Sherlock Holmes Stories of Edward D. Hoch (2 page)

A
PRIL OF 1883 WILL
always be remembered as the time when my good friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and I journeyed to Stoke Moran in Surrey for that most singular and frightening case which I have recorded elsewhere as “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” Until now, I have not written of the even stranger events which formed a sequel of sorts to that remarkable affair. They were to involve us with a particularly clever and despicable murderer, and a situation fully as dangerous as that memorable night when Holmes and I waited in Helen Stoner’s bedroom at Stoke Moran.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The case really began in September of ’83, some five months after the conclusion of the speckled band affair. It was a quiet time for us on Baker Street, and Holmes was taking advantage of the lull to begin work on his proposed monograph on human ears. I was reading the morning’s
Times
when there was a knock from Mrs. Hudson announcing the arrival of a visitor.

“A man or a woman?” Holmes asked, glancing up from his writing.

“A man, sir. Tall man with coal black hair and dark eyes. He says it’s very important.”

“Show him up, then, Mrs. Hudson.”

She returned in a moment with a man who was as she described him. He gave his name as Henry Dade and accepted the seat Holmes indicated.

“I thank you for seeing me at once,” he began. There was a trace of an accent in his voice, but I could not place it. “It is most important.”

“Ah, Mr. Dade,” said Holmes, stepping forward with a smile, “I see you have given up the wandering life of a gypsy and have settled for the noble trade of blacksmithing.”

The black-haired man jerked back in alarm. “Who told you I was a gypsy? Has Sarah been here before me?”

“No, no. I only observed the nearly-healed holes in each earlobe where earrings had been worn: And your scorched shirt from an unfamiliarity with the operation of the bellows. The scorched area stops abruptly at the point where a blacksmith’s apron would cover it.”

“You are a wizard, Mr. Holmes! Everything I heard about you is true.”

“Sit down and let me get you a cup of hot coffee. These September mornings bring a certain chill to the air. And, pray, tell me what mission has brought you to my lodgings.”

Henry Dade cast an uncertain eye in my direction. “It is of a confidential nature…”

“Watson is my good right arm. I would be lost without him.”

“Very well.” Dade accepted the comment and settled down to tell his story. “As you already know, I recently gave up the wandering life of a gypsy to become a blacksmith, in the western Surrey village of Stoke Moran…”

The words brought an immediate reaction from Sherlock Holmes. “Stoke Moran! Were you the blacksmith there in April of this year?”

“I was, sir. I know of your dealing with Dr. Roylott. You may have heard that we had a dispute in the final week of March, shortly before your visit. Roylott hurled me over a parapet into a stream. I wanted to have the man arrested, but his step-daughter, Helen Stoner, paid me a goodly sum to hush it up.”

Holmes had rung for Mrs. Hudson and, when she appeared, he asked that a pot of coffee be brought up.

Then he said, “Tell me, how is Miss Stoner since the unfortunate events of last April?”

“She has been on holiday in the south of France, fully recovered from her ordeal.”

“Good, good! Now continue.”

“Grimesby Roylott was always a friend to the wandering gypsies, and allowed them to camp on his land. In fact, that is what we argued about the day he hurled me into the stream. My brother Ramon had remained with the gypsy band on the Roylott property and he wanted me back with them. He objected to my marriage to Sarah Tinsdale, a young woman from the village. He said I had betrayed the gypsy way of life. That day, I accused Roylott of poisoning his mind against me, and he threw me in the water. As you know, Roylott owned a cheetah and a baboon which wandered freely on his grounds. After his death this past April, Miss Stoner wanted to dispose of them. My brother Ramon made her an offer and she accepted it. The animals went to him, together with any other wildlife he might find on the property. Miss Stoner only wanted to be rid of it.”

“Go on.”

“One of the things my brother found on the grounds following Roylott’s death was a mate to the dreaded speckled band—the deadly swamp adder that caused the tragic events of last April.”

“That’s impossible!” I exclaimed. “There was only one snake, and I saw Holmes throw it into the iron safe himself. The police later disposed of it.”

“Roylott kept a second snake in a wire cage in one of his outbuildings. My brother found it and took it along with the baboon and cheetah. I fear now that he means to use it as Roylott did, to bring harm to myself or my wife.”

