The Final Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Volume 1 (5 page)

Chapter VI. The Second Murder.

A faint twilight edged across the horizon as we stepped off the train at Haywards Heath. The station was eerily quiet, with no sign of other passengers. I breathed in gratefully. We had left London's storm behind and the air seemed positively balmy in comparison. The stationmaster's whistle sounded clearly as I prayed inwardly that all was well at the Old Rectory.

Holmes rushed ahead of me through the gates. Pain shot through my gammy leg as I struggled with my Gladstone to keep up with him. All thoughts of further disguises seemed to have vanished. Along with Lady Forsythia Moriarty, thank goodness.

‘Hurry up, Watson,' he grunted, hailing one of his damned Beardmores. Placing my bag on the side of the cab, I consoled myself with the hope that the traffic might be less frenetic than London.

‘The Old Rectory, cabbie. And it will mean a double fare to you if you can make it within the half-hour.'

‘I'll do my best, sir,' grunted a pock-marked giant of a man, whose body seemed to stretch through the side window and onto the road.

‘Have your Service revolver ready, Watson,' Holmes whispered urgently to me.

I patted the pocket of my ulster in response and settled down to a journey which I shall never forget as long as I walk this earth. The enormous cabbie was obviously determined to get his double fee, as he slammed his foot onto the pedal and we jounced our way through the village streets and out onto roads that had been built for country traps and not for motorised suicide machines. Each time we pounded over a rock or a stone I groaned, as my old wound ached abominably. Holmes seemed oblivious to my torment. He leaned forward on his cane, his grim haunted features a picture of deep concentration and the remnants of his flaky make-up giving him the appearance of an ascetic sunburned monk. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering about his childhood and family life in Yorkshire. Why had he become the insensitive adult detective, interested only in reason and logic? Had he been thwarted in love as a young man, and was that the reason he avoided female company so assiduously? Surely it couldn't have been that experience of being bettered by the late Irene Adler,
of dubious and questionable memory
? And why had he ignored his poor father for so long? I resolved that some day I would get answers to these questions, before it was too late.

Our cabbie excelled at his dangerous art, and we shuddered to a halt outside an isolated brightly-lit Tudor mansion after twenty minutes of excruciating misadventure. Fortunately he had managed to avoid killing anyone along the way, although a sluggish sheep may not have been quite so lucky.

Holmes paid off the giant and we hurried out of the cab together, through the white picket gate, along a stony, weed-filled path and up to a crenellated front door, leaving our bags in the road outside. It was slightly ajar and swung gently inwards at his first push.

‘I do not like the look of this,' he muttered. ‘Watson, the gun.'

I withdrew my pistol and followed him noiselessly into a low-beamed narrow hall.

‘Hello?' shouted Holmes. ‘Is anybody home? Father?'

Silence.

‘Stick behind me, Watson. We had better check each room together. It's just possible they may have gone out for a walk, or to some local village do.'

His words sounded as convincing to me as I'm sure they felt to him.

Our progress through the country house was slow, nerve-wracking and thorough, but brought no explanations as to the absence of its inhabitants. There were no telltale signs of struggle or blood stains, although it was clear to me that someone had been living there that same day. Fires were dying out in the kitchen, main bedroom and drawing room, as though they had been deprived of coal for several hours. The remains of a shared lunch sat upon the kitchen table. A chilly breeze blew through a wide-open door to the rear of the pantry.

It was only when Holmes lit a candle and pursued a twin set of deeply rutted tracks through the mud out to the hay barn, that our unspeakable fears were finally realised.

The wheelchair lay on its side beside the entrance. Holmes stiffened, as though steeling his body for some terrible blow. I raised my Webley and steadied my hand. He pulled back the door and we entered the barn cautiously together. The flickering candle cast ghostly shadows around the walls.

‘Too late, Watson. Too late. Oh, dear God. Father. I am so sorry.' Holmes' strangled whisper was strangely unfamiliar to me as it echoed throughout the barn.

It was empty, except for several bales of hay in one corner and the raddled naked body in the centre. It knelt forward in a large red pool, its bluish skin sagging, its blindfolded head touching the ground, its hands and legs bound together with grey bandages. From the wrapping around the face and the amount of blood, it was clear to me that Edward Siger Holmes had been granted a ‘murder method' every bit as brutal and amateurish as that of his son Mycroft. The Goatslayer had beaten us to it.

I was about to rush over to the body to check its pulse, when Holmes intervened.

‘Watson. We will walk slowly around the edge. There may be foot prints that we can use.'

I did as he asked, but the old man was definitely dead. For six hours or more, I surmised. While Holmes took off his Inverness cape and laid it tenderly over the body, I scanned the barn, searching for clues as to the Goatslayer's whereabouts amongst the shadows. But there was no sign of anybody, not even the girl Ellie, whom I hoped with all my heart had been fortunate enough to be enjoying her day off when the villainous murderer arrived.

