Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2) Read online

  Holmes made a dismissive gesture. “You should know by now, Watson, I neither desire nor need the accolades that are important to others. My satisfaction derives from a higher authority.”

  “So, you think Lestrade’s enigmatic question was actually a request to consult with you?” I asked.

  “I know it is,” he attested. “When we arrive in Upper Orm and are met at the station by Lestrade, he shall protest that we should not have made such a long trip, that his question was only to clear up a trifling detail, and then he shall proceed to inform us of every aspect of the case, probably over strong tea at the station before we journey to the local pub where he has arranged rooms.”

  “I did not realize you had received a reply to your telegram.”

  “I have not.”

  “Then how…” I stopped. There was no point in asking. I would have had an easier time prying a pearl from an oyster with my bare hands. “When we arrive, we’ll see if the music hall mentalist has become a prophet.”

  I pulled down the blind to shut out the darkness and the lonely lights passing in the night. Holmes returned to silent contemplation, chin resting upon his fingertips, eyes half closed, the smoke of his clay pipe rising around him like incense about an idol. I might have speculated upon the thoughts occupying that superlative mind, but, as Holmes had said, a wise man knows his limitations.

  I jerked awake as the train slowed, shuddering to a stop. I was alone. Raising the shade, I saw the station at Upper Orm, Inspector Lestrade upon the platform as Holmes had predicted. Holmes’ grip was gone, so I supposed he had left the compartment in anticipation of our arrival. I was surprised to find him not prepared to disembark but in fervent conversation with an older man in clerical garb.

  “…are parts of Hammershire long known as evil and cursed,” the priest was saying as I approached. “The Church has not weaned them from superstition and paganism. And, yes, Upper Orm is an old place overlaid with a modern veneer. Fortuitous meeting you, and pleasant conversing, Mr Holmes, but I must rush off!”

  The priest hurried away, giving me a bland smile and a polite nod as he passed. I looked after him as he vanished, then turned to Holmes, a quizzical look upon my face.

  “Father Giles Sutton of Saint Matthew’s in Lower Orm,” my friend told me.

  “Lower Orm?” I asked.

  “Yes, he should have got off at the last station, but did not want to leave his diatribe unfinished,” Holmes explained. “He was very passionate in his warnings about Upper Orm.”

  “I heard only the last of what he said…”

  “His parish is in Lower Orm, and the people there avoid this one,” Holmes said. “Upper Orm, ten miles distant, was once the dominant village, a center for trade and textiles, but it has declined over the years. As you might have deduced from the last of the good father’s discourse, both village and villagers are held in ill repute.”

  “It seemed to me he was almost accusing them of being rank Satanists,” I remarked.

  Holmes smiled. “On the contrary, Watson. According to Father Giles, Satan is a mere pup compared to the evil around Upper Orm, places where even Old Harry fears to tread. He related tales of creatures inimical to man, some still subject to worship, especially Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods.”

  I looked at Holmes askance, wondering if it might be another of the curious japes to which at times he was prone. More than once he has remarked upon what he terms my ‘propensity for unqualified belief,’ but I detected no sign of humor in his features.

  “What an outlandish name,” I gasped. “it conjures images that are most repulsive. Surely you do not accept the priest’s tales as anything more than village superstitions.”

  “Our stone age ancestors were no less intelligent than us, and were perhaps keener observers since their survival was daily at stake,” Holmes said. “Science gives us new explanations for old mysteries, but are they more accurate? Legend and superstition are often merely ways to commit to our racial memory the existential dangers tribes found as they migrated about this isle.”

  “Surely you do not equate a doctor with a shaman,” I said. “The chemist with the alchemist, the astronomer with the astrologer.”

  “Consider, Watson, that ancient priests and modern scientists observe the same phenomena, and interpret what they see through the lenses of their own knowledge and ignorance,” he suggested. “The only real difference between them is that ancient observers did not discount the improbable after eliminating the impossible.”

  The train jerked beneath us.

  “Come, Watson,” Holmes urged. “We must not keep Inspector Lestrade waiting.”

