The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part III

by David Marcum

  “Manchester, or nearby...”

  “No,” Benjie interrupted, “this room.”

  “Cellar... under the big ‘ouse.”

  Benjie sat up. His head spun, and his eyes struggled to focus. “I’m thirsty.”

  “Yes, yes... we’re always thirsty, aren’t we Tom? Don’t matter how much we drink. Always thirsty, we are.”

  “We have to get out of here.”

  “No way out, Benjie. One door - one window above it. That’s all.”

  “The three of us can...”

  “No. Tom ran. They put the ‘ound on ‘im and dun him good,” Jake said, pointing to Tom’s feet.

  Benjie’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, allowing him to see the skinny youth pressed against the far wall. Tom’s legs were pulled up tight against his chest. His arms were clutched around his knobby knees. His bare feet were bleeding, black and blue. Raw flesh oozed where his toenails had dropped off.

  “Beat ‘is feet with a club. Tom can’t walk now.” Jake began to shake. “We’re gonna die.”

  Benjie grabbed Jake by the shoulders. “Nobody’s dyin’!”

  ***

  SHERLOCK HOLMES had just shed Tux’s grimy clothes, and was standing before a long mirror removing his false beard.

  I used a broom to push the pile of tattered garments onto an open newspaper spread on the floor alongside the clothing. “I feel as though I should call the public disinfectors, Holmes. I don’t know how you can tolerate having these horrid rags on your body.”

  “Soap and water is all the hygiene required,” Holmes assured me. “Please be careful not to discard that sack there. Inside we may well find some pieces to this puzzle.”

  I put the kettle on and searched the cupboards for something to eat. A can of salmon, and three hard-boiled eggs, provided the makings for bachelor sandwiches. As I brought our dinner into the parlour, I saw that Holmes had already spread a newspaper on my desk, and was carefully placing objects from his dustman’s sack thereon. He began poking each item with a pencil.

  “Dustbins,” he said, “write the most truthful biographies. The challenge here is to know which of these items might best put us on Benjie’s trail.”

  He continued his incessant prodding, occasionally examining an object with his glass. Within five minutes he had put four of the objects to one side. “Here are the tell-tale clues, I believe.”

  I approached as a dutiful friend. For, while Holmes is a singular man in most regards, he shares a trait common to consummate craftsman and artisans. My friend requires an audience - not for adulation or approval, but in the way a magician enjoys revealing his sleight of hand to an apprentice.

  “Object one,” Holmes began: “blood stained cotton - fully in keeping with the work of a haematologist. Object two: an old railway timetable from Euston Station. And, related to this, there were three recent entries in his expense ledger for 16/6 under “train.”

  Holmes reached back into the pile of previously discarded items, and retrieved a bit of old cheese in a torn wrapper. “Hm-m-m. This is not a local cheese. Let us add this to the mix.”

  Prodding several small pieces of badly soiled fabric, the size of a calling card, Holmes asked: “What do you make of these, Watson?”

  I picked up one of the pieces, and held it to my nose. “Ah, yes, flannel patches used to clean a gun - a large bore. Most likely a shotgun.”

  “Exactly so,” Holmes remarked. And then, pointing to each of the patches in turn, “This one had tow and oil on it... this one, turpentine... and this one, sperm oil, I believe. This might also explain the whistle I discovered in a canvas jacket hanging near the rear door.”

  “He hunts... the whistle calls the Herriers,” I confirmed.

  Then, Holmes stuck his pencil into the neck of an empty bottle, and held it up before me. “And, the real prize - a bottle that once held sodium citrate. What do you make of all this?”

  I gazed upon the five objects. “The blood, we are agreed, relates to blood genotyping. The man is a hunter, most likely game fowl, and he recently cleaned his shotgun.”

  I picked up the bottle and smelled it. “Sodium citrate is a common alkalinizing agent. It’s used to treat kidney stones.”

  “How might it be used with blood?”

  “Possibly as a preservative... or an anti-clotting agent.”

  “Genius, Watson! And, what of the cheese - you are a gourmet, are you not?”

  “I enjoy my cheese more than the next fellow, but I am not an expert.”

