George Mann - Associates of Sherlock Holmes

“We’ll set him free when we’re done,” Fraser assured me. “We’ll fill his pockets with money, too, to dissuade his parents from making any complaint. He’s only four – it’s unlikely he’ll even remember this excursion, particularly given the dose of laudanum Newman administered to him last night.”

“You intend to tether the child, as we used to tether goats beneath a tree to lure tigers, is that it?”

He nodded. “Yes. Then we’ll lie in wait, rifles at the ready, as the boy’s cries attract the oh-mah .”

I could tell Newman was waiting for either my approbation or censure, but I merely shrugged. The discomfort of some American child, doubtless at least half-savage just by dint of living in this benighted place, hardly concerned me. “Let’s prepare, then.”

Newman shouldered his burden and led us through the forest to the spot he and Fraser had chosen. I had to admit, it was well suited to the task at hand: a small depression of low ground, with ample higher cover on all sides where we could settle in with our rifles, enjoying clear sightlines and waiting to see if the bait attracted any notice.

The mute man carried his sack of child to a tree in the centre of the hollow and let the boy out of the bag. The child was ragged and wretched, with a thatch of unruly black hair, and he complained in a slurring but uncomprehending voice as Newman lashed him to the tree with stout ropes. We stayed out of sight, neither Fraser nor I openly acknowledging that it was better if the boy didn’t see our faces, but acting according to that principle. A four-year-old is an unreliable witness, and perhaps unlikely to be believed in any case, but Fraser and I were foreigners, and thus more prone than most to the suspicion of the locals.

Once the boy was secured, Newman joined us behind the cover of some large rocks. The boy began to weep, and then to wail, howling inconsolably.

Fraser beamed. “If the oh-mah is anywhere nearby, that noise will surely attract its attention.”

I grunted. “And we’re sure it won’t attract the attention of anyone else ?”

Fraser shook his head. “The nearest human habitation is miles away.” He dispatched Newman to a point on the far side of the hollow to keep watch in that direction, then asked me where I’d like to settle.

“Here is fine.” There was a sloping rock to lean my back against, and sitting on the stone was more appealing than squishing about in the damp soil. I had a good line of sight down to the child but was screened from his view by brush, and I was upwind besides, in case the “big man” had a keen sense of smell. Not that I believed there even was such a beast, but once a hunter, always a hunter.

Fraser clapped me on the shoulder and rose to take up his own position elsewhere on the rim of the hollow, whispering “Good hunting” as he went. Those were the last words Fraser ever spoke to me.

Much of hunting is waiting. I sat with my four-bore close to hand, and my walking stick laid across my knees, taking the occasional sip from a flask of warming whisky. The boy alternated periods of quiet whimpering with louder bouts of weeping and shouting, affirming the old maxim that children should be seen and not heard, though in this case, of course, the noise was theoretically useful. I expected nothing to come of this endeavour, and wondered how long we would be required to sit in the damp before Fraser gave up and let us return to camp.

Then, perhaps an hour before dusk, I saw movement in the trees: a towering figure, though probably closer to seven feet tall than nine, appeared briefly between the trunks of evergreens, and then disappeared. I let out a whistle, imitating the song of an English songbird, to alert Fraser that I’d seen something. I readied my gun, staring ferociously into the trees, alert to the slightest movement. The boy’s wailing rose to a new and more irritating pitch.

I can’t verify the exact order of events that followed and must indulge in a certain amount of speculation. After several long moments, there was a gunshot off to my right, the familiar boom of a large bore weapon. Then I heard Fraser shout and, shortly afterward, scream. I fancy I could make out a few words: “No,” and “Please,” and “You aren’t,” and “You mustn’t” among them.

When he cried out I immediately began moving towards the sound, crouched low, long gun in my hands, the thrill of the hunt singing in my veins. A shame about Fraser, but when a predator is busy savaging its prey, you can often take it unawares, after all, and if the major were only injured, I might be able to save him.

I also dared to hope Fraser wasn’t mad after all and that I would soon have the opportunity to kill a beast unknown to science.

By the time I reached Fraser, though, the predator was gone, leaving only the mangled body of its prey. The old soldier was on his back, head twisted at an unnatural angle, eyepatch askew, his chest a bloody ruin. The major’s weapon lay nearby, still stinking of its recent fruitless firing. I glanced around, and up, in case whatever killed him hunted from the trees like certain jungle cats, but saw no sign of any predator. I took a moment to examine Fraser’s wounds, as they seemed strangely regular. I have seen many men killed, by all manner of animals and weapons, and it seemed to me these wounds were not made by teeth or claws. If called upon to make a wager, I would have bet my fortune they were caused by an axe.

A man, then, and not a beast, had killed Fraser. Had Newman gone mad or chosen this moment to redress some injury done him by his employer? I lifted my head and saw the boy was still tethered to the tree, his shouting having subsided into whimpers. Perhaps the gunfire had frightened him into something approaching silence.

Still holding my gun at the ready, I went in search of Newman, moving more silently than most would believe a man of my stature could.

I found Newman on the far side of the hollow, face down, his head nearly severed from his shoulders by an axe blow. Perhaps, being mute, he couldn’t have cried out anyway, but I think he was taken entirely unawares. There was another person in these woods, then, armed with an axe. Perhaps the child’s father, come to rescue him and punish his abductors? That seemed most likely. I could hardly blame the chap, if so, though I would shoot him, of course, rather than succumb to his ideas of justice.

I glimpsed movement in the hollow. A figure was approaching the boy… and I could see why the man had been mistaken for a great hairy beast of legend. He stood over seven feet tall, as broad-chested as an ox, his face three-quarters obscured by an unkempt dark beard, his hair a thatch of wild black liberally snarled with leaves and twigs. He wore clothes, though they were so mud-smeared they were barely recognisable as such. His feet were bare and black with mud, and quite large, though nowhere close to eighteen inches. The boy redoubled his screaming at the approach of this immense wild man, and who could blame him? This, doubtless, was the local thief of children: some sort of violent mad man.

(I learned, later, that my supposition was correct. I cannot recall the fellow’s name now, but he was a Canadian hired to cut timber and was, by all accounts, a man of slow wit but even temper, and prodigious strength. One day, some months before I met him in the woods, a tree fell badly, and a passing branch struck him on the head hard enough to addle his brains. He lost the power of speech, and became prone to black and violent rages. He killed the camp doctor who came to tend him, reportedly breaking the man’s neck with a single blow, and then snatched up an axe and disappeared into the forest. How this timber beast made his way to the vicinity of Fraser’s camp, nearly fifty miles from the place he’d vanished, no one ever knew, but clearly his injury did little to diminish his woodcraft or survival instinct. No one knew why he took the children or what he did with them. The remains of those abducted were never found.)