Sherlock Holmes and the Folk Tale Mysteries - Volume 2

by Puhl, Gayle Lange

  The innkeeper grasped the housemaid with strong hands and kissed her passionately. “What a question to ask! Bring the lantern and just show me where to dig.”

  The deadly duo moved into the cave. We could hear the sounds of the piles of stones and pebbles clattering against each other as the two climbed over them to reach the inner depths if the cavern. Their light reflected off walls and the ceiling as they rounded a curve and disappeared within.

  Sherlock Holmes broke the silence. “There you have your confession, Constable,” he whispered.

  “With plenty of witnesses to back it up in court,” Relyonn growled. “I don’t see why we can’t just go in and grab them, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Have you ever seen a pair of rats backed into a corner with no way to escape? It is better this little drama be played out to the end. You will go home tonight with your murderers, Constable, and an iron-clad case to present to the judge. Now we must wait again.”

  It was just past midnight and the half-moon hung high in the sky behind a rack of black clouds. The wind picked up and we drew our coats about us as we huddled in the darkness. Dry leaves skittered across the rocks and got caught up in the stalks of dry grasses that fringed the spring. We could hear the sounds of digging from within the cave, for the walls seemed to have the power of amplifying noise. The soft thud of loose earth being thrown up with a shovel alternated with sudden clinks as the metal blade hit solid rock. A few minutes later the soft thuds would begin again, only to end when the limestone floor was exposed in a new place.

  This exercise had occurred over and over again for better than two hours when we heard a loud shout and the shovel flew out of the cave and clanged against the rocks below. An instant later Abigail ran out, clutching the lantern, as Linus Boniface followed. She turned to face him by the large stone. By the light she carried we could see his face as he, clearly enraged, advanced toward the cowering woman. She tried to placate him with a trembling hand as she cried out.

  “No, Linus! I was so sure! It must be in there! We just haven’t dug in the right spot!” Her voice was cut off as his fingers closed around her throat.

  “It’s all rock! Solid rock to the middle of the Earth! For this I killed a man! You devil!”

  Holmes reached him first, although we were all close behind. He tore the innkeeper away from the woman. The Constable managed to fix his handcuffs to Boniface’s wrists but the wretch continued to struggle until Lord Sessamy thrust out a foot and tripped him up. Even prone he still writhed and shouted as the men secured his ankles with the Baron’s necktie. I handed my revolver to the Baron, who held it on the innkeeper. I crouched over Abigail’s limp body on the ground and shone the light from Holmes’ bull’s-eye lantern on her white face. Holmes left the others and came over to where I was tending to the woman.

  “Is she badly hurt, Watson!”

  “Bring me some of that water and quickly!”

  Holmes dipped his handkerchief into the spring and handed it to me. I squeezed some liquid between her lips and bathed her neck where the bruises were forming. She gasped and trembled, then moaned and opened her eyes. Terrified, she looked up at us, and her expression changed to confusion.

  “What happened? Where’s Linus?” she whispered.

  His shouting had stopped. Abigail struggled to sit up and I indicated his bound body. “He tried to kill you.”

  She gazed at her paramour. When she talked she could only croak out the words. “Don’t hurt him, gentlemen! Don’t hurt him! Oh, Linus, I’m sorry. I really thought the treasure was hidden here. I’m sorry! I am so sorry!” She burst into tears.

  Constable Relyonn droned out the customary warning. Our prisoner snarled at us all then lapsed into a sullen silence. Lord Sessamy, Holmes and the policeman carried Boniface to the carriage. I determined that Abigail’s injuries were not life-threatening and helped her to the coach. The constable and his two charges were deposited at the Dyrebury station where our statements were taken. Caught red-handed, Linus Boniface confessed to the murder, laying most of the blame on his lover. She, on the other hand, said that the idea was Boniface’s. She admitted she had hidden Berengaria’s book in the servants’ quarters and had smuggled it out in her valise under our very eyes when she left the Castle in Boniface’s hack.

  The sun was just peeking above the Yorkshire hills when we three arrived back at the Castle. Handy opened the door and noted our dishevelled appearances with a steady eye.

