Sherlock Holmes 01: The Breath of God Page 5

His teeth chipped and dislodged in his gums, not built for such sturdy work.

  Finally, he got the meat he craved, though the relief was short-lived as he choked violently on his own tongue.

  Breathless and delirious he fell to the floor, gazing purple-faced at the ceiling, his tongue lodging firmly at the back of his throat, wedged there alongside a dusty chunk of sawdust and bone.

  At the periphery of his vision he was just aware of the wind crashing into his study, the French windows forced open.

  The three figures stepped in, one moved towards his desk, another towards the fire.

  Ruthvney died and they went about their business.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE RETURN OF SILENCE

  The story of Lord Ruthvney’s death coincided with my breakfast as I perused the morning edition at the dining table. I would like to say that it affected my appetite but that would be a lie. I’m an ex-soldier, once you’ve sipped soup under cannon fire there’s little that can interfere with your digestion.

  “Have you seen this, Holmes?” I asked as my friend strolled in from his bedroom, his un-oiled hair hanging over his eyes like a curtain. “It strikes me as recherché enough for your attention.” I folded the paper so as to give the article due prominence and tossed it next to his breakfast plate, then helped myself to another kipper.

  “Ah.” Holmes sighed. “Such is my lot: to become an investigator of the odd, a policeman of clowns.” He glanced at the article and raised an eyebrow. “Though certainly it is hard to ignore such a death as this.” He gave the article his full attention for a few moments, then tossed it aside. “Well,” he said, lifting the lid on the dish of eggs, “Lord Ruthvney clearly died a madman’s death. The question must be whether his lack of sanity was a new condition or one brought about by the involvement of others.” He scooped a couple of eggs onto his plate. “Either way. It is no business of ours, we have more than enough to occupy us.”

  “Have you come to any conclusions?”

  “Only that the good Dr Silence is clearly determined to gain our attention in this matter.”

  “Well, yes, he would hardly have sought an appointment otherwise.”

  “But why?” Holmes asked. “What is it for? He has neither engaged our services or set us a mystery to solve.”

  “The death of De Montfort.”

  “Is part of the whole story, certainly. But how big a part?” He began to eat his eggs.

  “What makes you think the young man’s murder is so incidental?”

  “One simply doesn’t go to so much effort to murder a social butterfly like De Montfort. If somebody wanted him dead then a drop of poison in an overpriced glass of champagne would serve the purpose perfectly well. His death was a piece of theatre, designed to cause attention, murderers who do that are rarely singular in their focus for victims.”

  “Why draw attention to murder?” I wondered aloud. There were several possibilities of course: a distraction, perhaps, or a warning. I said as much to Holmes.

  “Indeed,” he agreed, “or a message of some kind.”

  “A grisly telegram if so.”

  Holmes threw up his hands in despair. “There simply isn’t enough evidence upon which to theorise.” He got to his feet and paced, irritated, amongst the usual piles of detritus with which he littered the floor of our rooms: newspapers, police reports, charcoal sketches... It was as if Holmes’ brain leaked. He stopped at the window and turned back to me, all trace of despondency now gone. “But here is more coal for our engine, Watson!” he shouted. “The enigmatic Dr Silence has returned!”

  He resumed his place at the breakfast table and attacked the toast rack with the vigour of a man starved. When Dr Silence was ushered into our rooms by Mrs Hudson it was to be presented to a man who gave the impression his life depended on the greater consumption of marmalade.

  “Sit down, Doctor,” Holmes said. “Take some coffee and toast. Mrs Hudson has as much an idea of breakfast as any Scotswoman and I’m sure she will be happy to accommodate one more.”

  Mrs Hudson sighed. “Of course she will,” she said. “Given the other things I accommodate in his household, an extra mouth is nothing.”

  “I’ll take the coffee gladly,” said our guest, “but I’ve already breakfasted.”

