The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles Page 6
“Which of you is Silver Blaze?” Holmes repeated, even more threateningly.
“Holmes, come now, you’re scaring them,” I said.
“But I need to know—”
“It’s that one.”
“Eh?” said Holmes, his expression doubtful. “But that one doesn’t have a silver blaze on his nose.”
“You’ll notice, though, that he does have boot-black smeared all over his face and some wonderfully unconvincing spots of the same, painted on his rump. I suspect someone has tried to mask his identity. Yet, there are some traits that are harder to hide than others.”
“Such as?”
“He pricked up his ears when you called his name.”
“Then he must answer for his crimes,” Holmes growled and began closing on the unfortunate equine.
“No, Holmes, I think I’ve figured it out. The fault does not rest with Silver Blaze—he is the victim. Or, let me say, the intended victim. No, your true criminal is there.”
Holmes followed my outstretched finger to the gristly pile the demons had constructed, then asked, “One of the other horses?”
“No. The man. Straker. It’s all his fault.”
“Come now, Watson, are you suggesting he bashed the back of his own head in with a horseshoe? Queer method of suicide, don’t you think? Full marks for originality, I admit, but—”
“No, it’s… Listen, the bill in his pocket was in the name of Mr. Derbyshire, correct?”
“It was.”
“And the dressmaker knew him by that name as well. So, we will start there. Why does a Dartmoor horse trainer have a secret identity for buying dresses in London?”
“He doesn’t want anybody to know he wears dresses?”
“Holmes, that is…” I paused and admitted, “… actually possible. Still, I think it more likely that he has a mistress—one with expensive tastes. Twenty-two guineas on a trainer’s salary? That’s a bit steep, don’t you think? Let us suppose that Straker was in a little over his head, over-keeping his kept woman. He’d be desperate to make money. Enter Fitzroy Simpson—a gambler, a bookie and a fixer with a nose for mischief and an idea. Silver Blaze is the far-and-away favorite for the Wessex Cup; therefore, if he were to fail to win, whatever horse did would pay back at stellar odds. Simpson could make a fortune if only he had leverage on somebody with access to Silver Blaze.”
“Straker?” Holmes wondered.
“Yes! Simpson is a familiar villain to everyone on the racing scene—always snooping for an advantage. Suppose he heard of Straker’s money troubles. Suppose Simpson approached Straker and taught him how to subtly hobble an animal with a cataract knife, and promised to share his winnings.”
“Oh! And that’s why we find a surgical tool in a horse stable,” Holmes realized. “But how would Straker hide what he’d done?”
“Ha! There’s a fine point. Though it is possible to weaken a tendon without leaving an easily visible wound, it takes a practiced hand. So, he did.”
“Er… did what?”
“Practiced,” I laughed. “Do you see those sheep? They all drag their left hind leg! It would be too much to be coincidence even if your little demon hadn’t told us they’d all felt the touch of that blade. Straker practiced on them, learning to lame an animal without externally maiming it.”
“Cad!” cried Holmes and he gave the body of John Straker an angry kick. Then he paused to consider for a moment. “You know though, Watson, your theory still does not cover the cravat, the coat or the dog who didn’t bark.”
“Well I haven’t gotten that far,” I said, “but let us further suppose Simpson has his doubts about Straker. He comes by to check on his reluctant accomplice before the race, just to be sure Straker was really going to do it.”
“And they fought and Straker pulled his cravat off?” Holmes offered.
“No. They talked and Straker told him he had nothing soft, yet strong enough to hobble Silver Blaze’s front legs, so he wouldn’t run off when Straker cut the back one. Simpson loaned him the cravat. Rope would leave a mark on Blaze’s front legs if he struggled. But a silk cravat…”
“Then why did Straker set the dog on him?”
“Maybe they were caught speaking together,” I shrugged. “Let us recall that Simpson is a well-known rogue in racing circles. I’m sure he would prefer being run off by a dog to having his plans come to light.”
“And why did the dog not bark when Simpson came back?”
