Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon

by James Lovegrove

  “He will almost certainly protest his innocence when the police come. Pay no attention.”

  “I shall have no problem doing that,” said the man’s father-in-law firmly.

  “But there is Eve to consider,” I interposed.

  “The girl is doing well,” said Thaddeus. “Erasmus has taken it upon himself to bring food up to her in her room. He was even reading poetry to her yesterday afternoon. For all his shortcomings, Raz is a good brother.”

  “And don’t forget,” said Holmes, “there is always Dr Greaves if proper medical attention is called for.”

  “Which Mrs Trebend may require, if no one else. In fact, since Dr Watson is leaving, I shall have Greaves brought here as soon as possible for that very reason. Would you believe it, I found her in the kitchen when I came down this morning. She was working! I sent her back upstairs to bed straight away. I wasn’t having any of that, not after what happened last night. I have given her the day off. We can ill afford her absence, with so many mouths needing to be fed, but the mother of one of the footmen is, by all accounts, a competent cook with experience of working in large households. She lives nearby and he has gone to fetch her. With luck, we shall be able to muddle along without Mrs Trebend until tomorrow.”

  “There.” Holmes sounded satisfied. “All seems to be well in hand, eh, Watson? Nobody at Fellscar will miss us.”

  Knowing that further protest was futile, I settled down to eat. The food was as good as always, although perhaps lacking the finesse Mrs Trebend would have brought to it had she been able to give it her full attention.

  Thereafter it was simply a matter of packing my case and waiting with Holmes in the central hallway for Winslow to bring the carriage round.

  “Should we not tell Eve that we are going?” I said. “She deserves to hear it from us rather than someone else. It was at her request that we came here in the first place, after all. We should explain to her why we are forsaking her.”

  “Forsaking?” said my friend. “You do have a tendency to overstate things, Watson. It is the writer in you.”

  “How else would you put it? Eve wanted to know why someone is leaving birch twigs around the castle in the manner of the Black Thurrick. She engaged you to investigate. You are signally failing to hold up your end of the bargain.”

  “Sometimes there are mysteries in life that must forever remain mysteries. Eve Allerthorpe is not too young to learn that lesson. Her constitution is more robust than perhaps you give her credit for. She will get over the disappointment.”

  “I am going to say goodbye to her, regardless.”

  I made for the stairs, but Holmes forestalled me. “The brougham is pulling up. We must hurry. If we miss the nine-fifty, there won’t be a York train for another two hours.”

  So it was that I, feeling more than a touch frustrated and aggrieved, boarded the brougham, along with Holmes. Winslow lashed the horses and we trundled out of Fellscar Keep and across the causeway. As we entered the woods, I took a look back at the castle. The rising sun tinged its encrustations of snow a glowing red, so that it seemed almost to be afire, just like the castle which had been razed to the ground at the same spot almost a century ago.

  An hour later we jounced to a halt outside Bridlington railway station and disembarked. Winslow handed down our bags and bade us farewell.

  A bitter, dismal wind was whistling in off the North Sea, and Holmes and I ducked inside the station building for refuge. It was half past nine, but my friend seemed in no hurry to purchase tickets.

  “Yonder café should provide us with a warming, restorative cup of tea,” he said. “And then we shall go about the task of finding ourselves some form of transportation.”

  “What do you mean? I thought we were catching the train.”

  “We are not. We need to hire a dog-cart or similar. I imagine the stationmaster will assist us in that endeavour.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, Watson, Watson, Watson.” Holmes shook his head. Suddenly, having been presenting a taciturn, rather grim demeanour, he was all smiles. “You surely have not been fooled by my little masquerade? ‘London calls.’ ‘You may feel free to summon the police any time.’ ‘Nobody at Fellscar will miss us.’ Honestly?”

  “If it was just an act,” I grumbled, “it was a most convincing one.”

  “Once again I feel I have missed my true calling. I should have gone into the theatre. I could have been one of the great tragedians of our times. But really! As if I would abandon the case just when it is ripening to fruition.”

  I was flummoxed. “So we are not going home?”