  I picked up the dried chunk of whitish cheese, along with a scrap of the wrapping. “A white cheese... semi-soft. As you say, the blue and green wrapping is not familiar to me.”

  “Exactly, Watson. It is not a common cheese in this city. I think we can put Archie and his band to work with regard to this cheese.”

  Within an hour, Archie returned with the last piece of the puzzle.

  “Mr. Olmes, look ‘ere.” Archie held up a bright blue and green package in one hand. “Eden Glenn cheese.”

  “Made in Manchester?” Holmes queried.

  “It’s a witch you are,” Archie replied. “Near Manchester, sir, in Leigh.”

  “A Leigh Toaster,” I exclaimed. “Makes me rather peckish. What did that package of cheese cost you, Archie?”

  Archie presented a sly smile. “Cost me sir?”

  “Well then, what will it cost me?”

  “A gift, sir,” Archie said, as he presented the cheese.

  “No time for dining, fellows,” Holmes shouted. “We’re off to Manchester!”

  “Then you believe Benjie is in Manchester, Holmes?”

  “Yes, likely near the Gregston Estate - the crest you know. You might check your wallet also. I am certain 16/6 is the fare from Euston to Manchester-Piccadilly. If your pistol is well oiled, I suggest you retrieve it, and grab a warm coat and hat.”

  Holmes put his hand on Archie’s shoulder. “We need you here, Archie. If your lads report that Rottenberg has returned, you must wire us at Manchester-Piccadilly Station. Take these coins for a telegram. The extra money will help you make payment for the cheese.”

  ***

  BENJIE crouched on the narrow ledge of the window above the storeroom door.

  “He’s comin’,” Jake whispered, “with the broth.”

  Benjie waved Jake away from the doorway, and put his finger to his lips. The lock clicked, and the hinges hummed as the door swung open. Jake and Tom shielded their eyes from the glaring lantern light splashing into the room.

  A man’s voice could be heard just outside the portal. “Benjie? Benjie? I have some broth for you. No need to hide from me.”

  Jake pointed to a dark corner. The man stepped inside, lantern in one hand, bowl in the other. He squinted into the darkness.

  Benjie leaped from the ledge onto the back of the man. The bowl of broth shattered on the floor. Benjie gouged his fingers deep into the man’s eyes. The devil screamed, twisted, and swung the lantern back and forth in an effort to dislodge the cat-like boy.

  “A-a-agh, blast you, you bloody bastard!” he yelled. The man reached over his head and seized Benjie’s neck, ripped him around, and cast him to the floor. Jake leaped forward to block the kicks being directed at Benjie.

  “Get ‘em, Jake!” Benjie screamed. The desperate man dropped the lantern, grabbed Jake by the collar, and tossed him against the wall. The lantern flickered out. In the darkness, the desperate man groped for the boy. Then came Benjie’s foot - violently smashing into his face.

  “Argh! My nose!” Blood gushed between the man’s fingers, and streamed down his neck. A second kick caught the man in the groin. He dropped to his knees and rolled onto to his side moaning.

  “Hurry, Jake, quick! Help me with Tom.”

  �
�Best ya go now, Benjie. Bring help.”

  The injured man struggled to his knees and made a feeble attempt to grasp his assailant. Benjie punched him hard, again in the nose. The man bellowed and collapsed on the floor.

  Benjie rushed from the room. Scrambling up the wooden cellar stairs, he burst into the kitchen.

  “What’s all this!” a wiry cook woman said, as she poked her head around the pantry door. “You there...”

  Benjie ran toward the light of the rear door. He leaped into the garden with only one thought - run!

  ***

  SHERLOCK HOLMES gazed through the train window at the weather-beaten moors that lay between London and Manchester. He had wrapped himself in a tight silence for nearly an hour before he turned to me: “You are comfortable with silence, Watson, which makes you a rare and ideal companion.”

  Holmes’s gaze turned back to the passing landscape. “There is something bestial and cruel at work in the human race - something I have never been able to fathom.”

  “Or accept, thank heaven. Don’t worry, Holmes. We will find him...”

