Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

Holmes leapt to his feet. "Queer, you say? With a birth-mark?" Makinson shook his head. "No, no birthmark – at least none as is visible."

Holmes visibly shrank in size, the excitement evaporating almost as quickly as it had appeared. "Then why queer?"

"Well, he's…" Makinson seemed to be having trouble describing the fellow and I was about to prompt him when he added, "he's sort of big on one side and smaller on the other."

"That's it, Holmes!" I shouted. "Is one half of his body visibly larger than the other, Inspector? Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes, his head is mis-shaped and one arm is longer than the other. His leg is longer on that side, too, and he walks with a limp because of it."The Inspector shook his head at the thought. "Strange fellow and no denying."

I turned to Holmes. "Henri hypertrophy," I said. "Caused by an underlying brain haemangioma, beneath a port wine stain; it means an increased blood flow through the mark results in a disproportionate growth on one side of the body. He's our man," I said, "I'd bet my pension on it!"

"What is the name of this fellow?" Holmes enquired of the Inspector.

"His name is Garnett, as I recall, Frank Garnett. The spa baths stay open until ten o'clock in the evening," the Inspector said. He removed his watch from his waistcoat pocket and flipped open the casing. "Five and twenty to nine," he said.

Holmes sprang for the door, grabbing his hat, scarf and coat on the way. "Come, Watson, Inspector… there's no time to lose."

Minutes later we were on our way by carriage, driven by a hard-faced Sergeant Hewitt through a blustery, moonless night.

The Pump Rooms in Harrogate are situated down Parliament Street and on the left towards the Valley Gardens, a scenic spot favoured in the daylight and early summer evenings by young couples and nannies walking their charges. When we arrived, Holmes leapt from the carriage and burst through the doors.

A matronly woman wearing a pince-nez and seated behind a desk in the foyer got to her feet, her hand to her throat.

"My apologies for our entrance, madam," Holmes began, "but I am with Inspector Makinson, here, and Sergeant Hewitt of the Harrogate police, and my colleague Doctor Watson, and we are on a matter of grave importance. Tell me, if you can," he said, "the whereabouts of your colleague, Mr Frank Garnett."

"Why, Frank's in the shower room," she said. "Whatever do you need him for?"

"No time to explain," said the Inspector. "Which way's the shower room?"

The woman pointed towards a double door to the right of the foyer. "Is it about his accident?"

"Accident?" I said.

"He's hurt himself. Bandages all over the place."

Makinson frowned and led the way.

Through the doors we were on a long corridor from the end of which we could hear the unmistakable sound of water running.

"You and Mr Watson stay back, Mr Holmes," Makinson barked. "Jim, you stick with me. But go gently now," he added, "we don't want this fellow to get away."

Holmes reluctantly stepped back to allow Sergeant Hewitt to take the lead with the Inspector. We reached the end of the corridor and stood before a door bearing the sign Showers. Makinson leaned his head against the door and listened. A faint whistling could be heard with the running water.

Makinson took hold of the handle. "Right, Jim?"

Sergeant Hewitt nodded.

"Right, gentlemen?"

Holmes nodded.

The Inspector turned the handle and rushed into the room.

Some fifty yards away from us was what seemed to be a tall man, standing in profile, brandishing a broom which he was using to sweep water across the floor and into an empty communal bath beside him. At the sound of our entrance, he turned to face us and I saw immediately that the other side of his body was noticeably smaller. His right wrist was tightly bandaged and one side of his face was covered in gauze, held in place by sticky tape. A further bandage was wrapped about his neck like a scarf.

"We need to talk to you, Mr Garnett," Inspector Makinson said.

Garnett hefted the broom and threw it in our direction. Then he glanced across to the wall for an instant, as though considering something, before turning quickly and heading towards a door at the rear of the room. He moved awkwardly and within but two or three steps he listed to one side, like a ship encountering stormy seas, and plunged head first into the empty bath. There was a single strangulated cry followed by a crash.

We ran across to the bath-side and looked over.

Garnett lay some seven or eight feet directly beneath us, on his back, one leg doubled up beneath him and his arms spread-eagled as though he were relaxing on his bed. A pool of blood was spreading beneath his head.

Without a second thought, I sat on the edge of the bath and lowered myself down until I was standing alongside Garnett. He had lifted one hand and was pulling back the bandage on his wrist. With a gasp of horror, I watched a piece of shrivelled flesh fall from beneath the bandage onto the bath floor. His eyelids flickering, Garnett then proceeded to undo the buttons of his shirt, beneath which I could see a further bandage.

I knelt down and took hold of the hand, feeling for a pulse. It was there but only weak and fluttery. Garnett's lips were already turning blue.

He pulled the hand free and, in one movement, tore the bandage from his face. Crosby's stained cheek flesh lifted with it for a second and then slid down to cover Garnett's mouth.

"How is he, Doctor Watson?" Makinson asked softly.

I shook my head and watched as Garnett took the grisly trophy from his mouth and clasped it tightly. He began rubbing it feverishly between thumb and forefinger.

"Make me well again," he muttered hoarsely. "Make me well again…"

"Shall I get an ambulance, sir?" Sergeant Hewitt asked. I looked up at him and shook my head.

Makinson had clambered down to join us, watching as I undid the tape affixing the bandage to Garnett's chest. I had no doubt what we would find beneath that bandage and no doubt what lay beneath the one about his neck.

"Why did you do it, Frank?" Makinson said softly, kneeling by the man's head.

Garnett muttered something seemingly in response.

I had now exposed Garnett's chest and, as I expected, the skin which he had removed from Terence Wetherall. But beneath even that was a further mark, a port wine stain of such volume and intensity that, despite what the man had done, my heart went out to him. Garnett's own birthmark was clearly malignant, its surface covered by clusters of small pustules many of which had burst open and were weeping a pungent gelatinous liquid.

Makinson leaned closer to Garnett's face, his ear against the man's mouth. "I can't hear you, Frank."

Garnett whispered again and then settled back against the floor, still.

The Inspector knelt up and whispered, "Who?" but there was no response. He got to his feet. "He's gone, poor devil." "What did he say?" I asked.

"He said she told him as how it'd get better… that he'd been touched by the Almighty and how he mustn't complain." Makinson shook his head. "But he said it hadn't got better, it had got worse. He asked me to forgive him. That was the last thing he said."

"Who's 'she'?" asked Sergeant Hewitt.

Makinson shrugged. "He didn't say. Someone who cared for him, I expect."

As I clambered out of the bath, Holmes was standing by the wall holding in his hands a walking stick bearing an elaborately carved head for its handle.

"That must've been what he was thinking about," said Sergeant Hewitt. "When he seemed to hesitate."

"He needed it to walk," Holmes said. He handed the stick to the policeman, running his slender fingers across the handsome features of the heavy ivory handle. "But I think he used it for other things, too, Sergeant," he said. Then he turned around and walked back towards the foyer.