“Perfect,” announced Holmes, against all of the available evidence.
“Forgive me, but are we really to spend the next several weeks in here?” I asked, not even attempting to hide my despondency.
“Hold hard, Watson. We shall not be here long, one night, maybe two but, for now, it is ideal. Well away from the rest of the crew and their singular passenger,” Holmes reassured, as he played with the lamp, finally managing to increase its flame to a more reasonable level.
I looked around the sparse cabin. It was actually not as bad as I had first feared. The bedding on the bunks was old but appeared to have been recently laundered. The floor had been scrubbed and upon it, I noticed a trunk and some canvas bags. I opened one, cautiously, but to my relief, it contained bread, ham, cheese and fruit. The others contained blankets and also, to my delight, several bottles of French wine and even a local brandy.
“No reason for you to suffer whilst we are secreted down here, Watson,” grinned Holmes, sitting down upon on a low bunk. He took out his pipe, filled the bowl and lit it, while I prepared some sandwiches and poured red wine into a pair of white enamel mugs. I sat upon the trunk and ate the simple fare most gratefully. The excitement and expectation of the day had made me quite forget that I had eaten nothing since early that morning. Although I spared no time in finishing off my bread, ham and cheese, Holmes merely picked at his repast, preferring to smoke than take on what was, by now, much needed sustenance.
“Eat up, old chap, you have not eaten since, well since I have no idea,” I admitted, worriedly. “Did you even take breakfast this morning?”
“Watson, fear not,” he replied in his usual dismissive fashion, “My mind is nourished by cogitating upon the one puzzle that remains in this case. But, I will finish this one sandwich, to satisfy your paternal concerns. But not until I have finished this pipe.” He puffed deeply and defiantly. Holmes’ great intellect could sometimes be matched by his childish intransigence.
“Very well,” I sighed, refusing to rise to his bait. “So, if you will not eat then you can at least answer this question,” I responded. “What are we doing here? What can we possibly achieve hidden away down here on a ship heading for West Africa? I will not be ignored now, Holmes, I demand that you tell me your plan.”
I was, by now, hot, tired and frustrated.
“I have travelled the entire length of France with hardly a word from you, let alone the slightest hint of an explanation. I have carried out your orders to the letter, without a word of complaint, despite having not a single clue as to your intentions. And now? Now, I am holed up in the bowels of an ancient barque, heading off towards the Atlantic.”
Holmes grinned, most infuriatingly. “My plan? It is simple, Watson. Tomorrow we visit Shiner’s cabin and interview him. I have only a small hope that he will confess, but he might at least confirm that which I have, so far, ascertained.”
“Well, if you persist in this fashion, I will have no choice but to take heavily to drink to pass the interminable time.”
I picked up the bottle and emptied its remaining contents into my mug. I took a long draught, appreciating, for the first time, that the wine was actually rather good.
“Watson, my dear old friend, please forgive me my obfuscations. The truth is that all of my plans have been enacted and the traps that were set have now been sprung. We are now at the mercy of time and fate. I am optimistic that we will meet with some success tomorrow, but I fear it will not be the end of the matter, this mystery still has some way to go,” he concluded, ominously.
I sighed and took another swig. “I plan to soon be asleep, leaving you to your eternal, and possibly infernal, thoughts.”
“Very well, but before you do pass out from imbibing all of this Provencal wine, perhaps you would like to hear about one of my very earliest cases.”
My mood changed in an instant. Up until this point, Holmes had barely mentioned anything of his life before we met, and had never discussed his earlier cases.
“Of course, Holmes, I wish, dearly, to hear of all your cases, as knowledge of the earliest of these will help me to understand more your methods and their development.”
“Very well.” Holmes refilled his pipe and, once again, brought it to life. I noticed that he had eaten barely a third of his sandwich, but chose not to comment. After all, I was far more interested in hearing an account of one of his early cases than I was in admonishing him for not following my medical advice.
