Tales From the Deed Box of John H. Watson MD

by Hugh Ashton

  As we carefully collected the glass fragments and placed them in a wooden seed-tray, he remarked to me, “Do you remark anything strange about these bottles?”

  “Not that I have noticed. I assume that you have done so?”

  He nodded. “There are several noteworthy points. The first is that of their very existence. If you remember at last night’s excellent dinner, Mrs Buncombe, when she presented us with a bottle of claret as an accompaniment to the roast shoulder of lamb, remarked that she was Temperance, and that alcohol never passed her own lips, though she was not averse to her lodgers partaking of the same.”

  “True, but these bottles could be the leavings of the libations of previous lodgers?”

  “A neat alliteration, Watson,” he remarked. “Naturally that possibility had occurred to me. However, many of the bottles retain the familiar aroma of good English beer, which would seem to argue that they were emptied relatively recently. In addition, I think we have both observed that our Mrs Buncombe is clean and tidy to a fault. If these bottles were the leavings of previous guests, I do not believe she would have left them behind that tool-shed yonder, and even had she done so, she would certainly have washed them clean before placing there.”

  I considered this for a moment. “The solution is simple, Holmes,” I replied. “These bottles are the result of her gardener, or some outside servant, refreshing himself in the intervals of his toil.”

  Holmes shook his head. “I fear you are mistaken. Though that thought also crossed my mind, it is not borne out by the bottles themselves. Observe that there are many different brews represented here. You must have remarked for yourself that when it comes to beer, the English workman is a creature of habit. Take from him his usual tipple, and he will be unhappy with any substitute, even if he cannot tell, blindfolded, the difference between the products of different breweries. In addition, the labels on these bottles indicate that their sources are from a wider geography than I would expect to be represented by the establishments of this town.”

  Holmes’ observation appeared to be correct; on inspection, there hardly seemed to be two bottles the same, with some even having their origin in the neighbouring county of Devon. “Your conclusion, then?”

  “This garden is employed as a meeting-place by a number of individuals, who assemble here from a number of diverse locations, and spend some time here – at any rate, a length of time which allows them to enjoy a companionable drink together. Observe,” he remarked, leading me down a slight slope away from the house towards a small cove. The orchard extended nearly to the shore, which consisted at this point of a sandy beach. “From here, we are invisible, except from the sea, and that from only the one angle. The trees on either side of this inlet prevent observation from elsewhere. And, confirming my surmise…” he stooped and picked up the end of a cigar from the ground. “I hardly think that this would be one of Mrs Buncombe’s leavings, nor yet one of her gardener’s. This is the remains of a truly noble product of Havana – one which I would expect to be enjoyed only by one of the more well-to-do members of our society.” He placed the remnant in one of the envelopes with which he was always provided. “And furthermore,” he added, “the gentleman suffers from the defect of a missing right incisor. Such a person should be easy to identify in this rural spot. There cannot be many such here.”

  We were interrupted in our conversation by the sound of Mrs Buncombe’s voice coming from the house. “There is something that is not as it should be,” said Holmes, as we turned and walked back towards the house with its promise of good cheer in the shape of a cup of tea. “I cannot for the moment ascertain its exact nature, but believe me, I sense its presence lurking.”

  Such dark thoughts were at odds with the blue skies and verdant landscape, edged by the sea, that surrounded us, and I determined to direct Holmes’ thoughts to happier things as soon as possible.

  -oOo-

  With this object in mind, I persuaded Holmes to accompany me on a walk to the famous Pendennis Castle, originally built by our Bluff King Hal to protect the realm from invasion. The view from the headland on which the castle stands is truly magnificent, and we stood together in silence, gazing across the bay to St Mawes and St Anthony Head, with its famous white-painted lighthouse at the foot.

  Holmes stood, seemingly drinking in the view by my side, but to someone who knew him as well as myself, it was clear that the beauty of his surroundings was far from being the principal object of his thoughts. This was confirmed with his next words to me.