  Holmes shrugged and resumed his spooning of marmalade onto toast. “To what do we owe the repeated pleasure of your company, Dr Silence?” he asked.

  “You have seen the morning editions I see,” Silence said, gesturing towards my discarded newspaper, “and have no doubt read of the peculiar death of Lord Ruthvney?”

  Holmes paused momentarily, toast held halfway between plate and mouth. “Indeed,” he said. “In fact, we were just discussing it.”

  “What you probably do not know is that he was, like young De Montfort, a member of the Golden Dawn.”

  “Like De Montfort and the Laird of Boleskine himself, Mr Aleister Crowley,” added Holmes, watching intently for Silence’s response. The man gave very little, simply nodded and continued to speak.

  “You have investigated along similar lines to myself, I see,” he said, “though it would seem Mr Crowley is no longer affiliated with the organisation.”

  “You’ve spoken to him?”

  “No, I believe he rarely leaves Boleskine House these days, though certainly I think we should.”

  “‘We?’” Holmes asked with a slight smile.

  “I had thought that considering the news you might cease your feigned disinterest and help with the investigation.”

  I drew a short breath at Dr Silence’s choice of words – Holmes did not like to “help” anyone with an investigation, not the official force and most certainly not someone he deemed, at best, deluded. Holmes wasted no time in correcting him.

  “I am not what one might call a ‘team player’, Doctor. If indeed I choose to investigate the matter, you can rest assured I will be doing so entirely of my own volition and not in partnership with someone else.”

  “Would it damage your ego to occasionally share notes?” Silence asked. “Possibly even a rail carriage? Given that we will be following the same trail it seems churlish to ignore each other en route. Besides, you scarcely begin to know what we’re dealing with. I have not been idle these last couple of days and have much to pass on.”

  Holmes laughed. “My dear Doctor, you must forgive my professional vanity. Perhaps you are right, we should work in tandem. After all, it is a world of which I know precious little. Pray, tell me your news.”

  “I thought the promise of more information might loosen your manner.” Silence smiled. “I dare say you have not been idle either and will soon be able to inform me of developments from your end?”

  Homes said nothing but inclined his head in acceptance.

  “I have been researching this so-called Breath of God. It is a phenomena frequently mentioned in the biblical apocrypha as well as other, less wholesome, texts. In some scriptures it is said that the Breath of God was the method of destruction for the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God’s angels acting as a conduit for his ‘almighty essence’. Some also suggest that Moses called down the Breath of God to destroy those Israelites who chose not to follow the Ten Commandments. Some scholars insist it is intended to be synonymous with God’s power, a poetic phrase intended to liven up the scripture. Others contend that it is literally what it suggests: a fearsome, elemental force capable of mass destruction. Capable even of killing a man in the open air, leaving no other sign of attack.”

  “It’s something of a jump to assume De Montfort was slaughtered by divine halitosis simply because we currently flounder to find more conventional answers,” insisted Holmes. “You’ll forgive me if I pursue more earthly means for now?”

  “I would expect little else,” Silence replied, “and no doubt you will be more interested to hear that my sources claim there is dissent amongst the ranks of the Golden Dawn. Dissent that saw De Montfort, Ruthvney and Crowley in agreement against those
more senior than themselves within the organisation. Is that an earthly enough reason to suspect Crowley of being the next victim?”

  Holmes considered. “It’s enough to make me dip my hand in my pocket for a rail fare, certainly. Watson, check the Bradshaw for trains to Inverness. Allow me the morning, however. As first we must ask our accommodating friends at Scotland Yard to allow us access to yet another murder room.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RUTHVNEY HALL

  The estate of the recently deceased Lord Ruthvney was located just north of Billericay en route to Chelmsford. Agreeing to meet Silence at St Pancras for the four o’clock to Inverness, Holmes and I made our way first to Scotland Yard, then Liverpool Street and, thenceforth, for the country.

