“Well, well,” said Winget. “That’s Rhys, if I’m not mistaken.”
We drew closer. Rhys, clad in tweeds and a peaked cloth cap, looked at us curiously.
“Colonel Winget. Doctor. I had no idea you also were coming. Have you seen Mr. Holmes this morning, by any chance?”
“No, I haven’t. I was wondering...” I began, but was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“I have kept my appointment, Mr. Rhys. Just as you kept yours.”
Sherlock Holmes emerged from the barrow, his lean figure silhouetted against the early morning sun. In his right hand, he was clutching a pair of boots.
“Actually my foot is a shade smaller than your own. But I am grateful for the loan of these boots. They make a perfect fit with the prints left in the barrow.”
I looked at Rhys, whose face had turned the colour of wax.
“So you know, then?”
“On the contrary. I am more perplexed now than ever before. This morning, I thought it was a simple case of murder. Now I am not so sure.”
Rhys sank down onto a stone and held his head in his hands.
“Then if you think that, there is still some hope for me.”
“I think that you owe us at least an explanation,” said Holmes. Rhys looked up at us and clenched and unclenched his hands, expressing some inner torment.
“I did not murder him,” he said at last. “Do you believe me, Mr. Holmes?”
“That depends on the circumstances. But you must tell me in detail what happened here the other night, and leave nothing out.”
“Very well, then. I must explain that my brother had been acting peculiarly for some days. In fact, ever since the discovery of the mask, he was, I believe, a changed man.”
“Changed? In what way?”
“At first, he kept the mask locked in his room and would not permit me to look at it. He told me he wished to examine it more closely. Then he began to tell me of bad dreams that he’d been having. They were always very much the same. In the dream, the mask would come to life and speak to him. The mask told him that since he had removed the guardian from the barrow, he was cursed. I laughed when first he told me. I failed to realise in the beginning how deeply it had disturbed him. Then, after a few days, there was a further development.”
“What was that?”
“It was curious. He kept avoiding me and ignoring me. It was almost as if he had become afraid of me. God knows what effect that mask had begun to have on him by that time. Things became so bad that eventually he locked the door to his study and would not come out. I pleaded with him, but it made no difference. He was resolute. I decided then that I would get rid of the mask. I waited until he had left his room and then removed it. I took it to the museum. He came to me then in a state. He wanted to know what I’d done with it. The mask had to be returned, he said. When I asked him why, he said nothing. Anyway, we had an argument, and the upshot of it was that I flatly refused to give him the mask. It was shortly after that I received a message from him, asking me to meet him at the barrow.”
Rhys handed Holmes a piece of torn notepaper.
“Ah. I thought as much. This is his writing.”
“Oh, yes.”
“That is a point in your favour, Mr. Rhys. In the beginning, I suspected that you had written the message, in which case you would have made yourself most suspect.”
Holmes put together the two fragments. The message read:
Dear Arthur,
Meet me upon the hill by the Linden stones at twelve tonight. I have something of the greatest consequence to show. Don’t be late. The discovery is something about which no one else has even dreamed. Make sure that you come alone. Please disregard all that has happened and be at the appointed place. Thank God the thing has come at last.
“What happened when you got there?” asked Holmes.
“At first I saw no one. Perhaps he had forgotten the appointment, I thought. Then I went inside the barrow. He sprang out at me from the dark and gripped me by the throat. Very little of what he said made sense. He seemed to think that I was in some way connected with Cernunnos, and that I had brought about ‘the curse’, as he called it. He said that he would sacrifice me to the god and procure his forgiveness. There was a struggle. However, my eyes are better than his, and in the blackness, I could see a stone in his hand. I rolled to one side and, wrenching the stone from him, flung it at him. There was a groan, then silence. It took me some while to realise that I had killed him.”
Rhys paused.
“Well,” said Holmes, “there is little more to be said. It is a most tragic affair, and I am not surprised at your desire for secrecy.”
“What made you suspect me?” asked Rhys.
