The Sensible Necktie and Other Stories of Sherlock Holmes

by Peter K Andersson

  “You have not wasted your time,” said Holmes. “Dr Watson here is a medical man as good as any.”

  “That is most gratifying, as there are both medical and criminal aspects to my story. My father has gone mad, completely and utterly mad, and there is no way of reasoning with him. His monomania is connected to his archaeological pursuits, but his interest in the local prehistoric remains and Druid monuments has developed from a scholarly fascination to a religious fanaticism. He now proclaims complete faith in pagan gods, and disappears from the house every night to perform strange rituals on the moor that borders onto his land. The local farmers have approached the members of our household, claiming that they have had hens and cats stolen from their homes in the night. Mr Holmes, I believe my father takes these animals and sacrifices them on an old altar stone on the moor that some say used to be part of a Druid shrine.”

  “What does the vicar say?” I asked.

  “I visited him last week in connection with my worries. He admits to having introduced my father into the archaeological remains of the local area, but denies any involvement in fuelling my father’s fanaticism, and I believe him. He is a sober and rational man who is much liked in the parish.”

  Holmes nodded, then leaned forward, pressing his outstretched forefingers together in a gesture of deep concentration.

  “Now, Miss Crabb, I would like you to tell us exactly how your father’s madness started and how it has evolved.”

  “Very good. It started quite suddenly one morning, but only after a few days had it taken the form that it has had now for the past few weeks. Ever since we moved to Pettigrew Lodge, it has been the habit of my father and me to take a long morning walk across the meadows that surround our estate. On the morning in question, we chose a path across the moorlands. The weather was fine, and we amused ourselves by noting various species of birds that are indigenous to those parts of the country. In the middle of this moor there are some of the prehistoric remains that had caught my father’s interest, including a couple of standing stones and a mound that evidently marks the spot of an old pagan chief’s grave. Father spoke to me at length about these things, and his enthusiasm for the subject was at that time so remarkable and rational that he managed to arouse my own curiosity. We had come to a point where the moor is bordered on one side by a copse of trees and an old dilapidated fence that marks the end of our estate. This fence is interrupted at one point by a dead tree trunk that has been incorporated into it as a fence pole. It was there that my father was attracted to the trees by the sound of a bird. To me, it sounded like the cawing of an ordinary carrion crow, but for some reason it made my father stray from the path and walk up to the fence a few yards to our right.

  “I stayed on the path and waited for him while he peered in among the trees. He stood there by the fence for a few seconds, and then he turned back. However, as he approached me, I could see a change in his face. The glee and contentment that had infused it earlier were gone, and he looked rather annoyed. I thought that maybe I had made something to offend him, for as he joined me on the path he simply gestured to me to say that we should continue walking. We did so, but it was as if my father was a different man from when we were talking about birds and archaeology only five minutes earlier. He did not speak a word during the rest of the walk, and when I tried to ask him about it, he only turned his head from me. When we returned to the house, he hurried up to his study and locked the door behind him. I did not see him for the next four days. He only ventured from his study at night, long after I had gone to sleep, and went into his bedroom. But according to Mrs. Kilroy, our housekeeper, he slept on top of the bed covers with his clothes on, and he did not change his clothes for at least a week. I believe it was also during these first nights that he began his nocturnal activities.”

  “How did you become aware of what these activities entailed?” asked Holmes.

  “It was our gardener, Mr Brookshaw, who first witnessed it. He had had a particularly long working day, and was in the business of stowing away his gardening tools in the shed, when he suddenly saw something move in the bushes nearby. He called out. There was no answer, but he saw Father running away from there, and he followed him. Father hurried through the garden, down the path that leads to the moor, and Mr Brookshaw ran after him into the woods that lie between our garden and the moor, but there he lost track of him. During the following nights, several members of the household staff came to me to tell me they had seen Mr Crabb going out late at night. It was not until the following week that reports of animal thefts started to come in. By then, I realised I had to take measure, and confronted Father, who had been actively avoiding me ever since that day when he shut himself in his study. He still spent the days there, but we had now established a routine of Mrs. Kilroy going up and giving him his meals on a tray that she left outside the door. One day, I insisted on doing this, and hid myself until the moment when Father opened the door to take in the tray. Then I bolted towards him, forced open the door that he tried to close in my face, and managed to make my way in.

