“Please, Miss Hunter, you must compose yourself. No, no, not another word until you have had a complete cup of tea. Perhaps Dr. Watson has some medicine that might be used to fortify it.”
He looked at me, his face pleading. I had a small flask of brandy in my jacket and as Holmes poured a cup I quite seriously adulterated it. Over the next five minutes no words were spoken whilst our beautiful client consumed it, her agony dissipating with each swallow.
“Now then, Miss Hunter,” Holmes resumed. “I know you have many things to tell us, but to keep us from becoming confused, kindly allow me to help you by asking questions and listening to your answers. Can you manage that?”
She nodded, reaching forward to put her cup back on the table while looking longingly at the teapot. I understood the unspoken message and refilled her cup, with equal portions of both dependable elixirs.
“Yes sir. Yes, Mr. Holmes. I can manage that. I really do not know where to start. I am so…”
“No, no,” Holmes interrupted her. “Please, concentrate your mind. I will ask the questions. So, let us begin with the note you sent me asking me to come here. You said that the child you had been employed to be a nurse to was possessed by a demon. Pray tell, why do you think that?”
“Oh sir. Oh sir,” she said, her upper body falling in upon itself as she spoke. “Oh please, sir. I do try hard to be logical and sensible and I know you must now think that I have become some sort of raving spiritualist, but I have no other way of accounting for his behavior. At times Edward is a sweet little boy whose only need is for hugs, and love and affection, and at other times he is the cruelest monster I have ever known.”
Again, Holmes stopped her. “Let us have everything in its due order. It is true that the position you accepted was indeed to provide nursing care to a young lad, along with some schooling, and that you would receive a very handsome salary in return. Has that happened?”
“Yes, sir. The boy is most unhealthy. He is constantly wheezing and short of breath. He cannot climb the stairs to his room without having to stop at the top. From my nursing training, I could see that the child was full of asthma. I was taught that Sir William Osler had identified many of the symptoms and causes, and it was not difficult to know what to do about it.”
“And what did you do?”
“That house, sir, might as well be an incubator for the disease. It was chock-a-block with mildew and mold and dust. His mother, Mrs. Rucastle, keeps three cats and her two absurd dogs in the house; so I put an end to that. She was not happy when I told her in no uncertain terms that they were to remain outside. I swear she cares more about them than she does her child. I had the maids thoroughly clean all the furniture and the carpets and the bedding and threw the windows open to try to rid the place of the mildew. There was not much I could do about the proximity to fields and forests, but once a week I take him overnight to Milford-on-Sea and we stay by the beach, and he is much improved. There is a lovely pond on the property and I have begun to teach him to swim, something that asthmatic children all seem to be able to do without an attack consuming them. So, yes sir. The needs of the child and my responsibilities were as advertised. Yes, sir.”
Holmes smiled warmly at her. “A most impressive fulfilling of your duties, my dear. And yes, there is a lovely pond. Dr. Watson and I had an opportunity to observe it yesterday evening.”
“Oh, did you come by?” she asked. Her face had brightened noticeably and her composure somewhat restored. The tea was doing its job.
She continued with a hint of a smile. “I suspect that you met my good friend, Carlo.”
“Carlo, Miss?” queried Holmes.
“The mastiff. His name is Carlo.”
“He is your friend?”
On that note she did flash a full and lovely smile. “Oh yes, Mr. Holmes. I am sure that he is not your friend if you met him whilst peering into the property. But I grew up in the country, sir, and we always had dogs. We even had a mastiff for a few years. My father, before he and my mother died, bless their souls, taught me that all dogs are whores. They will give boundless love and affection, and courage and protection to whoever looks after them and feeds them. On the first day of my service, Mr. Rucastle led me to the shed where Carlo is kept. I am quite sure that he meant to frighten me, but I could see that the poor thing was only fierce toward me because it was hungry and keen as mustard. So, every afternoon that I can, whilst Edward is having his nap and the cooks have their time off, I go to the kitchen and put together a bowl of meat and some cereal and add a large bone or two and take it to him. By the third time I did so he was wagging his tail, and I leaned forward to the edge of his cage and he gave me a great slobbery kiss with his sloppy tongue. Now I can slip out of the house after the sunset when Carlo is loose on the grounds. He smells me and come bounding up and we have nice walks together. So yes, sir. He is my friend.”