  “Good evening, Mr Holmes, Doctor Watson,” Lestrade said as we alighted from the departing train. “I was pleased, but surprised when I received your cable. I do appreciate your insight, but you should not have troubled yourself to undertake such a long journey. After all, my own telegram was only for the purpose of clearing up what is really a trifling detail of the case.”

  “Not at all, Inspector,” Holmes assured him, sparing me a sly glance. “It was no trouble at all, and there are certain aspects of the case which seem interesting.”

  “Oh?”

  “Or so they appear from the papers,” Holmes added. “However, reports can be misleading.”

  “Right you are, Mr Holmes!” Lestrade agreed enthusiastically. “I’ve taken the liberty of engaging lodging for you at the local pub, but I’d like to give you the facts of the case to mull over tonight.” He paused. “I thought you might join me for a bite and a strong pot at the station tea room…”

  Lestrade waited till the station master’s wife had left us before starting his exposition. And even then he looked about, as if there was some chance he might be overheard. I failed to see the need for such caution since we were the only customers at this late hour.

  “Ignatius Dean lives in an old cottage deep in the woods, and has for as long as anyone can remember,” Lestrade said. “His father before him lived there as did his grandfather. He obviously had a mother, and the father a wife of sorts, but no one can say who she was. Dean is surely over twenty years of age, maybe nearer thirty, but his mind is like that of a child. He supports himself through handiwork, some verging, probably a fair amount of poaching.

  “For the most part, according to the local constable, Dean keeps clear of trouble. Some public drunkenness, a few donnybrooks with local bullies and taunters, though, to be fair, not many of those since Dean weighs in at more than nineteen stone and is near six-foot-six, muscled to match. Comes to Upper Orm only when he needs work or supplies. Generally, he stays at his cottage or wanders in the woods, sometimes, or so they say, starkers, pissed and yelling his fool head off. As you can imagine, Mr Holmes, most people tend to steer clear of him.”

  “Seems prudent,” I remarked.

  “When he is in the woods,” Holmes asked, “what exactly does he yell, according to the locals?”

  “Balmy stuff, completely off his nut,” Lestrade replied. “I don’t give much shrift to local gossip in most cases, but gossip is what this village floats upon. Upper Orm is particularly inbred, people knowing everyone else’s business, keen to whisper about it, though not often with outsiders. Upper Orm generally keeps itself to itself. In fact, we might mot have known about the murder of Henry Quint at all, had it not been discovered by an outsider, one Robert Martin of East Pipping, on a walking tour of the area, who reported it to the local constabulary—PC Barnes is also an outsider.

  “Now, getting back to your question, which is where rumor comes to the fore, Dean apparently hollers to the old pagan gods, or ‘old ones,’ as he calls them,” the Scotland Yard detective continued. “He runs about invoking spirits and demons, calling for some god to come to him. Now, mind you, Holmes, he is not your East End Satanist just off the boat, or even a heathen pagan out of Andos, but is said to call out to a god that was ancient when Old Nick was…

  “…just a pup,” Holmes finished, mo
re to Lestrade’s surprise than to mine. “One called Shub-Niggurath?”

  “Shub…” Lestrade glowered at his notebook, then looked up. “That’s what a few old lads at the pub whispered after too many drinks. Some kind of monster god, a horned monstrosity with a brood that used to swarm Hammershire’s woods. It’s what made me think of Satanists, but they were adamant that Satan was just…what made you use that exact phrase, Holmes, and how did you happen to know that name? I’d swear it’s not been in the London rags.”

  “No, just a name heard from a fellow traveler on the way up from the City,” Holmes said. “Curious how certain phrases are repeated in the telling of a tale, as if by repetition the teller attempts to ensure it will be remembered through the ages.”

  “Very interesting, I’m sure, but nothing to do with the murder,” Lestrade said. “Martin was on an unused footpath in Orm Woods, following an old ordinance map, about mid-morning on the eleventh when he came upon Quint’s body. What Martin did not know was that he was a stone’s throw from Dean’s cottage, the only building around but so overgrown it can’t be seen. He made his way back to Upper Orm, contacted PC Barnes, and led him out to the scene of the crime. That fool of a constable dismissed it as an animal attack, and it was not until the inquest almost a week later that it was deemed a suspicious death by the coroner.”