  “‘Father,’ I said, ‘I must speak with you.’

  “‘What is the matter, my child?’ he said, quite soberly.

  “‘I demand to know what is going on!’

  “He looked at me, the picture of amused incomprehension. I persisted.

  “‘What are you doing at night?’

  “As we kept staring at each other, the faint smile on his lips started to fade. His look was that of a sane man trapped inside an insane mind. There was a hint of a sad plea, a desperate wish to break free from the madness and join me in the rational world, but hindered by something that would not allow him. He pondered for a moment, then it was as if this restraining madness got the better of him, and the imploring look faded away.

  “‘My dear child,’ he said. ‘We must pay tribute to Toutatis, protector of our tribe. He demands a sacrifice, otherwise he will avenge us!’

  “And with those words he shut the door before me. I was stunned and puzzled, and walked away from there much saddened. It was now clear to me that Father had taken leave of his senses and had thrown himself into the pagan beliefs that had previously been nothing but a pastime.”

  Miss Crabb’s voice broke, and she lowered her gaze. I ventured to put a hand on her shoulder, but Holmes was completely still.

  “How long ago was this?” he asked.

  “A week and two days,” replied Miss Crabb with some effort.

  “And you have not spoken to each other since?”

  “Not a word. He avoids me, if he is at all aware of my presence.”

  “And the nocturnal excursions?”

  “Continued uninterrupted until two days ago. Since then I believe he has not left his bedroom. Yesterday I took a walk in the direction that Brookshaw claimed Father had run off to. I came into the woods, and immediately I felt ill at ease, as if the trees brimmed with apprehension. I walked on, however, thinking that I might find something out there that would explain Father’s strange behaviour. Only a couple of minutes later, I was met with a horrible sight. Right in front of me on the path, something was hanging from the branch of an old oak tree. I moved closer, and saw to my astonishment that it was a dead black cat, strung up by its neck! I let out a cry and ran to one side, in an effort to move as far away from it as possible. This only brought me face to face with a dead rooster, hanging from its feet from another branch at eye level. The terror of the moment made me disoriented, and I ran around for some moments in this part of the woods, until I encountered another dead cat and the disembodied head of a piglet, strung up in the same way as the other animals. Eventually, I managed to find my bearings, and ran in the direction I had come, returning to the edge of our garden within a few minutes. I met Brookshaw by the rose bushes, and asked him if he had seen the things in the woods, but he knew nothing about it. Concluding that it was in some way conn
ected to Father and his recent mysterious doings, I ran back to the house and started banging on his door, but there was no answer. Panic stricken and seeing no way out, I eventually came to think of you, Mr Holmes. You see, the stories of your exploits were some of Father’s favourite reading matter, and since I doubt that the police or a medical doctor would be able to bring any light to this until I have a better understanding of just what is going on, I decided that you were the man to consult.”

  Holmes let his forefinger run along his lower lip in an expression of deep meditation upon Miss Crabb’s story.

  “As I said,” he remarked, “we have a medical man among us. What would his professional opinion be, I wonder?”

  Holmes’ and Miss Crabb’s eyes were directed at me.

  “I agree with Miss Crabb that there are many obscurities in this that need to be sorted out before we can consider Mr Crabb’s mental illness,” I said. “At this moment, we know virtually nothing about the pathology itself. He has become reclusive, antisocial and seemingly uncaring for his own daughter. But I would say that the most interesting aspect is the suddenness with which these symptoms have appeared.”