  Despite my love for London I do enjoy visiting the open country; the air is revitalising, the scenery enriching. Holmes did not feel the same. In fact, for most of the time I knew him, he acted as if the open air was sheer poison to him, like a sea creature pulled from his familiar rock pool and forced to wither in the sunshine. I have seen him nearly choke to death when placed on a hill in a strong breeze. It is an argument for evolution certainly, that a man so immersed in smoke and fog now needs it to survive. Of course, he would later retire to the country which proves what a contrary swine he could often be.

  “The chief investigating officer is a local,” Holmes said, “an Inspector Mann. A good fellow by all accounts who is only too happy to tolerate our presence.”

  It would be thought that any police officer would welcome assistance from someone as famously insightful and – perhaps more importantly – happy to pass on the credit as Holmes. Experience had frequently taught us otherwise. Holmes is of the opinion that there will come a time when the consulting detective is so common in society that he will no longer bear the jibes of the official forces, rather such a proliferation will in itself bring about a change in how crime is detected. He foresees a time when deduction is compartmentalised, a nation of experts of every possible stripe. You wish to investigate a poisoning? Then you would call on the consultant who specialises in deadly venoms. Someone has been shot? Then you would talk to a detective who specialises in gun crime. Personally I wasn’t convinced the police force would devolve in this manner. Experience showed that Holmes’ methods were initially distrusted, sometimes outright loathed. Once he had built a working relationship with the officer in question things might be different – there were a number of young officers rising through the force thanks in no small part to the patronage of Holmes – but on first meeting I could recall none that had warmed to him. Even less so once he had mocked their methods and then proceeded to apply his own.

  However, in the case of Inspector George Mann I was to find an exception to this rule. From the first he was graciousness itself and it was clear that he hoped to learn as much from Holmes as their time together would allow. Such an attitude stood him in excellent stead with my friend of course, a man who has never found a compliment he didn’t like. Mann was in his early thirties and sported a beard so neatly trimmed one could tell one was in the company of a fastidious man. His waistline, while far from the excesses of, say, Holmes’ brother Mycroft, also suggested a man who enjoyed the sensual pleasures in life. It was the belly of a man who shared my opinion that, as important as deduction might be, it shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of meal times.

  Having greeted us at the local station, Mann had provided a trap so that we might easily get to Lord Ruthvney’s estate. While we traversed the quaint, narrow roads, he did his best to fill us in on the investigation thus far.

  “To be honest,” he admitted, “it’s not the sort of business we’re used to handling. It seems from the outside of it to be a case of suicide, albeit it by a method we can’t claim to have seen before.”

  “The newspapers say he died from ingesting ‘foreign matter’,” I said. “Can you be a little more specific?”

  “He consumed a heroic quantity of his own taxidermy collection,” said Mann, “causing considerable damage to his teeth and jaw as he did so.”

  “Had he exhibited previous signs of being mentally unstable?” I asked.

  “Not in the least,” said Mann. “In fact he was the very model of rural respectability.”

  “Bar his occult hobby at least,” commented Holmes, “though maybe that is more de rigeur outside London.”

  “Occult?” Mann asked.

  “He was a member of the occult society the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,” I explained. “A fact that we expect to have some bearing on the case.”

  Mann raised an eyebrow. “Really? I find that somewhat hard to believe.”

  “That he was a member or that it will have a bearing?” asked Holmes.

  “Both frankly,” Mann said. “Life is even more conservative amongst the rural gentry than in the cities, and Ruthvney was a regular face at the local church. In fact he had been known to take part in festivals, giving a reading at the Christmas mass and so on. You know what it’s like with these people, they think it’s important to play a fairly central role in local life.”

  “Indeed,” Holmes agreed, “and perhaps it is that rather than any real devotion that saw him take part in local worship.”

  “Perhaps,” Mann admitted.

  “And yet you do not believe it?” Holmes said.

  Mann smiled. “If you have it on good authority then it seems I’ll have to,” he replied.

