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Introduction by Sir Sherrinford Holmes, Baronet
This was the last case that Holmes undertook that fateful year, after three that would later be written up as The Three Gables, The Illustrious Client and The Red Circle. Kean and I saw little of him at this time, but I knew that he was facing his greatest challenge yet; working out a way to approach Watson about a matter that involved the one thing that was anathema to the great detective, in which he would have to use the dreaded f-word. Feelings. Kean is right. Those pigs should not be allowed to fly over a built-up area.
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Narration by Doctor John Hamish Watson, M.D. Something was wrong.Ever since the horrible and nearly fatal ending to our adventure later written up as The Three Garridebs, Holmes had changed in his attitude towards me. Before I had nearly met my end at the hand of the criminal Evans, he had seemed to regard me as a convenient whetstone on which to sharpen his mind from time to time (I had particularly resented one newspaper columnist who had quipped that he kept me around because I was sure to always suspect the wrong person, and so eliminate them from his inquiries). But now he was... different. And it really annoyed me that I could not put my finger on just how.I should have been able to work out what was happening; I was after all in a profession that entailed me piecing together what was happening from the 'evidence' supplied to me by my patients, and I worked with Holmes so I should surely have acquired some skills somewhere by now. But my few observations just did not add up. Holmes went to the gymnasium much more than he had done since the Garrideb case, took more walks and even did exercises in his room, for what reason I knew not. He also seemed a lot more considerate in asking for rather than presuming my assistance (such as it was) on his adventures. I had asked Mrs. Hudson if she had noticed anything, but she had just smiled knowingly and said nothing. Very odd.
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One of the great characteristics of my friend was that he was willing to undertake tasks for friends and colleagues, which led to this case, about the only one which was not directly referenced in my published works except for a passing mention about a Mr. Wainwright who was an artist. No-one remarked about this, which was perhaps a pity as it also answered one observation of some 'Sherlockians' that it was a pity dear Mrs. Hudson never had a case for us to solve. In this instance she did, but the nature of the actual client precluded it from being published at the time although I am writing it up like so many others in the hope that it later may be.Our illustrious landlady had been born Miss Margaret Wainwright, her family haling from Caithness right at the top of mainland Britain. That part of the country is of course renowned for being latecomers to the Scottish Kingdom, since along with Sutherland ('the south land'), Orkney and Shetland it was for many years a Viking territory. Mrs. Hudson's brother Angus had married a local lady and had three sons of whom the youngest was a Mr. Joseph Wainwright, at the time of this story some forty years of age. That name will in itself mean nothing to people, but those living around the turn of the century will most certainly remember his artistic work as 'Banquo', a strange fusion of several different styles that entranced London society. Had they known that a humble Highland police sergeant was behind such work they would doubtless have had a conniption, and I later learnt that Holmes had helped our landlady's nephew with the mild subterfuge.The previous day Mrs. Hudson had come into our rooms and informed us that her nephew, whom we knew was a sergeant in the Caithness Constabulary, was investigating a Most Serious Crime (she was one of those ladies who could enunciate capital letters) and that he would welcome our assistance. We had therefore taken the Night Sleeper to Edinburgh, a semi-fast train to Perth, and then a dreadfully slow Highland Railway train onwards. We were, I supposed, fortunate in that the direct Aviemore to Inverness line had opened the year before, cutting over twenty miles off our journey, even if it did not feel like it.
