Peter Tremayne - An Ensuing Evil and Others

He saw me and hailed even as he opened the gate and came toward me. “Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

“I am his colleague, Dr. Watson,” I replied. “Can I be of assistance, sir?”

The man frowned impatiently. “It is Mr. Holmes that I must see.”

“I am afraid that he is busy at the moment. May I take your name, sir, and I will see-?”

“It’s all right, Watson,” came Holmes’s voice from behind me. He was leaning out of his study window, which he had opened. “I heard the carriage arriving. What can I do for you?”

The whitehaired man examined him for a moment with intense blue eyes; a keen examination that seemed to miss nothing.

“A moment of your time is what I require, sir. Perhaps some advice at the end of it. My name is Sir Jelbart Trevossow. It is a name not unknown in these parts.”

Holmes stared at the man in amusement. “That’s as may be, sir, yet, unfortunately, it is a name unknown to me,” he replied amiably. “Nevertheless, I have a moment before luncheon. Watson, old fellow, bring Sir Jelbart into our little parlor, and I will be there directly.”

I smiled a little at the mortification on the country squire’s face. He was apparently unused to people not recognizing him nor having his wishes obeyed instantly. I gestured to the door with a slight bow.

His mouth tightened, but he moved inside to the room we had set aside as our common parlor. I followed him and closed the cottage door behind me.

“Now, sir,” I said, “may I offer you some refreshment? Something to keep out the chill? A whiskey or a sherry, perhaps?”

“I do not agree with strong spirits, Doctor,” Sir Jelbart snapped. “I am of the Wesleyan religion, sir. My views are firm on strong drink and tobacco….” He sniffed suspiciously, for Holmes’s noxious weed could be discerned all over our small cottage.

“Then be seated, sir,” I invited. “Perhaps Mrs. Chirgwin might be prevailed upon to make you some tea?”

“I will have nothing, thank ‘ee,” he replied firmly, sitting down. His attitude was somewhat pugnacious.

Holmes entered at that moment, and I was thankful for it, raising my eyes to the ceiling to indicate to him that our guest was of an awkward nature.

Holmes stretched himself at his ease in an armchair opposite our visitor and, undaunted by the look that would have sent others straight to the fires of hell, he took a pipe from his pocket and lit up.

“I do not agree with tobacco, sir,” snapped our guest.

Holmess goodnatured expression did not change. “Each to their own enjoyment, sir,” he replied indifferently. “Myself, I think best over a pipe or two of shag tobacco. The coarser, the better.”

Sir Jelbart eyed Holmes for a moment, and when he saw that he was dealing with someone of an equal steel will, he suddenly relented. Holmes would doubtless have pointed out that by giving way so easily on the matter, Sir Jelbart’s business must have been of considerable importance to him.

“Now, sir”-Holmes smiled-”perhaps we can discuss the reason for this visit, for I presume you have not come merely to pass the time of day with me on our respective likes and prejudices?”

Sir Jelbart Trevossow cleared his throat more in an expression of annoyance than to help him in his speech. “I am not one to waste time, Mr. Holmes. I have business interests, sir. I was a stockholder in the company which owned the barque Sophy Anderson . Ten years ago you investigated her loss, which could have bankrupted those who had financed her voyage. I was one of them.”

Holmes leaned back for a moment, his eyes closed as he recalled the case. “Exactly ten years ago,” he agreed. He turned to me. “It is not a case that you have as yet recorded, Watson, old fellow.”

“I did mention it in passing when I was relating the case of ‘The Five Orange Pips,’” I replied in defense. “I felt that it was too pedestrian a case to excite the temperament of readers of The Strand Magazine , Holmes. As I recall-”

Sir Jelbart cleared his throat again in annoyance.

Holmes smiled politely.

“Pray, proceed,” he said, waving a hand.

“I came to you, Mr. Holmes, knowing that you have some dealings with the mysteries of the sea.”

“A number of my cases have been concerned with the disappearance or foundering of ships. The cutter Alicia , for example, and the Friesland , on which Watson and I nearly lost our lives-”

“Mr. Holmes,” interrupted Sir Jelbart, “do you know how many ships-and I mean ships of some tonnage, not merely little coasters-have been lost on this coast alone during the last fifteen years?”

Holmes speculated. “A halfdozen, a dozen, perhaps?”

“One hundred and eight,” our guest informed us solemnly. “This, sir, is a wrecker’s coast, always has been. The people scavenge from the sea.”

Holmes pursed his lips. “If memory serves me well, three years ago the new Merchant Shipping Act, especially part nine on the law of salvage and wrecks, should now prevent any lucrative business being made out of wrecking.”

“Not at all, sir. My brother, Captain Silas Trevossow, is the local Excise Officer. He will tell you that wrecking is still as virile a business as ever it was.”

“Most interesting, Sir Jelbart, but I cannot yet see what has brought you to my door.”

“I come to you for assistance, Mr. Holmes. As soon as I learned that you were staying in the Duchy, I knew that you were the one man who could help.”

“I am still waiting for your explanation.”

“I live in Chy Trevescan, a house near Sennen Cove, at the far end of the Cornish peninsula. It is by Land’s End. The area is a gray granite place, and its village was once called the first and last on this island. It stands on an open, rocky tableland, and to the west the land ends in granite cliffs facing the sea.

“Sennen Cove is about one and a quarter miles from the village, and this is reached by a narrow road which drops down very steeply between the hills to the sea and then extends along the sea’s edge into a long sandy beach that curves along the margin of Whitesand Bay, a mile or so of sandy beach. The people in the area usually live by pilchard fishing or lifting lobsters. Whitesand Bay appears a hospitable shoreline, but the Brisons Rocks are a mile offshore, and in the distance is Cape Cornwall, where the seas can smash a great ship to matchwood if it is unlucky enough to founder there. There is another group of rocks to the south, the Tribbens, of which the largest is Cowloe.”

Sir Jelbart paused.

Holmes made no move, asked no question.

Our visitor decided to continue. “During the last two weeks, three vessels have foundered on the Tribbens.”

“Pray what is so singular about these three sinkings out of the hundred or so others you enumerate that causes you so much concern?” demanded Holmes.

Jelbart looked at him in surprise. “I have not as yet said that there was anything singular about them. How did you-?”

“Elementary,” Holmes replied wearily. “You would not come here, bear to sit in the proximity of my pipe, and refer to these three specific vessels out of the hundreds of sinkings if they were but simple additional statistics. Something must have caused you some great concern. Pray elucidate.”

Sir Jelbart leaned forward. “There were several survivors from the wrecks. They all recount a singular manifestation that was the cause of their ships foundering on the rocks.”

“Which is?”

“They claim the ships were lured ashore by a siren.”

“A siren?” Holmes smiled quickly. “I presume that you do not mean a signal device like a horn?”

“No sir, I do not!” spluttered our guest indignantly. “I mean a spirit, a seductress, an enchantress.”