“Because he didn’t. Why would he? Once he was sure of Straker and the tools were in place, all that remained was for Straker to lead Silver Blaze far enough onto the moor that he would not be heard if he screamed out at the cut. Remember that there were no witnesses placing Simpson at the scene of Straker’s death. It was only the presence of Simpson’s cravat that suggested his guilt.”
Holmes nodded his approval.
“The contents of Straker’s pockets paint the scene,” I continued. “He brought the candle to light his work, the cravat to secure the horse from bolting, and the knife to make his cut. But he must have done something wrong; he must have spooked the horse. Instead of getting rich, he got his brains kicked in.”
“Wait! So Silver Blaze did kick him to death?” said Holmes, recoiling.
“Well… yes.”
“Then he must answer for his crimes!” Holmes tottered cadaverously towards the terrified stallion, pointed an accusing finger in the poor horse’s face, and demanded, “Well, Murder Horse? How do you explain yourself?”
“Holmes, horses cannot—”
I was a fool not to see it coming. Holmes was utterly without governance that day, and would not shy from any expenditure of magic, no matter how pointless. Silver Blaze tossed his mane, thrust forward his massive jaw and said, “Explain it? Why should I be called upon to explain the operation of hearts and hooves that have felt the gentle touch of love and—so close thereupon—venomous and intimate betrayal? They are forces of nature, sir! If their ways are foreign to you, you would be better served to seek their secrets by gazing upon the delicate intricacies of the new-formed leaf than asking a simple sufferer, such as I.”
“Oh,” I noted. “That’s a fairly eloquent… horse.”
“Did you kill that man?” Holmes demanded, indicating Straker’s body.
“If I did, the transgression was slight compared to the one he offered me! Do you know what he meant to do? A cut on the leg—no great thing, it would seem. Yet to me, it was the destruction of my very identity—a way to rob me of that gift which makes me special. I gave him my heart, my body and my soul and see how he repaid it?”
My eyebrows went up. “So, you and Straker were…”
“We were together,” Silver Blaze confirmed. “True, for us there was no legal course towards matrimony—”
“Yes, and I shouldn’t hold my breath for one, I think…”
“But the heart will always know its home and I had found mine. Or so I thought. I knew not what secret delight he intended when he led me out upon the moor that night, but I flushed with exhilaration to discover it. I rather hoped he might wear his special dress.”
“Wait! Straker did purchase that dress for himself?” I cried.
Silver Blaze snorted. “He purchased it for my benefit, sir. A grand gesture, to impress himself upon my notice. And let me tell you: it worked. Oh, you should have seen him in it!”
“Sad,” said Holmes. “How very sad. Watson thinks Straker may have tried to lame you to secure funds to pay for that very dress.”
Silver Blaze recoiled. His mouth dropped open and for a moment he stood as dumb as… well… as I think horses ought to, if I’m honest. Then his great head drooped towards the floor and he muttered, “What a world.”
Holmes went to him and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. Blaze gave a great, equine sigh, sniffed back a tear and said, “It would almost have been worth it. Such an exquisitely crafted thing… By God, it made him look just like Catherine the Great.”
“But, Watson—”
“No! Off!”
“As you say, Watson,” said Holmes. Silver Blaze looked as if he wished to lodge a protest, but even as he began it the unseeable light of arcane possibility faded from the room and whatever words the wise horse had chosen emerged as a simple snort. Holmes stood staring into the depths of Silver Blaze’s dark, liquid eyes for a few moments. I could tell he was deeply moved, yet seemed to be struggling with an ethical dilemma. Finally, he spoke. “Very well, I shall forgive you. But it’s a very bad thing for a horse to do. Do you understand that? No murder! Bad horse! If you make a habit of it, I shall be cross with you. However, in view of the extenuating circumstances, you shall still be allowed to run in the Wessex Cup.”
“Actually, Holmes—”
“And I shall keep this wager in your name—”
“Holmes, there’s no—”
“Which I’m sure shall be the start of a life of magnificent fiscal irresponsibility—”
“Holmes!”