“The odds were that, if you had seen the mask, you would not have failed to notice the inscription,” Holmes replied. “Yet you seemed surprised when I showed it to you in the museum. The speed of your translation also made me suspicious, for the lettering was difficult to read. But I had formed an opinion about you from the start of our acquaintance. I observed that there were two sets of footprints in the barrow, and the fragment of paper I discovered in the Professor’s hand was proof positive that whoever else had been there at the moment of his death did not wish to be known. What I could not understand was the motive.”
* * *
“You know,” said Holmes, when we had once more ensconced ourselves in our lodgings at Baker Street, “the law is a most inflexible animal at the best of times. But when the supernatural is mentioned, you would certainly see our learned friend’s face wince with apprehension.”
“Yet there is no question about the truth of Rhys’s statement?”
“None whatsoever. How unfortunate it was that his brother seemed to have disturbed the sleep of centuries. There is often danger in store for the seeker after antiquities, although I for one discount such notions. I suspect that you yourself enjoyed a lucky escape, my dear Doctor.”
“What on earth was the entity?” I asked, leaning towards the fire to restoke the embers.
“Pass me down that volume, will you,” instructed my companion, pointing to the tall bookcase which stood to the left of the gas bracket.
“Yes, that’s it. The Mabinogion.”
I gave him the crimson covered book and he began to leaf through its pages.
“Ah, here is what I was looking for. It is in ‘The Lady of the Fountain’, where Cynon, the son of Clydno, tells Arthur and his followers a tale of an adventure which had befallen him. A man from whom he has received certain hospitality tells him that he will meet him in a clearing and that:
A big black man shalt thou see on the middle of the mound who is not smaller than two men of this world. And one foot has he, and one eye on his forehead’s core; and he has a club of iron, and thou canst be sure that there are not two men who would not find their full load in the club... and he is keeper of that forest.
“Then Cynon comes to the clearing. Listen to this, Doctor:
And when I came there, what wild animals I saw there were thrice as remarkable as the man had said; and the black man was sitting on top of the mound. Big the man told me he was; bigger by far was he than that... And I greeted the black man. And I asked him what power he had over the animals. “I will show thee, little man,” he said. And he took the club in his hand and with it struck a mighty blow till it gave out a mighty belling, and in answer to its belling wild animals came till they were as numerous as the stars in the firmament, And he looked on them and bade them go graze. And then they bowed down their heads and did him obeisance.
“There you have him, Doctor. The lord of the wild beasts. Cernunnos, the antlered one, the very spirit of the forest, a force to be reckoned with. You will find his like in both India and Ancient Britain, and he was worshipped by the Celts. To them he was a p
owerful entity, a guardian figure. A primitive notion, but none of us is entirely rational, after all...”
“Do you think that there is any hope for Rhys?” I asked.
“I believe the court will find him guilty of manslaughter. After all, it seems absurd to believe that the ancient Celtic gods still protect their own kind in this sceptical age. But how the gods do play with us.” And so saying, he lit his cherry-wood and sat gazing into the flames of our coal fire.
The Coughing Man
by Jim French
This script has never been published in text form, and was initially performed as a radio drama on February 27, 2011. The broadcast was Episode No. 95 of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, one of the recurring series featured on the nationally syndicated Imagination Theatre. Founded by Jim French, the company produced over 1,000 multi-series episodes, including one-hundred-twenty-eight Sherlock Holmes pastiches - along with later “bonus” episodes. In addition, Imagination Theatre also recorded the entire Holmes Canon, featured as The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the only version with all episodes to have been written by the same writer, Matthew J. Elliott, and with the same two actors, John Patrick Lowrie and Lawrence Albert, portraying Holmes and Watson, respectively.
Mr. French passed away at the age of eighty-nine on December 20th, 2017, the same date that this script was being edited for this volume.
This script is protected by copyright.
CHARACTERS
SHERLOCK HOLMES
DR. JOHN WATSON
INSPECTOR GREGSON
WIXOM
PENNELL
FOX
MRS. WIGGS
CABBIE
SOUND EFFECT:OPENING SEQUENCE, BIG BEN
ANNOUNCER:The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, featuring John Patrick Lowrie as Sherlock Holmes, and Lawrence Albert as Dr. Watson.