“Quite so,” concluded Holmes. “Remarkably logical. However, let us return to the child; to Edward. Surely you did not see his illness as evidence of being possessed by a demon?”
To her credit, Miss Hunter gave Holmes a look as if he had just sprouted three heads.
“Heavens, no,” she said. “It was the way he behaved. On the very first afternoon I came to his room at the end of his nap time. I could hear some dreadful sounds as I approached, and when I looked in I was horrified to see that he had one of the kittens dangling from a string, with a noose around its neck. The thing was screeching in terror. He had another one on a short leash, with the end tied to a table leg. He was stabbing at it with a stick to which he had affixed a hat pin. He was torturing them and laughing at his deeds of hellish cruelty. His expression was vile, and his two eyes had disappeared into little shining slits in his pale face.
“I snatched the stick away from him and rescued the poor kitten. I gave him a scolding and he had a screaming fit. I just took the kittens and the stick out of the room and closed the door behind me and told him he could jolly well scream until his head fell off. A few minutes later all was quiet and I came back in and he was sitting all curled up and he looked up at me and said, ‘I was only pretending.’ And I said, ‘What were you pretending?’ He answered, ‘I was pretending that one of them was Miss Dartle and one Mademoiselle Lesperance, and that they were dying.’ Well, Mr. Holmes, you can imagine that I was deeply troubled by his words.”
“Has that behavior been repeated?” I asked.
“No Doctor, not with the kittens. But on two more occasions I have come upon him whilst he has been playing with his dolls. He has two of them taken out of his toy box, and again he has one dangling by a string around its neck and, using a toy hatchet, he hacks away at the neck of the other one. He gave the dolls names, and again he has called them Miss Dartle and Mademoiselle Lesperance. The former has a pale white face and the latter has dark skin. I have stopped him from his feigned executions and distracted him with other activities. On the third time I caught him murdering his dolls, he had a third one out and lying on the floor. Again, he gave the first two the same names as before and then he said, ‘That one over there is you, Miss Hunter. I do not yet know how you are going to die.’
“I was dumbstruck but I composed myself and quietly asked him who Miss Dartle and Mademoiselle Lesperance were. He said, ‘Miss Dartle was my nurse when I was eight years old. Mademoiselle Lesperance was my nurse when I was nine. They are both dead now. And you are my nurse now that I am ten, so you will be dead before I am eleven, but I do not yet know how you are going to die.’”
“Good lord,” I gasped. “You horrify me. No wonder you think his behavior is demonic.”
“Has that been all?” asked Holmes.
“No sir. He often takes his slingshot and shoots at some of the crows. He is quite a good shot and has been able to knock a few of them out of the trees. As I told you, I grew up in the country and have no affection for crows and am happy to have a few less of them in this world. But when he hits them and they fall to the ground he
goes and stands over them while they are injured and he just looks at them and says ‘Now you are part dead and part alive. You are my zombie.’
“Well sir, as I said, I do not mind getting rid of a crow or two, but you cannot just let an animal or a bird suffer like that. I immediately picked up a rock and put it out of its misery and again scolded him for doing such terrible things. I firmly told him that there were no such things as zombies. He just gave me a very strange look and whispered, ‘Oh yes, there are. I can hear them at night. They scream at night.’
“My blood ran cold, when he said this to me. I made a point of speaking to his mother about these things. She said that they had had a run of bad luck with nurses over the past few years. A Miss Rosa Dartle had given excellent service but then, according to Mrs. Rucastle, she had a call from Almighty God and had gone off to the mission field. You may recall Mr. Holmes, that two years ago the famous missionary, Mr. Hudson Taylor, came back from China and sent out a call for one hundred more missionaries to enlist and go and help save the Chinese heathen. Well, it seems that Miss Dartle responded, and is now off somewhere in the Hunan province.”