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If Mr. Herbert George Wells was right and there was indeed life on the Red Planet, I thought, then it should come here. It would feel right at home. Only the gentle swaying of the train as we made our unhurried way across the tundra suggested anything akin to civilization, and it seemed an eternity since the last station or sign of human activity. Our distant northerly latitudes meant that the grey light was still strong as our train juddered to a halt at Dunlochlann Halt, a decrepit one-platform affair whose pitiful windswept condition matched our exhausted moods.The artistic Sergeant Wainwright was waiting for us in a cab ready to take us to the scene of the crime at Foulkes Rath, the largest house in the area. The sergeant was a huge red-haired fellow who looked nothing like the bohemian artist I had pictured 'Banquo' to be and everything like an ancient Highland warrior. He thanked Holmes for his assistance in keeping his identity from the vultures of the press and said that we would find this case 'a challenge'.“Why?” Holmes asked. The sleeper train had only provided tea, not the coffee he had preferred as of late, and he had been tetchy all day. A cup of something that had called itself coffee but had smelled like ditch-water, which I had snaffled during our brief pause at Inverness, had not helped.“Aunt Margaret said the stranger the case, the better as far as you were concerned, sirs”, he told me. “And when we got a case like this, with a man apparently murdered by his own son... well!”(I really could not match 'Aunt Margaret' with our own Mrs. Hudson, who was absolutely nothing like her nephew).The great house was situated close to the railway line – indeed, it was one of only four buildings I could make out in the evening light, and presumably the main reason for the halt. The sergeant kindly suggested that we should be shown to our rooms in order to freshen up, and I took the opportunity to send a message to the kitchen for refreshments. Some little time later we were shown into the room where the body had been found. Holmes looked around disapprovingly.“A herd of elephants might as well have come through!” he snorted, sitting gently in one of the huge armchairs. “Still, at least you can fill us in on what happened, sergeant, and where better than here?”The policeman nodded. “This place and all the land around is owned by the Urquharts”, he said, “no better but no worse that many, I suppose. We have always been isolated this far north; the railway only reached us just three decades back. The halt was provided in return for access onwards, as is often the case. There are no paved roads but a track runs round via the lochs to Halkirk, which is just over a mile away and the next station towards Wick.”“The dead man is – was – Mr. Angus Urquhart, the lord of the manor. He had assembled a small gathering to mark his seventieth birthday, which was on the seventeenth. All seemed well until a message arrived, at just before a quarter to eight....”“How do you know that? Holmes cut in.“The butler, Turner, took the message in and he remembered that the clock struck just after.”“Very observant of him”, Holmes said. “Pray continue.”“Mr. Angus and his guests were just finishing dinner and about to adjourn for some port and a few turns at cards”, the sergeant said. “No-one said he reacted at all to the message, and he took it to his study, I suppose to lock it away. When he did not come back to the party his eldest son Mr. Fergus came looking for him. And he found him – stabbed!”The sergeant reached into his long sock and produced what I assumed was his own skean-dhu. It was similar to a dagger, just under a foot long and with an engraved blade. I shuddered at the sight of it.“This is my own personal weapon ”, he said, “but it is about the same size as the one found by Mr. Angus. And that weapon, gentlemen, was the property of Mr. Fergus. The new lord of the manor.”“Ah”, Holmes said.“You see my point”, the sergeant said grimly. “Mr. Fergus had motive; he is heir to the estate. He had means; the weapon found at the scene of the crime. And he had the opportunity, as he was there.”“Yet the fact that we are here at the far and very cold end of Great Britain suggests that you do not think him guilty”, Holmes said. “Why?”The sergeant scratched his head.“Don't really know”, he admitted ruefully. “It just seems a bit too neat. Mr. Fergus denies it but it looks very bad. And then there was the note.”“What note?” Holmes asked.The sergeant handed over a piece of writing-paper to Holmes, and I leaned across to read it. It said 'Fergus – a killer?', and was underlined twice. Holmes frowned.“Did you tackle Mr. Fergus Urquhart about this?” he asked.“I asked if there was anything in his past that would have merited such a claim”, the sergeant said. “He hummed and hahed a bit, but eventually admitted that he had killed one of those witch-doctors whilst he was in Africa a few years back. The guy had ordered seven children from a village to be put to death 'to appease the spirits', and was charging at him with a knife when he tried to stop him. One bullet put a stop to that sort of nonsense.”“So Mr. Fergus is a doctor?” I asked.