by David Marcum
I took my leave and went in search of Holmes. I found him chatting with the Viscount’s butler.
“Ah, Watson, there you are,” he called as soon as he spotted me. “Come along now, we shall be late for our next appointment.”
He led me out of the house without another word. We hailed a cab to return to Baker Street.
“What did Lestrade want with you?” he asked as soon as we were seated in the vehicle.
“He had some questions,” I replied evasively.
Holmes, of course, saw through my act immediately. “So, the good Inspector thinks me to be our killer?”
“No,” I retorted. “He wants to ensure that you have proof of your innocence when others raise the question.”
Holmes was shocked into silence.
Wiggins was waiting outside 221b when we stepped out of the cab. Holmes invited him in and gave him a list of the thirteen people (from J.D.’s list) that were still alive. The Baker Street Irregulars were to keep an eye on each of them and to report to Holmes in case any of them fell ill or died. Holmes also showed the boy the letter and the envelope, and instructed him to send word to us if he spotted such letters anywhere.
Holmes turned to me after the urchin happily departed with two shillings clutched in his dirty little hand.
“It pains me to say this, Watson, but we need police assistance,” he grumbled. “We must visit the post office. Henry’s letter was postmarked London GPO... if our murderer is in the habit of sending out mass letters, there must be someone at the GPO who will remember such an unusual occurrence.”
I could only agree with him. “I will send a wire to Lestrade.”
“Thank you. Could you accompany Lestrade in my stead? I must visit the potential victims.”
“Would it not be better for me to accompany you?” I asked, Lestrade’s warning resonating in my mind.
Holmes looked away. “Do you doubt me, too, Doctor?”
“Of course not!” I cried. “I have complete faith in you! Would it not be prudent to heed Lestrade’s warning, though?”
Holmes sighed. “You are right. Would you be so kind as to instruct Lestrade to investigate whether our potential victims have also been injected prior to their receipt of the letter? That ought to help us narrow it down to a particular hospital or medic. I have already asked him to instruct his subordinates to enquire if anyone remembers pinpricks on the persons already killed.”
“A doctor, Holmes?”
“It seems most likely,” he replied. “Lestrade has permitted us to view the autopsy, Watson. Your assistance would be valuable if you would care to accompany me to Barts.”
Several hours later, Holmes and I returned to Baker Street, equally frustrated. The autopsy had yielded no anomaly except a ventricular septal defect. No traces of poison or any irregularity were to be found in the blood sample.
“I need data, Watson,” Holmes moaned, burying his face in his hands. “We must speak to Lestrade.”
The door to our flat opened, and as if summoned by the invocation of his name, Inspector Lestrade stepped in. He looked exhausted.
“Ah, Inspector,” Holmes said calmly, his earlier despondence all but gone. “We were just about to contact you.”
Lestrade seemed to be in no hurry as he took a seat. “We found a man at the GPO who had handled the white letters. He checked the records and gave us a list.”
“Fifty more, posted last week?” Holmes asked. “How many dead?”
“You would have been burnt at stake not too long ago, Mr. Holmes,” Lestrade muttered. “Thirty-two have been struck off the list, and it has the remaining ten names from the Viscount’s. How the deuce did you know?”
“It was a simple enough deduction,” Holmes replied. “What have you found about the injections?”
The police had also collated the death certificates of all the people Holmes had listed out for Lestrade. The Inspector held them out for us. There appeared to be nothing suspicious at all. All victims had exhibited symptoms consistent with impending stroke or heart failure in the days preceding their demise. A few had even experienced partial paralysis. These cases could have been examples in a medical textbook, the symptoms were so perfect.
Holmes’s exclamation indicated that I had spoken the last part out loud.
“Needle marks, Lestrade. Tell us about the needle marks,” Holmes said impatiently.
“All victims and potential victims have received intra-venous medication from their doctors. In some cases, these have been given for years.” Lestrade smiled with satisfaction. “The lads questioning the dead ones’ families, however, found that some of them two marks - a second mark on their neck when the bodies were discovered. Right here.” He indicated a spot on his own neck which I recognised immediately as the carotid. “We don’t know if all of them had it, though.”
“I find it odd that none of the attending physicians have made such a note,” Holmes remarked.
I frowned. “There is no medication I know of which is required to be injected into the carotid artery,” I told Holmes. “In fact, it would be extremely dangerous to introduce anything into the carotid. An accidental air bubble could cause a stroke!”
Epiphany struck me.
“Embolism,” I said automatically, without even thinking. “Air embolism.”
Holmes stared at me, his grey eyes wide and impressed. Embarrassed, I cleared my throat and explained, “It is theoretically possible to introduce a small amount of air into the carotid artery that would inevitably lead to a cerebral stroke. An autopsy would only determine the cause of death as a stroke.”
Holmes’s eyes glittered. “If air was introduced into the carotid artery, would death be instantaneous?”
I shook my head. “It could take up to a few hours.”
“How much air would be needed?”
“As little as 0.5 cc’s, Holmes.”
“What would be the consequences of an air injection in the arm?”