“And Mademoiselle Lesperance?” asked Holmes. “What happened to her?”
“When I asked about her Mrs. Rucastle said, ‘Oh, our mulatto girl. She was quite a good nurse, for a Haitian girl that is, but filled Edward’s head with all sorts of voodoo nonsense. Then just two months ago, on the last day of March, she gave her notice and told us that she had booked passage back to her home island in the Caribbean. Her departure is the reason for your having been hired. Edward has gotten it into his head that they both died, but that is to be expected from the immature secret sorrows of a child. They are both alive and well and on opposite sides of the earth.’
“That, sir, is all I know about them. I could say more about the boy, but I think I have told you enough for you to understand why I am so upset.”
“You have indeed, Miss Hunter,” Holmes reassured her. “Now let us leave the poor lad and allow me to ask on another topic.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Mr. Percy Toller. What is his role at the Copper Beeches?”
Miss Hunter looked somewhat surprised on hearing the name. “Have you met Percy? I suppose you must have, or you would not ask about him. Percy and his wife, Madam Tiffany, manage the property for Mr. Rucastle, as well as looking after many of the business affairs of the family. He had worked, I believe as Mr. Rucastle’s clerk before Mr. Rucastle ceased his employment in the City. He moved to Hampshire several years ago and took on his overseer responsibilities here … at least that is what I was told by the maid, and I have no reason to doubt her account.”
Holmes paused for a moment, and then looked directly at Miss Hunter and quietly asked, “Do you, as a woman, trust him?”
Violet Hunter’s eyes widened and, matching the subdued volume of Holmes, said, “I see you have met him and that your brilliant brain has been at work. And no sir, I do not trust him. As a woman, I have a sense that when he is looking at me, as he does quite often, that he is undressing me inside his mind, and I feel that I am standing naked in front of him. I would dismiss my reaction but the maid and the cook, both of whom are near to my age, have said the same thing. You know, sir, how young women, regardless of our station, will confide in each other when we sense a common danger.”
“I do, indeed. The fairer sex has instincts and intuitions that we men will never understand, let alone attain.”
Holmes said nothing for several minutes. He lit his pipe and poured himself another cup of tea. Miss Hunter kept looking at him, obviously perplexed by his silence. I put my hand gently on her wrist and, with a hand motion, bade her be patient.
“Is there a groom,” he finally asked, “at the Copper Beeches?”
“Why, yes sir. Young Jeremy is a local lad and has been there for some time.”
“Do you trust him, or is he in league with Mr. Toller? Is he loyal to the Rucastles?”
“Oh no, sir. He does not like Mr. Toller at all. And Mrs. Rucastle treats him like dirt beneath her feet. She treats her poor dogs better than she does him. And yes sir, I trust him. I have tried to be kind and respectful to him, and he has taken a bit of a fancy to me. But why do you ask, sir?”
“If you asked him to, would he be willing to rush an urgent message into town for you?”
“I’m sure he would. He rides his bicycle every day from the town and back. He can do the route in under twenty minutes.”
“Excellent. Our time to meet with you is almost up. The service in the cathedral will be over in a few more minutes and we must curtail our conversation. I will leave a notice with the police station—one that will be backed up tomorrow with a telegram from Scotland Yard—that if the groom from Copper Beeches appears asking for their help, they are to go at once and get you out of there. I do not believe that such action will be necessary, but if that assurance were in place do you believe that you could continue in your service for another week? Could we meet again here, a week from now?”
“I will feel so much stronger, Mr. Holmes, if I felt that you were at the back of me, and that the police are no more than an hour away. I believe I could manage for another week. I have no other income and the pay is good, maybe too good, but I need this situation. I will just have to do my best.”
