Sherlock Holmes and the Folk Tale Mysteries - Volume 2

by Puhl, Gayle Lange

  “Berengaria carefully wrote out a manuscript of over fifty pages. As a Christmas surprise she presented the entire thing to her grandfather. He was so impressed with the manuscript that he caused it to be set into typeface and had one copy printed. The copy and the original script were bound between covers, making two books in all. The typeset copy was given to the current Baron for the Castle’s library, and the handwritten manuscript was retained by the old vicar, with instructions that Berengaria should inherit it upon his death.

  “Unfortunately, young Berry didn’t live to see her twentieth birthday, and when the household was broken up after the old man died, his handwritten copy of the story was lost. There did remain the copy in the Castle’s library and as the years and decades went by it became a favourite of the younger members of the family. As a child I thrilled to the account of my wicked Uncle Jarvis of ancient memory when my nanny consented to read the tale to my sisters and me in the nursery when we had, in her opinion, been especially well-behaved that day.

  “Now we come the third and most recent part of the story. My father was no bibliophile, but he did care about the things left in his care from earlier generations of Sessamys. About twenty years ago he decided that the Cliffdale Castle library needed a complete overhaul. The collection was vast and far-ranging, having been added to by generations of the family. Many old volumes were falling victim to neglect and even crumbling away as they sat on the shelves. A complete inventory hadn’t been done in decades and in short, the job was well overdue.

  “He hired a man, Garrett Aydin, a scholar of some repute, who specialized in Highland myths. He had travelled around for years as a tutor to this family and that. He was nearly forty and grateful for the offer of such steady and interesting work. He proved to be a fine librarian, and the good fellow devoted himself to the Herculean task.

  “I knew Mr. Aydin well. He had rooms in the Castle, never married, and spent his working hours organizing the innumerable volumes in the large library. It is a tall, broad room, with a balcony circling the main floor half-way up, lined with books. Below the balcony multiple shelves girdled the wide space with a moveable ladder reaching up from the parquet floor. It holds tens of thousands of volumes. Many an hour I spent as a youth at the huge main table, the light from the stained glass windows that bore our family coats of arms falling on a book or atlas whose contents took me far away from Yorkshire to exotic lands where monkeys chattered from palm trees or pirates glared at their helpless victims as with naked blades clenched between their teeth they climbed the sides of treasure ships bound for Spain from the gold mines of South America.

  “Mr. Aydin was a fixture of the Castle, a kind, knowledgeable man who not only cared for and preserved the books under his charge, but read them as well. I was educated by tutors, but whenever I had a question they could not answer, Mr. Aydin helped me find the solution. He grew grey in the service of the Sessamys, Mr. Holmes, and he did not deserve the fate that befell him.

  “One early morning, a week ago, one of the housemaids found Mr. Aydin lying on the floor of the library at the foot of the ladder. He had been dead several hours. The back of his head was crushed by the edge of a display case behind him that held a collection of ancient knives and daggers. A few books and papers were scattered around his body. The consensus was that he had fallen from the ladder with his arms full of materials. He was unable to save himself, hit his head on the case and died. No one had seen him since dinner the evening before and the library had not been used by the family that night. The police closed the case, the inquest declared it to be “death by misadventure” and poor Mr. Aydin was buried yesterday in the Dyrebury churchyard near the Sessamys he had served so faithfully.”

  “But you have doubts about Mr. Aydin’s death,” said Sherlock Holmes shrewdly.

  “Yes, I have,” replied Lord Sessamy. “The man was devoted to his job, but I, who knew him from when I was a child, never knew him to start work before breakfast. He had a regular schedule to which he adhered. He was a man of method, as behoves a good librarian, and had worked out a routine from which he seldom digressed.

  “Garrett Aydin rose each morning at seven, had breakfast at eight and was at his desk before nine. He worked until one, had lunch and then took a walk down to the village or over the fields of the estate. He returned after an hour, resumed his duties and worked until five-thirty. He usually ate dinner with the family. Sometimes of an evening he would play chess, fill in at whist or bridge as needed or discourse on current affairs when asked. During holidays he was always included in the festivities. During Christmas we quite depended on him to get up little pantomimes and plays for the amusement of our guests.”

  “What about his family?” asked Holmes.

  “His parents had died before he came to Cliffdale Castle. He had a sister and a younger brother in Chester. He used to go visit them once a year. His sister was a governess and caught typhoid from one of her charges ten years ago. She died. His brother immigrated to Australia after that. Mr. Aydin then started taking walking tours through Scotland during his vacations.”

  “Is there another reason you think his death was suspicious?”

  “I went into the library after his body was removed and the police were finished with the room. I picked up the books and papers from the floor. To my surprise the papers were just blank note sheets from the desk. The books were all from one lower shelf. There was no need to carry them up the ladder. And strangely, when everything was tidied up, the only thing found missing from the library was the old copy of Berengaria’s story.”

  “Does the library contain many valuable books?”

  “Yes, indeed. There are volumes dating back to medieval times, first editions of many famous authors and even an illustrated Bible from an ancient Irish monastery. Berry’s book was old and rare, but would hold little interest to anyone outside the family.”