  “Why so long a period?” Holmes asked.

  “They move to a different clock in Hammershire, and in Upper Orm that clock nearly stops,” Lestrade explained, a look of disgust on his face. “The county CID took the dog’s dinner that PC Barnes made of the investigation and made it worse by taking as gospel his report that Quint had been killed by some kind of animal in the woods. And there it would have stayed, with Quint planted, had not the Coroner—also an outsider, from Lower Orm—been drinking in the pub before the inquest and overheard a gang of old reprobates going on about how Quint had been killed by a demon, this Shub-Niggurath, summoned up by Dean.”

  I could not help the derisive snort that escaped me.

  “Ordinarily you would be right, Doctor,” Lestrade allowed. “The Coroner, one Doctor Kindman, questioned Barnes more than he otherwise would have, which made Barnes look the fool, which led to a post mortem, which led to Kindman declaring the wounds were not made by an animal, but by person or persons unknown wielding a weapon which mimicked the hooves of an animal.”

  “What kind of animal?” Holmes asked.

  “A goat,” Lestrade replied. “They were the hoof marks of a giant goat, Mr Holmes. Or so they appeared to that dolt Barnes. I, however, sided with Doctor Kindman. There never was a goat that pranced upon this earth with hooves the size of dinner plates. It was some kind of weapon that made it look like the Devil had come up from Hell to kill Quint, which is what locals believed and kept to themselves till the lads Kindman heard at the pub got all liquored up, gossiping like hens, excited about the inquest.”

  “And Barnes?” I asked. “He knew nothing of what the villagers were passing amongst themselves?”

  “Blissfully ignorant,” Lestrade snarled. “I put a flea in that young man’s ear, believe you me, but there is not a chance in blazes he will ever be sharper than a river rock. Still fancies himself Jack-the-Lad, but at least has sense enough to stay clear of me.”

  “That was when the Chief Constable requested help from New Scotland Yard?” Holmes prompted.

  “Yes, almost the moment he was told Barnes was a donkey and the Superintendent of his CID a mule’s father,” Lestrade said with a smirk. “I got sent up, thinking I was going to be handed a case colder than yesterday’s porridge. Instead I was told as soon as I got here Ignatius Dean was my man, that there was an old feud between the two and that Dean lived near where the body was found. Cursing the stupidity of country coppers, I went out to Dean’s place, expecting not much more than a mare’s nest, but found Dean still wearing bloody togs, and he told me it was Quint’s blood.”

  “But denied he killed Quint?” Holmes said.

  “Absolutely denied it, Holmes,” Lestrade said. “Swore upon his own blood he had had no hand in Quint’s murder. But he denied also it was murder: Quint offended the forest, or so he claimed in a heated rush, and the forest killed him for the offense.”

  “Makes no sense at all,” I averred.

  Lestrade shrugged. “At first, he admitted to seeing Quint, but the blood on his clothes testifies to more than just seeing. Then he said he hadn’t seen Quint, that maybe he was murdered, but it wasn’t by him. It was the forest what killed Quint. I tried pushing at his delusion, thinking I might squeeze some reality out of it, but all I got was that there was offense given and taken, something about ‘wards’ or ‘wardings’ being broken by Quint. Then he changed his tune—Quint died but he didn’t know anything about it.” He shook his head wearily. “He was there, Quint was his enemy, and he cannot point a finger that does not come back ‘round to himself.”

  “How did the papers get hold of it?” Holmes asked.

  “A jumped-up stringer in Lower Orm by the name of Collins got hold of Barnes’ report, attended the inquest, then somehow got wind of my interview with Dean,” Lestrade answered. “Likely it was arse in the county CID sucking on sour grapes. He cobbled a bit of fact with a shed load of local lore, peppered it with a bit of Devil worship, and Bob’s your uncle—the London papers ladled it out thick after that.”

  “Do you believe Dean when he says he did not do it?”