  “Find him, Watson? Benjie has less than eight pints of blood coursing through his young veins. The loss of more than three will put him at death’s door.”

  “Rottenberg knows this.”

  “Yes, and that is what makes him such a hideous beast.”

  As soon as the train lurched to a stop, we rushed into the station. A governess cart pulled up to the curb as we emerged. As we opened the rear hatch, Holmes spied a large black motor-car waiting in the distance.

  “The vulture circles, Watson.”

  “The motor-car?”

  “Sir George Gregston, I am certain. Clever fellow! Waiting and watching us.”

  “He may have known all along, but kept himself free from suspicion whilst we did his dirty work.”

  Holmes addressed the carter: “We are looking for a cottage, or hunting lodge, in the countryside - near the Gregston Estate. The house of a Londoner.”

  “I imagine yer speakin’ of Braunmoss House, sir. It’s there you wish to go then?”

  “We do,” Holmes said.

  As the cart splashed down the road, I pulled my collar up around my neck as a frosty drizzle began.

  “There will be no place for subtlety or banter when we arrive, Watson. Have your revolver at the ready.”

  A little more than half-way into the journey, the driver pointed and remarked: “Most unusual sir.”

  He was referring to another set of wheel tracks in the mud ahead.

  “Few travel this way in winter, sir.”

  This confirmed Holmes’s deductions. Upon arriving, we paid the driver, and made the journey from the road to Braunmoss House on foot. Racing onto the front porch, we pounded on the door. No answer. Holmes thrust it open. We stood silently on the threshold - listening.

  A woman, gowned in black lace, scurried into the hallway toward us. “How dare you!”

  “Where’s the boy?” Holmes demanded.

  The woman stopped in her tracks. Holmes confronted her. “The boy, Benjie - where is he?”

  She hung her head in resignation, and took a deep breath.

  “Run away. The others are in the cellar.”

  “Others?” I exclaimed.

  “Watson, to the cellar. I’ll find Benjie!”

  ***

  BENJIE knew a dog was hunting him when he heard it baying in the distance. Spying a hollow log, he ripped off his shirt, put it on a long stick, and poked it into the hollow. He grabbed nearby brush and jammed it into one end of the log. He frantically searched the area for something else to close the other end of his trap.

  Holmes had heard the dog as well, and followed the retreating yelps into the woods. He came upon an ageing handler trotting well behind his Herrier. Holmes beckoned sharply. “Hello there!”

  The man stopped, and turned toward the unfamiliar voice.

  “Call your dog off, at once!” Holmes ordered.

  The man grimaced. “And you’d be?”

  “I’d be the man who is saving you from hanging at the Old Bailey.”

  The man paused but a moment before he blew two short blasts on a silver whistle slung around his neck. “Skyler! Skyler, come.”

  The yelping ceased, and the hound returned, panting heavily at the old man’s side.

  “Benjie! Benjie!” Holmes called out. “It’s Mr. Holmes, Benjie.”

  After repeated calls, amid the rustle of brush, Benjie burst forth into the waiting arms of Sherlock Holmes.

  “Mr. ‘Olmes, bless ye sir,” he said. “We must see to Jake and Tom.”

  “Dr. Watson is no doubt doing just that. Come along.”

  ***

  SHERLOCK HOLMES and Benjie returned to Braunmoss House again to find me in the parlour, nursing Jake and Tom.

  “Good man, Watson. The boys are well then?”

  “Alive, Holmes. Poor Tom here must go to hospital quickly.”

  “The Gregstons?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Rottenberg?”

  “Secured in the cellar, a bit worst for the wear, thanks to Benjie, I believe.”

  Holmes ruffled the hair of the lad. “Well done, Benjie! Come along.”

  Holmes and Benjie hurried up the stairway, following the dreadful sobbing coming from above.

  I heard the motorcar pull into the driveway, and waited for the twin to enter. Sir George Talbot Gregston appeared triumphant in the open doorway. He looked at the boys and me momentarily, then silently walked toward the mournful sounds of Mrs. Gregston above. As he climbed the stairs, I settled the boys down and followed him, patting the revolver in my pocket.

