The Druid of Death - a Sherlock Holmes Adventure Read online

  As we entered the mortuary, I saw that Lestrade had already arrived and was deep in conversation with a veritable mountain of a man.

  Turning to us, he said, “So you are here at last. Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, allow me to introduce Dr. Jeffrey Brewitt.”

  Although I’ve remarked upon my friend’s height many times, Dr. Brewitt towered over Holmes, standing at least six inches taller than Holmes. After they had shaken hands, I stepped forward and said, “It is a great honor to meet you Dr. Brewitt. I found your article on proper post-mortems in the Lancet fascinating.”

  “We do what we can to spread light in a benighted world,” said Brewitt amiably. “But enough of that; you gentlemen came here to learn about this girl.” He led us to the table and pulled back the sheet to reveal the face of a woman in her early twenties. She had long fair hair and had likely been quite attractive when she was alive.

  “Doctor Brewitt,” said Holmes, “do you have any idea what the symbol on her forehead might mean?”

  Looking past Holmes, I saw that three lines had been painted inside a circle on her forehead in what looked to be blood. They converged at the top, just below her hairline.

  Here is a crude rendering.

  “Actually, I do, Mr. Holmes. That symbol is called the ‘awen.’ It is an ancient druidic symbol that is used to represent inspiration. Generally, it refers to those individuals - poets, musicians and the like - who have been touched or inspired.”

  “I must say, doctor,” said Holmes, “I am impressed by the breadth of your knowledge. From proper post-mortems to the symbols of ancient Celtic priests, are there any limits to your reservoirs?”

  “There are many,” replied Brewitt. “I know that symbol because my father was Irish and taught folklore, mythology and medieval literature at Trinity College. He was a bit disappointed that I didn’t follow in his footsteps.”

  “I can only say that etymology’s loss was physiology’s gain,” said Holmes.

  “You flatter me, Mr. Holmes. Unfortunately, that is the only symbol on which I can shed any light. The others are unknown to me.”

  “And the cause of death? Have you been able to ascertain that?”

  “She bled to death as the result of a very precise stab wound to her heart,” replied Brewitt. “The weapon may have been a very sharp knife or perhaps even a scalpel. Given that it punctured the heart, I would say that death was nearly instantaneous, perhaps a moment or two at the most.”

  “Well, at least she didn’t suffer terribly,” said Lestrade.

  “Do we know who she is?” asked Holmes.

  “Not yet,” replied Lestrade, “but we are working on it. You may rest assured.”

  Turning back to Brewitt, Holmes said, “I hope you will not take it amiss if I ask you to allow Dr. Watson to examine the body.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Holmes. I am as familiar with the doctor’s literary efforts as he is with mine.”

  Donning a pair of gloves and an apron, I pulled back the sheet and saw that other symbols had been painted on the right side of the woman’s abdomen, again in what I presumed to be her own blood.

  At the time, I had no idea what they meant, but I have tried to reproduce them faithfully in the event that a reader might recognize them.

  Holmes looked at me inquiringly. “They look vaguely familiar,” I said, “though, for the life of me, I cannot recall where I have seen them.”

  Holmes pulled a notebook from his pocket and reproduced the drawing as I have done here. When he had finished, he looked at us and said simply, “I feel a visit to the library at the British Museum is in order. You may continue here with Dr. Brewitt, and I shall meet you for dinner at Baker Street.” Then he shook hands with Lestrade and Dr. Brewitt and strode out of the room.

  “Well, that was a rather abrupt departure,” remarked Brewitt.

  “You must forgive Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade. “He’s a bit like a bulldog when he is working on a case. Once he is on the scent, as he appears to be now, nothing else seems to matter.

  “I’ll be heading back to the Yard,” continued Lestrade.

  “If you should discover anything, I should like to know it before Mr. Holmes,” said Lestrade, gazing at me pointedly. He concluded, “After all, I am the official detective assigned to this case.”

