern for the subject as he did for philosophy or astronomy. “If you must know my views on it, I am of the school, along with such scholars as Ruskin and Arnold, that l’art pour l’art is nothing but pretentious poppycock, senseless sophistry, and blathering balderdash.” I stopped at that point and gave myself a small pat on my back for my skill in alliteration.
“And furthermore,” I continued, “my account of your successes is anything but untied to our moral, social, and political mores. Every one of them had an obvious didactic purpose—the Red-Headed League, was a clarion call for improved security of our banks; Buscombe Valley spoke of the intensity of relationships between father and son and the consequences of foolish actions when young; the chap with the twisted lip was a parable in a way of the power of the love of a man for his wife and family. I could go on and enumerate the ways in which every one of my stories, embellished or not, has been intricately connected to the past, current, and future circumstances in which human existence takes place. But enough, Holmes. What, pray tell, brought about your highly irrational flight of fantasy?”
I thought he might rise to the challenge and that it would help get him out of the doldrums into which he had sunk, but he merely gave a long sigh. “I admit, my friend, that you are right
. And I confess that I was trying to find an excuse to mask my disappointment that having expended my logical synthesis on what I thought might be a promising case, it has come to naught. So, I was attempting to justify my feelings by assigning it a value, an artistic value if you will, that it does not deserve.” He sighed again.
Immediately, as if the scales had fallen from my eyes, I discerned what was troubling my singular friend. “Aha! Why did you not say so, Holmes? You are disconcerted. I dare say that your feelings, whose very existence you try to deny, are hurt because that marvelous young Hunter woman never got back to you after so earnestly beseeching your advice. That’s it, isn’t it? Aha, do I detect a speck of color in your face? I do. You were not only favorably impressed, you were quite attracted to her. Admit it.”
My own life had been recently blessed by my engagement to the lovely Mary Morstan, and I could wish no greater benefit to my friend than that a similar loving presence appear in his life. Violet Hunter, an orphaned girl who, by dint of her own resources, had made her way in the world, had been in his presence for less than an hour, asking only for sage advice regarding a potential employment situation, of which she was desperately in need. She had served successfully for two years as nurse to the wife of a Colonel Spence Munro. Several months ago, he had been posted to Halifax in Canada, and she had been left with no gainful employment. A new placement had, in a very unusual manner, been offered to her. Holmes agreed, at first reluctantly, to help her. Her pluck, sensibility, determination, native intelligence and independence had won him over; not to mention her mildly flirtatious manner, and natural beauty, enhanced by a lovely face, as freckled as a plover’s egg, and a head of breath-taking luxurious chestnut hair. Holmes obviously had wanted to be of assistance to her, even to the point of promising to drop all other concerns and dash off down to Winchester to help her as soon as she summoned him, any time, night or day.
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Three: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition (Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 28
