The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part II (44 page)

“Well, Doctor, I didn't purchase the tea. It was a gift from one of my husband's employers, John Alexander. She said that he hadn't bought the tea, but that it was a gift from his employer's neighbor, Sir James Green, who had given it to Mr. Alexander.”

“So the tea wasn't originally intended for you. It was originally intended for Mr. Alexander,” I stated.

“That is correct, Dr. Watson. But the tea tasted a little like rye bread. I really didn't like it, but you can't look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Just then, Holmes rushed in and took over the scene. He turned to the commissionaire and said, “I have a very important job for you. Get as many men as you can and go to the shop that sells this brand of tea, locate all of the recent customers, and bring all you can find to my lodgings on Baker Street. Here are several shillings to get the necessary cooperation. Tell the proprietor that Sherlock Holmes thinks that they are selling poisoned tea.”

Relieved that he now had an important assignment, and that his entire family was recovering and in the hands of medical professionals, Bracket resumed his normal erect stature and bearing, and marched out of the room quickly with precise steps.

Holmes and I made the short carriage ride to Bracket's abode to see if we could find any other evidence that would point to a source of poison or, as I thought, ergot contaminated rye. We arrived at the small lodging, contained on the third floor of a brown brick building in the working class neighborhood housing the workers who served the local hospital and medical offices. Holmes quickly penetrated the building entrance and the door to the apartment without requiring a key, using methods that he had acquired from his more nefarious colleagues. The only thing out of place were the turned over chairs at the kitchen table, some liquid tea drying on the wooden floor, and tea cups containing the dregs of the teas that had not yet been ingested. Otherwise, there was no evidence of foul play. We scoured the two bedrooms, the bath, sitting room, and kitchen without finding anything suspicious. It was obvious that, as good parents, anything hazardous to children was safely under lock and key. We took the used teacups back with us for further examination. Holmes poured the residue of the tea into small glass containers, and secured the opened carton of tea in a canvas bag that he had brought for that purpose.

As we were exiting, Holmes turned to face me and asked, as a teacher does to a student, “You have examined the contents of this abode. Using your powers of observation and deduction, do you think the Bracket was the kind of man that would purposely poison his wife and children?”

I replied, “Not at all, Holmes. His bed was made with military precision. One could bounce a shilling off of it. His children's beds were covered with care and were warmly dressed. Although one wall in his sitting room was decorated with mementos of his military service, the larger bore many images of his family that far exceeded his personal effects. Also, based on my training as a neuroscientist, I would declare that his grief for his toddler's pneumonia, and his reaction to his other family members' illness, was genuine and palpable. Have I missed anything? Do you agree?”

“Watson,” he declared with a smile. “You are coming along nicely. You make an excellent detective's associate. I agree with your analysis and trust the commissionaire completely.”

As soon as we had arrived at our lodgings, Holmes quickly got to work. First he smelled the package of tea and invited me to do the same.

“It smells like rye bread,” I said. “I never have experienced that odor in tea before.”

Then he cleared his chemical apparatus from the deal topped table and installed a high powered microscope on its surface. Using a forceps, he carefully teased a portion of the solid dregs onto a glass slide. Then he applied a thin cover slip. He slowly lowered the objective to the top of the cover slip, and then raised it until he had what he wanted to see in focus. He smiled and said, “I think that your diagnosis was correct. Take a look.”

I carefully repeated his actions until the material was brought into sharp focus. It didn't take me long to recall the lessons that I had learned many years ago. There were tea leaves and what could only be stands of rye stipules.

“Holmes, what I find most revealing are fruiting bodies of the ergot fungus
Claviceps purpurea
. I never thought that I would ever need this knowledge.” I said, “My physical diagnosis was correct. I'm pleased that I was able to predict the appropriate therapy.”

