The Sherlock Holmes Megapack: 25 Modern Tales by Masters: 25 Modern Tales by Masters (32 page)

“In that same vein,” he continued, “it is sometimes necessary for me to simply tell my patients that they have been visited by fairies.”

Here, regardless of his stated rationale, I was shocked and must have looked every inch of it.

“Though, I admit,” he went on after a pause, “in fairness and in thinking it over, I was surely wrong to make such a suggestion to McCabe, who is a thoroughly educated man. In my enthusiasm, I suppose I sometimes fail to separate one order of patient from another. But, tell me, doctor, how would you describe a fairy?”

“Me? Why I wouldn’t have a reason to try!”

“Humour me.”

“Well, I suppose a fairy is defined as a tiny humanoid only a few inches tall with wings and lives among the flowers.” Then I was hit with an inspiration. “Like Tinker Bell in
Peter Pan
!”

“Well, it is true that the popular magazines and the arts generally have encouraged that image and fanned it to the point where it is now pervasive and utterly taken for granted. To the degree even that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was fooled by the Cottingley fairy photographs, which were clumsily contrived by two children.”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say,” I ventured. “It sounds as though you have no more patience for fairies than I do.”

“Those tiny fairies that you just described, doctor, are the product of the fertile imaginations of elitist town dwellers and city folk, of poets and playwrights, of painters and artists and illustrators who set themselves above country folk and who have perceived themselves as sophisticated and modern, especially at the close of the nineteenth century. The fairies of rural Ireland, however, are a different matter entirely.”

I was about to interrupt, but he would have none of it.

“The Celtic people have passed down tried and true information about fairies for some two millennia. Stop, doctor, and contemplate what a gulf of time two thousand years is! Mind you, these people couldn’t read or write so they kept their culture alive and protected the well-being of their families and communities through oral tradition. If you build your house over a fairy path, keep the doors open at night to allow the fairies free passage, otherwise your livestock will sicken and die. Keep your eye on newborn babes, as the fairies will substitute one of their own if you aren’t careful. Do not disturb a heap of stones in a field, as the fairies who live inside the pile will cause you no end of trouble. Calling them ‘the gentry’ or ‘the good folk’ or ‘the fair family’ or suchlike terms will ease their tempers and divert their malice. There are thousands of such directives—changing surprisingly little over time—and surprisingly specific to regions. The rules and perceptions can change radically from village to village, from county to county, even from nation to nation. For instance, there are the
pobel vean
in Cornwall, the
brownies
in Scotland, the
corrigans
in Brittany, the
tylwyth teg
in Wales, and countless others. And, of course, here in Ireland, we have the
sidhe
. All remarkably similar in some ways and yet distinct in others. And from thence derive all the leprechauns and elves and most of the other wee folk that haunt these lands!”

I was aghast that this doctor had the temerity to avoid my questions as thoroughly as a politician! I tried to steer the conversation back toward subjects that I understand. “What do you say is the nature of the fungus?”

“It is a simple
mycelium
fungus,” Abernathy answered, “which is the root cause of fairy rings in soil and circles of mushrooms in fields and forests. These fungi can grow quite enormous if not eradicated, you know. In O’Neary’s case, it is obvious that the fungus has somehow transferred itself to his skin. Though not common, this is not unheard of either, and a distillate made from boiled castor oil will prove quite effective if rubbed into the contaminated area.”

Fairy rings! Fairy traditions! Fairy curses! I’m sick to death of hearing such nonsense!

After breakfast and after that so-called doctor exited, Tieg and McCabe took me to the spot where O’Neary had been found unconscious. It was a good hike, and as neither McCabe nor I are as agile as we once were in our younger days, it was slow going. We aimed toward Bottle Hill (the tor, not the town) and which is also called Knock Magh, and Tieg volunteered that local legends held that there was a fairy city deep under the hill and that it was honeycombed with passages and tunnels of pure gold.

