The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (51 page)

I knelt down and took hold of the hand, feeling for a pulse. It was there but only weak and fluttery. Garnett’s lips were already turning blue.

He pulled the hand free and, in one movement, tore the bandage from his face. Crosby’s stained cheek flesh lifted with it for a second and then slid down to cover Garnett’s mouth.

“How is he, Doctor Watson?” Makinson asked softly.

I shook my head and watched as Garnett took the grisly trophy from his mouth and clasped it tightly. He began rubbing it feverishly between thumb and forefinger.

“Make me well again,” he muttered hoarsely. “Make me well again …”

“Shall I get an ambulance, sir?” Sergeant Hewitt asked.

I looked up at him and shook my head.

Makinson had clambered down to join us, watching as I undid the tape affixing the bandage to Garnett’s chest. I had no doubt what we would find beneath that bandage and no doubt what lay beneath the one about his neck.

“Why did you do it, Frank?” Makinson said softly, kneeling by the man’s head.

Garnett muttered something seemingly in response.

I had now exposed Garnett’s chest and, as I expected, the skin which he had removed from Terence Wetherall. But beneath even that was a further mark, a port wine stain of such volume and intensity that, despite what the man had done, my heart went out to him. Garnett’s own birthmark was clearly malignant, its surface covered by clusters of small pustules many of which had burst open and were weeping a pungent gelatinous liquid.

Makinson leaned closer to Garnett’s face, his ear against the man’s mouth. “I can’t hear you, Frank.”

Garnett whispered again and then settled back against the floor, still.

The Inspector knelt up and whispered, “Who?” but there was no response. He got to his feet. “He’s gone, poor devil.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He said she told him as how it’d get better … that he’d been touched by the Almighty and how he mustn’t complain.” Makinson shook his head. “But he said it hadn’t got better, it had got worse. He asked me to forgive him. That was the last thing he said.”

“Who’s ‘she’?” asked Sergeant Hewitt.

Makinson shrugged. “He didn’t say. Someone who cared for him, I expect.”

As I clambered out of the bath, Holmes was standing by the wall holding in his hands a walking stick bearing an elaborately carved head for its handle.

“That must’ve been what he was thinking about,” said Sergeant Hewitt. “When he seemed to hesitate.”

“He needed it to walk,” Holmes said. He handed the stick to the policeman, running his slender fingers across the handsome features of the heavy ivory handle. “But I think he used it for other things, too, Sergeant,” he said. Then he turned around and walked back towards the foyer.

When I got outside, Sherlock Holmes was standing on the steps staring into the wind.

“He thought he had been touched by God, Watson,” he said as I walked up beside him. “But the truth was God had turned his back on him. In fact, God had turned his back on them all.”

I did not know what to say.

Then Holmes turned to me and smiled, though it was without any trace of humour. “I find God does that far too often these days,” he said. Then he thrust his hands into his coat pockets and walked alone towards the waiting carriage.

The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter

Basil Copper

1

Watson recorded 1895 as the year in which Holmes was on top form. The earliest case he recorded for that year was “The Three Students” which took place at the end of March. Earlier that month, however, Holmes and Watson found themselves in Dorset in “The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter”. Watson may have written this case up and lost it along with his other papers, but thankfully descendants of the residents in the local village remembered the story vividly. I am most grateful to that fine scholar of Sherlock Holmes and his successor Solar Pons, Mr Basil Copper, for investigating the case and restoring it for the first time in over a century.

It was a dreary evening in early March when I returned to our familiar rooms in Baker Street. I was soaked to the skin for it had been raining earlier and I could not find a cab, and the dark clouds and louring skies promised a further downpour. As I opened the door to our welcoming sitting room, which was in semi-darkness, a familiar voice broke the silence.

“Come in, my dear Watson. Mrs Hudson will be up with a hot meal in a few minutes, as I had already observed you from the window, my poor fellow.”

“Very good of you, Holmes,” I mumbled. “I will just get into some dry things and rejoin you.”

“It must have been very damp down Hackney way,” my friend observed with a dry chuckle.

“How could you possibly know that, Holmes?” I said in some surprise.

