The Final Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Volume 1 Read online

  Think on your sins, Sherlock Holmes, as you are on the list:

  Love and bubbles, The Goatslayer.

  While waiting for the police to arrive, I found a half-empty bottle of Martell brandy in a cupboard, poured two large glasses and sat Holmes down at the kitchen table. He fumbled with his pipe and shag tobacco. It occurred to me that he was not quite as much in control of himself as he pretended to be. Of course I didn’t wish to make the obvious suggestion that he might be next on the list.

  ‘But, Holmes. Who would want to murder an innocent old man, and in such a vile manner? What kind of creature is this?’

  ‘I don’t know, John,’ he sighed. ‘But I do wish that I had visited my father more often.’

  Holmes had never called me by my Christian name in all our years together, and it truly shocked me.

  ‘It’s me he wants. Don’t you see that?’ Tiny sparks flew from Holmes’ poorly-filled pipe as he drew on it to soothe his shattered nerves. ‘Maybe I have met my match at last. It had to happen some time.’

  I gulped down my cognac and poured myself another.

  ‘No. I refuse to believe that. It must be someone from your past. Some villain you have put away, and who has been granted his freedom by some dastardly liberal judge,’ I exclaimed warmly.

  ‘Not necessarily, Watson. Not necessarily. It may well go back a lot further than that.’

  He leaned forward and puffed thoughtfully. ‘Oh, yes. A lot further.’ His eyes looked wounded as he paused.

  ‘Let me explain.’

  It was then that Sherlock Holmes told me the story of his childhood.

  Chapter VII. The Childhood Of Sherlock Holmes.

  ‘You may recall me telling you at the time of the Greek Interpreter business that my great-grandmother was the sister of Claude-Joseph Vernet, the famous French artist. She had seven children, six boys and one daughter, who married an Irish politician named Seamus Fitzgerald, a member of the United Irishmen, and a man committed to the cause of Irish independence from Britain. My mother was one of their three daughters, and was raised in an atmosphere of genteel refinement, with the emphasis on fine arts and literature. She became a decent painter in her own right. My father hailed from a long line of country squires, and was basically a farmer all his working life, who drank and gambled several fortunes away. I shall never know what they had in common or why they married, as they were like chalk and cheese. The family farm, Hillcroft House, was a few miles outside Richmond near Carperby, Wensleydale, in the North Riding district of Yorkshire. I grew up there.

  If you imagine that I was a studious boy, Watson, with my nose in a book most of the time, you would be very much mistaken. My interest in the forensic analysis of criminal activities began later, while at university. Before that I led a perfectly healthy outdoor life, with the emphasis on milking cows, churning butter, cutting peat and herding sheep on the farm, as well as enduring many dangerous adventures with my best friend, Conan Arthur. Together we swam in the nearby ponds, jumped puddles, fished for pike and carp, played cricket and football in the fields, had snowball battles, charged bulls like matadors, fought as brave roundheads and cavaliers in the Civil War, acted out the roles of our parents, climbed the trees in the local park and drove the keeper mad by flinging acorns and worse down upon him. All perfectly normal fun activities for young lads.

  Believe it or not, I wasn’t very good at school. Passable at maths, subjects like history, geography and literature held little interest for me. I only read sensational fiction, a taste I cultivated from Conan in my early teens. Also books about unsolved crimes and mysteries. I actually had to work quite hard to get my final entrance examination into university. Mycroft was the real swot in our family. Although we never played games, as he was too serious, he and I used to go for these long walks, when he would explain his latest discoveries from the books he was studying and his shrewd deductions about the people we knew. I’m sure our parents wondered what we found to discuss with such intensity. My mind developed on those walks, as did my curiosity about human nature. And it was Mycroft who persuaded me to take lessons in the violin, to build on my interest in classical music. But he was seven years my senior and had already been swallowed up by Whitehall when I turned thirteen.’