Chapter Twelve - The Croxham Church Mystery
“In March of 1875, an unusual message was delivered to my Cambridge college rooms,” Holmes began, now wreathed in cinereal smoke.
“It was from an acquaintance of a friend from university, one whom I had aided the previous year, when in a particularly difficult situation. The note was signed by a Nathan Coverdale, who resided in the nearby village of Croxham.”
“The village of Croxham lies to the south of Cambridge, just to the west of the Gog Magog Hills. It is a small village with only one notable, indeed unusual, characteristic. Most of its residents are Catholic and have always remained so, in secret when their religion was suppressed during the Reformation and, latterly, quite openly. It was, therefore, one of the first parishes to allow a Catholic church to be officially re-established following the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. In reality, all that the existing Norman church, St. Sebastian’s, had to do was to change its official title as it reverted back to its original status.”
Holmes drew upon his briar, a faint glow rising in its depths, and continued.
“The message read:
‘Dear Mr Holmes,
I am very sorry to trouble you. I have been recently informed of your great success in the matter of Master Trevor’s difficulties, and the help that you provided him in his hour of need. I am also most desirous of your skills to aid us in unravelling a great and impenetrable mystery. I have recently lost my father to a most terrible murder. The police appear to be quite confounded and show no signs of being able make any progress, let alone actually solving the case. I implore you to come to Croxham and investigate. I have some small funds available and will happily offer them to you in exchange for your time and expertise.
Most sincerely yours,
Nathan Coverdale.’”
“I have to admit, Watson, as to being flattered by the reference to the previous year’s events. I was also young, confident and not one to shirk a challenge. The wording intrigued and challenged me - ‘a great and impenetrable mystery.’ I replied by return and the next day I was in a dogcart on my way to Croxham.”
“I met Coverdale outside his family house, a large, sprawling Tudor mansion of warm red brick, sculpted hedgerows and walled kitchen gardens. He led me inside where he recounted his tale.”
“Coverdale’s father was the local landowner and, as such, was the wealthiest and most powerful man in the village. He was also the local magistrate and a Deacon at the church. The village had been the very picture of harmony until the local priest, Father O’Rourke, an old Irishman, much beloved of his parishioners, passed away. His replacement was far less successful; an unsympathetic and distant man, qualities that failed to enamour him to the local parishioners.”
“The final straw came when Coverdale’s father found large discrepancies in the parish accounts, Father Jeremiah Arthurs was stealing from his own parishioners. Coverdale senior was furious and made no secret of what he had discovered. He planned to confront the nefarious priest and stormed into St Sebastian’s to have it out with him, one to one. He marched down the central aisle, but he never made it any further, as he suddenly let out a short cry and fell to the ground. He was found with a massive and terrible wound to his head, he had been killed instantly by a huge blow with a blunt instrument.”
“Well, surely, the priest was the main suspect, he had motive and opportunity,” I
interjected. “Hardly a difficult case for you, Holmes.” The wine and food had greatly improved my mood and I was listening intently.
“Except for one thing, Watson,” Holmes replied. “The priest was, at that time, hosting a choir practice in the upper level of the church in front of the organ. Amongst his choristers was Coverdale Junior, along with eight other witnesses.”
“To make things even more complicated, Coverdale Senior had been followed into the church by two villagers, concerned that the irate magistrate might take matters into his own hands. Their testimonies confirmed that the events had occurred exactly as described and eliminated the possibility of an assailant having entered or left the church in the moments before or after the crime was committed.”
“Then the criminal must have entered by a side door. Come on Holmes, most churches have at least half a dozen ways in or out,” I countered, quite unconvinced.
“All of the other doors were locked and the keys were all found upon the priest himself. There was no other way in or out of the church. I know what your next question will be, Watson, but the villager that remained let nobody in or out of the church, not even the priest, until the authorities arrived. The building was thoroughly searched but no trace of any third party was ever found.”