  “Breakfast shall be ready in an hour, sir,” he intoned to the Baron. “In the meanwhile I will have extra hot water taken up to your rooms.”

  Clean, fed and rested, we three met again in the Castle library that afternoon. Outside heavy grey clouds filled the sky and threatened a storm. The temperature had dropped, the wind blew steadily and we were grateful for the blaze in the fireplace. The lamps were lit and Handy had placed several additional candelabras on the table against the early darkness promised by the weather. We sat in armchairs before the fire, Holmes with his pipe and Lord Sessamy and I with cigars.

  “Well, you have discovered the culprits and solved the murder, Mr. Holmes,” said Owen Sessamy, “for which I thank you. Poor Mr. Aydin! I never realized he was ensnared in a romance with Abigail.”

  “Human nature, no matter how dedicated or controlled, will have its outlets, my lord,” replied Holmes. “She is a perfidious woman. She went to great personal lengths to get the secret from Aydin. All the while the attraction between herself and Linus Boniface was of long standing. Both were ambitious and it was only lack of money that held them back from leaving Dyrebury and building a life together. I discovered as much in the alley behind the “Lamb and Lion” yesterday afternoon.

  “When we were leaving the inn after our lunch I caught a glimpse of her through the doorway behind the bar. It was then that I realized that she had not gone to her sister’s as she had told us. There was a connection between her and Linus Boniface. I rushed Watson out because I could not take a chance she would recognize us, and I later went back in disguise to discover more.

  “She had Berengaria’s book with her and was discussing it with Boniface. She declared that she could lead him to the treasure at once. Boniface said they had to wait until the inn closed after 10:30 to begin. He said his family had been searching for the Captain’s share for generations. They considered it only fair that the descendants of Bess’s child collect it. But Abigail figured wrong and the treasure wasn’t buried in St. Galena’s cave. I think even Garrett Aydin thought it was there.”

  Handy brought in a note on a silver salver. Lord Sessamy tore it open, read it and crumpled it up with a groan. He tossed the paper into the fire and turned to Holmes.

  He sighed. “Well, the money is well and truly lost now. Every cave in the district, even the holy cave of the saint, has been searched and found wanting. That message was from my estate agent. I left word for him and a crew of men to drag the bottom of St. Galena’s well this morning. It was the only place left to search. They found nothing. The treasure of the Dyrebury Danger shall forever by part of legend in the Yorkshire Dales.”

  We sat silently for several minutes, looking into the flames, until Holmes took the pipe from his lips and spoke.

  “That is not necessarily true.”

  We looked at him in amazement. Lord Sessamy leaned forward.

  “You don’t mean to say that you know where the treasure is located!”

  “I do,” smiled Sherlock Holmes. “At least I know where Jarvis Sessamy hid it.”

  “Where is it, man?”

  I echoed his question.

  Holmes seemed to be waiting for us to ask. He leapt to his feet and grabbed a candlestick. “I take it that neither of you gentlemen are afraid of ghosts?”

  “Holmes!”

  “It’s alright, Watson. I haven’t changed my opinion on that subject and I know
you haven’t either. But we must brave the ominous depths of the Castle to solve this mystery and with a storm approaching the question might come up. It is time to pay a call on the other long-term inhabitant of Dyrebury Castle; the Grey Yeoman.”

  At the end of the corridor that housed the kitchens and storerooms of the Castle, we met Handy, already primed with sacks, a steel bar, and a shovel. He gripped a heavy ancient dresser that stood before a stone wall. With surprising ease, the dresser moved to one side. Holmes held up his light and pushed at the wall. It swung back to expose a secret chamber. A set of stones steps spiralled downwards. Holmes exchanged his candles for the dark lantern the butler carried and led the way.

  “I never heard of this,” exclaimed the Baron.

  “I believe the secret died with Jarvis Sessamy,” said Holmes. “I found it only after a lot of searching during the past few days. I have not spent all my time locked in the library.”

  The twisting steps led ever downwards for a long time. As the four of us descended the stone staircase the shifting flames of our candles and Holmes’ light illuminated rime-streaked limestone walls. We came out into a narrow cold passageway far below the Castle. Over our heads was the vaulted ceiling of a corridor that stretched far ahead into darkness. We walked past the heavy barred doors of secret cells once used by the Baron’s ancestors to imprison unfortunate captives from the Border Wars and other forgotten conflicts.