  Holmes paused to relight his pipe. His hand still shook a little.

  ‘It was a very happy childhood, Watson. Both parents seemed to appreciate my carefree, fun-loving nature, in contrast to Mycroft’s stolid, passive presence. This was in spite of an independence and lack of discipline they sometimes found quite unsettling. I was showered with affection and returned same in full. Then one day my poor mother had a flat tyre on her way to a meeting of the Richmond Countrywoman’s Association, of which she was president. She walked back to the farm, hoping to get one of the lads to fix the puncture for her.’

  At this point Holmes seemed to stall, as though searching for the right expression. Then he continued rapidly.

  ‘Well, to cut to the quick of it, she found her husband, my father, the corpse in the barn, in bed with one of the farm boys. Jamie, I think he was called. I only found this out much later, as I was fifteen at the time, and presumably they wished to protect me from such goings-on. Mycroft knew, of course, even though he had left the farm by then.’

  ‘In God’s name, Holmes!’ I interjected. ‘Do you mean to tell me that both your father and your brother were… musical men?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good grief. Thank heavens you… Oh, well. Eh, doesn’t this mean the two murders have been of musical men? So there may be a religious connection after all? Maybe a priest or vicar gone wrong?’

  ‘Possibly. And father was once a country member of the Diogenes Club. I know all that. Trust me, Watson, these facts have been noted. But to continue. My mother was so shocked that she left the house immediately and walked back into town, where she spent a week in one of the fancier hotels. I have no idea what she went through then, or what compromises they made to fix things up, but they did. Probably for my benefit. From that time onwards, everything changed. They had separate bedrooms and their sole topic of conversation was each day’s routine. What they were doing, when was tea, what we were having, who was coming, farming matters, etc., I can only guess that my father continued his dalliances and she learned to put up with them. I certainly felt the difference at home.’

  ‘In what way?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, my mother seemed to take her unhappiness out on me. I could do nothing right and was under a constant barrage of criticism from dawn until dusk. My father never took my side in any of the arguments. Indeed, he gave me much the same treatment. They used me as a tennis ball they could batter back and forth at each other. It was a form of torture to me. The result was that I couldn’t wait to go to university after three years of this… abuse. Which was only verbal, by the way. There was nothing physical about it. But it separated me from them both for good and made me harden my heart towards all relationships of an emotional nature. And to distrust emotion itself. What is the point of emotion, Watson, if it is simply a facade for our basest carnal instincts?’

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ I concurred.

  ‘During those last few years at home I spent most of my spare time out in the fields with Conan, switching off from that deteriorating family life. He had his own problems with his parents, who were devout members of an obscure religious sect called the Church Of The Loyal Brethren, in which he had been raised. Among their many strange beliefs was the notion that human life, in the form of a woman, had arrived on earth from a planet in a different galaxy, which they named The Birthstone. This woman, whom they called Rachel, and who was worshipped every Thursday evening, created a man using genetic manipulation and began to propogate the human race.’

  ‘Sacrilege!’ I spluttered.

  ‘Just because they didn’t worship a Christian God? I doubt it. A
t least they managed to avoid a Holy Ghost, Watson. Anyway Conan, being quite a bright lad, grew to hate the nonsense that was spouted at him each week and he left the Church when he was fifteen, around the time of my mother’s shocking discovery. His parents threw him out and he took to living rough.

  He built himself a small cabin in the woods and set up house there. I made sure he had enough to eat and drink from my own plate. We became close then, and looking back on it now, I believe that he might have wanted more from me, which I couldn’t give him.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I stated loyally. ‘Eh, we are talking about the love that dare not speak its name, are we not?’