‘Watson, go into the house and telephone for the police. Before they arrive and clump all over the barn, I shall hopefully have examined the floor thoroughly. There should also be a note somewhere.'

‘A note?' I queried.

‘Yes.' Holmes' voice was dead. ‘A note to tell us the name of the next victim, as did the last note. Except that I was too stupid to recognise it for what it was.' He took out his lens and scoured the earth patiently for footprints.

I marvelled at Holmes' calmness as I made my way carefully back to the kitchen, keeping my pistol cocked and a sharp eye out for any untoward movements. Once I had got through to the local exchange and asked for their Emergency Services, I started looking around for some sort of note. I had finished in the kitchen and was about to move into the drawing-room when Holmes returned, holding a thin slip of paper in his hand.

‘It was stuffed down the side of the wheelchair,' he explained.

‘Any footprints?' I asked.

‘Plenty. All made by those wellington boots outside the pantry door. I shall examine them later.'

Holmes gazed at me with his deadly earnest heavy-lidded eyes.

‘Watson.'

‘Yes, Holmes.'

‘When we catch this homicidal maniac, it is my desire that he will not be subject to the due process of law. Do you understand?'

‘I think I do. However. I believe that you will feel differently when faced with the prospect of being his judge, jury and executioner.'

I had never seen Holmes look so dangerous. Yet I could not imagine him as a vigilante. His entire life had been dedicated to upholding the law, even if he sometimes allowed a crime to go unpunished when he thought that it was deserved, as with Captain Croker in ‘The Adventure Of The Abbey Grange'. I felt safe in pledging my loyalty to him after these two great losses. And for a second I felt sorry for our nemesis.

‘What does the note say?' I asked.

‘Oh, much the same as the first one. Except the gobbledygook is different. It's probably a pigpen cipher, as it's made up of symbols rather than letters. He just can't help showing me how smart he thinks he is. I should be able to work it using some tables I have. But not at the moment, though.'

His hand shook as he gave it to me. It was the same bible quote, torn from another King James Bible, followed by the same threat on the same type of paper, and a similar set of incomprensible letters which I could make neither head nor tail of. They made my head spin:

Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Think on your sins, Sherlock Holmes, as you are on the list:

Love and bubbles, The Goatslayer.

While waiting for the police to arrive, I found a half-empty bottle of Martell brandy in a cupboard, poured two large glasses and sat Holmes down at the kitchen table. He fumbled with his pipe and shag tobacco. It occurred to me that he was not quite as much in control of himself as he pretended to be. Of course I didn't wish to make the obvious suggestion that he might be next on the list.

‘But, Holmes. Who would want to murder an innocent old man, and in such a vile manner? What kind of creature is this?'

‘I don't know, John,' he sighed. ‘But I do wish that I had visited my father more often.'

Holmes had never called me by my Christian name in all our years together, and it truly shocked me.

‘It's me he wants. Don't you see that?' Tiny sparks flew from Holmes' poorly-filled pipe as he drew on it to soothe his shattered nerves. ‘Maybe I have met my match at last. It had to happen some time.'

I gulped down my cognac and poured myself another.

‘No. I refuse to believe that. It must be someone from your past. Some villain you have put away, and who has been granted his freedom by some dastardly liberal judge,' I exclaimed warmly.

‘Not necessarily, Watson. Not necessarily. It may well go back a lot further than that.'

He leaned forward and puffed thoughtfully. ‘Oh, yes. A lot further.' His eyes looked wounded as he paused.

‘Let me explain.'

It was then that Sherlock Holmes told me the story of his childhood.

Chapter VII. The Childhood Of Sherlock Holmes.

‘You may recall me telling you at the time of the Greek Interpreter business that my great-grandmother was the sister of Claude-Joseph Vernet, the famous French artist. She had seven children, six boys and one daughter, who married an Irish politician named Seamus Fitzgerald, a member of the United Irishmen, and a man committed to the cause of Irish independence from Britain. My mother was one of their three daughters, and was raised in an atmosphere of genteel refinement, with the emphasis on fine arts and literature. She became a decent painter in her own right. My father hailed from a long line of country squires, and was basically a farmer all his working life, who drank and gambled several fortunes away. I shall never know what they had in common or why they married, as they were like chalk and cheese. The family farm, Hillcroft House, was a few miles outside Richmond near Carperby, Wensleydale, in the North Riding district of Yorkshire. I grew up there.

