Holmes strolled over to the bookshelves. “I hear you are a naturalist, Sir Nathaniel.”
“Yes, I have tried to familiarize myself with all the flora, fauna, geological and geographic features of this part of Yorkshire, as well as the history and prehistory of its occupants, going back to Neolithic times. I had a career as a diplomat—the Queen rewarded me for my services with a knighthood—but now that I am retired I spend my days entrenched in my studies.” He sounded faintly forlorn.
Holmes nodded, then walked with his hands in his pockets toward the desk and looked down at a large, open volume. “So the Celts interest you? May I?” Sir Nathaniel nodded, and Holmes turned the page. “Their Druids, too, I see.”
“We know so little about them.”
Holmes nodded. “Little more than what Caesar related. He claimed they practiced human sacrifice by burning their victims in giant figures made of straw.”
“Nonsense!” Sir Nathaniel exclaimed, his goodwill momentarily vanishing. “Caesar was not objective, not at all! He was writing propaganda, nothing more.”
“You do not think they practiced human sacrifice?”
The old man shrugged. “We simply do not know. But I doubt they burned their victims in straw dummies.”
“I hear, too, you have some ideas about the story of the White Worm and that note which Mr. Selton received.”
Sir Nathaniel shook his head. “A black business that, and the worm…” An odd look appeared in his eyes, and he half smiled. “Yes, I have my theories about the beast, theories which may seem fantastical but which are based on scientific fact.” A gold chain hung between his waistcoat pockets, and he withdrew his watch. “But before we discuss that, now might be the best time to go aloft and have a look around the neighborhood. The sun is past its zenith, and the winds are not too bad.” He pointed at a flag, a Union Jack, which hung outside from a pole near the windows; it stirred lightly in the breeze.
He started for the corner and another door next to the privy. I hesitated, then took a single step. “Perhaps I shall just wait here for the two of you.”
Sir Nathaniel gave me a pained and incredulous look. “But we have one of the best views in the neighborhood! Caswall’s Castra Regis is higher, it is true, but he cannot see so far south.”
“My cousin suffers from vertigo, Sir Nathaniel. Perhaps it would be best if he remained behind.”
“No, no—there is a good stout stone wall round the whole top, massive stone, massive, and most well mortared. No chance of it breaking off, none, and no chance of a body tumbling over—much too high, the wall—even young Selton would be safe. And you needn’t come too close to the wall if you wish, yes? Have some courage, man! You’ll not regret it.”
I found this speech mildly annoying, but also amusing. “Very well. But I can’t promise I shall actually walk up to the wall.”
The old man shook his two fists in gleeful emphasis. “Agreed! Come then, gentlemen.” Next to the door was a shelf, on it a weathered black top hat and a brass telescope. He put on the hat, then took the telescope, opened the door and started up the stairs.
As we climbed, the sound of the wind and the sea grew, and we came out, luckily for me, several feet from the perimeter wall. The wind swept in from the sea, still very cool, but the sun overhead was warm on my face. It must have been around sixty degrees, which seemed a heat wave after our recent wretched London weather and yesterday’s dreary ride in the downpour. I closed my eyes and savored the warmth.
“It is very nice up here,” I said.
“Come, Mr. Holmes. The view from the south is interesting. You cannot quite see Whitby from here, because of a hill and valley which obscure the town.”
I put my hands in my pockets and slowly turned, reassuring myself about how far I was from those nice sturdy walls of gray limestone. Sir Nathaniel held his black top hat firmly in place with his left hand, while his right grasped the telescope. I turned back toward the sea and took a few steps forward. I could see the dark blue-green waters touching the long expanse of the paler horizon. Seaward were a few clouds, while inland were none. I turned further round. To the west was the hill and a rocky summit where I could make out the gray shape of Caswall’s castle. Above was clear blue sky and…
I blinked my eyes, frowned, then blinked my eyes again. An odd brown splotch still showed off to the right of the hill, suspended in the sky. I wondered if it was only some blot on my eye, but it would not go away. “What on earth,” I murmured. “Sir Nathaniel?” They turned toward me, and I raised my hand. “Perhaps I am imagining it, but no—there is something in the sky there north of the hill, a brown spot.”