“Then I can see no way that the crime could have been committed.” I paused. “Unless. Wait a minute. Unless there was, in fact, no crime at all. Perhaps Coverdale’s shouting had caused a piece of ornamental stone to come free and fall, causing this terrible injury. It may have then rolled under a pew and been hidden from view or shattered into dust upon impact and not been noticed.”
“What a wonderful suggestion, Doctor, and one which may, one day, solve another mystery, but not this one.”
Holmes appeared, for once, genuinely impressed by my thinking, but swiftly continued.
“Once Coverdale had finished his story, I headed for the church to see if any clues had been missed by the police. Unfortunately, as the grass outside had been trampled on by so many comings and goings, I could not confirm whether a third party had or had not entered or left the church. Similarly, inside the building, any trace of an attacker was long gone, hidden by the stomp of honest, but inconvenient, police boots.”
“My next move was to interview Father Jeremiah himself, the chief suspect of Coverdales, both Junior, and indeed, Senior. I met up with him at the old vicarage, which had, naturally, become his residence. He was a short man, thin of hair but with keen, piercing blue eyes. He sported a pencil thin moustache below a long, sharp nose. Upon his black waistcoat he wore several button badges, a silver cross, the ‘agnes dei’ and, more unusually, a scallop shell.”
“He was, as expected, rather reluctant to speak with me, a young man without any accreditation to the official police, but he did at least confirm a few suspicions and deductions that I had made.”
“I think that you had, at this point, determined a reasonable theory as to how he had committed the crime, something to do with those badges,” I suggested, as I topped up my mug, by now thoroughly enjoying my evening.
“Quite right, Watson,” Holmes confirmed. “But then I made an error. I rather goaded him, by suggesting that the police would surely soon arrest him, at least for theft and fraud, if not for the actual murder of Coverdale Senior. This made him quite irate and he fairly threw me out of his home, but not before making it clear that all of the relevant bookkeeping entries were made, not by himself, but by the Parish Treasurer. There was no proof, at all, that he was involved in, or aware of, any malpractice.”
“So, you had to determine how the murder was committed and prove who was responsible or else the priest would walk free,” I stated. “How did you do it?”
“I met up with Coverdale Junior and arranged to join him and the police Inspector inside the church in an hour’s time,” Holmes continued, as usual, ignoring my request for a quick solution. “I instructed Coverdale that he must convince the police to also bring along the priest, Arthurs, and a couple of burly constables. I then headed back to the church to test a theory.”
“I was waiting at the end of the central aisle, just before the chancel, the transepts to the left and right of me, when the small party of four entered. I observed that Coverdale had, indeed, persuaded the Inspector to bring Arthurs, along with a single constable.”
“I was not at all disappointed, Watson,” Holmes stressed, “as this proved a new theory that I had been aching to test in a real life situation. I had discovered that asking a figure of authority for assistance is an unexpectedly complicated affair. If you do manage to convince them to provide any level of aid at all, then you have already been successful, but usually what is then provided falls well short of what was requested, required or, indeed, promised. The solution is to always deliberately request aid in a quantity far in excess of that which you actually require.”
“Holmes, you are addressing a Doctor, and a military Doctor, at that. What you had ‘divined’ is something that we learn within the first few months of study.”
I could not help but laugh. Holmes was certainly a genius, but he was far from being an expert in all areas of life.
“Back in India, if a commander needed an additional company he would start by asking for a division,” I added. “But please continue, old chap, the culmination of the case in a church, how singular.”
Holmes continued, unperturbed by my red-cheeked interjection. “They approached me, but when they were perhaps fifteen yards from my position, I called on them to halt and come no closer.”
“‘What is the meaning of this, young man, explain yourself. I have taken a great risk in bringing Father Jeremiah here, against his will,’ barked the Inspector. He was a bright man, maybe five and thirty years of age. We worked together on a few occasions hence, I always told him that he was wasted in the Fens, but he had no desire to move to Scotland Yard.”