  “Hardly. We are going to Yardley Cross. There, we shall find temporary lodgings – the local inn is the Sheep and Shearer, if I remember rightly – and use that as a base from which to pursue this affair from a somewhat different angle. All being well, everything should be cleared up in time for Christmas Eve tomorrow and, by the same token, Eve Allerthorpe’s twenty-first birthday.”

  “That is splendid news.” I had been looking forward to seeing Mary again that afternoon. It would have been a welcome consolation after the disappointment and shame of leaving Yorkshire with the case unresolved. However, I could accept deferring the pleasure of a joyous reunion with my wife by one day if it meant, as Holmes was promising, that the many dangling loose ends at Fellscar were to be tied up.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A COSTLY COMRADESHIP

  A dog-cart and driver were provided, and Holmes and I travelled back the way we had lately come, diverting from the route only when we came to the junction with the signpost for Yardley Cross.

  The town was not much more than a large village, situated at the confluence of two roads and home to perhaps three thousand souls. It had a church, post office, pub, blacksmith, a decent smattering of shops, and the aforementioned inn, whose sign depicted a docile ovine being relieved of its wool by a beaming, smock-clad rustic. I wondered if the farmers hereabouts, well aware of the actual sweat and toil involved in agricultural work, enjoyed seeing their livelihood portrayed in this romanticised fashion or resented it.

  The innkeeper was only too happy to rent us a room. “Thah’ll be needin’ it just the one night, sirs?”

  “Perhaps not even that,” replied Holmes.

  At this somewhat cryptic answer, the fellow could only scowl and say, “Well, thah’ll be paying the full daily rate, never mind ’ow long thah stays.”

  To me, the implication of Holmes’s statement was all too clear. We had another busy night ahead of us.

  He confirmed this after the innkeeper’s wife had shown us to the room and left us to make ourselves at home. “It would be a good idea, Watson, to take a nap now, if you can. Tonight holds out little prospect of sleep, I fear.”

  I duly removed my hat, coat and boots and stretched out on the bed, which, to the inn’s credit, was markedly more comfortable than the medieval torture rack I had been subjected to at Fellscar Keep.

  To my surprise, Holmes did not do likewise. Rather, still dressed in his Inverness cape and ear-flapped travelling cap, he headed for the door.

  “You are not staying?” I said.

  “There are certain avenues of investigation I must pursue in Yardley. The shops are about to close for lunch, and there is one in particular I should like to visit.”

  “I shall come with you.”

  “There is no need. I’m perfectly content to do this on my own. You rest.”

  With that, he was gone.

  I slept for a solid two hours and awoke hungry. There was no sign of Holmes, but the bar served a passable steak and kidney pudding, which I ate perusing a copy of the East Riding Clarion.

  Thereafter I took a turn about the town, noting that the air temperature had risen a notch or two and there was something of a thaw underway. Tree branches dripped. Snow on roofs was melting, turning into crystalline arrays of icicles on the eaves, while the snow underfoot was becoming slush.

  The church was a
sizeable and very handsome specimen of ecclesiastical architecture. Just in front of its lychgate lay a frozen-over pond with an island in the middle and a duck house upon that. I was reminded of Fellscar Keep – here was a representation of both lake and castle in miniature – and my thoughts went back to the death of Becky Goforth. Conniving and immoral she may have been, but few deserved to perish in such a horrible manner, and so young, too. It pleased me to think that, in the very near future, Sherlock Holmes was going to bring her assassin to justice.

  A familiar voice intruded upon my musings. “Watson! There you are.”

  “Holmes.” It was as though I had magically summoned my friend merely by thinking about him.

  “I have been looking all over for you.” He cast an eye at the church. “Does that not strike you as inordinately large for a town this size? One can only assume that, like many a church in the north of England, it was built by some industrialist wishing to curry favour with the Almighty. That way he would avoid the fate traditionally reserved for the rich man desirous of entering the kingdom of Heaven. ‘It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle’, and so forth.”

  “Anything to report?”

