by A S Croyle
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted -- nevermore!
“That’s the last stanza, Susan,” Uncle said. “Those last lines depict the final step of the journey, the lifting of the man’s suffering as he dies.”
I swallowed hard and the lump in my throat would not budge. I did not want Uncle discussing this subject.
“I disagree, Dr. Sacker,” Sherlock said. “That is not the meaning of the last stanza.”
I stared at him. What? Sherlock Holmes analyzing poetry? Now that was truly impossible. I would have to speak to our friend Oscar Wilde to find out what he’d been filling Sherlock’s head with.
“The raven’s shadow most likely symbolizes sadness,” Sherlock continued. “I do understand how some might interpret that last stanza as relating to the narrator’s death, but they’re wrong. Poe is discussing the narrator’s soul; the words mean that the narrator will never be happy again. The shadow remains on the floor, and it is the narrator’s soul that will never climb out from under that shadow of sadness. If someone has convinced you that he died, he’s wrong, Dr. Sacker.”
“Sherlock?” Uncle asked, his lips turning into a smile for the first time all evening.
“It’s simple logic, Dr. Sacker. Whoever tells you that the narrator has died, ask him how a dead man can narrate a poem.”
Now, for the first time all evening, I smiled as well, and Mycroft and Aunt Susan laughed.
“About the bird. I assume, Dr. Sacker, my brother has told you about the murders which have occurred near the British Museum.”
I patted my lips with my napkin and started to rise. Aunt Susan tapped my wrist, and her eyes told me she wanted me to stay. I settled back into my chair.
“Sherlock,” Mycroft said. “That is Her Majesty’s business. You are not to pursue that further.”
“Oh, dearest brother, how you do try to be that raven casting a shadow over me. When was the last time I allowed you to manipulate my life? Oh, yes, now I remember. I think I was three and you were ten.”
“Sherlock-”
“As I was saying,” Sherlock continued, “Now that it seems very clear how the Thames incident occurred-”
“The inquest has just begun, Sherlock. It is not clear at all,” Mycroft interrupted.
“In fact it is, Mycroft. Quite clear. The vessel which ran into the Princess Alice, the Bywell Castle, was a screw collier going to the north, light in ballast and heading downstream from Millwall dry dock on her way back to Newcastle. She was built of iron and powered by a single four-bladed screw. At over 1300 tons, she was over five times as heavy as the Princess Alice, and she sat much higher in the water.
“Now, at about 7:30 p.m., the Princess Alice came round Tripcock Point and into Galleons Reach, heading into the sinking sun, on her way to Woolwich. The force of the ebb tide had pushed her to the north side of the river, so, to regain her bearing, she was in the process of turning and moving southwards to the centre of the river. Her new course took her across the bow of the Bywell Castle, which bore down upon her. It cut her almost completely in half.
“Captain Grinstead was not seen after the accident, of course, but he was observed at his post shortly before the collision. Beyond the fact that the tide was about two hours ebb, which would enable the Princess Alice to ease and stop sooner than the screw, which would be borne on the tide, it is impossible to discover any of the circumstances immediately preceding the collision. But survivors have confirmed that before the boats struck, there were cries from one to the other to keep out of the way.
“They have already started to inspect the wreck and the condition of the Princess Alice reveals it was utterly unseaworthy. It was literally broken into three parts. These so-called saloon steamers are little better than floating platforms, egg-shells, that go down on the smallest contact with anything like iron or timber. The Princess was pricked out by plankin,” he continued. “It is a mere platform, planked in. A description given to me by the Captain of the Bywell Castle of its condition is quite true. I don’t know why anyone steps foot on them. The London Steamboat Company ought to be prosecuted.
“Passenger steamers have no business on the Thames hereabouts after dark. The river is full of heavy shipping, masses of wood and iron, not easy to control at certain states of the tide. The captain of the Princess Alice was out of his course and completely ignored the recent changes in the laws of navigation on the river. Captain Grinstead was avoiding the rush of the tide by making a circuit. They continually do this; there is not a day that passes when they don’t risk the lives of their passengers.”