  Around us the lunch crowd had thinned. A waiter hovered in the background. It was time to leave. Sherlock Holmes allowed Lord Sessamy to pay the check and then led us up to the street level above.

  “What is to happen to Mr. Aydin’s things?” he asked.

  “His personal items are to be packed up and sent to his brother in Australia. I wanted to wait until after I consulted you to have his things disturbed. I wish you to come up to Cliffdale Castle and look into this for me. The Dowager Baroness has gone to visit family in Wales and my sisters are currently abroad. There is plenty of room, I assure you, for both you and Dr. Watson.”

  “Very good. Watson, do you fancy a little trip to the Yorkshire Dales? Can you leave your practice for a few days?”

  “I will make arrangements with Jackson this afternoon.”

  “Excellent. Lord Sessamy, look for us tomorrow. What is the nearest station?”

  “Cragville, about ten miles from Dyrebury. I will send a carriage to meet you. I am leaving from King’s Cross this afternoon.”

  Holmes and I parted on the pavement before “Gai Souterrain”. I returned to the surgery where I made arrangements to have my patients covered by another doctor while I was out of town.

  The trip from King’s Cross to Cragville the next morning was uneventful. I found Holmes on the platform holding the tickets. We secured a compartment and I tossed in my valise. Sherlock Holmes asked me if I had packed my revolver, which I had, then handed in his own bag and swung aboard just as the train began to move. We passed the time reading the papers Holmes brought along and when they were exhausted we talked about the history of the Border region. Holmes discoursed learnedly about Hadrian’s Wall and the soldiers who manned the fortifications for centuries until the Roman Empire withdrew from Britain in 410 A.D.

  A dog-cart was waiting for us at Cragville and we spun through the soft fall air faintly warmed by sunshine flooding down over rolling hills that led towards Dyrebury. The low mountains that the road wound through were
graced by fall-tinged trees, shrubs and dry stone walls enclosing faded fields. Our cart wheels rolled through drifts of fallen leaves. From our seat in the cart we could see some of the limestone caves Lord Sessamy had mentioned, dark holes dotting worn hillsides. Lyell, the driver, a horsy old man who handled the reins with a knowing hand, told us that the route we were taking was the very road which bore the traffic of pilgrims to St. Galena’s holy spring back in the days of the Dyrebury Danger.

  “Aye, the tales my old granddad used to tell me about the stories his old granddad told him of the rich people who used to come to drink the water and wash their limbs in the pool of St. Galena. From all over the kingdom and even over the sea! Fine ladies and splendid gentlemen, all wearing silk and velvet, travelling with their servants in carriages fit for the King himself. But the rich people, for all their money, suffered just as much as the poor pilgrims that walked beside them, all hoping for a cure from St. Galena. Oh, some people went away cured and left a little stone in the cave next to the holy spring in gratitude. But many were never helped and went back to their homes as sick as when they arrived. There was many a pilgrim who started too late and never reached the spring at all, dying on the way. Look, there is an old monument over there to some ailing traveller who died just a few miles short of his hope of relief from his terrible problem.”

  He pointed with his whip to a pitiful mound of rocks surrounded by weeds at the side of the roadway. We stopped the cart and walked over to the shrine. It had obviously been there for a very long time and the years and the weather had partially obliterated an inscription on the uppermost stone. I used my pocketknife to scrape away the moss and lichen so that the words could be read. To the best of my ability I made out the words. “‘Michel Rattaile, born like his brothers blind. He prayed for a cure, but he was taken before he could wash in the waters. God willing that the miracle be manifested to his brothers Jacques and Leon. In the year of our Lord 1533.’”

  We returned to the cart and continued on to Cliffdale Castle. After a couple of miles Holmes brought up the subject of Jarvis Sessamy.

  “Oh, you’ve heard of the Captain! Yes, you can order a pint from any public house within thirty miles and hear legends of him and the Dyrebury Danger. Back in the early days of King James II the government was busy with its own affairs with little time to spend worrying about the people of the Dales. When the Captain and the Dyrebury Danger came galloping down over the hills and struck at the poor sick people travelling to St. Galena’s well there were naught to protect them but a few servants and the odd discharged soldier hoping to heal his own wounds in the water.

  “Once, it’s said, a fat merchant hid his gold and jewels in a cavity under his carriage seat. But the Captain knew about it and had the man thrown out on his nose into the dust of the road. His carriage was chopped to pieces before his eyes. The Captain loaded up the booty and tossed the man a single silver penny before he left, saying ‘It’s obvious to me that you don’t need to eat dinner tonight. Here’s a penny to give to the honest labourer who clears this wreckage out of the road. He can buy a bird to roast on the remnants of your fine carriage. Now walk, you lazy glutton, and a better sacrifice you will never make to St. Galena in your life!’

  “The merchant walked to Dyrebury but it is not known if he got his healing. What is sure is that he promised a reward of twenty pounds to the man who could bring him the Captain’s head. But when the time came the Baron refused to give it over and the twenty pounds were never paid.”