If you imagine that I was a studious boy, Watson, with my nose in a book most of the time, you would be very much mistaken. My interest in the forensic analysis of criminal activities began later, while at university. Before that I led a perfectly healthy outdoor life, with the emphasis on milking cows, churning butter, cutting peat and herding sheep on the farm, as well as enduring many dangerous adventures with my best friend, Conan Arthur. Together we swam in the nearby ponds, jumped puddles, fished for pike and carp, played cricket and football in the fields, had snowball battles, charged bulls like matadors, fought as brave roundheads and cavaliers in the Civil War, acted out the roles of our parents, climbed the trees in the local park and drove the keeper mad by flinging acorns and worse down upon him. All perfectly normal fun activities for young lads.

Believe it or not, I wasn't very good at school. Passable at maths, subjects like history, geography and literature held little interest for me. I only read sensational fiction, a taste I cultivated from Conan in my early teens. Also books about unsolved crimes and mysteries. I actually had to work quite hard to get my final entrance examination into university. Mycroft was the real swot in our family. Although we never played games, as he was too serious, he and I used to go for these long walks, when he would explain his latest discoveries from the books he was studying and his shrewd deductions about the people we knew. I'm sure our parents wondered what we found to discuss with such intensity. My mind developed on those walks, as did my curiosity about human nature. And it was Mycroft who persuaded me to take lessons in the violin, to build on my interest in classical music. But he was seven years my senior and had already been swallowed up by Whitehall when I turned thirteen.'

Holmes paused to relight his pipe. His hand still shook a little.

‘It was a very happy childhood, Watson. Both parents seemed to appreciate my carefree, fun-loving nature, in contrast to Mycroft's stolid, passive presence. This was in spite of an independence and lack of discipline they sometimes found quite unsettling. I was showered with affection and returned same in full. Then one day my poor mother had a flat tyre on her way to a meeting of the Richmond Countrywoman's Association, of which she was president. She walked back to the farm, hoping to get one of the lads to fix the puncture for her.'

At this point Holmes seemed to stall, as though searching for the right expression. Then he continued rapidly.

‘Well, to cut to the quick of it, she found her husband, my father, the corpse in the barn, in bed with one of the farm boys. Jamie, I think he was called. I only found this out much later, as I was fifteen at the time, and presumably they wished to protect me from such goings-on. Mycroft knew, of course, even though he had left the farm by then.'

‘In God's name, Holmes!' I interjected. ‘Do you mean to tell me that
both
your father and your brother were… musical men?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good grief. Thank heavens you… Oh, well. Eh, doesn't this mean the two murders have been of musical men? So there may be a religious connection after all? Maybe a priest or vicar gone wrong?'

‘Possibly. And father was once a country member of the Diogenes Club. I know all that. Trust me, Watson, these facts have been noted. But to continue. My mother was so shocked that she left the house immediately and walked back into town, where she spent a week in one of the fancier hotels. I have no idea what she went through then, or what compromises they made to fix things up, but they did. Probably for my benefit. From that time onwards, everything changed. They had separate bedrooms and their sole topic of conversation was each day's routine. What they were doing, when was tea, what we were having, who was coming, farming matters, etc., I can only guess that my father continued his dalliances and she learned to put up with them. I certainly felt the difference at home.'

‘In what way?' I asked.

‘Well, my mother seemed to take her unhappiness out on me. I could do nothing right and was under a constant barrage of criticism from dawn until dusk. My father never took my side in any of the arguments. Indeed, he gave me much the same treatment. They used me as a tennis ball they could batter back and forth at each other. It was a form of torture to me. The result was that I couldn't wait to go to university after three years of this… abuse. Which was only verbal, by the way. There was nothing physical about it. But it separated me from them both for good and made me harden my heart towards all relationships of an emotional nature. And to distrust emotion itself. What is the point of emotion, Watson, if it is simply a facade for our basest carnal instincts?'

‘Oh, indeed,' I concurred.

‘During those last few years at home I spent most of my spare time out in the fields with Conan, switching off from that deteriorating family life. He had his own problems with his parents, who were devout members of an obscure religious sect called the Church Of The Loyal Brethren, in which he had been raised. Among their many strange beliefs was the notion that human life, in the form of a woman, had arrived on earth from a planet in a different galaxy, which they named The Birthstone. This woman, whom they called Rachel, and who was worshipped every Thursday evening, created a man using genetic manipulation and began to propogate the human race.'

‘Sacrilege!' I spluttered.

‘Just because they didn't worship a Christian God? I doubt it. At least they managed to avoid a Holy Ghost, Watson. Anyway Conan, being quite a bright lad, grew to hate the nonsense that was spouted at him each week and he left the Church when he was fifteen, around the time of my mother's shocking discovery. His parents threw him out and he took to living rough.

He built himself a small cabin in the woods and set up house there. I made sure he had enough to eat and drink from my own plate. We became close then, and looking back on it now, I believe that he might have wanted more from me, which I couldn't give him.'

‘Of course not,' I stated loyally. ‘Eh, we are talking about
the love that dare not speak its name
, are we not?'