  “Exactly!” replied Holmes. “We must look to the situation and the context before we consider the symptoms.” He sprang from his chair and stood by the fireplace, grasping one of his chalk pipes from the mantelpiece without looking at it. I could see that fire in his eyes that showed itself once an intriguing puzzle had nestled its way into his mind. “Now, the careful consideration of human behaviour shows us repeatedly that nothing in it happens suddenly or without reason. I ask you therefore, Miss Crabb, whether you could tell us more about your father’s past and about his break with his political entanglements?”

  “I could tell you many stories,” said our visitor, “about Father’s meetings with renowned parliamentarians, not to mention royalty from near and far. Politics was always a passion for him, and he was very much at home in those circles. His debating skills were a source of envy both in his own and in rival parties, but he never seemed to make any real enemies. His main principle was to adhere to the gentlemanly ideal, to retain a courteous and civil tone whenever he voiced his opinions or criticised his colleagues. He was instrumental in introducing a way of speaking in the House of Commons that was modelled on old rhetorical gestures from ancient Rome.”

  Holmes lit his pipe. “Yes, yes, that is all very good and, I have no doubt, interesting to the man who will eventually compile your father’s biography. But surely your father was more than a politician, defining though his politician identity may have been?”

  “Father went into politics at a very early age, and he showed an interest already at university, but he worked his way up. He comes from a not very wealthy family in Liverpool, and his father was a shipbuilder. He has told me very little about his early years, and I think his parents died when he was quite young.”

  “How did he manage to get to university?” I asked.

  “There was a schoolmaster at his school in Liverpool who noticed that he had a special talent, and put him up for a scholarship to Cambridge.”

  I could not help but raise my eyebrows. “Cambridge, eh? Quite the rags to riches story.”

  “Do you know what school he went to?” asked Holmes.

  “I’m afraid not,” said Miss Crabb.

  “The name of his supportive schoolmaster, perhaps?”

  She shook her head. Holmes drew in the smoke from his pipe while eyeing our visitor for a few drawn-out seconds.

  “Miss Crabb,” he then said. “How many times, exactly, have you actually seen your father since his madness first presented itself?”

  The woman appeared to sense unpleasant suspicions behind Holmes’ question and looked worried, but she answered in a calm voice.

  “The last time I spoke to him was that time a week and two days ago when he was raving about pagan gods. Since then I have only seen him standing at his bedroom window while I was in the garden. Some of the servants have seen him, however. Mrs. Kilroy sometimes lurks by his door when she has brought his tray up to him to make sure he collects it, and she has seen his hands reach out for it on several occasions.”

  Holmes put down his pipe on the mantelpiece.

  “Thank you, Miss Crabb. Your narrative is most intriguing. I advise you to return to Sussex by the first train, and then Watson and I will follow on a train later this afternoon, if that is all right with you? I trust you have no objection to an outing, Watson? Excellent! I hope you will forgive my eagerness, Miss Crabb, but what you have told me contains many worrying details that I would like to give my undivided attention as soon as possible. I ask you not to fear, for all of this may just as well prove to be nothing, but the fact that your father’s nocturnal wanderings have ceased to me indicates an ominous development in the course of events. I therefore beg you not to jump to any conclusions until we have all the facts before us.”

  “I am grateful for your concern, Mr Holmes, and am happy to think that I will see you in Sussex later today.”

  I admired the young woman’s resources for composure, and was surprised to find a stronger woman behind that pale exterior than I had expected. Holmes took her hand graciously and we bid her au revoir. It had not been two days since our last excursion into the country, when we brought the affair of the Hargreaves heritage to a close, and I had not had time to unpack my overnight bag from that journey, so I quickly went up to my bedroom to fetch it. When I came back down to our sitting room, Holmes was busy going through his scrapbooks. His packed bag was already lying in the armchair beside him.