  The old man was a fount of similar stories and Sherlock Holmes listened to them all as we trotted through the nondescript village of Dyrebury, a collection of local stone houses with slate roofs. At one point the driver interrupted himself to point to a large building of the “coaching inn” type set back in a cobblestone courtyard. “That’s the very place the Captain was last seen before he was killed.” I looked up and admired the long galleries and the heavy roof. From an iron standard over the front door hung a swinging sign painted with a scene of a golden lion lying on green grass next to a white fluffy lamb. Then the dog-cart proceeded up the mountain to Cliffdale Castle.

  It was an impressive old Norman pile of square towers and crenellated battlements. From the road below the leads of the inner fortification’s roof rose above the curtain walls that surrounded the keep visible through the wide open portcullis of the main entry. It was not among the largest castles I had ever seen, but everything about it spoke of efficient design and solid construction. Only one corner tower showed signs of destruction from a long-ago war, with crumbling stones around a missing roof over smoke-blackened windows. Surrounded by the trees of burning colour that covered the prominence on which it stood, with the afternoon sun warming its ancient stones, the Castle gave the air of standing guard over the valleys and becks of the Yorkshire Dales like a stern but loving paterfamilias whom one could never question, for he would always know best.

  The approach to the Castle ran in a serpentine manner up the bluff to reach the entrance. The carriage entered the Castle walls and stopped within the keep before a shallow set of wide stone steps that gave access to the great wooden doors of the main Hall. Two men, one a tall, fleshy man, the other our client, Owen Sessamy, twenty-first Baron of Dyrebury, stood on the steps. The Baron came forward with an extended hand.

  “Welcome, gentlemen, welcome! This is Mr. Handy, my butler. Handy, please have Mr. Sherlock Holmes’ and Dr. Watson’s luggage taken to their rooms. I trust you gentlemen had a pleasant trip? Fall days can be tricky as regards the weather, but we seem to be in the middle of a fine stretch of sun. I can offer you tea or coffee or something a little stronger if you wish.”

  We stood in a marble-floored entry hall with a cheery blaze in the fireplace to the right and an intricately-carved walnut staircase reaching up on our left. Before us were another set of doors through which I glimpsed comfortable chairs and handsome paintings.

  Sherlock Holmes brushed off any offers of refreshment or rest. “Please show me Mr. Aydin’s quarters, Lord Sessamy,” he said. “I think this case may be more complicated that I first thought and I wish to lose no time gathering information.”

  “Of, course, Mr. Holmes.”

  We climbed the stairs to the third story. On the way Lord Sessamy pointed out our assigned quarters. Garrett Aydin’s suite was just above ours. The librarian had been given a small sitting room, lit by two windows, furnished with a couple of armchairs, a secretary with a straight chair, a bookcase filled to overflowing and a small couch. In the centre of the room was a round table. The floor was covered with a patterned rug. To the right of the fireplace was a door that led to his bedroom. It held a narrow bedstead with rumpled sheets, as if the owner had just risen from them, a chest of drawers, an armoire and two plain wooden chairs. A small square table stacked with reading material stood next to the bed next to a lamp. His shaving kit was laid out on the deep window sill.

  Holmes began to examine the rooms. He began with the bedroom, methodically going through every drawer, all the bedclothes left disarranged on the man’s bed, and every other item in the room. He picked up at the shaving articles and peered at them with his magnifying glass. He opened the armoire and felt and sniffed the clothing within. We stood back and watched silently.

  Holmes finished with the bedroom and moved on to the sitting room. He gave it his full attention, going as far as to pick up every book on the shelves and flip through the pages of each one.

  Nothing fell out. He ran his hand under the couch cushions and thumbed through the contents of the secretary. He opened a drawer and pulled out a stack of blank note paper. Then he stood up and turned to us and with a triumphant flourish held high a single sheet of white.

  “You have found something!” I said.

  “A clue! A palatable clue! Answer me this, my friends. When is a man’s stationary not stationary?”

  Lord Sessamy and I looked blank
ly at each other.

  “When it has been moved! Look at this. I found it tucked in the centre of the stack of blank sheets.”

  Carefully he brought the notepaper to the round table. He smoothed it out on the table cloth and we bent over to see what he had found.

  “Read it out loud, Watson,” Holmes said.

  The handwriting was clear and round, as befitted a man who used words in his profession. “It is dated eight days ago. ’Dear Douglas,’” I began.

  The Baron broke in. “That’s his brother in Australia!”

  I continued. “’I was glad to hear of your good fortune. Amelia is a beautiful girl and why she would consent to marry such an old fool as you I will never understand. However I do send my warmest congratulations. I am glad to hear that your business is going well and you plan to open another store in a few months.

  ‘My work here at the Castle goes well. I have found something unusual. It may have to do with that old legend I told you about years ago. I need to check it out but if it is what I think it may be, I might have enough money to join you in Melbourne before the wedding and even invest in your enterprise. I look to have other news too. You know of whom I refer. Our relationship is coming to a head and if my discovery proves correct, I think the results may finally tip the scales and bring me the same sort of happiness you look forward to for yourself. I will write more tomorrow.’ That is all there is.” I laid the paper down.

  “What could he have found that would bring him money? I don’t understand,” said the Baron.