  Left to our own devices, Dr. Brewitt and I continued our examination of the body, which eventually yielded one surprising fact and one truly startling one.

  Chapter 3

  When I returned to Baker Street later that afternoon, I found Holmes curled up in his chair, pipe ablaze, with his fingers steepled under his chin.

  “So, have you had a productive afternoon?” I asked.

  “Indeed,” replied Holmes. “I spent much of it with a Dr. Steven Smith, an expert on Anglo-Irish literature and history.”

  “Judging from the fact that you are sitting here thinking, I would have to conclude that Dr. Smith was able to shed some light on the mysterious symbols on the young woman’s abdomen.”

  “Indeed,” replied Holmes. “Have you ever heard of ogham?”

  “No,” I replied. “What is it?”

  “According to Dr. Smith, the ancient Celts, more specifically the druids, devised an alphabet of some 20 characters. The letters themselves are fairly simple, being composed of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines in various combinations. Each letter is associated with a particular tree, and as a result, each carries an array of connotations that add layers of meaning to its usage.”

  “That might explain the yew tree branches that were placed around the body,” I said.

  “To a degree,” replied Holmes. “There are many ways to interpret the yew. One of which, oddly enough, is its signification of mystery.”

  “And are the letters on the girl ogham symbols?”

  “If you believe Dr. Smith, and I see no reason to doubt his veracity, they are.”

  “Was Dr. Smith able to decipher their meaning?”

  “Yes,” replied Holmes. “After consulting one of his reference books, he was able to translate them quite easily.”

  “And what is their meaning?”

  Holmes looked at me and pursing his lips, he said quietly, “Death.”

  “What does it all mean, Holmes? A dead girl marked with a druidic symbol and the letters of an obscure ancient Irish alphabet? And her body surrounded by yew branches?”

  “I cannot even essay an answer, Watson. We need more data. Who was the girl? Why create the appearance of a sacrifice? Where do the Gaelic symbols lead us? Unfortunately, we have far more questions than we have facts. You know my methods, Watson. We cannot even begin to theorize until we know a great deal more. Tell me, did your afternoon with Dr. Brewitt bear any fruit?”

  “I believe that it did.”

  Holmes looked at me expectantly as I paused to refill my pipe. “Get on with it, Watson!”

  “On the back of her neck, hidden by her hair, we discovered a small puncture mark.”

  “Have you any idea what caused the wound?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a wound, Holmes. Brewitt and I both agree that it was made by a hypodermic. It is quite possible the girl was drugged before she was slain.”

  “I must admit that does strike me as rather odd,” said Holmes. “A compassionate killer? Have you anything else to report?”

  “Yes, although the girl appeared to be a blonde, her hair had been dyed very recently. When we discovered the puncture wound, we could just see the beginning of her own color - a deep brown - starting to grow in. Also, whoever removed her organs would appear to have some knowledge of anatomy. The cuts were clean and precise...”

  Holmes finished my sentence for me, “as though they had been made with a scalpel?”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “My, my,” said Holmes, “To quote our old friend Mr. Dodgson, ‘Curiouser and curiouser’.”

  “What do you make of it, Holmes?”

  “I must know a great deal more before I could
even attempt to answer that question, Watson. What we have at the moment is a collection of odd facts. It remains to be seen exactly how they fit together.”

  To say I was disappointed in my friend’s response would be something of an understatement. I desperately wanted him to do something, but he seemed content to sit in his chair and smoke his pipe. Perhaps he was mulling over the various aspects, trying to assemble them in a rational whole. After a long silence, I bid him good night and headed off to bed.

  The next morning, I found that Holmes had already departed. After breakfasting alone, I caught up on my correspondence. Around noon, I heard my friend ascending the stairs.

  As he entered, I said, “You were up early.”

  “Yes, Lestrade sent a messenger to the house at seven o’clock to say that the dead girl had been positively identified.”

  “Well, that should help with your investigation,” I said.