  “Plenty. What say we avail ourselves of the pub and a pint of something foamy and thirst-quenching, and I shall unburden myself of all I have learned.”

  “It sounds like an excellent plan.”

  The Carpenters Arms was a dark, low-ceilinged hostelry, the walls of its saloon decked out with horse brasses and framed etchings of farmyard animals. Ensconced in a snug, Holmes and I supped brown ale while around us a handful of other patrons chatted in low voices about hay baling, coy milkmaids and the rising price of cattle feed. At one table a game of dominoes was in full swing; at another, a game of draughts.

  “Yardley boasts, amongst its many amenities, a pawnbrokers,” Holmes said. “We passed it on the way into town. You saw the three golden balls hanging out front, I am sure. It was there that I called in after leaving you at the inn. After a spot of artfully contrived browsing, I told the proprietor I was in the market for gold – jewellery, cigarette cases, watches, you name it – and was willing to pay top price. The fellow, a Mr Dobbs, said he had a few suitable items in stock, in the safe in a room at the rear, and invited me back to look. Lo and behold, one of them happened to be…”

  He left it to me to complete the sentence. “Erasmus Allerthorpe’s signet ring.”

  “None other. It was not for sale yet. However, Dobbs agreed that if it had not been redeemed by the end of the contractual period, a fortnight hence, it could be mine. ‘Strictly between thee and me, sir,’ he said, tapping his nose, ‘I strongly doubt the owner will return for it. He’s ’ocked a fair few bits and pieces with me over time, and has yet to buy owt back.’”

  Holmes’s approximation of a Yorkshire accent was spot on. But then his talent for vocal mimicry, which formed an essential part of his disguises, was well-honed.

  “I expressed a keen interest in purchasing the ring and enquired the price,” Holmes said. “‘Thirty pound,’ I was told.”

  “Seems rather steep,” I said.

  “I imagine it would have been lower had I not been a southerner and so obviously affluent. At any rate, I proffered Dobbs a couple of pounds. ‘Consider this a down payment,’ I said, adding, ‘Non-refundable.’

  “The pawnbroker licked his lips. ‘Mine even in the event the ring is redeemed?’ he asked.

  “‘Yes.’

  “‘Spoken like a true appreciator of the finer things in life, sir,’ said he as the money vanished into his breast pocket. ‘I may as well tell thee, thah has a good eye. Purest gold, that ring is, and it has a most excellent provenance, what’s more. I shan’t reveal the owner’s name – for reasons of discretion, like – but it mayn’t surprise you to learn that he’s landed gentry. The ring isn’t the first thing I’ve bought off him, either, and I doubt as it’ll be the last.’

  “I pretended, of course, not to have the faintest idea whom he was talking about. I appeared amused and intrigued, however, which had the effect of encouraging Dobbs to enlarge upon his subject.

  “‘Of late, he’s been comin’ in once a month, sometimes twice, with some dainty little trinket he’s keen ter “pop”,’ he said. ‘Silver paperknife, tortoiseshell fountain pen, porcelain ring tree, and suchlike.’”

  “The very kind of things Mrs Danningbury Boyd said had been going mysteriously missing from Fellscar,” I said. “Right down to her ring tree.”

  “The very kind of things,” Holmes said, “that one might pilfer unobtrusively, slipping them into one’s pocket when nobody is looking.”

  “But what would Erasmus need to steal them and pawn them for? Surely he does not need the money?”

  “Dobbs aired the very same sentiment. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘thah might be askin’ this’sen why a young man as comes from a well-to-do background would need ter visit a pawnbroker for ter mek a little ready cash. Thought’s crossed my mind more than once. But it’s not for the likes of me ter enquire. I just offer him what I consider a reasonable price, and he seems more than ’appy ter tek it.’

  “I speculated whether the fellow in question might have got himself into debt – the sort of debt he could not service without recourse to selling off the odd valuable. ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘he has exhausted his existing financial reserves and is having to seek alternative means of funding.’”

  “At that, Dobbs’s expression turned sly. I could tell in an instant that he knew something, something he was eager to share but ought not. Remembering the alacrity with which he had accepted my two pounds, I was fairly confident that a little further expenditure would loosen his tongue.