  “I’ll tell you, Holmes, it doesn’t sit right, having to charge the poor nutter,” Lestrade replied. “Was he present when Quint was murdered? No doubt about it. Did he do it?” He shrugged. “I’ve sat across from mild-faced johnnies who would quail at swatting a fly and knew they were wife killers, and had old lags dead to rights but still knew they were innocent as driven snow. But Dean? Everything says he did it, but I don’t think he did. He’s lying, that’s for certain, but I don’t know about what. The Crown will push me on it soon enough, and his fate will be out of my hands.”

  “I’m no alienist,” I admitted, “but it seems Dean will likely be found unfit to plead. No noose for him.”

  “Not the point, Doctor!” Lestrade snapped, then apologized for his sharpness. “I don’t like delivering the innocent up for judgment, no more than I like holding the door open for the guilty, but it can all go wrong when a lady wears a blindfold, can’t it?”

  “You are unfortunately correct,” I admitted, thinking of all the times Holmes had circumvented the courts for justice’s sake.

  “Had I that found that length of iron forged to mimic hooves in or around Dean’s cottage, perhaps I would feel better about putting an end to the whole affair,” Lestrade said. He shook his head and sighed. “Maybe not. I don’t know.”

  Never before had I seen Inspector Geoffrey Lestrade in such a conflicted state of mind. As Holmes had said, he was normally the most tenacious of men, which also meant he was the most decisive of men, even when he had the wrong end of the stick, so to speak. But this time he seemed caught at the crossroads, of two minds, as it were. Seeing him in such a state moved me as nothing else about the detective ever had.

  “Are you certain there was a weapon to find?” I asked.

  “There has to be, else I have to admit that Barnes was right and the woods are home to some monstrosity of nature,” he said. “But I had enquiries made at every ironmonger and smithy in a fifty-mile radius of Upper Orm, all to no avail. More than one worker in metal said no one would ever make such a daft thing.”

  “Hence your telegram about the possibility of such a weapon,” Holmes mused. “What about Dean’s own metalworking skills?”

  Lestrade shook his head. “He can hammer straight a plow that has struck a stone, but anything else is beyond him. He’s a simple man, more child than man. I can’t even say he fully understands the charges brought against him, else I doubt he would be so quick to admit the enmity between him and Quint.”

  “And the source of that enmity?” Holmes asked.<
br />
  “Henry Quint was a bully, pure and simple,” Lestrade said. “If Dean came into the village for one thing or another and happened to run into Quint, there would be vicious taunting and teasing, all sorts of mean-spirited evil thrown at the poor daft lad. Since Dean had a great fear of being locked away, he tried to avoid encountering Quint, but Quint was good at engineering such meetings, would go out of his way to put himself in Dean’s path.”

  “And the reason Quint was near the cottage?” I asked.

  “Now, that is where gossip and folklore and facts all collide in a tangle,” Lestrade said. “Quint had a gang, bully-boys like him. Mostly they drank till they were trotters up on the village green, or got in some dust-up that Barnes couldn’t ignore and landed in the chokey overnight. They’re the reason Quint crossed paths with Dean so often, though they were loath to take Dean on themselves. Like any other villager with half a brain, they feared Dean’s size and strength, knew he could break them in half.”

  “This Quint fellow had no such common sense?” I asked.

  “Quint matched Dean inch for inch, stone for stone,” Lestrade explained. “Dean had not been in the village for getting on to a week, so the rumor is that Quint went looking for Dean. The last time they had met, Dean picked Quint up, threw him in a trough, then ran hard as he could back into his woods. Quint, being angered and humiliated, talked up all the week what he was going to do when he next saw Dean, growing angrier with each passing day that did not bring Dean into the field of his fists. According to the pub rats I talked to, Quint got down in his cups, announced he was going to take care of ‘that freak of nature Dean’ once and for all, and that was the last anyone saw of him.”

  “Sounds like a most loathsome fellow,” I remarked. “No one to shed tears over him, I suppose?”

  “Not even his own mates, for he was a terror to them as well,” Lestrade said. “Nor any other soul in Upper Orm.”