‘Yes, Watson. I suppose. Not that I was aware of it at the time, being quite innocent in such matters. I would head off to meet him there after school each day, and even undertook to teach him whatever few interesting lessons I had been taught, particularly if they involved mathematics, his favourite subject. He became dependent upon me, in a way that caused many problems. If for any reason I missed a visit, he berated me for hours in foul language. I was his only contact with humanity and after a while the isolation in the woods began to affect his mind. He may also have been experimenting with some plant he had discovered, as I remember him experiencing hallucinations. Once he thought I was a barbarous black savage, a cannibal come to eat him.

One stormy day in winter I arrived to find him naked, crawling around in the mud outside his cabin and muttering incoherently about having to travel to The Birthstone before midnight, in order to save the world. I wasn't so young then that I didn't recognise a serious deformity of his psychology, so I had no hesitation in reporting his whereabouts and unhinged state of mind to my parents. They contacted the Arthurs and Conan was taken away in an ambulance to Richmond Hospital, a local mental institution, where he was to remain, I believe, for many years. He certainly felt betrayed by me, and I shall never forget his vengeful imprecations at me and my family as he left in that van.'

‘So you didn't visit him?' I asked.

‘No. Perhaps I should have, but a couple of months later I started my university course and became involved in solving some minor problems for my fellow students, which led me to the application of scientific methods to solving crimes and my career as a consulting detective. You know better than anybody how all-consuming that has been to me. I forgot about Conan altogether and only heard about him again when Mycroft informed me years later that my childhood friend had been released from hospital, ostensibly cured, and had married and settled down with a family of his own. My brother had bumped into him at the British Museum, just around the corner from Montague Street, where I lived when I first came to London. Conan was working there as a librarian and researcher. This was in the days when Mycroft used to attend those arty Bloomsbury gatherings in Gordon Square. You know, Lady Ottoline Morrell, or Lady Utterly Immoral, as she was known in the popular press.'

‘Do you think that Conan has anything to do with the murders?'

‘I don't know, Watson. He would be my age now and our man or woman must surely be much younger and more powerful to lift Mycroft or our father around. Not to mention overcome them and drug and emasculate them. But a child of his, perhaps? Who grew up listening constantly to his father's bitter tales at the fireside of his betrayal by the Holmes family? Remember this fiend knows a lot about us, including where my hermetic father was living.'

‘We could check out any people named Arthur living around London?' I suggested helpfully.

‘That was one of the first things I did, Watson. There are none registered. But family names can be changed, especially if there is a scandal involved, or a history of mental instability that needs to be camouflaged. It is difficult to find work after a spell in an asylum.'

‘The British Museum may have a record of all past employees.'

‘Excellent, Watson, excellent. A distinct touch of genius. Why didn't I think of that? When we return to London I suggest that you occupy yourself with their archives, while I struggle with the latest cipher.'

‘All right, Holmes,' I sighed. ‘I will. Exactly when did Mycroft meet him?'

‘Better check from 1890 through to 1910. The man you're looking for would have been 35-55 years of age then.'

‘Right. What about your parents, after you left? Did they continue to live together in the same way? Just surviving from day to day and tolerating each other's company?'

‘For many years they did, but my mother finally decided to do something about it. One day she walked down to the garden shed and drank a full bottle of weed-killer. There was no note. The family doctor called the act an ‘impulse', as though that explained everything. It must have been an extremely painful death.'

I sat up sharply. ‘Holmes, my dear chap. Are you telling me that your mother committed suicide? At a time when we were so busy together in our detective work? And you never told me?'

He took a first sip of his brandy.

‘I apologise, Watson. What is the point of getting emotional about it now? As you say, we were very busy in 1894, and you had recently lost your first wife. If I remember correctly, I decided not to burden you with my loss. I attended her funeral with Mycroft and barely addressed ten words to our father, who had run down the farm through his rampant alcoholism and gambling by then and did not seem, I must say, all that bothered by her departure. He sold up shortly afterwards and moved down here.'

‘But you must have been grief-stricken to lose your mother like that.'

‘No more so than any other way. Five minutes, and it was all over. Many people linger in constant agony for years before they die. That is worse. And it is our destiny to become nobody's child, Watson, is it not?'

‘Have you ever talked to anybody about this?'

‘Yes. I'm talking to you now. But in my opinion grief is never shared. It is simply spread around. I have now lost my parents and my only sibling. I am seventy-one. Despite the way they died, one could expect to be in this situation at my age. Look, I believe that's the end of the story of my childhood, Watson. The part of it I am prepared to talk about, anyway. Judging by that siren, it sounds like the local constabulary have finally bothered to respond to your call. Good for them. It's just as well the Goatslayer isn't still around, isn't it?'

Holmes smiled cryptically as he took a second sip of his brandy.