“Has he threatened you?”

“Worse than that…he threatened Sarah. She encountered him in the village two days ago. He had the snake with him on his wagon, and he showed it to her. She was frightened half to death.”

Holmes took up his pipe and filled it with tobacco.

“It seems to me, sir, that your problem is one for the local police, rather than a consulting detective here in London. There is no mystery to be solved, and I am not in the habit of furnishing bodyguard service.”

“I came to you because of the previous incident, Mr. Holmes. They say the swamp adder is the deadliest snake in India. You have faced one and bested it. I beg you to protect Sarah and me from my brother’s wrath.”

I could almost see the indecision written on Holmes’ face. Mrs. Hudson entered at that moment with a steaming pot of coffee and the expression was replaced with a familiar smile.

“Certainly I could speak to him. Preventing a crime in advance is preferable to solving it after the deed is done.”

“Then you’ll come down to Stoke Moran?”

“We’ll take the morning train tomorrow,” Holmes promised. “You might arrange a room for us at the Crown Inn. I remember it as a pleasant enough lodging.”

After coffee, our visitor departed and Holmes stared out the window after him.

“What is it?” I asked. “You seem uneasy, Holmes.”

“The entire story seems far-fetched in the extreme, Watson. This tale of a second snake may be nothing more than a gypsy ruse of some sort.”

“Then why are we going?”

Holmes smiled and replied, “If it is a ruse, I wish to learn the purpose of it, and whether it presents any danger to Miss Stoner when she returns from her travels.”

Remembering our previous excursion to Stoke Moran, I slipped my revolver into the pocket of my coat when we departed in the morning. It was a dank autumn day, one of the first we’d had following an unusually pleasant summer. The train from Waterloo Station was on time, and we took it as far as Leatherhead, hiring a trap at the station inn just as we had done so on the previous journey, nearly six months earlier.

“The weather is not so pleasant this time,” Sherlock Holmes remarked. “But, then, spring always holds more promise than autumn. Look, Watson! There is the gypsy camp!”

We were passing the grey gables and high, pointed roof of the late Grimesby Roylott’s mansion and, off in the distance, almost to the woods, we could see the wispy smoke of a campfire.

“So it is, Holmes. I believe I can see one of those animals, the cheetah, prowling around.”

“Driver!” Holmes called out. “Please leave us off here!”

The black-hatted driver turned to us. “It’s a mile’s walk into the village.”

“That’s all right. We’ll make it on foot.”

“Straight ahead down this road.”

Holmes paid him and we scrambled out of the trap, watching while it turned in the road for the journey back to Leatherhead. Then we set out across country, through the wayside hedge and up the gently rising hill toward the gypsy camp. As we approached, the cheetah caught our scent and moved into a crouch. For a tense moment, my hand felt for the revolver in my coat pocket, but then a young gypsy wearing a colorful shirt ran up to grab the animal’s collar.

“I am looking for Ramon Dade,” Holmes said. “I am told he is the owner of this animal.”

The dark face relaxed just a bit. “I am Ramon. Who sends you here.”

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. I have come out from London at the behest of your brother Henry.”

“Henry!” he almost spat the word. “He is no longer my brother. He deserts his tribe to live in the village.”

“He is married and a blacksmith now.”

“We have horses. He could be a blacksmith to us, but that woman took him away.”

“His wife, Sarah?”

“I will not speak of her.”

“He says you threatened her with a snake and frightened her half to death.”

“Those are all lies.”

“But you do have a snake…the mate to the swamp adder that killed Dr. Roylott.”

“I bought the animals from Miss Stoner. A cheetah and a baboon.”

“And a swamp adder.”

“She told me I could have any other animals I found on the property. Her stepfather had the second snake in a cage in an old potting shed.”

“Take me to it,” Holmes said.

The gypsy hesitated. Some of the others in the camp had paused in their activities to watch our confrontation and, once again, I was glad I had brought the revolver with me. However, no one produced a knife or any other weapon. A small boy appeared with the baboon in tow and the mood lightened at once. Perhaps I was wrong to feel threatened by these people.

“You can see the snake if you want,” Ramon Dade decided with some reluctance. “Come this way.”