  “I’m afraid not,” he replied. “It appears that her name was Annie Lock, and that she had run away from a Scottish orphanage. It also seems that she and another young woman were planning to set sail for Canada. As you know, the economic situation has forced thousands of young people to emigrate from Scotland to Canada in hopes of a better life. From what I know, once there, the young people are viewed as little more than a cheap source of farm labor and domestic help.”

  “Still,” I cried, “such a life is better than what befell her here.”

  “Yes,” said my friend. “In both Scotland and Canada, she might have been cruelly used, but she certainly didn’t deserve the fate she suffered at Stonehenge.”

  “Why do you say it ‘appears’ her name was Annie Lock?”

  “Consider,” said Holmes, “she had dyed her hair, perhaps in an effort to avoid detection. It seems only natural that she would change her name as well, does it not?”

  I had no answer for my friend.

  Over the next few weeks, with no new developments to claim the front pages of any of London’s papers, the case slowly faded from the public’s consciousness. I knew that Holmes had visited the various druidic societies in London and discovered that, for the most part, they were little more than well-meaning fraternal organizations. He summed up his efforts in those areas by saying, “There was nary a true pagan to be found.”

  As you might expect, Holmes was soon required to devote his attention to other, more pressing matters. I was glad to see my friend so busy, but I knew that in his free time, what little of it there was, he busied himself pursuing the few leads that came his way. Sadly, all of them, even the most promising, turned out to be dead ends. Trips to Salisbury to interview the girl’s few acquaintances proved fruitless as well.

  As the weather gradually warmed, we endured a rather wet April and a delightful May soon gave way to June. For at least six weeks, I had not heard Holmes, nor anyone else for that matter, utter the name of Annie Lock. In truth, I believe that she had slipped into the netherworld of half-forgotten memories. However, I soon learned that not everyone had dismissed the memory of the poor girl - at least not entirely.

  It was near the end of the second week of June that I returned home one evening after a busy afternoon spent covering for a colleague. I entered our lodgings and discovered my friend kneeling on the floor, lens in hand, examining a large map that he had spread out in the middle of the sitting room and anchored with various reference volumes along the edges and corners.

  He looked up as I entered. “Ah, Watson. I see Mrs. Eldridge has paid in kind again. I do hope this latest batch of preserves is better than her last.”

  “You see the bulge of the jelly jar in my coat pocket,” I exclaimed.

  “I might, if there were one to see,” Holmes replied placidly.

  Placing my hand in my empty pocket, I remembered that I had moved the jar from my pocket to my bag after I had been nearly knocked down on the street.

  “Confound it, Holmes. How could you possibly know?”

  He smiled and said simply, “Because I can see what you cannot.”

  “And what is it that I cannot see?” I asked, trying to contain myself.

  “A daub of orange on your collar. I can only conclude that Mrs. Eldridge made you sample her effort, and that neither of you noticed that a small portion had soiled your shirt.”

  “Well,” I laughed, “she has tried her hand at marmalade. As to whether it’s an improvement, I shall let you ascertain that at breakfast tomorrow. In the meantime, what is this map and what are you studying?”

  “I had Professor John Connors, the leading archaeological authority on the history of the British Isles, make this map for me.”

  “Never heard of him,” I remarked.

  “Perhaps you have heard of Augustus Pitt Rivers?”

  “You mean General Pitt Rivers? What military man hasn’t?”

  “Well, General Pitt Rivers, who authored ‘On the improvement of the rifle as a weapon for general use,’ followed his inclinations after leaving the army and became an archaeologist of no small repute. That same General Pitt Rivers has served as a mentor to John Connors, so we are drawing upon the top experts in the field.”

  “But to what end, exactly? What is that a map of? And what field?”

  “As you know, Stonehenge is not the only stone circle in Great Britain. In fact, according to Professor Connors, there are more than 1,000 such structures and they can be found in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales as well as the Channel Islands and Brittany.”