He burst into a throaty laugh.

“Because you inadvertently left your engagement pad on the table yonder.”

When I returned to the sitting room the lamps were alight and the apartment transformed, with the motherly figure of Mrs Hudson, our amiable landlady, bustling about laying the table, the covered dishes on which were giving off an agreeable aroma.

“Ah, shepherd’s pie!” said Holmes, rubbing his thin hands together and drawing up his chair.

“You have really excelled yourself this evening, Mrs Hudson.”

“Very kind of you to say so, sir.”

She paused at the door, an anxious expression on her face.

“Did your visitor come back, Mr Holmes?”

“Visitor, Mrs Hudson?”

“Yes, sir. I was just going out, you see, and he said he would not bother you now. He said he would be back between six-thirty and seven-thirty, if that was convenient. I hope I have done right.”

“Certainly, Mrs Hudson.”

Holmes glanced at the clock over the mantel.

“It is only six o’clock now so we have plenty of time to do justice to your excellent meal. What sort of person would you say?”

“A foreign-looking gentleman, Mr Holmes. About forty, with a huge beard. He wore a plaid cape, a wide-brimmed hat and carried a shabby-looking holdall.”

I paused with a portion of shepherd’s pie halfway to my mouth.

“Why, you would make an admirable detective yourself, Mrs Hudson.”

Our good landlady flushed.

“Kind of you to say so, sir. Shall I show him up as soon as he arrives, Mr Holmes?”

“If you please.”

Holmes was silent as we made inroads into the excellent fare and it had just turned seven when he produced his pipe and pouch and sat himself back in his chair by the fire.

“A foreign gentleman with a beard and a shabby case, Holmes,” I said at length, after the débris of our meal had been cleared and the room had resumed its normal aspect.

“Perhaps, Watson. But he may be an Englishman with a very mundane problem. It is unwise to speculate without sufficient data on which to base a prognosis.”

“As you say, Holmes,” I replied and sat down opposite him and immersed myself in the latest edition of
The Lancet.
It was just half-past seven and we had closed the curtains against the sheeting rain when there came a hesitant tap at the sitting room door. The apparition which presented itself was indeed bizarre and Mrs Hudson’s matter of fact description had not prepared me for such a sight.

He was of great height, and his dark beard, turning slightly grey at the edges, now flecked with rain, hung down over his plaid cloak like a mat. His eyes were a brilliant blue beneath cavernous brows and his eyebrows, in contrast to the beard, were jet-black, which enhanced the piercing glance he gave to Holmes and myself. I had no time to take in anything else for I was now on my feet to extend a welcome. He stood just inside the door, water dripping from his clothing on to the carpet, looking owlishly from myself to Holmes, who had also risen from his chair.

“Mr Holmes? Dr Watson?” he said hesitantly in a deep bass voice.

“This is he,” I said, performing the introductions.

He gave an embarrassed look to both of us.

“I must apologize for this intrusion, gentlemen. Aristide Smedhurst at your service. Artist and writer, for my pains. I would not have bothered you, Mr Holmes, but I am in the most terrible trouble.”

“This is the sole purpose of this agency – to assist,” said Holmes, extending a thin hand to our strange guest.

“Watson, would you be so kind? I think, under the circumstances, a stiff whisky would not come amiss.”

“Of course, Holmes,” I said, hastening to the sideboard.

“That is most gracious of you, gentlemen,” said Smedhurst, allowing himself to be led to a comfortable chair by the fire.

As I handed him the whisky glass his face came forward into the light and I saw that he had an unnatural pallor on his cheeks.

“Thank you, Dr Watson.”

He gulped the fiery liquid gratefully and then, seeing Holmes’s sharp eyes upon him, gave an apologetic shrug.

“Forgive me, Mr Holmes, but if you had been through what I have experienced, it would be enough to shake even your iron nerve.”

“Indeed,” said Holmes in reassuring tones. “Pray do not apologize, my dear Mr Smedhurst. I observed when you first entered that your cape and trousers were covered in mud, as though you had fallen heavily. You have come all the way from Dorset today, I presume, so the matter must be serious.”