“The patient would exhibit various symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, aches, numbness and so on,” I replied. “If there are two...”
Holmes sprang from his seat. “You are brilliant, Watson!” he ejaculated. “You are right; you must be right!” He turned to Lestrade. “The first injection in the arm is given to cause the preliminary symptoms and coincides with the arrival of the letter. The second is the fatal one.”
Lestrade frowned. “The last one had only one needle-mark,” he said.
“He had ventricular septal defect,” I told him.
Holmes nodded eagerly. Lestrade looked blank.
Holmes smiled at me. “This one is your show, my dear Watson. Do explain to our good Inspector how Henry Fairwood died.”
“The human heart has four chambers - two atria and two ventricles,” I began. “In simple terms, the used blood in our bodies is taken to the heart by the veins, which is then sent to the lungs to be cleaned. Once the cleaned blood comes back to the heart, it is pumped to the rest of the body by the arteries. If an air bubble is introduced through a vein in the arm, it will hamper circulation - but not fatally - until it gets to the lungs where the effects will disappear. If an air bubble is introduced into an artery, it will move to the organ being supplied blood by that artery, and result in a blockage there.” I pointed at my neck. “This is the carotid artery, which supplies blood to the brain. If air is introduced into this artery, the air will reach the brain and cause a cerebral stroke.” I paused, thinking of the unfortunate Viscount Fairwood. “Ventricular septal defect means a small hole in the wall which separates the two ventricles of the heart. Where, for an ordinary person, the air bubble would harmlessly dissipate in the lungs, in case of a person with this defect, the air bubble can pass from one ventricle to another and into the arteries leading to any part of the body. In the Viscount’s ca
se, I believe it is quite possible that the air bubble remained in the right ventricle for some time, then passed on to the left ventricle, and then entered the coronary circulation, which supplies blood to the heart itself. A blockage in the coronary circulation could lead to a cardiac arrest - heart failure. I imagine this is what happened to Viscount Fairwood.”
Inspector Lestrade looked thunderstruck for a moment before directing a look of admiration towards me. As the euphoria arose in my soul, I realised why Holmes so craved the satisfaction of solving a case.
“Well done, Watson,” Holmes said, smiling knowingly. “So, Inspector, now that Watson has solved the question of how the murders are being committed, all we need to find is the perpetrator.”
Lestrade nodded and sighed. “We are looking at a hundred people, Mr. Holmes. They do not have a doctor, nurse or a hospital in common.”
Holmes shuffled through the papers he had been given. “I see there are ten different doctors who attended to these victims. Have you been able to compile a list of the other doctors, nurses and paramedical staff attending to the victims?”
“Jones is working on it,” Lestrade said. “He will come by with the list as soon as he can.”
I peered over Holmes’s shoulder at the doctors’ names. I was shocked at what I saw.
“These are some of the best doctors in Britain, Holmes,” I said quietly. “You could not possibly think...”
Holmes held up a hand. “How skilled would a person have to be to stab a needle into the carotid artery?” he asked me.
“Once shown the location, anyone can do it. It is exceedingly difficult to get your intended victim to stay still long enough, though.”
“You have sleeping pills for that,” Lestrade said. “All of them died in their sleep.”
I agreed with the policeman.
“Do you think we should visit all the medics, Mr. Holmes? We can start in the morning,” Lestrade said.
“Cleared of suspicion, am I?” Holmes retorted.
Lestrade flushed. “You are the cleverest man we know at Scotland Yard, Mr. Holmes. Not everyone is enamoured of your talents, but I know you are a good man.”
Holmes rewarded the policeman with a broad smile. “My apologies, Inspector. Watson tells me you were concerned. I am very grateful.”
The conclusion to the matter was rather disappointing, according to Holmes. Constable Jones certainly burnt some midnight oil and compiled a diligent list. The same ten names appeared again, and we spent the day visiting each of the doctors.
It appeared that these gentlemen, increasingly alarmed by the debauchery of the gentry, had decided to come together and form a club named “The Left Hand of God”. They judged and executed - an easy enough task for the family physicians to elite households. When confronted with the truth, they confessed readily, proud of their achievement. Before Scotland Yard could take appropriate steps for prosecution, however, a mandate was issued by higher authorities to take no further action. Their names were not to be released, either. Holmes laughed and said it was in public interest that the citizens not know how dangerous their friendly family doctors could be.
The ten men who had grossly violated their Hippocratic Oath met their ends as easily as their victims. I know Holmes suspected their deaths were orchestrated, but he never confirmed or denied the same. Lestrade often complained about it, but his hands were tied. The press occasionally ran some stories about the unsolved Archangel Murders, but the matter was completely forgotten when another series of brutally violent killings shook the nation a few years down the line.
The Watcher in the Woods
by Denis O. Smith
DURING THE YEARS I shared chambers with Mr. Sherlock Holmes before my marriage, I was able to experience at first hand the immense variety of cases that were brought to his attention, most of which he succeeded in bringing to a successful conclusion. Among these cases were a great number that were odd or unusual, and not a few that were so strange as to seem at first unfathomable. Among these latter cases I would include that which concerned the singular experiences of Mr. Cuthbert Lidington in the Isle of Apstone and the surprising sequel, and it is this case I now propose to recount.
