Read Online Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective by Donald Thomas - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Donald Thomas
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Mystery, Private Investigators, Mystery Fiction, England, Short Stories, Fiction - Mystery, Holmes; Sherlock (Fictitious Character), Detective and Mystery Stories; English, Watson; John H. (Fictitious Character), Traditional British, Private Investigators - England, Mystery & Detective - Traditional British, Mystery & Detective - Short Stories
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who this was meant for. Surely it was someone like you, for he knew no doctor at Sutton Cross.”
I looked at it again. It was a strange letter in more ways than one. The handwriting showed a semi-literate deliberation. Yet the composition of the sentences betrayed a certain education. Here was a man who wrote “physician” rather than “doctor” or “afflicted with” rather then “suffering from.” No doubt Abraham Chastelnau lacked instruction. Yet he had heard of holy men in days gone by. From whom had he got this piece of history? Here was a man who could scarcely write and yet, on the few occasions when he did so, apparently expressed himself in a way that suggested some familiarity with those who had received a schooling. Had the letter been dictated to him in part?
“There are many unanswered questions here, Miss Chastelnau. If the letter was at the back of a drawer, how long had it been there? When did your brother write it, for there is no date upon it, and did he truly intend to send it to anyone? Will you allow my colleague Mr Sherlock Holmes to read these lines?”
Alice Chastelnau nodded. Holmes, in his turn, glanced down the page. He stretched his legs towards the fireplace while he read it again, more slowly. Before he could give an opinion, we were interrupted by Mrs Hudson’s knock and the arrival of the silver tray and table linen. After tea had been poured and the sandwiches handed round, our landlady closed the curtains against the gathering fog and retired. The gas was now lit and shone brightly on the white cloth, the glimmer of china and metal. Holmes, turned to our visitor.
“I think you must help us a little more, Miss Chastelnau. There are two distinct matters here. Your brother, if I may also call him so, is troubled in spirit. Hence the letter which we have just read. Since writing that, he and your younger brother have disappeared. Do you believe that these two things are connected? Or is it only one of them that requires our advice?”
She looked at him, directly and expressionlessly.
“I cannot tell you, Mr Holmes. That is why I am here. Because my brothers are my half-brothers, they are comparative strangers to me. My father, John Chastelnau, was an oil-cake manufacturer, supplying the dairy farmers with food for their cattle. He married a second time after my mother died. When Abraham, the elder half-brother, was born I was sixteen. I had been unwell for more than a year. A touch of consumption was suspected, the very illness which took my mother from us. My step-mother found lodgings on the coast near King’s Lynn and I recuperated there for several months. A little while later Abraham was born, she returned home and I left for instruction at Miss Openshaw’s Academy in Mablethorpe. I remained there subsequently as her assistant teacher. After she died four years ago, I was employed by her trustees.”
“You are to be congratulated,” said Holmes gently, “Pray continue.”
“My life has been very different to that of my brothers and our ages are some years apart. They remained in the little coastal village of Sutton Cross. At first they followed my father in the trade of making oil-cake for cattle. With the draining of the fens and the coming of dairy farming, his works at Sutton Cross had been profitable and he employed a dozen men. With such farming in decline and cheaper animal foods brought in by the new railway, my brothers found it a meagre inheritance.”
It seemed evident that there was no close relationship between the sister and the two brothers. This allowed Sherlock Holmes to slip the leash.
“If you wish us to investigate this disappearance, Miss Chastelnau, we should be obliged for whatever else you can tell us about your brothers. In the first place, what manner of men are they? I do not wish to be peremptory with you. However, if a search is to be successful, it must be pursued with urgency. In these mysteries the scent soon grows cold.”
She
I looked at it again. It was a strange letter in more ways than one. The handwriting showed a semi-literate deliberation. Yet the composition of the sentences betrayed a certain education. Here was a man who wrote “physician” rather than “doctor” or “afflicted with” rather then “suffering from.” No doubt Abraham Chastelnau lacked instruction. Yet he had heard of holy men in days gone by. From whom had he got this piece of history? Here was a man who could scarcely write and yet, on the few occasions when he did so, apparently expressed himself in a way that suggested some familiarity with those who had received a schooling. Had the letter been dictated to him in part?
“There are many unanswered questions here, Miss Chastelnau. If the letter was at the back of a drawer, how long had it been there? When did your brother write it, for there is no date upon it, and did he truly intend to send it to anyone? Will you allow my colleague Mr Sherlock Holmes to read these lines?”
Alice Chastelnau nodded. Holmes, in his turn, glanced down the page. He stretched his legs towards the fireplace while he read it again, more slowly. Before he could give an opinion, we were interrupted by Mrs Hudson’s knock and the arrival of the silver tray and table linen. After tea had been poured and the sandwiches handed round, our landlady closed the curtains against the gathering fog and retired. The gas was now lit and shone brightly on the white cloth, the glimmer of china and metal. Holmes, turned to our visitor.
“I think you must help us a little more, Miss Chastelnau. There are two distinct matters here. Your brother, if I may also call him so, is troubled in spirit. Hence the letter which we have just read. Since writing that, he and your younger brother have disappeared. Do you believe that these two things are connected? Or is it only one of them that requires our advice?”
She looked at him, directly and expressionlessly.
“I cannot tell you, Mr Holmes. That is why I am here. Because my brothers are my half-brothers, they are comparative strangers to me. My father, John Chastelnau, was an oil-cake manufacturer, supplying the dairy farmers with food for their cattle. He married a second time after my mother died. When Abraham, the elder half-brother, was born I was sixteen. I had been unwell for more than a year. A touch of consumption was suspected, the very illness which took my mother from us. My step-mother found lodgings on the coast near King’s Lynn and I recuperated there for several months. A little while later Abraham was born, she returned home and I left for instruction at Miss Openshaw’s Academy in Mablethorpe. I remained there subsequently as her assistant teacher. After she died four years ago, I was employed by her trustees.”
“You are to be congratulated,” said Holmes gently, “Pray continue.”
“My life has been very different to that of my brothers and our ages are some years apart. They remained in the little coastal village of Sutton Cross. At first they followed my father in the trade of making oil-cake for cattle. With the draining of the fens and the coming of dairy farming, his works at Sutton Cross had been profitable and he employed a dozen men. With such farming in decline and cheaper animal foods brought in by the new railway, my brothers found it a meagre inheritance.”
It seemed evident that there was no close relationship between the sister and the two brothers. This allowed Sherlock Holmes to slip the leash.
“If you wish us to investigate this disappearance, Miss Chastelnau, we should be obliged for whatever else you can tell us about your brothers. In the first place, what manner of men are they? I do not wish to be peremptory with you. However, if a search is to be successful, it must be pursued with urgency. In these mysteries the scent soon grows cold.”
She
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