  “The lighthouse was visible from the point where we discovered the cigar end, was it not?” This was hardly a question requiring a reply, and I refrained from answering. Holmes continued his musings. “And yet, if I am right, it would not be visible from the house, nor yet from any other place nearby, as the trees would block the view. We will have to return and investigate – later, Watson, later, not now,” as I started to expostulate.

  “What is the significance of this?” I asked him. “Indeed, is it likely that there is any significance at all?”

  “I do not know,” he replied. “I find it curious, that is all, that a diverse group of men should assemble from where the one spot where the lighthouse is easily seen, and which is in its turn almost invisible from other points.”

  “Smugglers?” I suggested, my imagination having been fired by a history of these men which I had recently been reading.

  “This is hardly a time when bales of French lace and the like would make it worthwhile running the gauntlet of Her Majesty’s Excisemen,” Holmes replied. “In any event, landing any such cargo, be it lace, spirits, or tobacco, would seem to demand that such goods be transported elsewhere. There are no roads leading to that place, and I saw no signs of any heavy loads being moved.”

  “Perhaps the smugglers arrive by boat and depart using the same method?” I suggested.

  “That strikes me as being quite possible,” said Holmes. “If I recall the breweries of the beer originally contained in those bottles, each one of them is located in a coastal town, if not a port. So, Watson, we have a secretive band of men, beer-drinkers from different ports of the West Country, chiefly this county, arriving by boat, converging on one spot from which they can only be seen by that lighthouse over there, and presumably departing the way they have come. What does that say to you?”

  “I can only think of smuggling at present.”

  “I as well,” he confessed. “But it does not ring true to me at all. Why would smugglers choose such a place, rather than meeting some distance from the shore and transferring the goods in mid-ocean, where the rule of the excisemen is less likely to be enforced? Also, the boats used to transport the goods must be small – the water is shallow near that place, and a large boat would have difficulty in drawing near. It would hardly appear to be worth a smuggler’s while to risk several years of imprisonment for a dinghy’s worth of brandy.”

  “But if the cargo were something relatively small, but yet valuable?” I ventured.

  “Indeed, Watson! Bravo! I do believe that you may have something there,” he congratulated me. “It is hard to think what such a commodity might be, though?”

  “Pearls?” I hazarded, my thoughts still running along maritime lines.

  Holmes shook his head. “I doubt that to be the case. Pearls are not commonly reckoned to be among the principal products of this county. Likewise, I doubt any kind of jewels, though they would likewise meet the criteria you established. My observations would seem to indicate that such meetings have taken place several times over the past few months, and it is impossible that there would be a steady supply of such articles to supply the number of carriers I deduce to have been present. I am at present unable to consider any alternative, though.”

  “Let us return for luncheon,” I suggested. “Mrs Buncombe gave us to understand that a grilled mackerel apiece would feature as the main dish, and it is a fish of which I am particularly fond.”

  -oOo--

 
After luncheon, which lived up to my expectations, I retired to our room. My early rising, which had been occasioned by Holmes’ eccentric revolver practice, followed by the walk and the sea air, had left me a little sleepy, and I resolved to take what our Mediterranean cousins term a siesta, a practice which, incidentally, I had often followed in my service in India.

  It was with a slight sense of relief that I removed my boots and laid myself on the bed. It seemed, though, that I had hardly closed my eyes when there was a loud knock at the door.

  “Doctor Watson!” came the voice of Mrs Buncombe. “If you would be kind enough to help, sir?”

  I got up and opened the door.

  “I wouldn’t have disturbed you, sir, excepting that it was urgent, but it’s young Harry Tregeare. He’s come over all queer, and Doctor Pengelly is over at St Mawes right now.”

  “Very good, Mrs Buncombe. Please give me a few minutes to make myself ready and I will be with you.” I laced up my boots and splashed cold water from the jug over my face. Happily I had thought to bring along my medical bag, which contained the usual apparatus appropriate to my calling.

