Denis Smith - The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

‘More even than any physical danger to which she may be exposed?’

‘Decidedly so,’ returned my friend. ‘You saw the condition she was in, Watson, on the day she paid us a visit: those haunted eyes, those nervous, twitching fingers. I have never seen a woman so near the end of her tether, and what is it now? – five days? six days?’

‘She has, at least, her friend, Miss Strensall, to keep her company now,’ I remarked. But Holmes shook his head, an expression of misgiving upon his features.

‘Perhaps the companionship will be some comfort to her,’ said he; ‘but a maiden lady, however well-intentioned, is not really what the situation requires.’

‘What, then?’

‘I think I shall go down tomorrow whether we hear from Lady Davenoke or not,’ said he after a moment. ‘My presence there can scarcely be less profitable than it is here and it is just possible that I might be able to do some good. I have one or two ideas I should wish to put to the test.’

‘Would a companion be of any value to you?’

‘My dear fellow! I had quite overlooked your natural diffidence and presumed that on this as on so many occasions you would be my colleague. Will you come?’

‘Nothing could prevent it!’

I was awakened abruptly at half past six the following morning by the deafening crack and rumble of thunder, directly overhead. The window in my bedroom rattled violently in its frame, and in an instant I was fully conscious and alert. I leaned from my bed and drew back the curtain, and as I did so a searing white light seemed to split the sky asunder. Scant seconds later the thunder crashed and rolled again, and the house trembled as if struck a blow by a mighty fist. A moment of unnatural silence followed, then the muffled beat of heavy raindrops filled the air and a sudden cold gust blew into the room. How many others, I wondered, of the four millions of souls that surrounded me in this brick-built fastness of civilisation, watched with awe as I did at that moment. For despite his pretensions to independence and aloofness from his fellows, that which unites one man with all others is both stronger and more deep-seated than that which separates them; and there is nothing which unites mankind so readily as the wild and merciless assault of cruel nature.

In twenty minutes the storm had passed away and the sky had lightened a little, but the rain continued to beat down without pause. As I dressed, I observed that it had proved too much for the guttering of the house opposite my window, and sheets of water fell in a dismal and unbroken curtain from the roof. I am not a man much given to fancies, nor one to put faith in portents or premonitions, but I confess that upon that morning the sense of relief which rises with the passing of such a storm was in my case tempered by an odd and troubling sensation of foreboding, as if the overture were finished, and the stage set for a singularly terrible and tragic drama.

There was a knock at my bedroom door as I was shaving and Sherlock Holmes entered.

‘The weather appears to have broken at last,’ I remarked, gesturing with my razor to the scene outside.

‘So has the case,’ said he, holding up a sheet of blue notepaper in front of my mirror. I took it from his grasp and turned it to the light. At the head of the sheet was the lion-and-bird crest of the Davenokes, and the date of the previous afternoon. The message was brief and ran as follows:

MY DEAR MR SHERLOCK HOLMES,

I beg that you will come down to Shoreswood at once. I have heard no more from my husband. There are lies all about me here and I am being watched constantly. Edith weeps a good deal and is little comfort to me; indeed, I regret that ever I brought her here, poor girl, for I fear that I have only succeeded in luring another victim into this dark web of secrecy and evil. Do not write, for I believe that the incoming mail is tampered with, but come at once and bring your friend Dr Watson.

‘We leave by the ten-twenty train,’ said Holmes as I finished reading.

The rain was still pouring down when we left our chambers and Baker Street had more the appearance of a river than a road. Fast currents splashed and swashed their way along the gutters, foaming and whirling round obstructions, while heavy raindrops battered the surface ceaselessly, sending fountains of spray high into the air.

Holmes was in a taciturn mood, and spoke scarcely a single word until we had left London far behind and our train was speeding through the rain-drenched Essex countryside. There was a suppressed excitement in his manner which I recognised, and I knew that he was glad to be afoot upon the trail once more and to have left behind the frustrating inactivity of Baker Street. For my own part, however, I could not help feeling that we were bound upon a fool’s errand. What could we hope to achieve in Suffolk, aside from giving a little momentary cheer to Lady Davenoke by our presence? Come to that, was it likely that we could achieve even that modest aim? We could not, after all, produce her husband, which was all she really cared about. But I had known my companion well, for six years and more, and had rarely known him be far astray in his reasoning: if he considered it worth our while to travel down to deepest Suffolk, I must suppose that it were so, doubtful as it seemed to me.

Holmes had been staring abstractedly from the window for some time, a frown upon his face, when he abruptly leaned forward and spoke.

‘We are running close to the coast,’ said he. ‘We should be in Ipswich shortly.’

The rain had abated a little now, but still cast its slanted streaks across the carriage-windows and dripped through the crack around the door. The country outside was a dark, waterlogged green, with here and there, a daub of the sad tints of autumn, brown and gold and red.

‘How can you tell?’ I asked. ‘I see nothing that indicates the coast is near.’

‘You do see,’ said he, ‘but you do not observe. Your mind is not trained to read the books in the running brooks, the sermons in stones, as Shakespeare puts it.’

‘Pray tell me, then.’

‘The trees, my dear fellow. See how they bend towards us as one. There is no surer sign that the coast is near. It is the rude sea-wind that bends and stunts them so, the harsh easterlies and north-easterlies that blow upon this fair coast.’

I saw at once that what he said was true. The isolated trees which dotted the margins of the fields were twisted and deformed, and seemed to reach out to us in silent and grotesque supplication.

‘Perhaps there is yet another tree which has felt the blast of these east winds,’ added my friend after a moment, in a thoughtful tone.

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘I refer to the family-tree of the Davenokes,’ said he.

‘They are certainly a singular people.’

‘More than that,’ said he; ‘there seems a streak in them that is difficult, stiff and unbending; as if, in learning for so long to resist the winds of these parts, they forgot, in the end, that occasionally everyone must bend a little. You must have been struck, Watson, by their knack of supporting losing causes – the Catholic side at the Reformation, the Royalist side in the Civil War. Depending on one’s point of view, they are either very loyal, or simply stubbornly resistant to change of any sort. Well, well, we are nearing our destination,’ he continued in a brisker tone; ‘let us review the case!’

‘That, at any rate, should present no great difficulty.’

‘Why so?’ said he, an expression of curiosity upon his features.

‘Simply because what we know amounts to virtually nothing.’