Sir Nathaniel came closer, hand still holding his hat down. Suddenly he grinned, revealing yellowish teeth. “No, you’re not imagining anything, Dr. Vernier. Can you guess what it is?”
“I certainly cannot.”
“Have a look then. See if this helps.” He handed me the telescope.
I opened the telescope to its full extent, then raised it. The blue sky danced in a circle, a brown shape showing, disappearing, and then I had it—brown, with two great yellow eyes with black pupils and a fierce beak. “Good Lord! That’s impossible. It cannot be a bird!”
Sir Nathaniel laughed in delight. Holmes extended his hand. “May I have a look, Henry?” He took the telescope, stared for a while, then shook his head. “It is a kite, is it not?”
“A kite!” I exclaimed.
Sir Nathaniel laughed again. “Very good, Mr. Holmes.”
“A grown man is flying kites?” I asked. “Which are made to look like giant birds?”
“Not just any bird,” Holmes said. “Although a clumsy representation, it is a hawk.”
“Why on earth would he be doing that?”
Sir Nathaniel briefly rolled his eyes upward. The slivers of his brown irises were almost as dark as the swollen pupils in the sunlight, both contrasting with his bushy silvery eyebrows. “He’s trying to scare off birds. Gulls, and especially doves. He doesn’t like doves.”
“Does that actually work?” I asked.
The old man shrugged. “He thinks it does.”
I shook my head again, reflecting that the local inhabitants of this corner of Yorkshire were an odd lot.
We lingered a while, Sir Nathaniel pointing out all the local sights to Holmes. I gradually took a few steps closer to the wall. It felt good being outside, and for the first time in weeks, in months, I felt actually warm. A few yards out a white gull hovered in the air, watching me, then with a cry swept in toward us.
“No!” cried Sir Nathaniel. “Off with you, beggar! Nothing for you here.” He looked at us. “Had your fill, gentlemen? Won’t actually go to the wall, Dr. Vernier? Very well, let us go in, then.” He clutched the railing tightly as he descended. Once we were back in the library, he set his hat on the shelf, then the telescope. “If it is not raining, I try to go out at least once a day. The view is splendid. Of course, even on the bad days, I can sit at my desk and stare out at the sea. My stove keeps me warm enough, although I don’t need it on a day like this.” He sank down into a chair of wood and leather, gestured at a chesterfield sofa of dark leather. “Have a seat, gentlemen. Perhaps a little later we might go down for tea.”
Holmes and I sank into the opposite ends of the sofa. I covered a yawn with my hand. All the fresh air and walking had made me sleepy. Holmes let the long fingers of his right hand dangle off the sofa arm. I could not recall when he had last seemed so relaxed. The couch was angled to the northeast, and we had a good view of the sea through the windows.
“I envy you your aerie, Sir Nathaniel,” Holmes said.
“It is pleasant enough after the bustle and activity of the great capitals, but sometimes I do wish I had married. I always meant to, yes? It just never seemed to happen, and now I am an old bachelor far too set in my ways to submit to any woman.”
Holmes stared closely at him. “Even someone like Lady Verr?”
Sir Nathaniel laughed. �
�Oh, she is a beautiful and charming lady, but I am truly old enough to be her father. I must admit…” His face seemed to color ever so slightly. “I first met her and Lord Verr some twenty years ago in London. They had just married, and my first thought was that Verr was a lucky devil indeed. I’m not quite such an old fool to dream of marriage, but I have one major failing to help keep any such idle fantasies in check.”
“What might that be?” Holmes asked.
“The lady is seeking a fortune, and I have very little money, Mr. Holmes, a pittance only. Doom Tower is my family home, but there is little land of any value attached to it. My sister lived here until her death, and then the old house steward Mitchell and his wife maintained it until I returned. There is an entail, and the estate cannot, of course, be sold. When I die, it will go back to the Crown, and that will be the end of the de Salis line. No, the lady needs to find someone wealthy like Caswall to satisfy all her feminine wants and vanities. It is natural enough, yes? Besides, I am some thirty-five years older than either her or Caswall. I admire Lady Verr greatly, but I am not so foolish as to covet her for my wife. No, no, I shall be a bachelor until the day I die.”