  “I fear that our young visitor has lived rather a sheltered life. Her father seems not to have told her much about his work, other than that he was successful. We must go to other sources for a more rounded picture of our man! Now, let’s see… Crabb, Crabb - ah! Here we are: The right honourable Wilfred Crabb, liberal. Yes, quite a distinguished career. Became an MP in ’57, joined the Cabinet as Deputy Minister of Transport, then he appears to have had a series of more or less unofficial advisory positions within the core of the government. His trail grows more obscure the higher he rises in the ranks - a typical course of events in high politics. But my dear brother must know more about him than these meagre reports culled from the daily newspapers. I shall call on him at once! An unannounced visit is probably the thing he hates most in this world, but it does him good to have his all too steady foundations unsettled now and again. Watson! Meet me on the platform at London Bridge Station at two o’clock, and we will go together to see our retired politician.”

  He had spoken without interruption, as was his habit when he did not want me to give my opinion and force him to alter his plans. As he spoke, he grabbed his hat and cane and was out of the door before I had been given an opportunity to confirm our meeting.

  It was not until we were reunited in the railway compartment that afternoon that I was able to voice my reactions to Miss Crabb’s story.

  “I see very little reason,” I said as we were rattling out of the southern suburbs, “in connecting Mr Crabb’s reclusive behaviour to the grotesque animal executions. That he has been going out in the night at the same time as animals have disappeared is no evidence for suspecting him.”

  “That is true, Watson, but who else would it be?”

  “I think it all points to the gardener. He is the one who claims to have seen Mr Crabb in the night.”

  “Yes, but why would he go about killing animals?”

  “Perhaps they have been intruding in the garden, eating his rosebushes or making trouble?”

  “Cats don’t eat roses, Watson. Pigs and hens may make a bit of a mess in a well-kept garden, I suppose, but we are not going all the way to Sussex to solve the murders of small animals.”

  “Then why are we going? I must confess, I cannot quite see what the essence of this mystery is.”


  Holmes crossed his arms and looked out of the window.

  “The essence of the mystery is its disparate curiosities. A grown man with an eminent public record suddenly starts raving about pagan deities. He avoids his beloved daughter seemingly without reason. He makes nocturnal excursions into the nearby woods. The woods are littered with the corpses of animals. All very strange things that we must tie together.”

  “I don’t see how we can. There must be a missing link in this chain.”

  “Precisely, Watson! We are missing vital parts of the drama. And my experience tells me that such parts are best searched for in the past.”

  “But there is nothing untoward in the man’s past.”

  “Not that we know of, but his past has its blank spaces.”

  “Ah! You have gathered information from your brother?”

  “I have indeed.”

  “Was he pleased to see you?”

  “I had to ask the page boy at the Diogenes to go and ask him three times before he agreed to see me, and then he kept me waiting in the corridor outside his room for twenty minutes while he finished reading a chapter in his book.”

  “The epitome of graciousness as always. Did he give you anything useful?”

  “Mycroft was exceedingly informative, but his intelligence serves to focus the blank spaces rather than fill them in. Wilfred Crabb is an infamous man in government circles, and he appears to have been an ingenious political strategist working behind the scenes more than a charismatic public figure. His unofficial role in the Cabinet is the most interesting part of his career, and rumour has it he was at one time one of Gladstone’s closest advisers, but this work does not seem to have brought Crabb into the fighting ground of politics, as it were. With men like this, however, who work in obscurity and gain a shadowy public image, there is a lot of talk, and Mycroft was at one point assigned to do some research into Crabb’s background in order to make sure that there was nothing inappropriate in his past and to put a stop to some of the rumours. He found that what Miss Crabb told us is largely true. He came from a shipbuilding family in Liverpool and came to Cambridge on a scholarship, and there his promising political career began. Only one thing mystified Mycroft, and this was also the very subject of the malicious rumours, namely the scholarship that allowed him to go to Cambridge. The rumours claimed that it had not actually been a scholarship but that he had been sponsored by some or other illustrious person in exchange for certain indecent favours. Mycroft had never been able to ascertain whether this was true, but he found that all records on the scholarship and on how Crabb had funded his time in Cambridge had been lost or deliberately erased.”