MUSIC:DANSE MACABRE (UP AND UNDER)
WATSON:(NARRATING) My name is Doctor John H Watson. In looking back at my long association with Sherlock Holmes, I can recall several cases that he declined to investigate for various reasons. Tonight, I’ve chosen to tell you about one that he considered to be “on a level more appropriate to the intellect of Scotland Yard, not Sherlock Holmes”. However, since the case was brought to us by a man clearly in need of medical attention, I offered my own services, which the fellow gratefully accepted, and from that innocent beginning came the story I call “The Coughing Man”. It began on a chilly Monday morning in early fall, and our visitor, wrapped in an ulster and scarf, sat tense and upright in the chair by the fire.
WIXOM:I don’t like to take up your time, gentlemen, but I’m desperate! (COUGH) My name is Albert Wixom, and I was a clerk at Alderbright and Pennell, the pawnbrokers.
HOLMES:You use the past tense. Are you no longer working there?
WIXOM:No. (COUGHS BADLY)
WATSON:That’s a bad-sounding cough, Mr. Wixom.
WIXOM:I’m sorry. No. You see, on Saturday I was sacked, most unfairly.
WATSON:Because of your cough?
WIXOM:No, no. I was accused of taking thirty pounds from the cash drawer. We have to keep quite a lot of cash on hand at all times, because customers want their money on the spot. (COUGHS) And speaking of money, gentlemen, I have almost no funds to pay you. (COUGH)
WATSON:Look here, Mr. Wixom. I’m a medical doctor and I don’t like the sound of that cough. Be good enough to answer a few questions about your health before you continue. Do you have a fever?
WIXOM:I don’t think--so.
WATSON:Let me feel your forehead. (PAUSE) You’re warm. Possibly a low-grade temperature. Have you been spitting up blood at all?
WIXOM:No.
WATSON:Any pain in your lungs?
WIXOM:I’m a bit sore from coughing, that’s all.
WATSON:Take a deep breath for me, please, and hold it in.
WIXOM:(HE DOES, WITH A WHEEZE)
WATSON:Now let it all out.
WIXOM:(HE EXHALES, WHEEZING)
WATSON:Again.
WIXOM:(INHALES AND HOLDS IT)
WATSON:All right, you may exhale.
WIXOM:(HE DOES, WHEEZING)
WATSON:When did this coughing begin?
WIXOM:Oh, a week or so ago. Perhaps ten days.
WATSON:Have you seen a doctor?
WIXOM:Uh... no. (COUGHS)
WATSON:You’re quite thin. Have you been losing weight?
WIXOM:I don’t think so. I’m naturally thin.
WATSON:You should let a physician examine you. Do you live alone?
WIXOM:I rent a room from a landlady. (COUGHS)
WATSON:Is she also coughing?
WIXOM:No, but she says my coughing keeps her awake at night.
WATSON:Well, I don’t mean to alarm you, Mr. Wixom, but tuberculosis is rampant in London. It would be wise for you to see a doctor as soon as possible. In the meantime, although I am no longer in practice, I do have a preparation that should reduce the need to cough, although it won’t address the cause. I’ll be glad to give you some if you like.
WIXOM:I’d appreciate that very much, Doctor.
WATSON:But you must have a thorough examination as soon as you can.
WIXOM:I’ll do it tomorrow. (COUGHS)
HOLMES:Fine. Now, if the medical consultation is finished, will you kindly tell us what other assistance you need from us, Mr. Wixom?
WIXOM:Well, as I was saying, (COUGH) large amounts of cash are kept in our office, and at close of business yesterday, when they tallied up the day’s receipts, they said thirty pounds were missing.
HOLMES:And they think you took it?
WIXOM:(COUGH) Yes. Or so they say.
HOLMES:“Or so they say”?
WIXOM:Mr. Holmes, there are only the three of us working there, the two owners and myself. If I didn’t steal the money, one of them must have done it.
HOLMES:You think the owners would steal from each other?