“No murder! Bad horse!”
“What do you want, Watson? I was talking to this horse.”
“It’s too late.”
“Eh?”
I pointed at the clock. “Too late. The gate has dropped. If the Wessex Cup is not over, it shall be in only a few seconds.”
“No!” Holmes cried out. The fire lit in his eyes again and swirls of the ashen dust rose and danced around him. “Unfair! We worked so hard!”
“But… well… at least we solved the mystery,” I stammered.
“Insufficient! Silver Blaze will run the Wessex Cup!”
“But, it’s too late! He didn’t!”
“He did!” Holmes roared. “Rhett Khan! Rhett Khan, mighty one, hear my call!”
“What? Who is Rhett Khan? Holmes, what are you—”
“A fact has occurred which displeases me!” Holmes intoned. “Undo it, Rhett Khan, and replace it with a better one!”
Holmes walked up to Silver Blaze and gave him a ceremonial bump on the snout, as if he were knighting him. Silver Blaze recoiled back in surprise and then…
Well…
…became a silver blaze. It was as if the flesh, muscle and bone dissolved from him. He became a being of living ether, of airy strands and silver mist. I could see all the way through him—see the ghostly muscles pulling phantom bones as the great, translucent heart thudded and strained. Then, he was gone.
“Holmes! What did you do?”
“Oh, I’ve got a demon friend who’s in charge of reality,” Holmes said. “I had him send Silver Blaze to the race. I look forward to news of his victory. I have confidence in him, Watson. He’s a good horse, notwithstanding that one murder.”
Holmes sagged. The exhaustion came over him suddenly, but with such totality that I almost feared he would fall down dead all over again. I ran to steady him. Our guests showed far less concern for Holmes than they did for his promises. Willow-Bark ran up before Holmes and challenged him. “Sorcerer! We have fulfilled our oath! Where is our payment? Where is our home?”
“Middlesbrough,” Holmes answered. “Go. You will find it. You should be drawn strongly thence, it being the only place on this earth you can exist, uninvited. Your contract is fulfilled.”
The tiny roars of triumph echoed off into the vastness of the obsidian skies for a moment, then silence took it all. The minor demons of Holmes’s impromptu parliament were gone. I couldn’t say I missed them, though I had rather hoped each of them might pick up a dead horse or a live sheep and take it with them.
“Holmes, this must be put to right.”
“Eh?”
“We can’t very well live in a surreal plane of ash with a pile of carcasses on our coffee table.”
“Why not? We’ve got three sheep, now, and all these horses.”
“Holmes…”
“Oh, very well, Watson,” he sighed. “It won’t be easy, you know. It tends to take more magic to undo a thing than it took to do it in the first place.”
This claim appeared to be true for, as he slowly cleared the bodies and restored our walls, he grunted and strained. He’d wave a hand at a thing that displeased him and it would instantly disappear, but he was left paler and shakier with each correction he made. When our rooms were at last restored, he was too weak even to speak to me. He gave me a look as if to say, “There,” then turned and staggered back to his bedroom and collapsed on his disgusting mattress.
He stayed there, unmoving, for a day and a half. I would have feared him dead, were it not for his ragged, panting breaths. It wasn’t until Thursday that I brought the paper into his room and told him, “You won.”
“Eh?”
“Or rather, Silver Blaze won.”
“Oh? Well, I must say, that’s glad tidings.”
“Sort of,” I said. “He was the overwhelming favorite, let us recall, and propriety fairly demands that you return the original bet to Lestrade.”
“Which would leave me?”
“A little less than four pounds.”
“Four? That’s hardly worth it.”
“What sum would you have preferred, Holmes? Need I remind you of your customary disregard for the value of money?”
“Ye gods! That’s right! I don’t care about money! Well… how am I to maintain a gambling addiction if I don’t care for the spoils?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“This is dashed inconvenient, Watson,” Holmes huffed. “Ah well, perhaps I’ll try the monocle.”