  I heard the rustle of rats’ feet and breathed in the dank, earthy air of an underground world neglected for hundreds of years. We brushed past spider webs and listened to the steady drip, drip of moisture oozing from the walls. I felt an oppressive feeling of great weight hanging over my head as we penetrated deeper under the Castle.

  At long last we came to a jumbled pile of fallen masonry. Obviously it had fallen from the ceiling. After some hard labour we cleared a passageway to what lay beyond.

  We climbed over the rocks and found ourselves in a huge square room. Two rows of massive Norman pillars stretched away to the dim opposite wall. With our lights we could see that many of the supports were broken and nearly two thirds of the arched roof they had supported had collapsed, the rubble filling the space before us. Faint light streamed in from above the broken ceiling and through the holes in the walls. It was still odiferous with the heavy odour of smoke from a massive fire five hundred years old. Above our heads we could glimpse through the missing ceiling parts of a tall tower that reached up to ragged crenelations outlined against the darkening sky. There was a sudden clap of thunder and a lightning bolt streaked from one side of the battlement to the other. It illuminated burnt beams still sticking out from the stone walls, showing where floors had stood when the Castle was first built.

  The ashes and rubble of the ancient conflagration covered the floor at our feet. A few signs of the rebuilding efforts of long ago mouldered amidst the fallen beams and charred stones that had plunged down from the lofty heights to the tower’s cellar floor five hundred years before.

  “Behold the Grey Yeoman’s lair,” said Sherlock Holmes. “It has been feared for centuries as a place of supernatural activity. Shunned by all as the home of a mysterious apparition, this tower had developed its own legend. Jarvis Sessamy knew the legend and he knew the power of superstition that kept everyone away from this spot. He knew that the treasure of the Dyrebury Danger could remain hidden here for years and never be discovered, guarded by the trustworthy spectre of the Grey Yeoman, loyal minion of the Baron of Dyrebury.”

  There were more rumblings from the massed grey clouds overhead. Holmes turned to the soot-covered walls of the chamber, holding his light close to the stones, obviously searching for the niche that must conceal Jarvis Sessamy’s secret.

  It was well-hidden. Behind a pile of fallen stones, wedged between two broken blocks, he pulled out an old metal strongbox. It was covered in rust and dirt, but one blow from the steel bar was enough to open it. The lid flew up. Within, a fortune of gold, silver and jewellery gleamed and sparkled as another lightning bolt shot across the sky far above. We marvelled at the contents and began to fill the sacks Handy had brought with him. Suddenly a stone, from someplace far above, fell on the section of vaulted ceiling that still stood behind us. It brought down more blocks that crashed to the floor and threatened to bring down what remained of the room’s roof. Was it the Grey Yeoman, faithful to his post, doing his best to protect that which a Sessamy had entrusted to his care so long ago? We didn’t stop to ask. The pile of rocks we had to climb over would explain the earthquake long ago.

  Back in the library, Lord Sessamy spilled out the treasure from the sacks to which it had been hastily transferred. Outside the storm had broken and heavy rivulets of rain ran down the stained glass windowpanes with noisy abandon. Inside we marvelled at the crude hand-hammered coins bearing the names of ancient kings mixed with early machine-made coins stamped with the names of Charles I and James II. There were two necklaces fashioned of thick gold and inlaid with diamonds and emeralds. Several rings and three chains of precious metal in ancient designs shone in the light as we carefully polished each item picked out of the pile. Even Handy, who sat assiduously at work with his cleaning cloth looking for all the world as if he was merely caring for the Baron’s table silver, could not keep himself from commenting on the shoals of wealth that passed through his fingers.

  “Here’s a gold piece marked with Oliver Cromwell’s likeness,” he marvelled. “And here is another. I can make out Queen Bess’s name on this silver piece and I do think this stone might be a ruby. However did you know where all this was hidden, Mr. Holmes, if I may ask?”

