“It wasn’t a band of thieves then, Mr Holmes?” the man asked.
“I’m afraid not, sir. The whole crime was made to look as if they had perpetrated it, though. You must remember, it’s late January, much too cold a time for thieves to be prowling the forests of England. Secondly, you have only one bruise on your right temple, a band of attackers would have left you unrecognizable with bruises, then finished you off with a blade to the jugular or straight through the heart. No, you were accosted by one person, someone you knew.”
“How can you know this, Holmes?” Lestrade asked.
“Two clues, Detective Inspector,” Holmes replied. “The fact that the attacker stole this man’s hat, is one. He knew that the tartan band on the hat could be traced back to Nairn and the last thing the attacker wanted was inspectors from Scotland Yard snooping around there. Next, the oval-shaped bruise on this man’s temple clearly indicates the tool of attack was the butt of a hunting rifle, which means that the attacker had to get close enough to this man in order to do the deed.” Holmes’ glance focused on the nameless man. “I would surmise, sir, that you had a male riding companion traveling to London with you.”
“Why didn’t the attacker shoot him?” Lestrade asked.
“Thieves in Waltham forest don’t murder people with hunting rifles, Detective Inspector. The attacker, covering his identity, knew this and proceeded accordingly.”
“But I don’t remember any of this!” the man cried.
“Not to worry. If your amnesia turns out to be temporary, you’ll remember all of it in good time, sir.”
“But why was he and this companion traveling to London in the first place, Holmes?” Lestrade asked.
“Could be any number of reasons, Lestrade. Perhaps it was a planned holiday, or maybe a visit to a dying relative. My suspicion is that it has something to do with this man’s profession.”
“Which is?”
“He’s a lighthouse keeper, has been for a very long time.”
“Explain yourself, Holmes,” Lestrade urged. His voice was tinged with frustration as he saw his victory over Holmes being dashed away ever so cleverly with every succeeding deduction.
“Look at the man’s face, Lestrade, it’s plainly obvious,” Holmes said. “See the rosacea on his nose and cheeks, that’s actually windburn from facing the stiff winter winds coming in off the North Sea. Notice how his eyebrows are missing, the hair on his forehead is singed, his mustache is patchy from heat? Notice his fingers and how unnaturally tanned they are? You can clearly see the white area around his ring finger where a wedding band, now stolen, used to be. Some of the nightly tasks a lighthouse keeper is charged with is seeing that the oil in the lamp is full and then there’s the hazardous lighting of the wick... the rush of heat the keeper is exposed to night after night is equivalent to the heat coming from a blast furnace, resulting in the aforementioned symptoms I’ve just exposed for you. Then there are his shoes, the kind only a lighthouse keeper wears, thickly soled for scaling a long spiral staircase consisting of hundreds of steps. One final clue confirmed it for me, though... the fact that he said he was blinded by the morning light in the forest, hinting at a common malady most lighthouse keepers share after many years on the job; a sensitivity to light, even from the dim morning light in a forest. I’d say this man keeps the lighthouse at Lossiemouth, in the Moray Firth, very near Nairn, and has been doing so for two decades or more.”
“Incredible! But my name, Mr Holmes!” the man interrupted impatiently. “You said you knew my name!”
“Yes, of course, sir,” Holmes said. “Fortunately for us, the clan Brodie is associated with only two names; Brodie and Bryde. It states as much in that book you’re holding. I assume you are the latter as no one would dare kill off a person with the chief namesake of the clan. So, let’s review the facts of your case: Your name is Bryde and you’re married. You are a member of the ancient Scottish Brodie Clan and you come from the Nairn area of Scotland, where you have been a lighthouse keeper at Lossiemouth for two decades or more. You were traveling to London with a familiar acquaintance who, for nefarious but unknown reasons, attempted to murder you in cold blood, but instead, left you accidentally alive and burdened with a serious case of amnesia. Did I pass the exam, Mr Lestrade?”
The Detective Inspector flashed an angry, defeated look at Holmes. “Yes, Mr Holmes. Top of the class, as usual.”
“You know all of this, Mr Holmes, yet you don’t know the motive for my attempted murder?” Bryde asked. He seemed less emotional now that he had some solid answers to his predicament.