“But, doctor, I don’t believe anybody has ever chosen to investigate, as everyone believes the legends—more or less,” Tieg said. “Even father, choosing not to incite the distrust of our neighbours, has always respected the ban and has prevented the sheep from grazing anywhere near it. All this acreage has lain fallow for years.”

It was close to midday when we crossed a stream by way of a tranquil bridge and soon afterward had crossed the pasture and came within sight of an enormous rough column of stone with a more-or-less pointed top. It was a single stone about the height of three men and alone in the midst of the field. You can see it in your mind’s eye, I’m sure, Holmes, as it reminded me of those monuments of stone that you and I encountered in Cornwall.

“What is this?” I asked pointing to the column.

McCabe said, “Oh, that is just an old standing stone. They are common in this land. Legend has it, of course, that they are some sort of fairy signpost that marked some crossroads on a fairy path. Others say that they are prehistoric, built by long forgotten peoples.”

I was so exasperated at all this fairy talk I had to keep my temper. I couldn’t help but imagine how you would react to all this nonsense and remembered how you proved that whole Baskerville business with all its legends to be fraudulent.

[Ha! Watson! You assume too much. Fairy bushes and fairy paths are very real to people who seldom travel more than twenty miles from their villages. Fairy wisdom has lived for good reason through time immemorial. As to that other matter, all I did was show that an unscrupulous man had used the Baskerville legend for murder. I did nothing to prove or disprove the legend one way or another!]

Nearby, perhaps twenty yards away, there was the hedge that was the centre of so much trouble. There were about fifteen of the plants growing close together. At the end of the hedge was a weathered hole about three feet across and the dead and dried bush that had been cast aside.

“You say the stone marked a path,” I said. “Is there a real path, and where exactly is it?”

“Over here, Dr Watson,” McCabe said, and in a few moments we came to a worn pebbly path. I asked the two men to stay just where they were for the time being as I wanted to look around, and I am proud to say that I began my investigation in emulation of you, Holmes. I had even troubled to bring a small magnifying glass. The ground was covered with footprints and shoeprints, some old, some brand new it seemed. There were also some marks that, I thought, a large snake might have made.

When I rejoined them, I jokingly wondered aloud what kind of curse the fairies would put on me. And I was surprised to see that both went white as their own sheep and didn’t respond in any manner.

With this realization that my hosts were not immune to the power of the local myths, I decided to change tactics. I wandered casually over to the standing stone, or the fairies’ road sign, as it were, and began to examine its design and substance. I used the glass to examine minutely the areas of it surface that I could easily reach. I am no geologist, but it looked to me to be ordinary black basalt that had been exposed to the elements for centuries and much weathered. As I did so my shoe must have knocked or kicked into its base, so that when I stepped back I found that a fragment of stone as big as my fist lay at the foot of the standing stone. At first I thought that the larger rock must have been cracked somehow at some point in time, and I clearly jarred this small piece loose with my shoe. Even from where I stood, I could see that the sharp edges of the small fragment exactly matched the new cavity in the bigger stone. I picked up the piece and examined it with the glass I still had in my hand.

The first thing I noticed was that it was shiny, more like volcanic glass than basalt, black and oddly slippery. Furthermore it was marked on the inward facing side with what looked like organized scratches. I found this most interesting and slipped the piece into my jacket pocket. All this happened on the side of the standing stone the faced away from my two guides, thus they did not know, and do not now know of any of this circumstance. I’m not sure what exactly I was thinking just then, but it has proven convenient to examine the piece without being subjected to superstitious outcries.

We returned without incident and I quickly retired to my room where I have been looking at the stone through the glass most minutely and can say with certainty that the scratches are definitely hieroglyphics or runes of some sort, about five dozen in number. The resultant conclusion is that at some point in antiquity the piece had been somehow broken from the larger rock, inscribed, and then replaced to fit perfectly into its spot of origin so that it was impossible to know that such a subtle graffiti had ever been perpetrated—unless one knew the secret. What it all means is another matter. It is an interesting curio, and I think I will use it as a paperweight. Knowing your interest in philology and ancient languages, I’ve just made a rubbing of the marks with the side of a pencil on some of my note paper. I include that rubbing here for you inspection. I will send any sequel when and if there is one. I am

Honoured to by your friend and colleague,

And conclude this note with warm regards.