WIXOM:They, uh... they seem at odds with each other at times.
HOLMES:Hmm. Was there a great deal of trade yesterday?
WIXOM:Oh, yes. Sunday’s trade is the best of the week.
HOLMES:Is your cash kept where anyone can come in off the street and see it?
WIXOM:Oh, no sir. (COUGH) We take a hundred pounds out of the vault every morning and put it in a drawer beneath the counter, but no one goes there except Mr. Alderbright or Mr. Pennell, or myself, to buy something being pawned or to make change. And now they think I’m a thief! (COUGH) So when I apply for a new position, I can’t use them as a reference.
HOLMES:Did they notify the police?
WIXOM:No. They searched me and found nothing but the few shillings I’d brought to buy my lunch. Then they argued about (COUGH) whether the police should be called, and finally they decided to discharge me.
HOLMES:I see. As much as I sympathize with your plight, Mr. Wixom, I advise you to seek help elsewhere. I can give you the name of a detective at Scotland Yard who has studied my methods.
WIXOM:Oh. Well, of course. It was wrong of me to impose upon you.
HOLMES:You haven’t imposed upon me in the slightest. But as it happens, I am about to leave for Manchester, and it would be unfair of me to take your case at a time when I couldn’t devote my full energies to it.
WATSON:Holmes! When did--
HOLMES:I may have neglected to tell you, Doctor, about the telegram that came in the early hours this morning, summoning me to consult on a most critical matter. I’m grateful the bell didn’t wake you.
WATSON:No, it certainly didn’t.
HOLMES:But I have the utmost confidence in Inspector Hopkins at the Yard, Mr. Wixom, and if you should call on
him, please say recommended him to you most highly. Now, if you will excuse me, I must get about my packing. (MOVING OFF) And don’t fail to see a doctor!
SOUND EFFECT:(OFF) HOLMES CLOSES HIS BEDROOM DOOR
WATSON:Uh... Holmes is often in demand on very short notice.
WIXOM:I’m sure he is. (COUGH)
WATSON:If you’ll wait another moment, I’ll fetch that medicine for you.
WIXOM:I’m very grateful, doctor.
SOUND EFFECT:WATSON WALKS OFF, RUMMAGES AMONG BOTTLES, AND RETURNS
WATSON:(MOVING ON-MICROPHONE) Here we are. This is a tincture of benzoin. Put a spoonful in a pot of boiling water and inhale the steam. Do this repeatedly every hour and it should reduce your coughing, and as it does, you should reduce the dosage. It won’t cure anything, but perhaps it will let you get a few more hours of sleep. Here, take the bottle.
WIXOM:And what do I owe you?
WATSON:Not a thing. It’s yours.
WIXOM:Well, that’s so kind of you. Thank you. (COUGH)
SOUND EFFECT:STEPS TO DOOR
WATSON:Don’t forget to see a doctor!
SOUND EFFECT:DOOR OPENS
WIXOM:Oh, I won’t. Good day, Dr. Watson, and a thousand thanks. And again, I apologize to Mr. Holmes. (COUGH)
SOUND EFFECT:DOOR CLOSES. A PAUSE, THEN HOLMES’S BEDROOM DOOR OPENS
HOLMES:(PAUSE) (OFF MICROPHONE) Is he gone?
WATSON:Yes, he’s gone. I must say, I’m disappointed in you, Holmes. Making up that story about going to Manchester!
HOLMES:Your disappointment is duly noted.
WATSON:I’m sure it was a small matter to you, but to poor Wixom it must have been devastating, and I was embarrassed! Anyone could tell that you invented that telegram out of whole cloth! I’m sure it didn’t fool him.
HOLMES:As ever, a shrewd observer, old friend. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll continue packing.
WATSON:Packing for what?
HOLMES:Why, for my trip to Manchester, where else?
MUSIC:UNDERCURRENT
WATSON:(NARRATING) I was not convinced he was really leaving for a trip north until he emerged from his bedroom, dressed for travel with a suitcase and traveling bag.
The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part X Page 7