“As is his son”, the sergeant said. “Mr. Fergus is chief medico at the surgery up in Thurso, whilst his son Mr. Francis is based in Halkirk, the nest stop down the line, and does all the countryside hereabouts. The victim had three other children, two sons and a daughter. Mr. Douglas is away in London just now, and Mr. Donald is over in Norway. Miss Margaret lives in the United States somewhere with her husband; Florida I think.”“That will of course have to be confirmed”, Holmes said. “Does Mr. Douglas have any children?”“He married three years back, sir, to a Dutch lady. They had two children before they separated. Very bad, it was; she went back to her country, but he got custody.”“Who else was here at the time of the murder?” Holmes asked.“Apart from the servants, just two”, the sergeant said. “Mr. Aedh Macleod, the estate manager, and Mr. Michael Stirling, Lord Angus' legal man. I have my doubts about Mr. Macleod. He was known to have disagreed with the victim over the way he wanted the estate run. And he is one of those fellows who always thinks that he knows best.”“Atbara!” I suddenly exclaimed. Both Holmes and the sergeant looked at me as if they thought that I had gone mad but were too polite to say.“That is where I saw the name Urquhart in the newspapers!” I told them. “'Ninety-Eight, the decisive battle against the Mahdists. We only lost twenty-six men but there was an Urquhart amongst them, and I remember the article saying that he was the last of his line.”“That would have been Major Beauchamp Urquhart”, the sergeant said. “Yes, I wondered about that especially with events here. Clan Urquhart has no leader just now, so the different branches have been manoeuvring to state their claims. Mr. Stirling did say he had been called here a lot in recent times, though of course he would not go into details.”“Quite right and proper”, Holmes said. “How and when was the body discovered?”“There is no telegraph office here of course”, the sergeant said, “so they have an arrangement that messages go to Halkirk and then get sent back from there. But the telegraph line is down just now, so I understand that they are sending the messages to Helmsdale, way back down the line, and they are then sent up on the next train to Halkirk and distributed from there. This telegram, along with two others, came up on the evening goods train. I talked with the stationmaster at Halkirk, and he says that the other two messages were both for Thurso, so he let them go on, stamped the one for here as received and sent his son out with it.”“I do not suppose that the butler succumbed to the sin of human curiosity and looked at it?” Holmes asked. The sergeant grinned.“He did not, but the boy saw who it was from”, he said. “I tracked the name to a firm of the top lawyers in London. It seemed that Mr. Angus was thinking his own fellow was not up to the job.”“If Mr. Stirling knew or suspected that fact, then that gives him motive as well”, Holmes said. “What happened next?”“The three others went to the billiard-room and played a few games before the absence of their host was remarked upon”, the sergeant said. “It was sometime between half-past eight and a quarter to nine before Mr. Fergus went to see what was holding him up. He claims that he found his father dead, with the skean-dhu lying next to him. He not unnaturally picked it up – and Turner chose that moment to appear! Talk about bad luck! The butler had just served drinks to the other gentlemen and had gone to see what if anything Mr. Fergus wanted. He thinks that the fellow was only out of the room for about a minute before he followed him, but he cannot be sure about that. It may have been a little longer.”“And then?” Holmes prompted.“A servant was dispatched to ride to Doctor Francis in Halkirk and he got here about an hour later. He examined the body and estimated the time of death to be around eight thirty, around when his father had entered the room – he had no way of knowing that of course. It appeared that the dead man may have been chloroformed before being stabbed, from some cloth found caught in his beard. The doctor said that death would have been almost instantaneous from the location of the wound.”Something a doctor like the victim's son would know, I thought.“The telegram?” I asked.“That was the other odd part”, the sergeant said. “Mr. Angus apparently set his own fire – Turner told me that he hardly ever did that – and it was burning merrily when the butler entered the room. He said that the place was stiflingly hot, so it had to have been going for a while. As we could not find it I presume that the telegram went up in smoke, though what was on it we will never know.”“The London lawyers might tell us, once they understand that it is part of a murder investigation”, Holmes said. “You were right to call us in, sergeant. This really is a most interesting case. Of course the solution is fairly obvious but I will need to spend a day checking my facts.”We both stared at him.“Obvious?” the sergeant said at last. “How? Who?”“I hope that Mr. Fergus can accommodate us for another night, even though he is the one under suspicion”, Holmes said. “Of course”, the sergeant said, looking at him suspiciously. “I will go and arrange things.”He left. “You know who did it?” I asked.“I can be fairly certain”, he said. “However, I would still like to check my facts. And I really would like some sleep; these long northern days play havoc with my poor body's sense of time.”
