George Mann - Associates of Sherlock Holmes

Holmes smiled thinly.

“It is as much my doing as yours, Shinwell, for I knew it was coming and did nothing to intervene. Just do not tell Watson – he would not understand, and this is one case I would rather never have documented in full.”

We left the room together, just as the sound of police whistles pierced the air and Mr Mackie quickly became one of those very stories that he was so keen to see publicised.

My first impulse in selecting a character from the Holmes canon for this volume was to choose a female protagonist, and I quickly settled on Helen Stonerfrom what is said to be Arthur Conan Doyle’s favourite Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”. I liked that, rather than passively fall victim to her stepfather’s plot to murder her, Helen took a proactive route by sneaking off to avail herself of outside resources in the form of Holmes and Watson. I decided on following Helen through a direct sequel, which takes the original story’s grotesque gothic vibe a step over the line into horror, and in so doing seeks to address certain biological issues some readers have had with “The Speckled Band”. Helen’s new adventure also provides Holmes with the inspiration to visit a certain region of Asia, which he is revealed to have done in his back-from-the-dead story, “The Adventure of the Empty House”.

“I am sorry to say there is no such snake in existence as a swamp adder, Mr Holmes,” I proclaimed upon being let into the sitting room of the Baker Street rooms Sherlock Holmes shared with his companion Dr John Watson, also present.

“Helen Stoner, gentlemen,” their landlady Mrs Hudson belatedly introduced me, no doubt thrown a bit by the words of greeting from this unexpected visitor. She departed, and I took a seat by the window.

Mr Holmes certainly did not require her introduction, in any case. Only a few weeks prior, he had saved me from sharing the tragic fate of my twin sister, Julia. Our own stepfather, Dr Grimesby Roylott, had connived to murder us shortly before we could marry, for fear of losing the inheritance he had been given to control upon the death of our mother, so long as her daughters lived under his care. Dr Roylott had been successful in doing away with poor Julia, by introducing a venomous snake into her room, but when he had made an attempt to do the same to me only two years later I had brought my unformed suspicions to Mr Holmes, who had not only uncovered Dr Roylott’s plot but, in repelling the serpent, had inadvertently caused it to kill its own master.

Having apparently finished a late breakfast and now enjoying a pipe while slumped back comfortably in his chair, Mr Holmes arched an eyebrow at me, clearly intrigued that his identification of the reptile had been challenged these several weeks after the investigation’s conclusion. I have no doubt the observant Mr Holmes took note of my uneasy manner, surely not so different from my greatly troubled demeanour when I had first come to him, much oppressed by strange nocturnal occurrences. I knew too well that my hair was even more shot through with white than before, though I was only thirty-two years of age. Yet with my brutal stepfather deceased, and the snake itself having been captured by Mr Holmes using a noose and locked away inside an iron safe in my stepfather’s room, I can well imagine that he wondered what there was to cause me such anxiety.

Mr Holmes said, “You speak with much conviction, Miss Stoner. Might I ask how you arrived at this certainty?”

I replied, “I should like to recount all the events that led to this conclusion, Mr Holmes. Owing to your recent involvement in my situation, I thought you would want to know of the even stranger happenings that have followed in the wake of the former. I am beyond curious to know what you will think of certain elements of these occurrences, which are so uncanny that I fear you will ultimately scoff at them.”

Mr Holmes sat up straighter in his chair and said, “It is a rare thing indeed for one of the cases I have undertaken and thought to be thoroughly resolved to not be concluded after all. You have my keenest interest, Miss Stoner. I will withhold my judgement until I have heard all. Please proceed, and leave out no detail of your account.”

“Thank you; to the best of my ability I shan’t.” Here I drew in a long breath to bolster myself. “As you will no doubt recall, Mr Holmes, you and your good friend Dr Watson here kindly saw me into the care of my maiden aunt, Miss Honoria Westphail, directly after the dreadful events that culminated in my stepfather’s death. However, in the absence of any other heir, and though I was not his blood relation, it fell upon me to address matters pertaining to his estate of Stoke Moran, and so I was obliged to return there.

“The coroner had removed my stepfather’s body quickly enough, of course, but there remained the business of the snake trapped in the heavy safe. The animal would presumably not suffocate, as my stepfather had kept it in the safe all along, so apparently it was getting sufficient air somehow. The hope was that the snake would starve to death, but then how long would that take? When would it be prudent to open the safe, using the key that stood in the lock, to ascertain whether the snake still posed a threat? These concerns were expressed to me by the police who followed up the business after your involvement.

“Before my return to Stoke Moran I gave my consent to have the safe removed from the house and for the police to deal with it as they would. Upon my arrival back at the old manor house I was visited by one of the constables who had been present when the safe was opened, and I was informed of the result.

“It seems the men who unlocked the safe had improvised weapons at hand, meaning to thrust a sod cutter’s spade into the aperture as soon as the door came open and crush the beast immediately, but they were prepared in case it should slip past this blade. Another man had a long, makeshift torch ready, to thrust in the same if need be. A third constable turned the key and at a signal cracked the door open, but before the man with the spade could attack, the man with the torch – who had glimpsed the interior by the light of his fire – begged the other to hold off. A moment later, though the three constables remained tense with caution, the door was hauled fully open.

“The snake that had killed both my sister and stepfather was gone. Or, at least, what remained was less than a carcass. The constable described to me a coil of colourless, dry matter, that when stirred with the spade proved to be comprised of a fluffy white material that broke up like ash. So unsubstantial was this matter that even the merest probing caused it to disintegrate, the ashy remnants so fine that there was ultimately left not even a residue within the safe.”

Mr Holmes interrupted, “Were they certain the snake did not slip out through the bottom of the aperture once the door was cracked open, while the men were distracted and confounded by the sight of this pale coil? The glare of the torch itself may have shielded this action. My suspicion is that the dry matter was nothing more than the serpent’s molted skin.”

“That was my own initial reaction to this account, Mr Holmes, and I suggested the same to this constable, who was in fact he who had wielded the spade. He assured me that with three sets of eyes on the safe the snake could not possibly have slipped past them. And there was no other means of escape from the safe, for, had there been, surely the snake would have made use of it before. Also, he swore he could tell this was not merely a shed skin, for he had found and handled such in his youth. He and the other two could only conclude that the snake had died and become strangely desiccated or mummified due to some property of the sealed safe.”