  We reached the bedroom, which was plain, austere, and stripped of colour. Mrs. Gregston was on her knees, weeping at the bedside of her husband.

  Sir George entered, pausing next to Holmes and Benjie, who were standing back a respectful distance.

  “Is he alive?” the twin enquired.

  With that, the dark woman’s head swivelled. She arose and swept like a harpy to confront her brother-in-law. “You vile man! Leave my home!”

  “I’ve come to pay my respects.”

  “Respects? Your brother still lives - no thanks to you. Your blood could save him.”

  “Save him from Hades? For what... another seven days? You cannot cheat death. And, really, what is the point? You will have little need of the Gregston fortune in Broadmoor.”

  The ghastly man then walked to the deathbed. He leaned over his brother, turning his head to better hear the gasping breaths. He retrieved a nearby chair and placed it next to the bed. Then, lowering himself onto the chair, he waited for his brother’s life come to its blunt, and predictable, conclusion.

  Holmes motioned Benjie and me toward the door.

  The next morning, we took Benjie to his mother’s shop in St. Giles. Archie was there as well. As we approached, Benjie pulled away from us. He stood silently on the threshold of the shop. His mother gasped with relief when she saw her son. Immediately, Benjie was crushed against the bosom of his mother in the tenderest regard. He bided there for some time.

  When Benjie pulled away, he turned to Archie, who had been waiting off to the side. Tears welled up in their eyes as the brothers embraced.

  Holmes and I stood as privileged interlopers.

  “It takes more than blood to make a family, Holmes.”

  The Adventure of The White Bird

  by C. Edward Davis

  Holmes and I had arrived in New York on Wednesday, 4 May 1927, in order to attend to some matters. We were both exhausted from the long sea voyage in rough weather, and a series of elaborate and thoroughly exhausting dinner parties sponsored by New York’s mayor, Jimmy Walker, and the police com
missioner, Joseph A. Warren, that occupied the rest of that week. Both of us were slowly ascending the ladder of time to old age: Holmes was 73 at the time, and I almost two years his senior.

  Sunday, 8 May 1927, began sunny and mild. The sun had been up for several hours, but Holmes and I were behaving as tired old men, relaxing in our beds and enjoying some welcome solitude. Holmes was devouring the local newspapers, and I was reading the latest medical journal.

  “Look at this, Watson,” my friend exclaimed, slapping the newspaper with the fingers of his right hand. “The French have begun their adventure. Nungesser and Coli took off last night before midnight from Paris, bound for this very city. The paper says they took off at 5:17 a.m. Paris time. They are, let me see here,” he said, as he adjusted his reading glasses, something he rarely wore in public, “I quote, ‘expected to arrive at 2 p.m. tomorrow. They plan to land squarely in front of the Statue of Liberty.’ How absolutely marvelous!”

  My good friend had become infected with an interest in aviation ever since Louis Bleriot crossed the English Channel in 1909. He even took flying lessons the following year, much to his frustration. Since that year, and while it had never ascended to the lofty heights of his interest at beekeeping, he followed aeronautical matters with the restrained enthusiasm of a church deacon.

  “And, of course,” he continued, “some scoundrel, Monson, has taken a half-page advertisement demanding that ‘true Americans and Patriots’ constrain their enthusiasm and refuse to greet the, ahem, ‘snail-eating bounders’, should they succeed and land safely in New York Harbor. He goes on to wish Corporal Nun-gasser and Monsieur Colitis - my God, does the man have no decency? - the very worst of luck in their blighted journey. Ghastly man, that.”

  I barely glanced at my friend, finding a more absorbing bit of reading about the latest research into the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918. “Yes,” said I, “the man is rather difficult to swallow, isn’t he. Made a great stink during the war with that silly nonsense of his, trying to sell a dog of an airplane to the French.”

  I spent that afternoon exploring that great American city, while Holmes remained at the hotel listening to the radio for the latest reports of the French flyers. I paid scant attention to the reports of Nungesser and Coli, but Holmes could barely restrain himself, running off to listen to the latest radio broadcast or read the latest headline of the plethora of newspapers available in America’s greatest city.