He turned to me. “These steamers are like the hansom cabmen who think the London streets belong to them. Their captains believe that the river is theirs and that everyone else must get out of their way. These excursion steamers experience the narrowest ‘shaves’ in the busiest reaches and bends of the river, crowded as it often is with shipping, and they are, therefore, charged with sudden emergencies of navigation. But the Bywell Castle was too heavy and too slow, and she could not get out of Grinstead’s way.
“As is usual in such cases, the accident is likely due to a misunderstanding, the one misinterpreting the intentions of the other. All the rules of sailing were cast to the winds in the moment of peril, each taking the wrong course to avoid each other’s blunder.” He turned to Mycroft, “So you see, dearest brother, the case can be concluded.”
With that consummation of his discourse on the Thames accident, Sherlock turned his attention back to the British Museum Murders. I did not know it at the time, but before the evening’s end, we would all be like the Princess Alice... cut in half, weeping from our gaping wounds, sinking to the lowest depths of a dark polluted river, drowning.
26
As soon as we finished eating dinner, the men retired to the library. Aunt Susan and I gathered dessert plates, fresh napkins and utensils to take to the dining room. The scent of Sherlock’s pipe, sweet and strong, wafted through the air.
“Sherlock, pipes and libraries,” I mumbled.
“What, Poppy?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just remembering a day that Sherlock and I met at the Bod at Oxford where he was doing research on laws against baby farming. He lit up a pipe despite the rules against it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. His older brother is good at bending the rules as well.”
I knew what she meant. Though Mycroft was the quintessential patriot, loyal to the Crown to a fault, he was certainly not above circumventing laws and protocol. I suspected he had long ago subscribed to the adage: ‘the end justifies the means.’
Likewise, Sherlock was not above bending rules and breaking laws to solve a case. He did not rail against authority exactly, but he did not revere it either. When it came to crime investigation, he could be tart-tongued or lace his words with honey, whichever best served his purpose. He was always audacious, non-traditional, and mercilessly driven to uncover every shred of evidence without regard to convention.
We were placing biscuits on several platters on the sideboard when I heard Sherlock’s voice. He was yelling at the top of his lungs.
“Are you mad, Mycroft? Are you insane?”
Aunt Susan and I quickly made our way to the library. Uncle was standing in the middle of the room with Sherlock in front of him, as if he were a royal guard protecting Her Majesty. Mycroft stood several feet away, near the bookshelves to the right of the fireplace, his arms crossed over his ample chest.
“Sherlock,” Mycroft said with far more softness in his voice than I might have imagined, given the exasperated state S
herlock always elicited from him. “Even Lestrade wishes to speak to Dr. Sacker.”
“Lestrade,” Sherlock hissed. “That shallow, rat-faced-”
“Sherlock!” Mycroft yelled.
“If Lestrade is party to this, it is solely because you put him up to it. He has not an imaginative bone in his body. He’s a black-eyed bulldog that you have on your leash.”
“The best of a rather bad lot, I’ll grant you,” Mycroft replied, his voice drifting off. “Nevertheless-” He cleared his throat. “I simply need to ask Dr. Sacker some questions in a rather more formal setting, Sherlock. It is my duty to-”
No!” Sherlock roared. “You are not just asking questions! You have all but accused Dr. Sacker of committing multiple murders! I believe it’s finally time to send a page to the sanitarium to have them fetch you.”
My aunt finally injected herself into the conversation. “Ormond, what on earth is all this about?”
Uncle looked down at his feet, then stiffened and looked straight at Mycroft.
“My brother has lost his mind,” Sherlock said, disdain dripping from his tongue.
“Mycroft,” Uncle said quietly. “We have been acquainted for a long time. Since you were a boy. Good God, man, you just dined at my table with my family, and now you are accusing me of these atrocities?”