  ‘Yes, Watson. I suppose. Not that I was aware of it at the time, being quite innocent in such matters. I would head off to meet him there after school each day, and even undertook to teach him whatever few interesting lessons I had been taught, particularly if they involved mathematics, his favourite subject. He became dependent upon me, in a way that caused many problems. If for any reason I missed a visit, he berated me for hours in foul language. I was his only contact with humanity and after a while the isolation in the woods began to affect his mind. He may also have been experimenting with some plant he had discovered, as I remember him experiencing hallucinations. Once he thought I was a barbarous black savage, a cannibal come to eat him.

  One stormy day in winter I arrived to find him naked, crawling around in the mud outside his cabin and muttering incoherently about having to travel to The Birthstone before midnight, in order to save the world. I wasn’t so young then that I didn’t recognise a serious deformity of his psychology, so I had no hesitation in reporting his whereabouts and unhinged state of mind to my parents. They contacted the Arthurs and Conan was taken away in an ambulance to Richmond Hospital, a local mental institution, where he was to remain, I believe, for many years. He certainly felt betrayed by me, and I shall never forget his vengeful imprecations at me and my family as he left in that van.’

  ‘So you didn’t visit him?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Perhaps I should have, but a couple of months later I started my university course and became involved in solving some minor problems for my fellow students, which led me to the application of scientific methods to solving crimes and my career as a consulting detective. You know better than anybody how all-consuming that has been to me. I forgot about Conan altogether and only heard about him again when Mycroft informed me years later that my childhood friend had been released from hospital, ostensibly cured, and had married and settled down with a family of his own. My brother had bumped into him at the British Museum, just around the corner from Montague Street, where I lived when I first came to London. Conan was working there as a librarian and researcher. This was in the days when Mycroft used to attend those arty Bloomsbury gatherings in Gordon Square. You know, Lady Ottoline Morrell, or Lady Utterly Immoral, as she was known in the popular press.’

  ‘Do you think that Conan has anything to do with the murders?’

  ‘I don’t know, Watson. He would be my age now and our man or woman must surely be much younger and more powerful to lift Mycroft or our father around. Not to mention overcome them and drug and emasculate them. But a child of his, perhaps? Who grew up listening constantly to his father’s bitter tales at the fireside of his betrayal by the Holmes family? Remember this fiend knows a lot about us, including where my hermetic father was living.’

  ‘We could check out any people named Arthur living around London?’ I suggested helpfully.

  ‘That was one of the first things I did, Watson. There are none registered. But family names can be changed, especially if there is a scandal involved, or a history of mental instability that needs to be camouflaged. It is difficult to find work after a spell in an asylum.’

  ‘The British Museum may have a record of all past employees.’

  ‘Excellent, Watson, excellent. A distinct touch of genius. Why didn’t I think of that? When we return to London I suggest that you occupy yourself with their archives, while I struggle with the latest cipher.’

  ‘All right, Holmes,’ I sighed. ‘I will. Exactly when did Mycroft meet him?’

  ‘Better check from 1890 through to 1910. The man you’re looking for would have been 35-55 years of age then.’

  ‘Right. What about your parents, after you left? Did they continue to live together in the same way? Just surviving from day to day and tolerating each other’s company?’

  ‘For many years they did, but my mother finally decided to do something about it. One day she walked down to the garden shed and drank a full bottle of weed-killer. There was no note. The family doctor called the act an ‘impulse’, as though that explained everything. It must have been an extremely painful death.’

  I sat up sharply. ‘Holmes, my dear chap. Are you telling me that your mother committed suicide? At a time when we were so busy together in our detective work? And you never told me?’

  He took a first sip of his brandy.

  ‘I apologise, Watson. What is the point of getting emotional about it now? As you say, we were very busy in 1894, and you had recently lost your first wife. If I remember correctly, I decided not to burden you with my loss. I attended her funeral with Mycroft and barely addressed ten words to our father, who had run down the farm through his rampant alcoholism and gambling by then and did not seem, I must say, all that bothered by her departure. He sold up shortly afterwards and moved down here.’

  ‘But you must have been grief-stricken to lose your mother like that.’

