Adventure of the Half-Melted Wolf

Marcia Wilson

Description

Why would a wealthy noble murder a man too poor to own stockings? Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade could explain, but Gregson is suddenly in the custody of the Foreign Office, and Lestrade has vanished. The only clues Sherlock Holmes can use are in the dead man's rags...or a strange archaeological relic involving all three men: A half-melted Celtic wolf found in the bottom of a Roman Well.

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 28 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781787057128
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Adventure of the Half-Melted Wolf

Marcia Wilson




Published in 2020 by
MX Publishing
www.mxpublishing.com
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2020 Marcia Wilson
The right of Marcia Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.



Part I
I have stated before that I am capable of giving myself virtuous airs. In all fairness, I must assure the reader that I can only respond to the circumstances of the occasion. Living with Sherlock Holmes was a frequent opportunity for High Theatre. My friend is as much the source of a grand performance as his audience. I assure you the majority of people who cross his path are honourable, but a fair number are not. They trap themselves beneath the gaze of his great brain, underestimating either his mental powers or over-estimating their own. It was on such an occasion that I found that Holmes could occasionally meet his match in spontaneous wit with Scotland Yard.
It was a terrible day to be out. 1903 had been the wettest on record since 1766, save for a gloriously brief period of time in which central London saw a fortnight of fine and glad days past Goose Summer. My wife’s health had sent her to relatives in a more hospitable clime until first frost, and I closed our house to stay with my old friend Holmes. He was more than glad to put up with the temporary inconvenience of my presence, and though the weather gave us the shared impression of being under siege warfare, we both enjoyed the return to our old bachelor arrangements.
Our quartering proved fortuitous. In a few years Holmes would return to his old study of coal-tar derivatives and move abroad on sensitive events that I would detail to the Strand in 1917. For my part, I had a rare chance to collate some of our old cases, and encourage him to do the same, as neither of us chose to be idle in our evenings. For all his gibes of my archives within the banks of Cox, he had his own version of the same: curious cases wrapped in red tape and entombed within a tin crate capable of swallowing whole years of paper and record.
We both were busy men, for this was our nature, and it was one of our last periods shared as friend and lodger. I do not believe there was ever a more lucrative string of clients as those who, in their haste to exploit the days before a dreary autumn, had beaten to our door ahead of the Boreal chill. This was excellent news for his banker, but Sherlock Holmes suffered from the lack of rest and ignored my urgings in his eagerness to pursue case after case.
Upon the closure of this abnormal season with a string of lucrative clients that even I had to agree were “fulsomely mundane”, Holmes threw his purse upon his desk in a fit of temper and proclaimed that he planned to spend his celebration of autumn at the Domus Laventemi , and if he were to encounter another weak appeal of his fast-rusting brain, he must be troubled in person. Thus, my tiresome sermons were satisfied, and we found ourselves dozing away our quiet evening in the Turkish Baths.
“I declare, Watson. If it isn’t Inspector Gregson.”
It was indeed that large, tow-headed man standing under the lintel of our reclining room. To see him as another client was a surprise, but there was no mistaking his chalkstripe had been replaced with the white linens of the house. His face had pinked with the steam that plastered his yellow hair about his skull, and a white pipe rested in his thick hand.
“I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I was looking for a match.”
“We have a-plenty!” Holmes proclaimed. “Come and sit! I presume you are here to bathe your bones against the cold?”
“Aye, and then some.” Gregson complied and joined us in idle talk, for my friend is most jocular under the roof of the Hammam . My attention was soon drawn to his pipe. It was admirably cut meerschaum in the form of a brilliant white flower.
Gregson noted my attention and smiled a little bashfully, but clearly proud of his prize.
“My wife’s family,” he explained. “They can make some of the finest carvings in stone you ever saw. This was her nephew’s exhibition piece for his Journeyman Examination.” He passed the pipe over to Holmes, who took it eagerly, and turned it back and forth in his long, nervous fingers with the appreciative comments of a tobacconist’s passion. “His assignment was to make a fine, delicate thing that would also appeal to a man in good company.”