Holmes replied, “Yes, Watson, you are to be congratulated for medical acumen. Tomorrow I will need to visit the purveyors of this tea for a conversation. I'm certain that they have closed their facility for the night, but I will visit them early in the morning. Meanwhile, you must tell your assistants not to alert the police. If they want to publish this account in a house medical proceedings and report it in Grand Rounds, where it will disappear from public sight but serve to further their careers, that would be fine.”

I responded, “Why not bring in the police? They can help us gather evidence.”

Holmes retorted, “If my supposition is correct, Bracket will benefit financially from my solution to the crime. If the perpetrators are jailed, which may be unlikely unless we can find more direct evidence tying them to the actual crime, no one will benefit from the misfortunes suffered by his wife and children.”

Having accomplished all that we could, Holmes and I had our own high tea, being careful to inspect the label, sniff the contents, and to settle down for a rest. I was pleased by our conversation and in a relaxed frame of mind during the entire evening. As we sat, I asked Holmes why we didn't go to the tea merchant ourselves to get the information. He replied, “Everyone likes Commissionaire Bracket. They all use his services and trust him. Had we shown up, we might have encountered suspicion and resistance. Also, I think that I would like to light a pipe and cogitate upon the issues. Why would someone give John Alexander poisoned tea? Or if we are to believe his wife, why would someone give it to Sir James, or if we want to take it a step further, was the commissionaire's family the ultimate target? Then, is there a large supply of poisoned tea in the market? I'm certain that Bracket and his cohorts will round up all of the supplies. Then, we will need to scour the papers that I asked Billy to pick up for us as we enjoyed our tea and crumpets. And finally, why did the tea have a rye taste? I have a monograph on two-hundred-twenty-six blends of tea, including the appearance of cooked and raw leaves, and a description of each flavor. I have never encountered a tea that is flavored with rye, and I can't see why anyone would want it. Tomorrow, we will have accumulated enough data to guarantee a meaningful conversation.”

Holmes's last act for the evening was to send our buttons out to acquire copies of all of the newspapers before he allowed the lad to leave for the evening.

I awoke at my usual late hour to find Holmes deeply studying the newspapers that were piled up next to his ham, eggs, and coffee mug. He had a glint in his deep gray eyes and a devilish smile in his face that predicted a bad ending to the perpetrators of this mischief. I quickly ingested my breakfast and left for my morning shift at St. Barts. Also, I needed to see to my four patients and handle any financial issues. Sherlock Holmes guaranteed that he would add this expense to whoever would end up paying for his investigative services.

As I left, Holmes said, “Are you up to a trip? I need to do a search of ancient British charters and you might enjoy the environs. We leave this afternoon from Baker Street Station.”

I replied, “I will be packed quickly, a skill I learned in the army medical service.” Then I rushed down to the street to get the cab that our buttons had reserved for me.

I arrived on time at St. Barts and met with my staff. I congratulated my students for a job well done and warned them about avoiding publicity. I brought a sample of the tea dregs for them to evaluate as background for their report, but told them that the source of the materials was still under investigation and could not be revealed. Then, with my interns in tow, I examined my patients, saw that they were now recovered from their travails, and released them from their involuntary hospital confinement. I informed Bracket and his wife that the poisoning incident must be kept secret so that Mr. Holmes is able to adjudicate the issue and obtain remuneration for them.

After two hours of patient rounds, I bid farewell to my staff, wished them a good day, and returned to my Baker Street lodgings for a well-deserved lunch and nap. However, the nap was not to be. As I arrived, my nose was overwhelmed by the strong odor of tea that masked the pungent smell of his vile pipe tobacco. Holmes's chemical table bore five opened cartons of Paladinium Tea, the same brand that was the source of the ergot poisoning the previous day. The entire surface of his work table was covered with microscope slides and cover slips.