It was a chilly, foggy morning towards the end of October. The preceding weeks had been moderately sunny, but there had been little warmth in the sunshine, and with each day that passed, the air had seemed to become a degree colder.
Sherlock Holmes had been working his way through the morning papers for some time, alternately groaning and sighing at what he read there.
“It sometimes seems to me,” said he at length, tossing aside the last of the papers, “that the daily press has come into existence merely to record all that is banal, ignorant, and stupid in our modern world.”
“You can scarcely expect profound philosophical reflections on life to appear every day in the morning papers,” I remarked without looking up from my own reading.
“Perhaps not, but there must surely be something more intellectually stimulating for them to report than that one group of men kicked a leather ball more efficiently up a muddy field than another group of men, or that the Duchess of Deptford wore a striped hat to the theatre last night!”
I laughed. “Perhaps you will be presented with an interesting case soon,” I said, “and then you can bid au revoir for a time to the commonplaces of existence.”
“I hope so,” said he. “I am in need of a case, Watson. I feel like a man who has become accustomed to having a tumbler of rum every morning with his breakfast. The bottle has been empty now for some time, and the absence of my stimulant is making me irritable!”
“So I had noticed,” I remarked. As I spoke there came a sharp peal at the front-door bell. “Here is someone,” I said. “Perhaps it is a caller for you.”
“Yes,” returned my friend in a pessimistic tone; “no doubt someone wishing to sell me half-a-dozen ‘lucky’ clothes-pegs, or someone come to inform me that if I contribute a shilling to whatever worthy cause he represents I can have my name engraved on a brick!”
A moment later, a slight, nervous-looking young man was shown into our sitting-room, and announced as Cuthbert Lidington.
“Good morning,” said Holmes, waving the visitor to a chair. “What can we do for you?”
“I understand you are accomplished at unravelling life’s mysteries,” the young man began in a hesitant tone.
“I have had some experience of it, at least,” returned Holmes. “Do you have a mystery for us?”
Lidington nodded. “If I can’t get to the bottom of it, I feel I shall go mad. That may sound a somewhat dramatic, exaggerated thing to say,” he added quickly, “but that is the state I have been driven to.”
“Pray, give us the details.”
“First of all, you should know that I am not one given to fancies or whimsical notions. I studied scientific subjects for some years at London University. I then held a senior position with the South Eastern Railway at Ashford, in Kent. However, my own private reading was leading me in a very different direction. My study of early scientific works had introduced me to the subject of alchemy, in which I developed a very great interest.”
“Alchemy?” I cried in surprise. “Is that not the mediaeval pseudo-science that claimed that with the right formula base metals could be turned into gold, and, with some other formula, men could be made immortal?”
Lidington shook his head. “I would not dispute that you enunciate the popular view of the subject accurately,” said he; “but there is much more to alchemy than that. It is an all-embracing doctrine of a mystical, spiritual kind. Anyway, to continue: I had been looking for some new lodgings for a while, as the place at which I was staying in Ashford was very cramped, and some of the other people staying there were not to my taste. Then, one day when I was in the house-agent’s office, I saw that a house
in the village of Apstone was available to rent. When I saw the name of the house, I could hardly believe it!”
“Why was that?” asked Holmes.
“Well, you see, it was Naxon House, and I recognized the name as being that of the residence for many years of Serenus Charling, one of the leading writers on alchemy of the last hundred years. I felt that fate must have placed this opportunity in my hands, to live and work in the very house that had been occupied for so many years by one of the writers I admired the most. Within twenty-four hours, I had taken a two-year lease on the house, and within a week I had handed in my notice to the South Eastern Railway, so that I could devote myself entirely to my alchemical studies. That was just under two years ago.
“The village of Apstone is a very small place, little more than a hamlet, really. It stands on a slight eminence, known as the Isle of Apstone, which overlooks the flat expanse of the Romney Marsh to the east, from which dense, cold mists frequently roll in, shrouding everything in a grey veil. To the west, the countryside is quite different, being hilly and thickly wooded. The village is always very quiet, and becomes even quieter when the mist sits upon it, but that suits my requirements exactly. It used to be a little more important than it is now, and had its own church, but that collapsed during a great storm in the middle of the last century and was never rebuilt. Local legend has it that the church tower was struck by a bolt of lightning and that the rector - who was in the church at the time, and who was killed when it collapsed - was some kind of sinner or heretic, and that it was his misdemeanours that brought this retribution upon his church. The story of the lightning strike may be true, but I think the collapse of the church was almost certainly the result of subsidence, caused by the terrible floods in the area at the time, when the marsh became so completely flooded that the water overflowed onto the surrounding land, washing much of it away. I am telling you these things so you will appreciate what a very quiet place it is in which I live, but one with its own curious history. It is largely untouched by the modern world, but not entirely cut off. It is, for instance, only a ten-minute walk to the larger village of Ham Street, where there are shops and the local railway station.