“How long ago exactly did Lord Verr die?”
“It has not been even a year, not quite. Terrible business that, simply terrible. I talked to him briefly on two occasions after they returned to Yorkshire. He was much changed. Clearly his mind was going. Dr. Thorpe was actually with them when he blew his brains out, and Lady Verr had to witness the whole thing! You’d think the fellow would have wanted to spare his wife such a dreadful spectacle, but then he was lost in his fantasies.”
“What were these fantasies?”
“He had become insanely jealous, raving to her and the doctor about her supposed infidelities.”
Holmes put his fingertips together. “And is it quite certain these were only fantasies?”
Sir Nathaniel stared at him closely. “Of course it is certain! She is a lady after all, and even if one were to doubt it… There is simply no one suitable in the neighborhood! No one unsuitable either, yes? Caswall had not yet returned at the time. Her only male servant Hamswell is nearly fifty and quite ugly. She is hardly the type of woman to take up with some farmer or common laborer. There are simply no viable candidates. No, Verr’s mind was lost, consumed, by mere fantasy.”
“Do you know this Dr. Thorpe?”
“Very well. He is my own physician, and a man only some fifteen years younger than myself. He has dwelt in Micklethorpe and been the local physician for thirty years. His character is absolutely unimpeachable.”
Holmes nodded. “I see. Sad how a person can be obsessed by mere thoughts. Well, enough of so unpleasant a topic. Perhaps we could discuss that which brought us here: the White Worm of Diana’s Grove.”
Sir Nathaniel’s smile became almost ferocious. “Ah, now there’s a topic more to my liking!” He sank back into his chair. “We are, I think we can agree, all men of science and men of reason, are we not?” This seemed a sort of examination question, so Holmes and I both nodded. “Therefore we must agree to approach this topic with an open mind, yes?” Again we nodded rather mechanically.
“Let us begin, then, by noting the discovery in our century of the dinosaurs. I was at Oxford in the forties when Owen first named the creatures. We were all fascinated, but this was nothing compared to the impact of the displays at the Crystal Palace in 1854! Who would have ever imagined that giant reptiles had inhabited the earth eons before man, that we were relative newcomers compared to these monstrous beasts? This revelation opened up a new window to the past, to times after the dawn of creation when nature operated on a gargantuan scale. Given these monstrous lizards, who can argue that an enormous serpent like the White Worm may not have also arisen? All such animals belong to the first geologic age—the great birth and growth of the world, when natural forces ran riot, when the struggle for existence was so savage that no vitality which was not founded in a gigantic form could have even a possibility of survival. And if enormous lizards were possible—were an actuality—why not serpents, yes?
“Even now, we know that giant creatures thrive in our oceans: there are our leviathans, the great whales, and giant squids who battle them in the black depths of the seas. I have no doubt that sea serpents exist, and if at sea, why could they not have their cousins on land? England has always been full of deep caves and watery depths; these abysses would be the natural home to such monsters. Perhaps, too, there are creatures equally at ease on land and in the sea, a great serpentine sort of amphibian. That would explain why a site like Diana’s Grove so near to the ocean might be home to the worm. In the depths of that pit there may lie caves which empty into the sea, as well as tunnels weaving inland. Can we not admit, then, the possibility that a creature like the White Worm exists?”
His musings were a kind of rhetorical tour-de-force which swept you along, but I still could not bring myself to make the leap he demanded. “I think we may agree to that,” Holmes said. He glanced at me, and I could see that he was not convinced either.
“There are also extreme differences in lifespans. Some men die in their twenties, others live past a hundred. Nature has spawned every sort of conceivable oddity. Certainly it is possible that some of these creatures could live longer than others. And with age, could not something like intelligence develop? An intelligence rather cold and reptilian compared to our own, but intelligence all the same, yes? And could not this intelligence continue to grow and grow as the centuries passed?”