  ‘No more so than any other way. Five minutes, and it was all over. Many people linger in constant agony for years before they die. That is worse. And it is our destiny to become nobody’s child, Watson, is it not?’

  ‘Have you ever talked to anybody about this?’

  ‘Yes. I’m talking to you now. But in my opinion grief is never shared. It is simply spread around. I have now lost my parents and my only sibling. I am seventy-one. Despite the way they died, one could expect to be in this situation at my age. Look, I believe that’s the end of the story of my childhood, Watson. The part of it I am prepared to talk about, anyway. Judging by that siren, it sounds like the local constabulary have finally bothered to respond to your call. Good for them. It’s just as well the Goatslayer isn’t still around, isn’t it?’

  Holmes smiled cryptically as he took a second sip of his brandy.

  Chapter VIII. The British Museum.

  I shall not bore my patient readers with the tedious details of the following few hours in Haywards Heath. Suffice it to say that the local police were suitably stunned by what they found, and were compelled to call in Scotland Yard, which meant young Jasper Lestrade, who arrived at the house around ten o’clock that night. Holmes told him what he knew, and Lestrade handled the rest. This included the return from a weekend away with friends of the fortunate girl Ellie, who was so shocked and hysterical that she had to be tranquilised and sent off by ambulance to a local hospital for the night. Holmes and I adjourned finally to The Dolphin around one in the morning, thoroughly exhausted, and grateful for our beds.

  My sleep was fitful and its intermittent dreams were haunted by a middle-aged woman standing in the corner of a greenhouse, smiling as she swallowed a can of slimy green liquid, watched by a small boy smoking a pipe, his chin resting on his tented hands as he noted with interest the clutching of the throat, the body falling to the ground, the writhing in agony, the death throes. In the background, a shadowy figure in a white straitjacket crept among the plants, giggling. I woke up several times during the night, but could not rid myself of the recurrent tortuous nightmare.

  There was a brief unsigned note from Holmes waiting for me at breakfast: ‘Must remain here with Lestrade for further tests and funeral, etc., Suggest you return to London by first train and pursue the British Museum angle. Would appreciate it if you could move back into Baker Str
eet. No expenses to be incurred by you. Just until the case is solved, of course.’

  Well really!

  Frankly it suited me to return to London, as I still had patients to see, but I was annoyed that he should have risen so early and left me to my own devices in this way. I suspected he had other plans, quite apart from his father’s funeral. Plans that excluded me. As for setting up my plate once again in Baker Street, such a departure from my normal routine would require rather more than a mere line or two at breakfast! Who did he think I was? One of the Baker Street Irregulars? Wiggins? No expense, indeed! Mind you, the thought of seeing Lily Hudson every day did have its attractions.

  And so as usual I did as I was told, and spent that day clearing patients off my roster, and preparing to move back into 221B Baker Street. I still hadn’t heard from Holmes on the second day, so I took his advice and started to investigate the previous employees of the British Museum, in the hope that we might identify his childhood friend.

  After a hefty breakfast, I took a wonderfully lethargic hackney to the British Museum via Regent’s Park. It was a delightful journey. Apart from the musical clipping and clopping, spring was in the air and there was plenty of enjoyment to be derived from the snow drops and daffodils. The fog had cleared early, the sun shone bright as a diamond and the sky was a welcome azure blue. Squirrels crept cautiously out of hibernation, realised their mistake, and crept back in again. I did try to concentrate on the job in hand, but found myself thinking of Lily Hudson. And of Tennyson: In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. What a silly old codger!

  I arrived at the Museum around ten o’clock. Montague Street hadn’t changed much since my early days in practice. Holmes had lived there also, but it was only when he advertised for someone to share the apartment in Baker Street, that young Stamford facilitated our meeting in the Pathology Laboratory of Bart’s Hospital. Somehow it seemed like a long time ago. What? Forty-four years or so? A lifetime for some. And a day I shall never forget.