  Holmes pulled out his pipe and filled it from his tobacco pouch. “Jarvis Sessamy was a wild, reckless young man. He didn’t like rules but he liked to be in charge. He had a sharp sense of humour, as evidenced by his jibe at the fat merchant whose carriage he had torn apart. He told his men that he had hidden his share of the robberies in a cave. Yet every cave in the district has been searched and no treasure found. Nevertheless Jarvis Sessamy did not lie.”

  “How could that be possible?” asked our host.

  “It is possible because the third son of your ancestor had a French mother. He didn’t want anyone to discover his hiding place, but in a perverse sort of way he didn’t want to lie to his companions. So he told them the truth. He hid his share in a cave. In French the word cave indicates a cellar or a vault.”

  “The cunning rascal!”

  “Yes, he was cunning. Because of his cleverness, a good man is dead, two families have been dishonoured and a man and a woman face the gallows. And for what? For this so-called treasure, the ill-gotten gains of a rogue, a heap of coins and stones tainted by greed and violence, now to be picked by the Crown to end up enclosed behind glass and stared at by a curious public.

  “So the last chapter of Berengaria’s book can finally be written and the whole matter be laid to rest with Garrett Aydin. What’s that, my lord? Brandy? Yes, let’s raise a glass. To the pilgrims of St. Galena, all those who were helped and all those who were not and finally, to all those who had the misfortune to meet the Dyrebury Danger and contribute to this sparkling pile.”

  A few weeks later a letter arrived at 221b Baker Street in the early morning post. When my friend tore it open, two slips of paper fell out as he drew out the letter. I picked up the checks and looked at them in wonder.

  “This is a lot of money, Holmes!”

  Sherlock Holmes was reading the note. I noticed that it bore a crest at the top. “That is part of the finder’s fee for the Dyrebury Danger treasure, Watson. My, my. Lord Sessamy writes that he has sent an equal share to Douglas Aydin, the librarian’s brother in Australia. Mr. Handy’s share allows him to take over the “Lamb and Lion”. The balance will be used to benefit the citizens of Dyrebury and the surrounding district. He writes that he hopes by this action to make up for some of the troubles his ancestor vis
ited upon the locals long ago. The trial of Linus Boniface and the woman Abigail will begin in a few weeks. We are invited to stay at the Castle during that time. There is one last thing Lord Sessamy wanted me to tell you.”

  “What is that?”

  “He says that since the treasure was removed from the Castle no one has seen or heard anything of the Grey Yeoman. The lights have vanished, the cold spot is gone and the sounds from the tower have stopped.”

  “Owen Sessamy is a believer, Holmes.”

  “I too have my beliefs, Watson, and one of them is that the workman is worthy of his hire. Let us take these checks around to our respective banks as soon as they open and then after you see your patients we can meet at one o’clock for something nutritious at Simpson’s. There is a Chopin concert this afternoon at Albert Hall and I feel like celebrating. Just hand me the telephone and I’ll make the reservations.”

  The Case of the Meandering Motorists

  I was privileged to assist my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes during twenty-three years of his remarkable career. As the years advanced and we both grew older our relationship altered. He was always independent, remaining in our original rooms at 221b Baker Street, eventually taking over the entire building and paying our landlady a princely sum for the convenience. Indeed, I wondered if he could have found a better home anywhere else in London. Mrs. Hudson waited on him hand and foot, put up with the strong reek of his chemical experiments and admitted the steady stream of troubled clients that rang her bell at all hours seeking the help of the famous detective. Although she rolled her eyes and complained sotto voce about his eccentricities, I believed her spirit would have been crushed if he had ever chosen another flat and moved away before his formal retirement took him to the hills of Sussex.

  As the years passed and my personal circumstances caused us to spend less time together, I became more like a habit to him, like his pipe and his scrapbooks. I served as a sounding board for his theories and reflections, while also assisting as his trusted companion on some occasions when Holmes’ investigations left the confines of 221b Baker Street. Many times we spent our hours together in the sitting room, relaxed in the worn armchairs, feet thrust toward the fire as he spoke over his current case, or, rarely, reminisced about old ones. Other times I was whisked out the door as soon as I appeared, to climb into a waiting hansom and clatter through the cobblestoned streets of London before I really knew what Holmes had planned for me to do.