“We followed him to a potting shed that stood on the edge of the formal gardens, now grown over with weeds and wildflowers.

“Will Miss Stoner keep this house?” Holmes asked.

“No. It has too many bad memories for her. She has already offered it for sale. The new owner will want us out, and we will move on to another county.”

“That is why you are urging your brother to come along? So you will not be parted?”

“He must choose between that woman and his people.”

He lifted the hasp on the wooden door and we followed him inside. The place was thick with cobwebs and, in the dim, filtered light, I imagined it to be alive with spiders. The thought so unnerved me that I forgot we had entered this place to view the deadliest snake in India, a creature far more dangerous than any spider.

Ramon felt on one of the shelves for a dark lantern, which he lit

Then he announced in a hushed voice, “Behold the speckled band!”

A gasp escaped my lips as the lantern light fell upon the wire cage. At first, I saw only a rock, slightly larger than a man’s head, and the branch of a tree. Then my eyes focused on the peculiar band, the speckled band, coiled around the top of the rock. Even as Holmes and I watched, it started to move.

“My God, Holmes!”

“Steady, Watson.”

It was my first really good look at the creature whose mate had claimed two lives.

“The swamp adder,” I breathed.

“A little-known offshoot of the krait family.” Holmes turned to the gypsy. “This creature must be destroyed, or at least confined to a zoo. Its bite causes death within ten seconds. All your lives are in danger.”

“I have been milking it of its venom,” Ramon Dade answered. “We will be moving soon and the snake will travel with us.”

Even as he spoke, the creature reared up, its squat head weaving slightly as it faced us. I took a step backward, fearing it might try to strike through the wire mesh.

We stepped outside the potting shed, where Holmes offered a final word of advice.

“Let your brother and his wife live in peace,” he cautioned. “Stop frightening her with the snake.”

“I have no brother, and I do not frighten that woman.”

As Holmes and I walked back to the road, we observed one of the other gypsies watching us. I wondered who he was and if he had any special interest in our visit.

“What now, Holmes?”

“We have one other person to see who may shed some light on the matter…Sarah Dade, Henry’s new wife.”

Our lodgings at the Crown Inn, consisting of a bedroom and sitting room, were fully as good as on our first visit, although this time the view faced the village instead of looking out on the Roylott manor house. We ate a light lunch in the downstairs dining room, where Holmes asked directions to the blacksmith’s shop. It proved to be in the next block, near the little creek that bisected the village.

“No doubt that is the very parapet where Dr. Roylott and Henry Dade fought,” Holmes remarked as we passed it.

He led the way into the shop, where we could see Dade at work forming horseshoes on the anvil.

He stopped work when he saw us, plunging the steaming metal into a trough of cold water.

“Mr. Holmes! Dr. Watson! Welcome again to our little village. Did you have a pleasant journey?”

“Very pleasant,” Holmes said. “On the way, we stopped at the gypsy camp to speak with your brother Ramon.”

Henry Dade’s body went rigid. “What did he have to say? Did he admit to keeping the other snake?”

“Oh, yes! In fact, he showed it to us.”

“The man is brazen, if nothing else.”

“I would like to speak with your wife, if I may.”

“Certainly. I will call her.”

Their living quarters were upstairs over the blacksmith shop, and she quickly came down in answer to his summons. Sarah Dade was a thin woman with a pretty face and nervous hands, her dark hair drawn back from her face and arranged in a bun. She wore a knitted shawl wrapped around her shoulders and back, over a dark brown dress that reached to the floor.

“You are Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” she asked. “My husband has told me about his visit to you.”

“I thought I might speak to you about your encounter with your brother-in-law.”

“Help them in any way you can,” Henry Dade told his wife. “I will be upstairs relaxing for a few minutes. Hammering horseshoes is tiring work.”

Sarah Dade smiled after his retreating figure. “He likes his naps. The life of a blacksmith is for a younger man.”

“How old is your husband?”

“He will be forty-five in a few months. His brother Ramon is ten years younger. The family had some gold, which went to the eldest son, and Henry used that to buy this shop. Ramon resents the fact that he abandoned the life of a gypsy. More than anything, he resents Henry marrying me and using the gold for this shop.”