  We arrived at Ruthvney Hall, an austere pile of bricks that cast a gloomy shadow over its well-kept lawns.

  The trap pulled up on the gravel of the entrance court and we all climbed out.

  “What would you like to do first, Mr Holmes?” Mann asked. “Inspect the study or interview the staff?”

  Holmes smiled. “Inspect the study I think, let the lay of the land inform before the opinions of the help distract.”

  We followed Mann to the room in question and he stepped back to allow Holmes access. Both myself and the inspector watched from the doorway as Holmes went about his usual investigation. Watching Holmes at work, I am often reminded of the descriptions of how Native Americans went about the tracking of animals. They read volumes in the depth of mere dust, in the angle of a paw print or the quantity of shed hair. For Holmes the drawing room or front lawn were the more likely sites of his hunt than the plains of Utah or the green fields of the Midwest. But he went about it with alacrity, throwing himself into the scene of the crime and studying it on the most intimate level of which his senses were capable. He plotted traffic on the hearth rug by inconsistencies in its pile, identified a brand of furniture polish by a single hearty sniff and could analyse the emotional state of the char by a brief analysis of the mantel.

  It was an act that I never failed to enjoy watching. It seemed that Mann was also an eager spectator. He observed silently, not interrupting as many of his fellows frequently did, determined to promote their own observational abilities rather than take note of Holmes’. At one point he removed his notebook and jotted a few observations down. I smiled – Holmes had found himself an eager student.

  “The room offers several points that prove there was more to Ruthvney’s final hours than a fit of madness,” Holmes announced. “The fire was smoking abnormally as is shown by the tarry deposits on the tiles around the grate. I would want to analyse the powder I’ve collected from them before committing myself, but the soot certainly contains more than the simple remains of an open fire, something abnormal was burned there.”

  “Something that could have caused Ruthvney’s behaviour?” I asked.

  “You’re thinking of the Radix pedis diaboli?” my friend replied with a smile.

  I confess I was. A recent case where the root of an African plant had been burned in a sealed room, the smoke it released causing madness and death to those who inhaled it.

  “It could certainly have been something along those lines,” Holmes admitted. “Something affected Ruthvney unfavourably enough for him to start dining on hi
s collection.” He poked delicately through the shattered glass with the toe of his boot. “And, given the bloodstains on this glass, numbed his pain sufficiently for him to pay his wounds scant attention.”

  “So it’s a matter of poison then you believe, sir?” Mann asked.

  Holmes held up his hand. “Please, Inspector, these are initial impressions. While further investigation may prove them to be facts, it would be a grievous mistake to treat them as such for now. Tell me, did you or your men take anything from this room?”

  “No sir, I was particularly determined to avoid such a thing, I knew that you would wish to examine everything just as it was.”

  “Most kind, and it is immediately useful in that it confirms one thing for us: someone removed something from Ruthvney’s desk after his death.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked.

  “Because there are four letters and five envelopes,” he said, sitting down at the desk. “He was clearly going through his correspondence just prior to his unfortunate attack. The desk is tidy, he is not a man who leaves his letters lying around. Here we have a pile of letters. An invitation to a play and one to a dinner party, a letter concerning his position as governor of a school, and a request for a charity donation. The latter, you will notice, opened first and destined for refusal, filed as it was beneath the five envelopes.” Holmes looked around. “There is no basket for waste paper and yet he is a tidy man so presumably he intended to throw them in the fire. The fact he didn’t do so means that he was interrupted. So where is the fifth letter and what was it?”

  “Surely a man would go through his correspondence at the start of the day?” I asked.

  “That rather depends whether the man in question cares to respond. Lord Ruthvney clearly felt he could keep people waiting. He was also,” Holmes gestured to the pile, “a man who received exceedingly boring post.”

  He lowered his face to the desk, and grinned. “There was also a sixth envelope!” he announced. “And presumably therefore a sixth letter.” He looked to Mann. “He had nothing on him?”