Aunt Susan ran across the room and slipped her arm through my uncle’s. “Ormond, tell me what is going on.”
Mycroft never took his eyes off Uncle’s face. His icy stare, the darkness behind his eyes, sent shivers through my body. His intensity, the rigid stance and the astonishment on Sherlock’s face muted everything else. The books, the wing chairs, the wooden Eskimo statute that a sailor had whittled for Uncle on that arctic voyage years ago, all faded away. It was as if menace and malignancy had been hiding in plain sight.
Mycroft said, “Mrs. Sacker, Miss Stamford, I think it would be best... I think you might want to retire to the drawing room while Ormond and I continue this conversation.”
“Conversation?” Aunt Susan asked, her strong emotions emerging with a howl. “You mean interrogation, don’t you?” she wailed.
“Susan,” Uncle whispered.
“No, Ormond. This is... this is... I don’t know what this is.” She slipped away from Uncle and marched up to Mycroft. “Get out of my house, Mycroft Holmes.”
“Mrs. Sacker,” Mycroft started to say, but she returned his frozen stare. “I said get out.”
Uncle rushed over to her and took her hand. “Susan, it’s going to be all right.”
Mycroft blithely took a seat in a wing chair. “Mrs. Sacker, there have been several recent murders, all men. Each was found in the vicinity of the British Museum. I... we have deduced that the perpetrator of these crimes has medical knowledge and he is sympathetic to their plight. The medical and mental conditions of each man - well, they were all quite ill and unstable and unable to generate income to support themselves or their families. Each one had consulted with physicians, the very same ones that your husband recently sought out. In fact, a sixth body was found just this morning. Poisoned just as the first five men were.”
“A sixth?” Sherlock said, a stunned look on his face. “Lestrade did not tell me.”
“Because you are to have nothing more to do with this matter, Sherlock.”
Mycroft fixed his gaze on Uncle again. “I spoke to Dr. Macewen and he said he had talked to no one about these matters, except you, Dr. Sacker. Your whereabouts since you returned from Scotland have been rather sketchy and-”
Aunt Susan’s vice was shrill now. “He has been at the wharf and attending to patients at the hospital!”
I was finally able to move my feet, which, until that moment, had felt as if they were cast in marble like the foundation of a statue. I dashed to Uncle’s side and grasped his arm. “He has been at the wharf. I have been there each day since the Thames accident. I’ve seen him myself.”
It was a lie, of course. I had never seen Uncle at the steamboat office or in the other temporary mortuary or on the docks. But we kept different schedules. That was all it was.
“These books,” Mycroft continued, as if I were not even present. “In all the years I have known you, Ormond, you have never-” He stopped and sighed. “Ormond, I noticed them when I called upon you to discuss the findings of the coroner after the autopsy of James Dixon. The one in which your niece was the assistant. I went to each book shop in the bookselling district. It seems you have visited all of them and purchased almost every book in London on the subject of Tantric Buddhism.”
He rose and went to one of the bookshelves and removed a book. He showed the cover to Uncle. “And this book of poetry by Edgar Allen Poe. You just purchased it six weeks ago. You have underlined several passages of The Raven, which your wife so eloquently quoted during dinner. Why? Why the new interest in Tantric Buddhism and poetry. Poetry? You, Ormond?”
I looked at Uncle’s face. It was ashen.
Though Mycroft’s deductions were confounding, what if they were true? What if all these men had chosen to end their lives and Uncle had helped them accomplish their goals? The shadow, the chasm between the uncle I knew and the person Mycroft suspected - that I suspected - was overwhelming.
“Please come with me willingly to the Yard, Ormond,” Mycroft said.
Fearing Aunt Susan would take up the poker from the brass fireplace fender and club Mycroft with it, I went to her and tightly gripped her arm.
Mycroft replaced the poetry book on the shelf. “Will you come now, Ormond?”
“Ormond, no,” Susan gasped.