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After breakfast we were met by the sergeant.“There has been a Development, sirs”, he said, sounding almost mournful about it.“What has happened?” I asked.“Someone has stolen a bottle of chloroform from Doctor Francis Urquhart's surgery”, Holmes said. The sergeant stared at him in shock.“How the blazes did you know that?” he demanded. “I just came straight from Halkirk!”“Because it is what I expected to happen”, Holmes said frankly. “I assume that he told you when he discovered the loss this morning?”“He did”, the sergeant said, looking suspiciously at my friend. “Professional job too; from the looks of things they used a lock-pick and they even managed to re-lock the cupboard after themselves then polished over the scratches they made. The doctor only found it because he needed something from the cupboard for one of today's patients; he opens it as and when, once a week on average he reckons.”“Excellent!” Holmes beamed. “That is exactly what I hoped would happen. The doctor and I intend to do some sight-seeing today whilst I await certain important information that I have requested, but this evening we will with your assistance attempt a reconstruction of the crime. By the way, who has access to Doctor Francis Urquhart's surgery?”“His family of course, and the Macleods – our MacLeods - who live next door but one. The doctor is a bit forgetful and has locked himself out of his own house on more than one occasion. Mrs. Macleod keeps a spare key for him.”“Interesting”, Holmes smiled. “Come, doctor. We have one call to make, then I fancy taking a carriage to the tourist trap that John o' Groats undoubtedly is, so that we may claim to have stood at the end of Great Britain.”The sergeant looked a little annoyed, but clearly reckoned (correctly) that Holmes would help him only when he was ready. I went to get my stick.
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We went to the station, and Holmes spent some time examining both the platform and trackbed before a northbound train drew in and stuttered to a halt. Apart from the four houses that comprised the hamlet of Dunlochlann the empty tundra stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions, and I was reminded that this was how the whole island of Great Britain must once have looked back in the Ice Age. And if the scientists were right, would one day look again. Hopefully many years into the future.To my surprise we only went one stop before alighting at Halkirk, where Holmes asked to see the boy who had brought the message to the house that night. The stationmaster Terence Macleod (no relation to the estate manager) looked uncertain at this, but was reassured when Holmes insisted that he remain for what would only be a short interview. His son Hugh was a wiry twelve-year-old boy who clearly feared the worst, judging from his slight shaking.“You strike me as an observant young lad”, Holmes said. “I assume from what I have seen that you walked down the line to take the message to the house?”“I did, sir”, the boy said politely. “The road round is nearly twice as far, and I knew that if I got there quick enough I could catch the last train back.”“What happened when you handed over your telegram?” Holmes asked.The boy glanced nervously at his father, who nodded.“Mr. Turner, sir, he took it to the master, and he came back almost at once. No reply, he said, and gave me threepence for my trouble. I was back at the station just as the train was coming in.”Holmes nodded and leant forward.“Did anyone else get on the train?” The boy hesitated but shook his head. Holmes frowned.“The truth please, Master Macleod!” he said firmly.“I heard someone walking on the gravel, and a door shut”, the boy said quietly. “I thought someone was just hitching a ride like me. Mr. Ross – the stationmaster – he doesn't mind if I do it. Honest!”Holmes nodded. “Thank you”, he smiled. “The doctor and I need to explore your station yard for a time, but you have been most helpful.”He pressed a florin into the surprised boy's hand, smiled at him then led me out. “What are we looking for?” I asked. “That”, he said, gesturing to a lone siding with a few wind-scarred trucks sitting forlornly in it.”“A line of trucks?” I queried, feeling totally lost.He did not answer, but led me down the platform ramp and across the tracks until we were round behind the trucks. Beyond the siding were a couple of dilapidated sheds, which Holmes seemed to find fascinating, and I found.... not. Whatever he was looking for, he clearly found it if his expression was anything to go by.“Come”, he said. “We shall hire a carriage in this town and drive to the end of the world for the day, then return and set Sergeant Wainwright's mind at rest. But we shall pay a short call first.”