  “Where is the patient?” I asked Mrs Buncombe, who was waiting anxiously at the bottom of the stairs. Holmes was nowhere to be seen.

  “He’s at the ‘Lion’,” she told me. “In the public bar. But Jim Stott – he’s the landlord there – says it’s not the drink. He’d only just touched his beer – Harry Tregeare, that is – when he came over all strange.”

  She led me along the street to the public house, a quaint old-fashioned building. “The door’s there,” she pointed. “I’m not going in there. I took my oath I would never enter one of those places, and even for Harry Tregeare, I’m not going to break my word.”

  I lifted the latch of the barroom door and entered. There were perhaps a dozen customers in there, mostly fisherman from their appearance, and they were clustered around a wooden settle on which lay a young man.

  “You are the doctor, then?” asked a stout man wearing a white apron, presumably the landlord of the establishment.

  “I am indeed. And this, I take it, is my patient?” indicating the recumbent figure.

  The others made space for me as I approached and started my examination of the young man, who appeared to be unconscious. “Do you have a cushion or something similar we can place under his head?” I asked the landlord. “It is not merely for his comfort, but I have no wish for his respiratory faculties to be temporarily incapacitated.” The use of such language, as I had hoped, seemed to inspire some respect among the onlookers, and a cushion was speedily produced and placed under the head of the unfortunate sufferer.

  As is usual in such circumstances, one of my first actions was to lift the eyelids of the patient. The eyes were turned upward, as one would expect in such a case, but the pupils were contracted, almost to pinpoints. The breathing was rapid and shallow and the pulse fluttered in a peculiar fashion. “I am correct in assuming that he did not appear in a state of intoxication before his collapse?” I asked, though it was reasonably certain that his symptoms were not caused by alcohol.

  “No, sir,” replied one of the fisherman. “I’ll take my oath he was stone cold sober when he walked in here.”

  “Though he looked a little queer, like,” added another.

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “Well, I’d have to say he looked happy, and cheerful, without there being anything really for him to be happy about. I asked him what was up, and he said ‘Nothing’, so I left it at that, sir. It’s not like he was staggering around or anything like that.”

  I added “irrational euphoria” to my mental list of the patient’s symptoms, and then asked, “What happened next?”

  “Well, sir, he ordered his beer – that’s it that you see in front of him on the table right now, and b— me if he didn’t just fall down of a heap on the floor. So we picked him up and we put him there, and Davy there was going to call for the doctor. But then Jim Stott,” he pointed to the landlord, “reminded us that Doctor Pengelly had made his way over to St Mawes and probably wouldn’t be back until later this afternoon. Then someone remembered that Elsie Buncombe had some gentlemen from London staying with her, with one of them being a doctor, that one being yourself, sir.”

  “I see. Thank you. Does anyone know what he was doing before he entered this place?”

  Another of the fishermen spoke up. “I saw him earlier this morning, working in the garden at Sir Roderick’s.”

  “That would be who?” I asked the landlord.

  “Sir Roderick Gilbert-Pryor, sir,” he replied.

  “The Cabinet Minister?” I asked.

  “That’s the one, sir. He owns the big house up the way.”

  “I see. Well, based on my examination of the patient, I would surmise that he is in no immediate danger. However, I think at this moment it would be best if he were not moved from here. I am afraid, landlord, that you will have to accommodate your guest here for a few hours longer. If you have a blanket to throw over him, that would be advisable, and a hot-water bottle for his feet would be a welcome touch.” I pulled out my watch. “If he has not returned to consciousness by half-past four, have no hesitation in calling on me again.”

  “Much obliged, I am sure,” said the landlord, passing the word for the blanket and hot-water bottle. “May I recommend a pint of the local ale, sir? On the house, naturally, in gratitude for your help just now.”