Holmes said, “Ah Watson, you are just in time for our next pieces of evidence. All five cartons of tea that were recently delivered are free of rye particles and fungal spores. Only the box delivered to Sir James Green, who had later given it to Mr. Alexander, was so contaminated. It was not a random event. So, the source of the poisoned tea goes at least as far back as Sir James Green. Although it's possible that the servants despoiled the samples, I suggest that that is not the case. I sent the buttons to question Mrs. Bracket, and she said that the box did not look as if it had been opened, or if it had been, it was very well done.

Then he showed me the papers. In the interior pages of the
Guardian
, in the section devoted to agriculture, there was a brief account of cattle poisoning in a rye field near his famous university.

He cried out, “Quick, eat your lunch! A cab awaits our voyage of discovery.”

And off we went on a journey that I found out would take us to the city where resides one of England's great universities, and former scholastic residence of Sherlock Holmes before he left to complete his degree at London University and St. Barts.

As we dashed onto the train and entered the last available first class smoking carriage, I asked Holmes, “Where are we going? What is the purpose of this journey?”

He replied, “We are traveling to the area where I first encountered my university training. Therein is a library replete with official land charters, and a nearby field in which some poor cattle died from eating rye contaminated with the fungus of ergotism. These documents, and ownership of the land, may provide further information on the motive for the ergot poisoning that we discovered by accident, and the possible source of the deleterious material.”

I immediately understood his objective, but I couldn't understand how this data would apply to a criminal event in far-off London. As usual, I was forced to stay on the sidelines, exploring the buildings and town of a university that was foreign to me, while my friend spent hours on the diligent search through dry records that may date back to the formation of the English nation itself. My perambulations and isolation, except for mealtimes, was only interrupted by the brief adventure concerning the copying of the Greek scholarship exam. After only two more days, Sherlock Holmes grabbed me off of the street. In his right hand he held a plethora of documents that were rolled in a bright blue ribbon.

“Come Watson, we must pack our belongings. I now have the solution to the mystery of the devious ergotism event!” he cried. “We must return to London before the trail turns cold!”

We ran for the train just as the whistle was blowing and the conductor yelled, “All aboard.”

We hurried into a first class smoker and settled down for the long journey to Baker Street. Holmes busied himself with several newspapers that he had acquired from Professor Soames, and then began studying the documents that had been carried under his long, thin arms.

Knowing that my companion would not permit any conversation as he studied the papers in his hands, I sought out the dining car, had two glasses of dry white wine, and fell into a stupor. The gentle monotonous chug of the locomotive and the delightful view out of the window, after I had returned to my carriage, must have lulled me to sleep. I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder as the conductor cried out, “All off!”

I noticed that Holmes had now unfolded all of the documents and tied them into a neat pile. The newspapers were shoved under his seat. The edges revealed that several pages had been sampled with a pair of scissors. A smile on Holmes's face indicated that someone was not going to be happy in a day or two. The look of concentration thwarted my attempts to converse with him, and I quietly followed him to a hansom cab and our final ride to our quarters.

After we strode up the seventeen steps to our suite, Holmes immediately went to his desk and began writing telegrams. I noted that he was also withdrawing his special expensive formal stationery and writing notes with his neat hand. He then called out, “Billy, drop these telegrams at the post office and pay for a reply to each. Then take a cab and hand deliver these to the addresses on the linen envelopes.”

With that, Holmes looked at me and said, “Watson, as you see, I have been very busy. Please forgive me for ignoring you, but time was of the essence. Please get together your best set of city clothes. We will be entertaining tomorrow at high tea at five p.m. at the Paladinium Tea Room, in their special tasting room. I expect that we will make the acquaintance of two leaders of our society who, unbeknownst to our friends, have some dark dealings in their past.”

“Should I call Gregson or Lestrade?” I asked.

“No, Watson, I think that justice will be served better without the intervention of the constabulary. Just be prepared to leave tomorrow at four-forty p.m.”

Then, opening his violin case, he continued; “Now, it is time for sweetness and light. Please fix each of us Scotch and soda while I supply some music before we order our supper from Mrs. Hudson.”