“As will I, on your behalf,” said Holmes. We rose to bid adieu to Miss Hunter. Her complexion had recovered remarkably over the past hour. Although it was not necessary to do so, I could not resist a final question.
“Miss, please explain, if you possibly can, the ridiculous appearance of the dogs.”
She laughed. It was a refreshing sound. “Oh, those poor things. They are named Lilith and Medusa, and both are big strong bitches. They used to be Mr. Rucastle’s daughter’s, but she left for America just after Christmas. Now Mrs. Rucastle dolls them up and thinks that she is oh-so-stylish and faddy when she walks down the High Street with them following behind her. She has them all groomed and ribboned once a week. They have been quite friendly to me and more than once I have taken all their foolish ribbons and bows off and let them run free. Whether or not they are protective guard dogs, I cannot say.”
“Ah,” said I. “But would your friend, Carlo, protect you?”
Again, she laughed. “Of course, he would. He’s my big, lovable, slobbering whore.”
Chapter Four
A Call to the Mission Field
BY MID-AFTERNOON we were back on the train to London. I attended to my notes for some forty minutes whilst Holmes sat in silence. I then put down my pencil and turned to him.
“Right then, Holmes. A penny for your thoughts. I am quite sure that you do not believe in demons or ghouls or zombies or hobgoblins, so what conclusions have you drawn?”
“Conclusions? Much too early, Watson. I have seven possible explanations, which is six too many. I need more data. Data, data, data. I cannot make bricks without clay. I will set myself immediately to find more, and then I might be able to narrow my hypotheses to a manageable number.”
“Ah, but you did receive some data concerning the child, did you not? What of him?”
“My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining light as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid? I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children. This child's disposition is abnormally cruel, merely for cruelty's sake. The apple does not fall far from the tree. Children do not act as this boy, Edward, does without having learned to do so. Some horrendous things have taken place in that child’s life.”
“Are you worried for the safety of Miss Hunter?” I asked, now very worried myself.
“The other nurses were each employed for a year or more before any change in their status. So, I do not suspect that she is in any immediate danger. As far as any direct physical attack, she is confident in her friend, the monster mastiff. She shoul
d be quite safe until we return next week. I am hoping that you will again be available to accompany me.”
“I most certainly will be.”
I saw nothing of Holmes the following day. He told me that he would be calling on our colleague and sometime friend, Inspector Lestrade at Scotland Yard. When he returned in the evening I asked for a report.
“Lestrade sent a note off straightaway to the constables in Winchester, directing them as I requested. I asked as well if he had any intelligence concerning Mr. Toller or Mr. Rucastle.”
“And …?”
“He had a vague recollection but had no direct connection to them. He called Anderson in and he told me that there was some ‘funny business’ in the City a few years back, with the result that both Rucastle and Toller left the employ of a bank, but it was then hushed up, as everyone in the City is wont to do. There were no charges and no police investigation, and he could not remember which bank. He said he would look into it and get back to me on it.”
“Very well. What next?”
“You have been a more faithful follower of the church than I have, Watson. I am hoping that you might be able to guide me in my meeting tomorrow morning.”
“And where might that be?”
“At the London offices of the China Inland Mission. They are up in Islington, on Newington Green. Might you be free for an hour or two first thing? I am quite sure that you will not need your service revolver.”
Early on Tuesday morning we found a cab that took us all the way past Kings Cross and up the Essex Road to the impressive red brick building of the China Inland Mission. Since its founding some twenty years earlier by the indomitable Hudson Taylor, the mission had grown to one of the largest and most respected in England. They had developed a sterling if controversial reputation for the recruiting of capable single women, training them, and sending them to parts of China where the Christian gospel had never been heard. I thought it unlikely that Holmes would be able to make immediate contact with young Edward’s previous nurse, Miss Rosa Dartle, if she had gone off to do mission work in the Far East, but he was in search of his blessed data, and so we entered the office of the Mission.
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Three: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition (Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 30