Holmes nodded thoughtfully. “Such a creature might exist, but if it was active—if it was feeding—it could not keep itself hidden for long.”
“That is true. That is why there is talk now. Cattle and sheep have disappeared from the moors. People have seen strange things at night in the local woods.”
“What things?” I asked.
“White forms and green lights. Two green lights.”
“Eyes, I suppose.”
“You need not take that tone, Dr. Vernier,” he said sternly. “We agreed to a free and open discussion without preconceptions, yes?”
I nodded. “Forgive me.”
“You seem to be arguing, Sir Nathaniel,” Holmes said, “that this beast has been long dormant and has only recently reappeared.”
“That is indeed my theory.”
“And how do you account for this dormancy?”
“Think about it, Mr. Holmes. We know that amphibians can hibernate for long periods of time. There are certain toads that live in deserts and burrow into the mud during the brief rainy season, then go dormant for ten or twenty years. Only when the rains return years later does the water bring them back to life. This is a being of great size and, I suspect, of great cunning. Why could it not also go dormant for many years, possibly even centuries? Only now has something finally resurrected it.”
“What might that be?” Holmes asked.
He shrugged. “Hard to say. Perhaps… perhaps it went dormant because of hunger, and somehow it was fed again. We know that snakes can go for long periods of time between feedings. All things with the worm, all aspects, would seem to involve measurements on a colossal scale.”
Holmes nodded, even as the fingers of his right hand drummed at the sofa arm. “Most interesting, Sir Nathaniel. Your speculations show… a clever mind. You are truly a naturalist extraordinaire.”
Sir Nathaniel beamed, taking this appraisal at face value, but I doubted its sincerity.
“I can admit the possibility of such a creature, but what would be the connection to the Marsh family, especially its women?”
Sir Nathaniel actually scowled. “There, alas, I am on shakier ground. As I have told you, I am a confirmed bachelor. Oh, I have spoken and even flirted with women over the years in various social settings, but the female sex remains a mystery to me.”
Holmes’s smile this time was clearly the real thing. “I fear I am equally at sea on that topic, Sir Nathaniel.” He turned to me. “We do have a
n expert present, however.”
I shook my head. “Being married does not make me an expert on women, even though I may know one of them well.”
“One is infinitely greater than zero.” Holmes turned again to Sir Nathaniel. “I suspect, however, that you have also speculated about this subject, especially since Mr. Selton showed you the letter and the supposed manuscript.”
Sir Nathaniel’s brow knotted. “‘Supposed’?”
“The document is a forgery. It was recently created.”
“All the same, someone wrote down what was already known. That tale about Sir Michael and the White Worm is an old one, as is the association with Diana’s Grove.”
“And was the worm always female, with the ability to assume a beautiful woman’s shape?”
“Yes.” The old man smiled. “Which is hardly surprising. The link between women and serpents is truly ancient, as is the idea of the woman as temptress. Take the story of Eve, for example. There are also the so called ‘lamias’ in Greek myth, beings akin to succubae or vampires, who would slowly consume the vital essence of men. Keats wrote of ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, who drained the life of a young knight.”
“An association to which the letter seems to refer.” Sir Nathaniel looked puzzled, and Holmes went on. “‘If you value your manhood’, the letter warned.”
Sir Nathaniel nodded appreciatively. “Ah yes, exactly so.”
“And was this warning about the daughters of Sir Michael also in the original story?”
Sir Nathaniel opened his mouth, frowning, then shut his mouth briefly to reflect. “I am not certain, but I believe so. Lady Verr certainly knows about a curse which can fall upon the Marsh women.”
“Does she? And what exactly is the nature of this curse?”
“Various forms of madness or melancholy, I believe. Some of the Marsh women have so despaired that they have hurled themselves into the pit near the sea.”
I opened my mouth to pronounce this preposterous, but Holmes gave me a brief warning look.
The White Worm Page 6