Holmes slipped his pipe into his mouth, sat down in the armchair again and spoke through his teeth. “I have my suspicions, of course, Mr Bryde, but I never guess when it comes to a motive. I’ll need more facts first. Detective Inspector Lestrade must take you back up to Scotland, with a pair of constables in support, in order to find that out. Perhaps, during his investigation, you’ll recover your memory completely and know the truth for yourself.”
“Can you reveal to me your suspicions, at least?”
After a moment of deep contemplation, Holmes took the pipe out of his mouth. “I fear, Mr Bryde, that your wife can successfully close this case.”
***
A week later, Lestrade visited us again at 221b Baker Street, freshly returned from his adventure in Scotland concerning the formerly nameless man, Mr Bryde.
“I must confess, Holmes,” Detective Inspector Lestrade began, nursing a half empty glass of brandy while sitting in Holmes’ armchair. “Your brain works like no other brain I know.”
Holmes, lighting his pipe while standing near the flaming hearth, smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Mr Lestrade.”
“Everything you said turned out to be true,” Lestrade continued. “Bryde’s name, member of the Brodie Clan, his occupation... twenty-six years as a lighthouse keeper at Lossiemouth, attacked in Waltham Forest, just as you’d said-”
“By his wife’s lover?” Holmes interrupted.
Lestrade nodded. “Just as you’d figured. The man’s name was McCurdle, one of Bryde’s lighthouse assistants. Young, strong and virile sort. When Bryde, the two constables I’d brought along with me, and I went into the lighthouse, we caught Bryde’s wife in bed with McCurdle. The look of surprise on their faces was one for the books!” Lestrade let out a quick laugh at the reminiscence. “Bryde’s hat, billfold and wedding band were on the dresser, they’d had no idea they’d ever been suspected. It was then that Mr Bryde recovered full access to his memory.”
“Shock will sometimes do that. And what was his trip to London about?”
“It was phony as an iron shilling, Holmes,” Lestrade replied. “Bryde’s wife had been putting it into his mind for a while that she was sick of living out there in that lighthouse, bored, isolated from everyone. She told him she wanted the bustle and excitement of city life so she urged him to find work in London so that they could move there. McCurdle, being a true friend, offered to go with him, keep him company, but the reality was that he wanted to shack up with Mrs Bryde and killing Mr Bryde in Waltham Forest, blaming thieves, was the best plan he could think up. It would have worked if not for you.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Mr Lestrade,” Holmes said. “But if McCurdle had succeeded in murdering Bryde out there in that forest, no one would ever have found his body and-”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Holmes!” I exclaimed. “Just accept the man’s compliment. You never know when you’ll get another one out of him!”
“Quite right, Watson,” Holmes said. “Quite right.”
Lure of the Rhinoceros Head
It was on a dreary, rainy Monday morning, a morning riddled with the trembling’s of thunder far off in the distance, Sherlock Holmes and I were called upon by Scotland Yard to help investigate, in Commissioner Carruther’s own words, a
truly dastardly case of the murderous type.
When we arrived at the gates of Gray’s Inn Gardens, a small tree-filled park that had long winding brick walks cut through it, located a block north of the Royal Courts of Justice, there were two constables standing guard, forbidding public entrance into the park. But upon recognizing my esteemed friend, the constables snapped to attention and saluted, allowing us free egress through the gates, into the park.
A few strides inside the gates Holmes and I saw a constable standing guard over a rumpled black tarp covering the body of the poor victim lying on the walk. A pair of black stockinged feet stuck out of the tarp at one end, but the shiny black shoes the feet belonged to were sitting a few feet away, arranged as if the victim were still standing in them. The closer we approached the tarp, the heavier the odor of burnt flesh fell over my nostrils. Quite disagreeable. A handful of constables were scouring the immediate area for clues.
“Holmes!” came a rumbling voice and out from the shadows of a tree appeared Commissioner of Scotland Yard, Yancy Carruthers. His face was stern yet colorless in the stale, overcast light of the morning.
“Good to see you again, Commissioner,” Holmes said as he shook the Commissioner’s hand. “How can I help you this morning?”