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Holmes's short call was barely five minutes, to the surgery of Doctor Francis Urquhart to presumably ask more questions about that stolen chloroform. When he returned he was still smiling which I took to be a good sign.It was a lovely day and mercifully the gusty winds of the day before had abated. Holmes drove us to the town of Wick first, where we had an early lunch before heading north. I had been frankly surprised at my friend for wanting to visit John o' Groats, somewhere I had once mentioned that I would like to see, and it turned out to be one of those villages which seemed to go on forever. It was memorable to stand there with him, thinking that there was nine hundred miles between us and Land's End in Cornwall. We then adjourned to spend the afternoon in Thurso, a quaint little town with some pleasant shops. I was sorry to leave it but I felt a rising sense of anticipation as we moved on to the stables in Halkirk, to find the sergeant waiting impatiently for us.“Thank you for your forbearance, sergeant”, Holmes smiled. “I will now attempt to show you how the murder was perpetrated. I am afraid it will involve a good deal of travelling, but it should prove conclusive.”He returned the carriage, and I was surprised when he emerged with three fresh horses. We each mounted one and he led us down to a quiet side-road. “Our murderer planned this very thoroughly”, he said softly. “He begins by leaving Halkirk and walking to Dunlochlann along the back roads. He knows the area well, so he is able to avoid being seen. Fortunately it rained the night before the murder and from the ground has been dry since. If you and your men follow this road, sergeant, you may still find footprints.”“Why not use the railway track?” the sergeant asked. “It is much quicker.”“As I said, he could not risk being seen”, Holmes explained, “and the railway is much more open than the roads. Since we do not wish to trample on potential evidence, we will afford ourselves that convenience.”He turned his horse and led us back and then down another road, which intersected with the railway track. He turned onto it, and headed down the single-track line back to Dunlochlann. Some way before the halt he turned off the tracks and rode under one of the few trees in this barren landscape. We pulled in alongside him.“The road ahead is the one from Halkirk”, he said, pointing to where a barely-passable dirt track crossed the line a short distance ahead of us. “We shall leave the horses here and take that road. I believe that our murderer, thinking there was an outside chance of his being seen even in this remote spot, would have cut across the fields to the house in order to kill Mr. Angus Urquhart.”“Who was it?” the sergeant pressed.“His grandson, Doctor Francis Urquhart.”The sergeant stared at Holmes as if he had gone mad.“How the blazes did he kill him before he even got there?” he demanded. “That's impossible!”Holmes pulled out his watch and looked at it.“That evening, a goods train brings the telegram which, so we first thought, had a bearing on this case”, he said. “In truth it had none, but the killer was able to use it to his advantage. The goods train reaches Halkirk at around twenty minutes past seven...”“Wait a minute”, I said. “Why did the driver not give the message to the stationmaster at Dunlochlann when he stopped there?”“Because he would only hand it over to where he knew there was a telegraph office that could stamp it as received”, Holmes explained. “If it had gone astray, he might risk losing his job. The practice is technically unlawful, but the railway company will turn a blind eye as long as nothing goes missing. The line to Halkirk telegraph office may be out of action, but they can still stamp inbound telegrams as received.”“Oh”, I said. “I see.”“The train reaches Halkirk shortly before half-past seven, and the telegram is handed over”, Holmes went on. The stationmaster sends his son back down the tracks with it, knowing that there are no trains due before that his son can catch the last train of the day back. Plus with the days as long as they are this far North, it will not be dark. Doctor Francis is headed in the same direction, most fortunately for him on the back roads. I estimate that he must have seen the boy go up to the front of the house from his route, but his own destination was the back.”“Matters play right into his hands. On reading the telegram, which was probably only clarification of some small legal point, Mr. Angus Urquhart adjourns to his study to think matters over. It must have been incredibly close, for I estimate that his grandson must have reached the back entrance to that study at almost the exact same time. He sees that his grandfather is alone, and knocks at the glass. His grandfather is surprised but of course admits him. It is relatively easy for the doctor to first chloroform him, then stab him. The only danger is that someone may interrupt them, but as he intends to frame his father for his grandfather's death, he is prepared to risk all for such high stakes.”“What?” the sergeant exclaimed.