“Uncle, don’t go,” I begged, now more terrified than ever.
“Stop this,” Sherlock said, the vein pulsing at his temple. “Stop this nonsense right now.”
Mycroft’s steel-grey, deep-set eyes, although always subtle in expression, seemed vacant now, totally free of emotion. Nothing revealed what was going on in that dominant mind. “Oh, come now, Sherlock, are you going to thrash me like you did that boy at Harrow?”
Sherlock moved across the room in seconds, took his brother by the lapels and shoved him into the bookcase. They stood nose to nose and Sherlock said in a hushed but frightening voice, “Do not tempt me.” He gave him another shove, stepped back and hissed, “I will get to the bottom of this, Mycroft. I will show you once and for all who has the better mind. Because you have lost yours.”
Uncle donned his coat and hat and took an umbrella from the stand near the door. He followed Mycroft Holmes into the damp, dark night.
I attempted to embrace Aunt Susan but she bolted from the library and ran upstairs. Her absence and my uncle’s permeated the room. Left behind, barely able to focus or breathe, I felt alone, more alone than I had at the wharf when I was often alone, the only one alive among desperate souls.
Sherlock crossed the room and put his hands on my shoulders. “We’ll sort it out, Poppy. You and I. Do not worry.”
“But it’s my uncle, Sherlock. I cannot be involved in the investigation. He is like a second father to me.”
“You must think of it as an autopsy, Poppy. You are not cutting into the person. You are simply attempting to deduce from the remains the cause of death.”
“No! It’s different. It’s Uncle Ormond!” Then I swallowed my grief, looked up at him, and added, “Sherlock, the thing is... “
“What? What is it, Poppy?”
The paradox between the uncle I loved so much and the one I suspected was suddenly too much to bear alone. “The thing is... I have had suspicions about Uncle Ormond myself.”
He looked incredulous. “Mycroft’s suspicions - and whatever suspicions you may have - are unfounded. Quite impossible. We will investigate and offer another explanation. A plausible explanation.”
Sherlock put his arms around me, and at that moment, I l
onged to recapture the feelings we had shared that night at Holme-Next-The Sea four years ago. I clung to him for a long time, neither of us speaking. Finally, he guided me to a chair and poured me a glass of port. We sat down across from one another near the fireplace.
As my dark thoughts slipped from my lips, unravelling like fragile threads that hold together an old, fraying quilt, he listened.
27
Finished with my port and revealing to Sherlock my list of suspicions, I sat back and glanced at his face, waiting to hear what he had to say. He seemed to have faded away from me. He was closed off, not speaking, motionless. His head sunk forward and his eyes fixated on the cold fireplace as if he were seeing something there in the ashes and residue that no one else could absorb. Then he lit his pipe and leaned back, watching the pale grey smoke rings spiral up toward the ceiling.
I was about to leave the room, to leave him to his mental gymnastics, when he said, “Poppy, I fully understand your qualms. I even understand Mycroft’s display of mistrust of Dr. Sacker. In fact, I am already entertaining the notion that Dr. Sacker is bait of some kind. Nonetheless, there is hardly enough evidence to hang your uncle from the rope. You must trust me. I will catch the real murderer out. I do not want you to worry.”
“But what if - ?”
“Quite simply, your uncle is wrongfully accused. I feel it.”
“You feel it?”
“I meant that as one progresses in this profession, one gets a sense of what matters, an ability to intuit that which is not clear at first. Did I not deduce that Mrs. Hudson was forced by her husband into helping with the blackmail scheme he devised against Squire Trevor?”
“So you admit to knowing instinctively that she was not a wicked person, that - ?”
“Not at all. I claim no clairvoyance like that with which you and others invested in your friend Effie. There is no such thing as a sixth sense. However, through the actions and behaviour of a person, one can certainly infer certain things and predict future behaviour.” Fingertips pressed together, teepee fashion, his elbows on the arms of his chair, he leaned forward and said, “Your uncle could not be the killer.”