  “‘Tell you what, my good fellow,’ I said. ‘I don’t believe I gave you nearly enough to secure that ring for me. Here’s another couple of pounds.’

  “The notes vanished as swiftly as the last two had, and Dobbs was now my very best friend in all the world.”

  “A costly comradeship.”

  “Yet worth the outlay, I reckon. ‘I shouldn’t tell thee this – but what’s the harm?’ he said. ‘Thah seems a dependable sort, if thah knows what I mean. It’s my opinion that the young man I’m talking about is a gambler and has landed his’sen in a spot of bother with some local toughs. One or two occasions now, I’ve seen him out and about in town, consortin’ with a pair of ne’er-do-wells, the Dawson twins. The Dawsons – Neville and Nigel – are the ones ter go ter, sir, if thah has a brace of pheasant that thah’s poached and are wantin’ ter sell, or if thah has some stolen goods as needs fencing. They also run card games in an upstairs room at the Sheep and Shearer, and in this case the inn’s name could not be more fitting. If thah’s the kind of fool who’s easily parted from his money, then cards with the Dawson twins and their cronies is as good a way as any ter go about being fleeced.’

  “‘They cheat, I presume,’ I said.”

  “‘If what’s tantamount ter barefaced robbery can be called cheating, then aye, they cheat. Pity the mug who sits down ter play euchre or lanterloo with ’em and expects ter leave the table the richer. Then there’s the altercation as ’appened in the street just the day before yesterday.’”

  “‘Sunday?’

  “‘Aye. Late Sunday evening. Now, I didn’t see it me’sen, mind, but I’ve heard about it since from several sources, all of ’em reliable. The fine young gent whose name I shan’t reveal got inter a bit of a barney outside the Sheep and Shearer with one of the Dawsons – Neville I think it were. Squawkin’ and skriking, they were, like two angry crows. The lad was protesting about how he’d be able ter make good his losses, and Neville Dawson was refusing ter let him play cards any more unless he first paid back all he owed. It came ter blows. Or, I should say, blow. Dawson struck him a good ’un in the face, and the youngster went down and didn’t get up again in an ’urry. Dawson’s parting words ter him were, “And don’t thah darest show thah face in Yardley again until thah’s got our brass.�
��’”

  “Quite the gossip, your Mr Dobbs,” I remarked drolly.

  “Oh, once he’d started, I couldn’t stop him,” said Holmes. “‘The very next morning,’ he went on, ‘who should come in through my shop door but the aforesaid gent, sportin’ a nice juicy black eye. “How much for this here ring?” he asked, tekkin’ it off his finger. Well, I offered him a few shillings.’”

  “A few shillings!” I exclaimed. “Hardly the soul of generosity, this man.”

  “Show me the pawnbroker who is. ‘The young fellow mithered and griped,’ he said. ‘He telt me he were desperate. In the end, after some ’aggling, we settled on the figure of three pound ten. He went away, and I have no doubt that every last penny of that three pound ten has wound up in the Dawsons’ grubby paws.’”

  “Well,” I said, “that clears that up, then. We now know who the Fellscar larcenist is. We also know what Erasmus Allerthorpe was up to in Yardley yesterday and how he came by his injury. I feel a certain grudging sympathy for the lad, as it happens.”

  “And a certain grudging kinship too?” said Holmes. “You yourself are fond of the turf accountant and the card table.”

  I huffed in indignation. “I have never got myself into arrears through wagering. It is my brother I am thinking of. My gambling habit knows limits. His was egregious.” A thought occurred to me. “In light of this fresh intelligence, could it be that Erasmus is Becky Goforth’s murderer after all?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I know you exonerated him from blame. You said you thought that he had something to hide but that it did not pertain to Goforth. However, I put it to you that Goforth learned of his gambling and his association with the Dawson twins. She might even have seen him committing one of his acts of petty theft around the castle. What might she do then, a girl like her, but try to blackmail him? And what might Erasmus do in return but kill her in order to ensure her silence?”