Commissioner Carruthers cleared his throat, adjusted his coat and answered. “I have a bodge of a case here, Holmes,” he began. “Come have a look.”
The Commissioner led us to the rumpled black tarp, leaned over and pulled the tarp back, revealing the ghastly remains of what appeared to be a tall gentleman. The burnt odor was so strong I had to pull a handkerchief from my breast pocket and cover my nose with it.
“Steady, Watson,” Holmes said then slowly fell to one knee to investigate the victim.
Everything above the man’s knees was a black, charred, nearly unrecognizable mass. All that remained of his attire were two tattered and singed cylinders of gray wool slacks covering his shins, and of course, the black stockings on his feet. In the victim’s right hand was a walking stick but it appeared to me that the flesh of the charred, black hand had been melted to the silver plated crown of the walking stick, which was designed in the form of a rhinoceros head. The man’s burnt skull was devoid of hair but I could just make out a crumpled mass of stringy material near the forehead; the remains of the man’s hat. His mouth was open full and wide and gray smoke emanated from it like a chimney. The brick walk underneath the corpse was unstained. Strange.
Carruthers coughed once then pulled a black leather object from his coat pocket, it cracked when he opened it. “I’ve got the man’s billfold, Holmes,” he said. “Found it in the bushes over there. Our victim’s identity is-”
Holmes held up his hand. “No need to tell me, Commissioner,” he said rather confidently. “It’s Guardian Thomas Ramey. On the judicial bench for thirty years. I knew him well.”
“But how-?”
“The head of his walking stick,” Holmes answered as he stood up. “No one else in England has one like it. Is the billfold empty?”
“No. There’s forty-two pounds cash inside.”
“Then the motive wasn’t robbery.”
“The evidence seems to dictate so. I just don’t understand it, Mr Holmes, Ramey was such a good man,” Commissioner Carruthers said sadly, putting the wallet back into his coat pocket.
“Yes, he was,” Holmes said, rubbing his chin. Then his glance fell upon the other constables searching the area. “What else have you found?”
“Three very strange, very small metal objects, dispersed in a wide pattern on the walk. I’ve left them where we found them, as you always instruct.”
Carruthers led us to each of the metal objects. Each looked like melted ingots of silver, no larger than a match head. Holmes investigated them with the same vigor he investigated the corpse, only this time he brought out a handheld magnifying glass. Then he stood up, went over to the black, bloated corpse and looked into its mouth.
“I say, Holmes,” Commissioner Carruthers began. “It looks as if someone who doesn’t appreciate English justice and knew who Ramey was, accosted him, knocked him out, poured lamp oil over him and set him alight. Gruesome and abhorrent! What’s this country coming to when a man can’t stroll in a park peacefully? I couldn’t even begin to think of how to find the perpetrator of such a crime, that’s why I called you in.”
“I’m glad you did, Commissioner,” Holmes said. “And those shoes? Did you or your men disturb them?”
“No, we left them just as we found them.”
Holmes nodded, stood in quiet thought for a moment, looked up into the sky then at the canopy of willows and oaks that towered above us. Why he was so interested in what was above us confused me. It seemed proper that everything he needed to solve the murder was below us, at our feet.
“Are you all right, Holmes?” Carruthers asked after a moment. “Do you know who the murderer is?”
Holmes’ large brown glare came down out of the overcast sky then focused on Commissioner Carruthers. “Yes, I should think I know who the murderer is and she’s a cunning, powerful force with no regard for reason or purpose. She kills at random and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“She?” Carruthers and I exclaimed at the same time.
“Yes... she,” Holmes answered boldly. “She struck Guardian Ramey while on his daily walk to work at the Royal Courts of Justice, with such force she knocked him out of his shoes, his billfold from his pocket and jarred the metal fillings from his teeth.”
“Fillings?” Carruthers asked.
“Yes, Commissioner. That’s what those small silver ingots on the ground are.”
“Bloody hell!” Carruthers cursed. “The force it would take to knock a man’s fillings from his teeth is almost immeasurable.”
“I agree with you, Commissioner,” Holmes said.
“But why would she splash him with lamp oil and burn him up like that?”