“And he chose the gladiolus flower with you in mind, of course.”
Gregson blinked. “However are you so sure?”
“You normally smoke cheap penny-cigarettes when you are working, or when you are in company of a higher rank, one of the fine Spanish cigarillos that you keep in a separate tin with the bands removed. I can truthfully say that, though we have always seen you enjoy tobacco, I have never seen you with a pipe; therefore it would be a gift, and it is a fine one. The gladiolus is a well-established emblem of strength and moral integrity, and that would be an excellent description of you, Gregson.”
Our friend turned deep red and was momentarily flustered, for this was his first experience with the human and amiable Sherlock Holmes in the baths. “I’ve often said your talents are on the side of the angels, and that’s just as well,” he said with a slow grin. “It is true. My nephew hoped to make something that I would use. He feels overly grateful that I helped his parents back in the day. I honour his efforts and do smoke from it, but not often. It is a fine piece and I would hate to ruin it.”
“But you are troubled, and went to the baths in the hopes of thinking in private, away from the distraction of home or the Yard.”
“It is hardly worth troubling you.”
“Come, come.” Holmes had leaned half-forward upon his couch. He reached out his long arm, nearly as pale as the sheets about his lean frame, and his fingers wagged in a half-playful scold. I thought his high brow and aquiline nose added to his surroundings. We three could have easily been ancient Romans taking the waters at Sulis and debating amongst its vapours.
Gregson caught himself with a laugh that was half-embarrassed, half-admiring. “Well, I shan’t waste your time.” He sucked on his pipe for a moment, and I watched as his yellow brows drew together in concentration. “Some of us have better things to do.”
“Such as write speeches for the appeasement of the news,” Holmes chided. “Tut-tut! It is clear that your blunder into our room is for the better. I am in peril of rusting for lack of a proper challenge.”
“And you think I can give it to you?” With comical bafflement, Gregson looked from Holmes to me, and back to Holmes again. “Well, Mr. Holmes, I’m not that fool, Lestrade. I’ve learned that he who argues with you does so at his own peril, but I hate to think of what your time has been like if you believe my little problem is worth your attention.”
“ De minimis non curat lex ,” Holmes murmured.
“ De nihilo nihili .”
We laughed, but our amusement was swiftly stilled upon Gregson’s pallbearer-gloom.
“Very well,” he said at length. “If you would not object . . . ?” He rose and placed the privacy sign upon the door.
I sat up, my lethargy forgotten as I traded a look with Holmes. He, too, was erect and rigid, his fine white fingers traipsing upon the folds at his knees.
“It actually started at a bath-house a few weeks ago,” the inspector began, “But not one such as this. We have several people here and there who are good for giving us useful information from what they see or hear in their everyday lives. Mrs. Lily Sword is one of our best informants from the Covent Garden area – would you happen to know her, Mr. Holmes? Doctor? No? That’s not surprising. London is a large city.
“It is Mrs. Lily’s habit to sell her flowers at a spot she’s won by the pillar-box wall up at the Garden. She has a bright trade of it, odd as it is to think that a flower-dame could make a living and be respectable. She sells flowers for christenings, and that cools any nonsense from the customers, a penny a bundle; split posies for half.
“At the end of her day she goes to the bath-house for women at the end of Boche Lane – I’m sure you know which one I mean, Mr. Holmes. A pair of mastiffs guard their reputations, and they have chewed their share of fools.
“At threepence, she hires out a session and whatever tools she needs to set her hair and clean the clothes she’s wearing. She claims it guarantees good clients, for who wants to buy for their infant’s christening from a dirty hand? As she steams and her clothes are cleaned, she passes on her gleanings of information to the matron, who has a relative at the Yard. I tell you, the whole system is unorthodox and peculiar, but we can’t argue with our results. She gives good information, and watches out for the other informers on the street. It is because of her ilk that we have prevented many a crime, and most of us would rather pay out of our pockets for her assistance than not have it and not know what is really going on. And why shouldn’t we? Man is foolish, Mr. Holmes, an