John Adams - The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Dr. Watson cleared his throat. "I have been examining the medical records of Dr. Dacre's patients. They all seem straightforward enough. He specialized in cancer-a sad duty most of the time. I did wonder about your aunt, though, Miss Ambry. The records on her case were missing. There was only an empty folder with her name on it, and a scribbled note: "No hope! Orchids?"

"Do you know what Christabel Ambry died of?"

"Cancer, of course," said Evelyn. "We knew that. I'm afraid we did not press for details. Christabel seemed not to want inquiry on the subject."

"In that case, why did Dacre destroy the records?" said Watson. "He seems to have discussed the case with no one. And what of the notation on the folder?"

"Orchids? Well, perhaps he was thinking of sending flowers for the funeral," Sir Henry suggested.

"Orchids would be most unsuitable, Henry," said his fiancée.

"Well, I suppose they would be. At any rate I know he sent a wreath, but I'm dashed if I know what it was. White flowers, I think. I confess it is all Greek to me, gentlemen."

Sherlock Holmes stared. "I wonder if… " He stood up and began pacing before the hearth. After a few more moments of muttering, during which he ignored their questions, Holmes held up his hand for silence. "Well, we must know. Watson, again your medical skills will be called upon. Let us go and see the squire. I fear that we must discover a buried secret."

"I will not give you a love potion, Millie Hopgood, and that's final," said Grisel Rountree to the rabbit of a girl in her cottage door. "That young man of yours is a Wilberforce, and everybody knows the Wilberforces are mortally shy. He's the undertaker's boy, and he don't know how to talk to live people, I reckon."

"Yes, but-"

"All he wants is a bit of plain speaking from you, and if you won't make up your mind to that, all the potions in the world won't help you."

"Oh, I couldn't, I'm sure, Missus Rountree!" gasped the girl. "But as you'll be seeing him up to the Hall today, I was thinking you might have a word with him yourself."

"Me going to the Hall? First I've heard of it."

The girl pulled an envelope out of her apron pocket, holding it out to the old woman so that she could see the wax seal crest of the Ambrys sealing the flap. "I'm just bringing it now. The two gentlemen from London are back, and they'd like a word with you."

"Well? And what has your young Wilberforce to do with it?"

"Please, missus, they're going into the vault-after Miss Christabel."

"I am coming then," said the old woman. "See you tell Miss Evelyn that I am coming straight away."

Grisel Rountree found Sherlock Holmes walking in the grounds of Old Hall within site of the Ambry family vault. It was a warm June afternoon, but she felt a chill on seeing him pacing the lawn, oblivious to the riot of colors in the flower beds or the beauty of the ancient oaks. As single-minded as Death, he was. And as inevitable.

"So you've gone and dug up Miss Christabel, then?" she said. "Well, I don't suppose dug up is the right term, as she were in a vault."

He nodded. "It all seemed to come down to that. Dr. Watson is in the scullery there, performing an autopsy, but I think we both know what he will find."

"The lady died of cancer," said Grisel Rountree, looking away.

"Christabel Ambry died of cancer, yes," said Holmes.

"Ah," said the old woman. "So you do know something about it."

"I fancy I do, yes." He turned in response to a shout from the door of the scullery. "Here he is now. Shall we hear his report or will you speak now?"

"Does Miss Evelyn know what you are doing?"

"She has gone out with a shooting party," said Holmes. "We are quite alone, except for the undertaker's boy."

"Wilberforce," she said with a dismissive sigh. "He hasn't the sense to grasp what to gossip about, so that's safe. Let the doctor tell you what he makes of it."

Watson reached them then, rolling down his sleeves, his forearms still damp from washing up after the procedure. "Well, it's done, Holmes," he said. "Shall I tell you in private?"

Holmes shook his head. "Miss Rountree here is a midwife and local herbalist. I rather fancy that makes her a colleague of yours. In any case, she has always known what you have just been at pains to discover. Do tell us, Watson. Of what did Christabel Ambry die?"

Watson reddened. "Cancer, right enough," he said gruffly. "Testicular cancer."

"You must have been surprised."

"I've heard of such cases," said Watson. "They are mercifully rare. It is a defect in the development of the foetus before birth, apparently. When I opened up the abdomen, I found that the deceased had the… er… the reproductive organs of a male. The testes, which had become cancerous, were inside the abdomen, and there was no womb. The deceased's vagina, only a few inches long, ended at nothing. I must conclude that the patient was-technically-male."

"An Ambry changeling," said Holmes.

"But how did you know, Holmes?"

"It was only a guess, but I knew, you see, that orchis is the Greek word for testis, and I was still thinking about the changeling story. It was an old country attempt to describe a real occurrence, is it not so, madam?"

Grisel Rountree nodded. "We midwives never knew what their insides were like, of course, but the thing about the Ambry changelings is that they were barren. Always. Oh, they might marry, right enough, especially to an outsider who didn't know the story about the Ambrys, but there was never a child born to one of them. Some of them were good wives, and some were bad, and more than a few died young, like Christabel Ambry, rest her soul-but there was never an Ambry changeling that bore a child. That could be curse enough to a landed family with the property entailed, don't you reckon?"

"Indeed," said Holmes." And the doctor knew of this?"

"He did not," said Grisel Rountree. "None of us were like to tell him-no business of his, anyhow. And when Miss Christabel came to see me, she said she might be going up to London to the clinic. 'But I'll not be airing the family linen for Dr. Dacre, Grisel,' she says to me. 'Not with Evelyn engaged to his brother.' Miss Christabel put off going to a doctor for the longest time, afraid he'd find out too much as it was."

"And Miss Evelyn stated that she never consults physicians."

Watson gasped. "Holmes! You don't suppose that Evelyn Ambry is… is… well, a man?"

"I suppose so, in the strictest sense of the definition, but the salient thing here, Watson, is that Evelyn Ambry cannot bear children. Since she is engaged to the possessor of an entailed estate, that is surely a matter of concern. I fear that when Dr. James Dacre discovered the truth of the matter, he conveyed his concerns to Evelyn Ambry-probably at the funeral. They arranged to meet that night to discuss the matter… "

"Why did he not tell his brother straight away?"

"Out of some concern for the feelings of both parties, I should think," said Holmes. "Far better to allow the lady-let us call her a lady still; it is too confusing to do otherwise-to allow the lady to end it on some pretext."

Grisel Rountree nodded. "He mistook his… person," she said. "Miss Evelyn was not one to give up anything without a fight. I'll warrant she took that weapon with her in case the worse came to the worst."

"Not a maiden," murmured Watson. "Well, that is true enough, I fear. But the scandal will be ruinous! Not just the murder, but the cause… Poor Sir Henry! What happens now?"

From the downs above the Old Hall the sound of a single shot rang out, echoing in the clear summer air.

"It has already happened," said Grisel Rountree, turning to go. "It's best if I see to the laying out myself."

"Now there's a thing," said Sherlock Holmes.