“I don’t see why not,” I said. “Yet, there is more to the matter, I’m afraid. Your victory was not without cost.”
Not only did Silver Blaze win the Wessex Cup, he has won every single horse race held in Great Britain since. As soon as the gate drops, one of the animals will buckle and vomit, collapsing in its gate as the spectral form of Silver Blaze erupts out of its body, bearing its surprised jockey on a nightmare ride to victory. He’s getting faster and faster, but ever less real.
The sensationalism of such events has, of course, rocked Britain and the world. It’s also somewhat spoiled the traditional betting custom, since the outcome of every race is now guaranteed. The only interesting things left to bet on are who will come second and which horse will be unfortunate enough to spawn the ghost of Silver Blaze.
With so much national attention focused on the case, it wasn’t long until the truth came to light. We gave my information to Lestrade, who wasted no time verifying most of it and solving the few details I had not accounted for. I was pleased to have guessed most of it correctly. Well… at least as far as the humans were concerned. Holmes was quick to point out my shortcomings. “You shall never truly be the greatest detective so long as the tender intricacies of the equine heart remain a mystery to you,” he said.
“Well then, Holmes, I wish never to be the greatest detective.”
As to the few details I’d missed, here is how they played out: Simpson, though unhappy to be caught in his attempted fraud, was nevertheless pleased to see his murder charges dropped.
The boot-black that had been applied to hide Silver Blaze’s identity proved to be the fault of Silas Brown, neighbor and bitter rival of Silver Blaze’s owner, Colonel Ross. Inspector Gregory eventually concluded that, after the botched hobbling, Blaze had roamed the moor until—scenting one of Brown’s mares in heat—he wandered into the stables. If he’d taken the time to get to know Silver Blaze as Holmes and I did, he’d have known this was a ridiculous supposition. Nevertheless, Silas Brown wasn’t long in realizing his windfall. The one horse who stood to beat his own contender had just wandered, unattended, into his hands. As soon as it became clear that nobody knew Blaze’s whereabouts, the temptation was such that Brown could not resist disguising the horse and deciding that maybe the best time to return him would be after the Wessex Cup.
We fooled him, I suppose.
&nb
sp; Yet, we’d done a great deal more than that. For the first time, I’d seen Holmes do real and permanent damage to the fabric of reality. Magic was now, irretrievably, in the public consciousness. The first sign that our world was unwell could be seen by anybody who cared to purchase a race ticket, anywhere in Britain. Holmes took this as a personal defeat. Often I would catch him reading the racing report with a pained expression on his face. “Help me remember, Watson,” he would say, “Rhett Khan-ing a thing always causes more problems than it solves.”
And there was more. The Williamson family crypt sits in a disused and disregarded cemetery in the country west of Middlesbrough. Once, the Williamson crypt was the pride of that humble place of rest—the only granite building in a field of modest limestone markers. Once, it was a repository of disused flesh, a home for dry bones. Now it is constantly alive with chirps and chitters and squeals.
Now, it is the house of parliament.
THE REIGATEWAY TO ANOTHER WORLD
AS I LAY IN SLUMBER ONE NIGHT IN EARLY SPRING, I WAS awakened by a muted clamor. I listened in case I was being summoned by Holmes, who often called me to help button his shirts and such—his mummified fingers had their limitations. But no, the only thing I could hear was an early spring storm just outside my window. The wind rattled the panes, and as it curled over the rooftops and around London’s irregular forest of chimneys, the wind took on that familiar, hollow muttering. It sounded like an old woman chiding herself or, on the occasion of a particularly potent gust, as if it were calling out, “Holmmmmmmmmes.”
I laughed at my fancy; night-time imagination can be a macabre thing. Yet the safety of a good bed is one of life’s greatest comforts and this benefit is increased, not diminished, by the sound of a storm whose winds cannot penetrate one’s sanctum. I pulled the blankets up around my shoulders, settled in and smiled.
For about six seconds.
Because, yes: the wind was absolutely, unequivocally calling Holmes’s name.