John Watson

[Since I was holding all the letters in my hand as I read, Mr Holmes asked to see again the page with the markings that Dr Watson had described. He looked it over most carefully, checking the reverse side, and then he shivered, ripped the paper in half and in half again, over and over until the paper had been torn into minute pieces. Then he placed all the torn paper onto a saucer, lit the pile with a match, and when it had all burned, he crushed the ashes, stirred them, and crushed them again several times. Then he said, “Mrs Hudson, I must now decide what to do with these ashes as I don’t want them proximal to this house.” Of course, I knew better than to inquire what the fuss was about and I suggested that he mix the ashes with a bowl of birdseed for the birds to consume and disperse to the four winds as fate decreed. “Capital idea, Mrs Hudson! I will not waste a moment!” He then put action to word, and returned to his seat. Then he said, “By the same token, Mrs Hudson, we must take possession of the good doctor’s paperweight as soon as possible and dispose of it in an equivalent manner.” Then he bid me continue with the next letter.]

John H. Watson, M.D.

June 17th 1924

My Dear Holmes:

I apologize that my last note must have arrived long ago, and that there has been no further sequel until now, and it’s not of much consequence. The last days I have been recuperating from my long hike to the standing stone and blackthorn hedge. Because I have a strong intuition that the cause, and perhaps the solution, to O’Neary’s strange malady lay beyond those two landmarks in a little-visited valley or gulch at the further end of McCabe’s land, I’ve arranged with him to explore the area this coming Saturday, 21 June. The region it seems has points of interest, but I was astonished to hear that neither McCabe nor the O’Nearys has ever travelled much beyond the location of the standing stone despite their living so close to it. (It is truism, I suppose, that residents of an area are the last people to visit the attractions of that area, as I for one, have never been
inside
the Tower of London.) In the meantime, I am caring for the elder O’Neary and applying the ointment derived from boiled castor oil as Abernathy directed. It certainly can’t do any harm. The nearest medical facility is far off in Cork, and as I don’t want to risk the rough travel, I am caring for him here, and he appears to be no worse off for the attention he is receiving.

Your loyal friend, as always,

Watson

[Here Mr Holmes burst out: “Watson, Watson, Watson, beware! You should not be meddling with things you don’t understand! I’m really far too old to have to bolt up and rescue you, old friend. I simply don’t do all that well travelling any more.” He heaved a great sigh, then asked me to retrieve three of his commonplace books, which he then spent some time meticulously amending. Quite a while later, he asked me to replace them, and he simply said, “Mrs Watson, pray continue.”]

John H. Watson, M.D.

June 23rd 1924

I don’t know where to begin. Two days ago I experienced Hell! How does one describe literal Hell after one has actually been there?

The day before yesterday, early in the morning I loaded and pocketed my pistol just to be on the safe side, and we packed some things, including Hubert electric torches and shotguns into McCabe’s farm lorry and slowly bumped our way over the pasture and stopped to get our bearings at the standing stone—the so-called fairy’s road marker. I scoffed then, but not now! If only we three babes-in-the-wood could have known then what we’d endure in just a matter of hours! We followed the fairy path down into creek beds and up and down gullies, around hedges and still more hedges, all of which were mature plants and already in place when he bought the land. For now they served to separate various unused parcels near to Bottle Hill.

In due course, I could see in the distance the wide mouth of the gorge that was our destination. Upon arriving, McCabe drove a short distance into the opening, but it fast became obvious that the narrowing of the passage prevented further progress by vehicle.

We grabbed our guns, torches, and water bottles, and marched forward into what proved to be an unexpectedly convoluted defile with sharp bends and rough rocky walls. It was noticeably cooler due to the abundance of shade. I suppose we hiked thus for half a mile or so. Then we rounded one sharp bend, and stopped dead at the sight we saw!