Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

Over breakfast, he unbent a trifle. "Well,Watson, what do you make of our case?"

"Very little… I had thought," I ventured, "that you would dissect or analyse the leech itself and perhaps identify its toxins."

"The naked eye sufficed." He pulled the red thing from his dressing-gown pocket and tossed it casually on to my plate of kippers, causing me to recoil in horror. "As you may readily discern for yourself, it has been artfully made from rubber."

"Good heavens!" I studied the ugly worm more closely, and was struck by a thought. "Holmes, you suspected this artificial leech from the outset, or the excursion to Hampstead Heath would have been futile. What gave you the clue? And has Trail! deceived us – are we the butts of some youthful jest?"

Holmes smiled languidly. "In a moment you will be telling me how obvious and elementary was the reasoning that led me to distrust that repulsive object. Look again at the newspaper cutting."

I took it from his hand and examined it once more, to no avail.

"Setting aside the fact that the type fount does not correspond to that of any British newspaper known to me (the work of a jobbing printer, no doubt)… setting aside the extreme unlikelihood that such a striking report should have escaped my eye and failed to be pasted into our own celebrated index volume… may I direct your attention to this red leech's scientific name?"

"Sanguisuga rufa," I repeated. "Which I should say means something like 'red bloodsucker'."

"You are no taxonomer, Watson, but you are a doctor – or, as some country folk still call the profession, a leech. Can you bring to mind the Latin name for the leech once used in medicine?"

"Hirudo medicinalis, of course. Oh! That is strange…"

"In fact, Sanguisuga is not a scientific class name. It is poetic. It was used of leeches by Pliny. Our villain, who may or may not be 'Dr James', knows his Latin but not – if I may so phrase it – his leechcraft."

I said: "How obvious and elem… that is, ingeniously reasoned!"

Holmes inclined his head ironically. "Here is our client at the door. Good morning, Mr Traill! Dr Watson has just been explaining with great erudition that your red leech is a fake – a rubber toy. And now the chase leads us to Theobald's Road, to the law office of Jarman, Fittlewell and Coggs, where today you will at last claim your inheritance. Watson, that excellent revolver of yours might well be of use."

"My reconstruction," said Holmes as our cab rattled through a dismal London fog, "is a trifle grisly. There you were, Mr Trail, arguably somewhat drowsy from the compounded effects of warm weather, literary reveries and a bottle of Bass. Your habit of picnicking near the Highgate Ponds is well known to your friends – even, I dare say, your sister?"

"That is so. In fact, Selina has publicly twitted me more than once for what she calls my shiftless habits."

"Thus the miscreant 'Dr James', whose appearance is a transparent disguise but whose true surname I fancy I know, had little difficulty in locating you. It was easy for him to approach you stealthily from behind and drop or place this little monstrosity upon the back of your hand as you sprawled on the grass." He displayed the leech once more.

"The thing still revolts me," Traill muttered.

"Its underside seems to have been coated with dark treacle: that would provide a convincingly unpleasant-looking and adhesive slime. But in addition, the 'mouth' section was dipped in some corrosive like oil of vitriol – see how it is eaten away? That was what you felt."

Again Traill convulsively massaged the back of his hand. "But, Mr Holmes, what was the purpose of this horrid trick? It strikes me that your investigations have made matters worse! Before, I could blame my hand's infirmity on the leech poison. Now you have eliminated that possibility and left me with nothing but madness."

"Not at all. You will be pleased to hear that the apparatus of Röntgen pronounces you sane. We have eliminated the impossible story of the leech. There remains another, highly improbable explanation, which we will shortly confirm as true. By the way, may I assume that either Wilfrid Jarman or his brother was present on the occasion when that planchette spelt out such a disquieting message?"

"Yes, Basil was there. The brother."

"The brother who dabbles in electrical devices. I wonder if he applied his ingenuity to enlivening those séances. In any case, according to my researches, it is far from difficult for a determined hand to influence the oracle of the ouija board. But here we are! Watson, I am sure you have change for the cabman."

Jarman, Fittlewell and Coggs, solicitors and commissioners of oaths, occupied a fourth-floor set of offices. Without a great deal of ado we were shown into the large, dim room where Wilfrid Jarman awaited. He was a plump and kindly looking man in late middle age, whose baldness and pince-nez spectacles were slightly reminiscent of Mr Pickwick. A frowsty legal atmosphere exuded from numerous shelves of books bound in dull brown calf. Holmes's nostrils widened like a hound's as he keenly sniffed the air. I unobtrusively followed suit, and thought to detect a trace of not unfamiliar chemical whiff.

Jarman was greeting our client, saying, "I am most pleased, Martin, that you feel equal at last to your little ordeal. So many people take fright at a simple affidavit or conveyance! But you must introduce your friends."

The formalities over, Jarman indicated the bulky document that lay on his desk. "A tiresome necessity," he said with a shrug. "Believe me, my dear boy, I would readily dispense with it – but we lawyers must live by the law, or where would we be?"

The question being unanswerable, Traill muttered something suitably meaningless.

"Look!" cried Holmes suddenly. "That face at the window! We are being spied upon!"

Our heads jerked around to the large office window, which showed only the dim and fog-shrouded skyline across Theobald's Road. The solicitor even took a ponderous step or two towards the window, before turning back and stating acidly: "Mr Holmes, we are on the fourth floor. And expert cat-burglars do not commonly risk their necks for legal paperwork."

Holmes made some feeble apology and mentioned trouble with his nerves. I recognized the signs of a ruse, and on reflection thought that – out of the corner of my eye – I had seen his hand dart to the broad desktop. But all seemed unchanged.

"Let us deal with the business at hand," said Jarman, placing a finger on the thick paper where the signature was to go.

Traill took up the quill pen and dipped it in ink. He hesitated. His trembling hand moved forward, back, and then resolutely forward again. The air seemed suddenly charged with menace. From behind the desk Jarman smiled indulgently, and seemed to shift his weight a little to one side. For an instant I thought I felt, rather than heard, a faint sourceless whining.

Simultaneously, Trail snatched his hand back with a cry, and there was an explosion of blinding, dazzling light from the desk. Jarman's thick voice uttered an oath. I clapped my hand to my revolver, but the room was blotted out by coruscating afterimages. White smoke swirled. Slowly some shreds of vision returned.

" 'Tis sport," Sherlock Holmes quoted, "to have the engineer hoist with his own petard."

"I felt my hand burning again," said Traill. "But that great flash was not my nerves, nor spirits either."

The fat solicitor's hand seemed burnt as well, from the flare; he cursed in a low, filthy undertone.

Holmes said briskly, "Forgive my theatricality. It seemed a useful notion to slip a flat packet of magnesium flash powder,

appropriately fused, underneath that interesting document. Mr Jarman's office may appear old-fashioned, but it conceals some thoroughly modern equipment – specifically, a high-frequency Tesla coil within the desk, which is activated when Mr Jarman chooses to step on a particular floorboard. Within a limited area, its rapidly fluctuating electromagnetic field has the effect of heating metals to a painful temperature. This heat detonated my little flash charge."