The Sherlock Holmes Megapack: 25 Modern Tales by Masters. Michael Kurland
like Constable Roddy’s, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward.”
That night we packed our luggage while Holmes studied the train schedule aloud. “The train for Birmingham leaves at ten o’clock in the morning, and if it is not late arriving there, we can make a connection to Stoke-on-Trent, then Manchester, and finally to Southport, near Tarleton, a trip of five hours total duration. We shall likely find it necessary to hire a drag to take us from Southport to Mr Carroll’s former home.”
* * * *
It was late afternoon the following day when the horse-drawn cart turned onto the long, winding drive to the low Tudor-style house that had belonged to Mr Carroll. Our route had taken us through the centre of the village, with its two-story brick dwellings and shops, a pub, a post office, and grain storage facilities all built close together, as if in a city. Outside the town limits, the countryside exploded into vast crops of wheat, oats, corn, green vegetables, and a variety of flowers growing in black soil rich with peat. We could glimpse only the peaked rooftops of farmhouses scattered among the fields.
Holmes unlocked the door, which opened into a foyer with a slate floor and walls decorated with landscape paintings depicting scenes from the American West. Beyond the foyer was a large sitting-room with an immense fireplace, above which hung the antlers of an elk, plus the horns of a steer and a mountain goat. Bookshelves lined one side of the room, each packed with volumes on American law, the classics, history, as well as fiction and nonfiction that told stories of Western heroes and outlaws. The opposite end of the room was a veritable museum of Western artefacts, with a well-worn, silver-studded riding saddle on a wooden rack, a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots beside it, and a small table holding a bulky chunk of silver. Horse tack, a lasso, and fancy spurs covered the wall.
“I daresay the man was obsessed with his life abroad,” I remarked to Holmes, who was seated at a desk, rummaging through the documents on the top. He found more papers in the drawers and was examining them when there came a knock from the clapper on the carved oak door.
I answered the call, and standing on the stoop was a young, dark-skinned fellow dressed in Western attire, complete with fringed chaps and a wide-brimmed hat, and strands of hay clinging to his sleeves.
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” he said humbly, “but I’m the late Mr Carroll’s barn hand, Alexander McRae. You can call me Tex. Mr Carroll always did, ever since he hired me on in Wyomin’ when I was just nine years old and runnin’ away from the orphanage.”
I escorted him inside to meet Sherlock Holmes, and Tex continued in his quiet manner: “Constable Roddy said you’d be arrivin’ today, and I wanted to offer you any he’p you might need to git familiar with the surroundin’s. He told me you’d be solvin’ the murder of Mr Carroll, who was like the father I never had. I hope whoever did it gits his neck stretched by a rope on a tall tree branch.”
Holmes and I were charmed by Tex’s unassuming, blunt way. He replied to Holmes’s questions frankly and without hesitation. We learned that Mr Carroll had risen at sunrise daily to assist Tex with the feeding of the livestock, then he would return to the barn in the evening to do the same. He usually cooked breakfast, prepared lunch, and cooked supper for the two of them. In between those times, Mr Carroll would supervise the labourers in the fields, walk the trails between them to visit with Sir Ethan Tarleton, ride to town on his favourite gelding, Bullseye, and at four o’clock sharp stop at the tavern for a mug of beer.
“I can’t disappoint the barkeep—he expects me there at the same time every day,” Mr Carroll would jest.
One day about a month ago, Tex recalled, Mr Carroll was nowhere to be seen around the farmhouse at the noon hour and failed to make an appearance at dinnertime. Worried, Tex tried to pinpoint Mr Carroll’s whereabouts by tracing his known footsteps, discovering that Mr Carroll hadn’t kept his four o’clock appointment at the pub. Tex checked inside the barn and found Bullseye in his stall, with no indication that he had been ridden. When the farmhouse remained empty that night, Tex was certain something dreadful had happened to Mr Carroll, so in the morning Tex fed the horses alone, went to his quarters above the stable to don a clean shirt, and sought out the police to report Mr Carroll as missing.
“What Tex had to tell us disclosed a great deal,” Holmes muttered after the youngster had gone off to his chores. “I believe I shall call upon Sir Ethan Tarleton first thing tomorrow. For now, I shall resume my inspection of Mr Carroll’s effects.”
That evening, after Holmes had finished his research, we were readying for bed when Constable Roddy came with news that would keep us awake half the night.
“Sorry to trouble you gentlemen so late, but I thought you would want to know as soon as possible, Mr Holmes, that another headless body has surfaced,” he announced. “This one was found along a seldom-travelled path that leads from the outskirts of town past a shack inhabited by the village drunkard, George Beidler. It appears he is the victim, although we have no one to make a positive identification. Poor old George—he was harmless. Who would want to kill him? He could have been lying there a number of days, and if it were not for one of our residents taking a short-cut home tonight, the discovery could have been delayed even longer.”
“Take me to the scene of the crime immediately,” commanded Holmes, “because there may be clues that will vanish by morning.”
We rode in Roddy’s surrey about two kilometers on narrow roads and through a small forest, at the end of which was a cart path. When we were near the scene of the crime, Holmes ordered Roddy to stop so as not to disturb any evidence.
“As I have observed to Dr Watson on more than one occasion,” Holmes explained, “there is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps.”
“If you walk up the path about a hundred paces, you will find the torso all in a heap in a dried pool of blood,” Roddy advised.
Holmes instructed both of us to remain in the surrey while he took a lantern from the side of the vehicle and proceeded up the path in the moonlight. We could see the glow of the lantern when he reached the site. The lantern remained stationary a few moments, then circled to the left and to the right, then back to the left, pausing for a length of time. Then the lantern travelled farther up the path about twenty paces and into the forest, where it disappeared from view for a short time.
When he returned, Holmes asked Roddy if the person who notified him of the crime had been on horseback, and Roddy answered in the affirmative.
“That accounts for the hoof prints, then,” Holmes said, adding: “There are three distinct sets of footprints. One set led away from the village, the footprints left by the victim. The second set belonged to you, Constable Roddy. And the last belonged to the killer. He is six feet tall and weighs approximately two hundred pounds. I determined this from the length of his stride and the depth of the track in the soft soil. He wears a new square-toed boot, size eleven, with cleats on the heels. He made his escape in a wagon under the cover of the forest. I lost the tracks of the wagon there.”
“But what of the motive, Mr Holmes?” Roddy wanted to know. “No one would steal from a drunkard—George had no valuables. He played cards at the pub for money to buy whisky. Could the culprit be a maniac who strikes at random for the thrill of it?”
“The motive is not clear to me yet, but I have a suspicion. However, it is too premature to discuss,” Holmes answered as we drove away. “You can arrange to have the torso removed to the doctor’s office. I have seen all there is to see here.”
After we arrived back at the farmhouse, Roddy excused himself to take care of matters at the scene of the crime, so Holmes and I went inside to change into our bed clothes. I retired for the night, but Holmes climbed into his purple dressing-gown, lapsed into a chair with his elbows on the arms, his fingertips together, and his eyes to the ceiling.
* * * *
I awoke in the morning to the sound of Holmes talking to Tex in the kitchen. They were preparing breakfast with a half-dozen fresh eggs Tex had gathered from the hen house and sausages they had retrieved