Our strange visitor gazed at Holmes open-mouthed.

“I did indeed have a nasty fall in my anxiety to catch my train. But how on earth could you know I came from Dorset?”

My old friend got up to light a spill for his pipe from the fire.

“There was nothing extraordinary about my surmise, I can assure you. Watson and I attended your exhibition at the Royal Academy last summer. Those extraordinary oils, water colours and pencil sketches of those weird landscapes remained long in my memory …”

“Why, of course, Holmes …” I broke in.

“And the exhibition catalogue, if I am not mistaken, gave your address in Dorset and said that you habitually worked in that fascinating part of the world,” Holmes went on smoothly. “But you have a problem, obviously.”

“Yes, Mr Holmes. I thought Dorset was fascinating at first,” went on Smedhurst bitterly. “But no longer after my experiences of the past two years.”

“But you called earlier and then went away. Why was that?”

A haunted look passed across the bearded man’s face.

“I thought I was followed here,” he mumbled, draining his glass. He eagerly accepted the replenishment I offered him.

“You are among friends, Mr Smedhurst,” Holmes went on. “Pray take your time. You are staying in town, of course.”

“At the Clarence, yes.”

“An admirable establishment. Which means you are not pressed for time this evening?”

“No, sir.”

The haggard look was back on our visitor’s face.

“For God’s sake, Mr Holmes, help me! This ghastly thing has appeared again. Both my sanity and my life are at stake!”

2

There was a long silence in the room, broken only by the distant clatter of a passing hansom. Holmes waited until our visitor had regained his calm and then gently asked him to continue. Draining the contents of his second glass of whisky with one fierce gulp, Smedhurst plunged straight into his story.

“I had grown tired of London, Mr Holmes, and felt the need of country air. There was also a young lady with whom I had formed an attachment. We had met at one of my exhibitions and I had escorted her to several functions in London. She lived at Parvise Magna, a small village in Dorset, so when I went down I searched for a suitable dwelling in the area. I soon found what I wanted. It was an ancient cottage and needed a lot of repair but stood in its own land about a mile from the village. It had belonged to an old man, Jabez Crawley, who had let it go to rack and ruin, and who had died the previous year. However, I negotiated a fair price with a local lawyer who had handled Crawley’s affairs, and moved in. At first, all went well and when my renovations had been completed I was extremely happy.”

Here Smedhurst paused and flushed slightly. Holmes leaned forward in his chair, a gentle smile softening his austere features.

“You had come to an understanding with this young lady.”

“Exactly so, Mr Holmes. A Miss Eveline Reynolds, a very charming person.”

“I can well imagine, Mr Smedhurst,” I put in.

Holmes’s smile widened.

“Ah, there is your romantic streak again, Watson.”

“Well, Mr Holmes,” our visitor continued, “as I have indicated things went admirably. I had my studio on the first floor of the cottage and was turning out good work. Eveline – Miss Reynolds, that is – was a frequent visitor to the cottage and I also visited her home. She is an orphan and lives with an elderly aunt, the latter making me welcome enough. The first indication that something was wrong occurred a few months after my taking up residence. I returned home from a visit to Eveline one evening to find the premises in some disarray. Things had been moved from their familiar places, there were muddy boot-marks on the stairs, and some canvases in the studio had been disturbed.”

“In other words a search had been made,” said Holmes, a gleam of interest in his eyes.

“Exactly, sir. To say I was extremely annoyed, let alone alarmed and dismayed, would not adequately describe my feelings. I lit every lamp in the place and made a thorough search but found nothing.”

“The front door had been securely locked?”

“Certainly, Mr Holmes. I would never leave my home in that lonely place without first making all secure.”

“Perhaps your domestic help …” I put in.

Smedhurst shook his head.

“I have a woman who comes in twice a week to do some cleaning and cooking but she arrives only when I am there.”

“No one else has a key?” said Holmes.

“Not that I am aware of, Mr Holmes. There is only one key, an enormous thing more suited to the Bastille. The lawyer explained that the old man was terrified of being robbed and insisted on one key only and had a special lock fitted.”

“And the back door?”

“Firmly locked and bolted.”