  “With pleasure,” I assured him, and raised the foaming tankard. “Your good health, landlord. And good health to all in this room,” raising my glass pointedly towards the prone figure on the settle.

  -oOo-

  I returned to our lodgings after this little episode to discover Holmes waiting for me in our drawingroom. I gave him an explanation of where I had been, and he questioned me minutely regarding the symptoms of the sufferer.

  “I am surprised, Watson,” he exclaimed, when I had finished recounting the event, “that you failed to recognize the symptoms of opiate poisoning.”

  I smote my brow. “Of course! I do not know how I came to overlook it.”

  “In the same way that most such occurrences are overlooked,” said Holmes calmly.

  “Explain yourself.” I was still smarting from the rebuke he had administered to my professional ability, and I spoke somewhat curtly.

  “It is a mere matter of association. Who, for example, would ever suspect the presence of typhoid fever, a disease linked to dirt and inadequate sanitation, in a palace? And yet, I assure you, such cases occur. Or, for that matter, gout, which is commonly linked to wealthy port-drinking elderly men, in the young daughter of a farm labourer? And yet, as you well know, there are such cases. Opium, no doubt, is something you associate with India and China and if you conceive of it in this country, it is in connection with fashionable ladies or poets in the form of laudanum – maybe with our urban poor. But to think of opium in conjunction with these hearty fisher lads is inconceivable, is it not?”

  I nodded mutely, convinced of the justice of his words.

  “If I ever achieve any small measure of success in my cases,” he went on, “it is because I am prepared to conceive the inconceivable, and to accept it as a possibility. I am convinced that the same truth applies to other fields, such as the one of medicine.”

  I silently swallowed my pride and agreed with him.

  “But never fear, Watson,” he added. “You have done me a great service in this way. In any case, from what you have described, the patient was in no real danger, and your reputation as a doctor will suffer no injury.”

  At that moment, there was a knock on the door. “It’s Jim Stott’s boy to see you, Doctor.”

  “Show him in.”

  The urchin, cap in hand, stood in the doorway. “Father sends his compliments, and says to tell you that Harry’s now feeling much better and sitting up and talking and such.”

  I smiled. “Tell your father to give Harry plenty of water to drink, a
nd tell Harry from me not to be so foolish in the future. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the boy. I tossed him a few coppers, which he caught neatly, and he ran off, closing the door behind him.

  “I have done you a great service? How is that?” I asked Holmes, baffled by his earlier words.

  “Watson, I must confess to you that we are not in this town merely on account of a whim of mine. I had a very definite purpose in mind when I proposed coming here. I admit that the prospect is pleasant, the air refreshing, and Mrs Buncombe a most congenial landlady, but this was not my principal aim.”

  “What, then?”

  “Where was your unfortunate patient working before he was stricken, did you say?”

  “In the garden of Sir Roderick Gilbert-Pryor,” I replied. “The Cabinet Minister.”

  “I have had my eye on Sir Roderick for some time,” replied Holmes. “He is not, I believe, a rich man. His estates in this part of the world scarcely extend past his immediate neighbourhood. Much was mortgaged and subsequently disposed of by his late father, who seems to have speculated unwisely in railway shares. Sir Roderick holds a few directorships in the City, which presumably bring in a little income, but other than that, he would seem to have little money, and yet he manages to entertain on a lavish scale and maintain his position on a level more than consistent with his Ministerial rank.”

  “His wife’s money?” I proposed.

  “There is none. Lady Jocelyn is the youngest daughter of a country parson. It was a love match, and was certainly not contracted for money on his side. Nor hers, I am sure. Whatever the list of sins that Sir Roderick may have committed, fortune hunting would not appear to be included in it.”

  “You mean that we came here for the sole purpose of examining the state of Sir Roderick Gilbert-Pryor’s finances?” I asked, somewhat incredulously. “Why could not this have been achieved from London?”

  “I have already done all I could in this regard as far as London is concerned,” Holmes answered. “I felt it was time to investigate the matter from here.”