  “But why do you need such a map?”

  “The summer solstice is but ten days away. Although I pray that I am wrong...”

  “You anticipate another murder?”

  “Yes, Watson. I do not think that Annie Lock’s death was an isolated incident. If indeed, there is a cult of some sort at work here, I am hoping to prevent any future... sacrifices.”

  Holmes uttered the last word with an obvious distaste for the significance it carried.

  “And how do you plan to do that? The police cannot stake out more than 1,000 stone circles for an entire night in hopes of catching the perpetrators.”

  “Obviously. That is why I am trying to ascertain the most likely spots where such an incident might occur.”

  “And have you made any progress?”

  “That remains to be seen,” replied Holmes. “I am ill-suited for this type of work as I am merely grasping at straws. I am making nothing more than educated guesses, and I believe you know all too well how I feel about guessing.

  “At any rate, if our killer wishes to remain close to London, I should think the Rollright Stones located between Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, on the edge of the Cotswold Hills, might offer some appeal. According to Professor Connors, there are three different sites, each dating from a different period.

  “The oldest, the Whispering Knights dolmen, is believed to be from some 10,000 years ago.”

  “Dolmen?” I inquired.

  “I apologize, Watson. It’s just that I have become so steeped in these things that they are becoming second-nature to me. A dolmen is an above-ground tomb, made up of at least two vertical megaliths, or large stones, supporting a capstone, which acts as a sort of roof. The Rollright Stones are made up of the Whispering Knights dolmen; the King’s Men, a stone circle with more than 70 members; and the King Stone, a single monolith.”

  “And what has this to do with druids?”

  “Professor Connors informs me that similar circles can be found further north in the Lake District, including the Castlerigg Stone Circle. But I digress. Although the Rollright Stones is certainly one possibility, the stone circle at Avebury is less than 30 miles from Stonehenge. If I can persuade Lestrade to cover those two monuments - although I’m certain he is going to want to return to Stonehenge - you and I can travel north to keep watch on the Nine Ladies on Stanton Moor in Derbyshire. The Ladies were among the 28 archetypal monuments in England and Wales included in General Pitt-Rivers’ Schedule to the first Ancient Monuments Protection Act,
which became law in 1882. It was taken into state care the following year.”

  “My word, Holmes! You have been busy.”

  “Watson, there is an evil afoot, the likes of which I have seen only once before. We must do whatever is necessary to foil whatever plans it may be hatching, and if that includes a night on Stanton Moor, so be it.”

  And there again, I was privy to a glimpse behind the mask of indifference that my friend so often displayed to the world. I saw a man driven by a quest to right an unspeakable wrong. He was determined to catch the fiend who had killed Annie Lock before he or she could kill again. While the chase was important and his ego was involved, I knew that Holmes was spurred on more by a profound sense of justice than by any possibility of self-aggrandizement.

  Over the next few days, I saw little of Holmes, and I assumed that he was making arrangements with Lestrade to have the various stone circles kept under observation on the night of the summer solstice.

  The longest day of the year fell on a Wednesday, and the Monday before our trip, Holmes said to me “I want to leave as soon as possible tomorrow morning. I have found a small inn in Beeley, less than three miles from the circle. We will arrive as early as possible, lunch and then nap. Although it may be the shortest night of the year, I expect that we will find the waiting tedious and minutes turning to hours.”

  “I’ll be ready, Holmes.”

  “And one more thing, Watson. Do bring your service revolver. I don’t know what to expect, so I should like to be prepared for the worst.”

  Chapter 4

  We departed from St. Pancras at approximately 8 a.m. Tuesday. By noon, we had reached the village of Matlock where we procured the services of a carriage to take us to Beeley. After a light lunch at the inn, we both retired to our rooms. The heat was oppressive, and I soon fell into a sound asleep. I was awakened by a gentle rapping on my door.

  “Come in,” I said.

  “I hope you are well rested, Watson. I fear that we have a long night ahead of us.”