“Who else would have access to his father's skean-dhu?” Holmes asked. “He lays and stokes up the fire, because it is better that the body temperature be kept high to imply a later death even though he intends to be the one to examine the body. He reads the telegram and sees an opportunity to include it in his plan, throwing it on the fire. Its disappearance will only confuse matters, and even if the London lawyers reveal what was in it the police may think that the message contained some hidden meaning. He then leaves and heads back across the fields and round to the station. It is approximately five minutes past eight.”“Moments later, the last passenger train of the day arrives at Dunlochlann Station. It is only a single platform, so it is easy for the doctor to slip around the blind side of the train and get himself into a carriage at the back. The Highland Railway has not yet adopted corridor trains, so there Is no way that the conductor can reach him before the next station where he will alight. He duly does this at Halkirk, departing the train again on the blind side and slipping behind the trucks into the siding. If you go and look there, sergeant, you will find a rather distinctive set of footprints which you should be able to link to Doctor Francis' boots.”“Next, he strolls back to the surgery making a point of calling in briefly at the local tavern. He meets the boy who bears the news that his grandfather had been brutally murdered. Shocked, he rides to the scene and is able to claim that the murder happened at least half an hour after it actually did, at a time when he was in Halkirk. The perfect alibi. Not forgetting the written note.”“But that pointed at his father”, I said. “'Fergus - a killer?'” Holmes shook his head.“That may be what hangs him”, he said. “The note itself was written by Dr. Francis on a sheet of paper he had extracted from his grandfather's writing-desk one day. But he wrote the message using his own pen at his house. Unfortunately he did not realize that whilst he used black ink, his father preferred dark blue.”“I'll get him!” the sergeant said firmly.
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He did. As well as the footprints Holmes had found in the siding at Halkirk, more were found not only down the road from Halkirk to Dunlochlann, but also on the gravel outside the dead man's study and, most incriminating of all, a partial footprint from where he had hauled the body across to the fire. He denied it at first, but when his father disowned him it seemed to break him, and he confessed all. I felt sorry for his young family, who had to cope with the loss of their provider, but it was justice. A life for a life.
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I must admit that I was a little surprised that Holmes chose to break our journey home at Inverness for two days, even though the little town was rather charming, but I assumed that he had his reasons. He did, as I would soon find out. We were walking down the High Street when I noticed something. His recent regimen change had led to him looking a lot better, and there were two ladies across the road looking at him in a manner that was quite unbecoming of their class. I moved round and into their line of sight, which visibly annoyed them.We continued along and came to a kilt shop. Despite my general disinterest in my Scots heritage I was overcome with a sudden urge to have one. Of course it was not that simple; it turned out that there were several Campbell tartans and if I wanted the correct one – the salesman looked at me in horror when I asked why this was important, as if I had committed some unimaginable crime against Caledonia – I would have to have it made especially and posted to me in London. Fortunately he was able to locate the correct one from my mother's birth-town of Jedburgh.I asked Holmes if he had any Scottish blood in his family.“My mother's great-grandmother was an Ulster MacDonnell, originally from the Isle of Jura”, he said. “I believe that her family crossed the North Channel as part of King James the First's Ulster Plantation.”The salesman looked at him in surprise, then at me before scurrying away. “What is his problem?” I wondered. Holmes chuckled.“The MacDonnells are a branch of the Scottish MacDonalds”, he explained, “some of whose brethren were done to death on the orders of a Campbell in Glencoe back in 1692. Scots have long memories over such things.”I shuddered, reminded of that terrible atrocity perpetrated in the name of William of Orange. Fortunately the salesman chose that moment to return with a mostly reddish tartan, which turned out to be that of the MacDonnells. As they had it in Holmes' size he decided to try it on. I skulked around the shop, trying to avoid what I was sure was the salesman's disapproving look. I could not help my ancestors! A cough from behind me told me Holmes was ready. I turned round, and.....Oh. My. God!“That looks good on you”, I managed.He looked at me in surprise, then smiled knowingly.“I may not be a true Scotsman”, he whispered in my ear, “but I am not wearing anything underneath it!”'Englishman dies of aneurysm in Highland shop'. Hopefully the ”Times” would think my passing might merit the front few pages.I had of course a learned man's appreciation for the male form, but I had never looked at my friend like..... well, never like..... you know what I mean!Yes you do!
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