“She didn’t splash him with lamp oil and burn him up, Commissioner.”
“She didn’t? But I can see Guardian Ramey laying there with my own eyes, black as a lump of coal-”
“Yes, Commissioner, but she didn’t use lamp oil, she used a lightning bolt. Your murderer is Mother Nature.”
The Case of the Marble Ghost
Chapter One: The Client Interview
“My wife has gone missing, Holmes, and I’m afraid I’m to blame,” said our client, the illustrious Mr Timmons P. Walsh, ex-British Ambassador to Spain. He was a well-dressed, portly, older gentleman with thinning gray hair swept over to the right side, covering a patch of baldness that was glaringly obvious even without concentrating on it. He had a bulbous nose that hung like a door knocker over a full, bushy gray mustache. A pair of small, catlike eyes were bloodshot from attempts to halt the flow of tears. The thick fingers of his right hand held a nearly empty glass of whiskey as he sat stoically on a couch that seemed too small for him.
Holmes and I, for a change, were conducting the first client interview in the private study of Walsh’s overlarge mansion on Gower Street in London as his fame would alert the daily rags if he were seen visiting us at our rather humble and exposed Baker Street address. Our search for his missing wife would have to be a secret affair if we were to successfully solve the case.
Holmes, pipe in his mouth, legs crossed, leaned forward in his chair then took the pipe out of his mouth. “Why do you blame yourself, Ambassador?” he asked.
“It... it was I who pushed her to get the damn thing done,” Walsh answered, his eyelids blinked incessantly while he spoke. He looked up at Holmes and must have noticed my partner’s inquisitive glare. “Do forgive me, Mr Holmes. Let me start at the beginning,” he said, put the glass on a nearby side table and rose up from the couch. He went over towards the hearth, blazing wildly on this chilly November night, stoppe
d, then pointed up at a portrait that hung above the mantle. A gloriously young and beautiful woman stared back at me from the canvas - brown eyes, tender mouth, long shining strands of ebony hair fell down around her shoulders, an ethereal glow emanated from her face as if filled with its own light.
“Your wife, I presume?” Holmes asked.
“Yes,” the old man replied. With great effort, he tried to keep his eyes averted from the painting, as if looking at it caused him severe pain. “Eliza. I met her in Spain five years ago while I completed my ambassadorial tour for the Queen. She was the daughter of a wine merchant, very well-to-do,” he stared at us a moment, noticing both our inquisitive glares this time. “I know what you’re thinking, gentlemen... I’m an old, short, fat, ugly, comfortable man with only my own fortune to offer her, but she loved me truly just the same. As you can see, her beauty is unique in its intensity, unmatched anywhere in the world. I’ve seen men walk obliviously under the hooves of oncoming horses as they watched her cross a street. But, I tell you honestly, this portrait doesn’t capture a scintilla of what her true beauty was like in real life. The first time I saw Eliza, standing under the shade of the balcony of her father’s wine café one late summer’s day, I noticed a warm, bright white light emanating from her and it was then I realized why a flower petal attracts a bee. In awe of the amazing beauty coming from both the inside and outside of Eliza, I was caught by her, at that very instant, forever. Apparently, and I don’t understand it either, she’d felt the same for me and, gratefully expunging a lifetime of bachelorhood, I married her a month later.” Walsh stopped again, looked down at the floor, clearly upset at the memory he’d just recalled, then he went over, picked up the glass and finished it dry. “We were happy, I tell you. My life had never been so pleasing, but being a practical man, as most men are, I knew that the ravages of time would someday destroy this angelic beauty of hers. It would be a sin to let that happen. It had to be preserved somehow, that’s why I had that portrait commissioned by Britain’s preeminent oil painter, Gerald Langley. He’d painted the Queen’s portrait so his references were impeccable. Eliza protested at first but did as I had asked out of deference to me. She had not one bone of self-awareness or conceit inside of her so sitting for the portrait was a terrible ordeal for her and when it was finally finished, she refused to look at it, even after I had it hung up there above the mantle for the whole world to see. But as the days went on, it became obvious that Langley hadn’t captured that essence... that spellbinding, ghostly light of her beauty. It was then that I contacted Master George Benford.”
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