“I began, ‘The events that occurred here, on that fateful afternoon, were tragic and possibly unique. I will now explain exactly what happened. Father Jeremiah, maybe it is now time to confess?’ I asked, calmly. He said nothing, but his head appeared to drop as if he had recognised what was to come.”
“I continued, ‘The Magistrate, Coverdale, stormed into the church, demanding answers regarding the missing parish funds. Seconds later, he was dead. He was alone on the church floor, yet he was found with a terrible wound to the head. No one left the scene, no weapon was ever found. How had he been killed and who was responsible?’”
“‘Well, get on with it for G... for ... just, please, get on with...’ spluttered the Inspector, angrily.”
“But before he could finish, I cried out, ‘Now, Mrs B, just as we practiced!’”
“Three of the four faces before me were frozen in shock, the other, Arthurs, dropped his shoulders in resignation.”
“A slight swish was heard and then suddenly an object swooped down from high up in the rafters. It shimmered in what little, dull light was able to enter the church. A brass object, twenty inches high and maybe eight wide, swung down towards us. It rushed through the air, gaining speed as it approached. Just as it seemed it would smash through us all, as if pins in a game of bar skittles, it suddenly accelerated upwards and away behind us.”
“Those standing before me watched, transfixed, as the brass container swung back again, but this time it passed far overhead. It swung back and forth several times more, rising each time, until it settled to a regular, gentle pendulous swing, close to the roof beams above us.”
“‘What on earth is that?’ demanded the Inspector.”
“‘That is the murder weapon,’ I declared. ‘Gentlemen, may I introduce Botafumeiro Junior, and its controller, the indefatigable Mrs Branch.’ I pointed towards the balcony where a well-dressed, middle-aged lady in blue waved back, enthusiastically.”
“I looked out upon three ope
n mouths and one which quivered. ‘Let us retire to Father Jeremiah’s house and I will explain all.’”
“Once settled within Arthurs’ living room, I began my explanation.”
“‘When I arrived here this morning, I thought that this was a murder, terrible and vicious, a thing of pure evil, perpetrated to hide a theft of the worst kind. But what little experience I have so far gained, has shown me that nothing is ever quite as simple, or straightforward, as it may first appear.’”
“‘I will begin by explaining the technicalities concerning the death of Mr Coverdale, Senior. Arthurs was conducting choir practice up in the attic choir at the back of the church when in raced Coverdale. Arthurs’ reaction was two-fold. Firstly, as any good teacher would have, he instructed his students to remain in place and not turn around and peer over the balcony to observe the commotion that was occurring below. Secondly, he pulled the ropes that released the object which swept down and inflicted the mortal injuries upon Mr Coverdale, below.’”
“‘My suspicions were first raised by the badges which Father Jeremiah wears upon his waistcoat. The scallop shell is well known as the symbol of the ‘Camino de Santiago’, a pilgrim trail that runs from Paris to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. He was very reticent when I questioned him, but he did confirm that he had spent some time in Spain and admitted that he was aware of the Camino.’”
“‘The most striking feature of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is “Botafumeiro”, a huge brass censer, weighing over two hundred pounds, which is swung on ropes from the upper dome of the cathedral. It is quite the spectacle, I have been told, and one that I, one day, hope to experience at first-hand.’”
“‘Once this idea had formed, I returned to the church and examined the roof to discover that Father Jeremiah had constructed a replica system, almost identical to that in Spain, but on a much smaller scale. A large brass ring was attached to the highest point of the ceiling, directly above the chancel and from this hung the censer on one central rope. The censer’s height and angle was controlled by four guide ropes, one at each cardinal point. As it had yet to be used during a service, the lateral guide ropes were still tied up, hidden from view. The censer itself was sitting on a ledge above the choir, also unseen, but connected by the main rope to the brass ring. This rope hung down over the choir loft, sadly, just within touching distance of Arthurs as he rushed forwards to view the scene below. One good yank was enough to dislodge the brass thurible and send it on its way, swinging down towards poor Mr Coverdale.’”
Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of The Pigtail Twist Page 16