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A mystery: the unresolved crime of ages ago
Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Scarlet Star
- Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Scarlet Star -
It was in early autumn, on a foggy London day if ever there was one, when I was attempting without any real or proper success to tidy up ever so slightly the living space of my dear friend and partner in the business of detection, mister Sherlock Holmes. He sat glumly in his favorite chair, staring out of the window that overlooked the street below, smoking his pipe and muttering things to himself that were just out of my hearing range. “Leave those papers there, Watson!” he suddenly exclaimed, and I felt a slight amazement that he knew precisely which papers I was attempting to move. He continued, saying: “Those are the records of some of my more interesting recent cases, and I should like to review a few of their details when time permits. The facts circled in red are particularly intriguing, and seem to be near common in almost all criminal ventures. If I am ever to understand the criminal mind, I should think it prudent to comprehend those similarities in all criminal thinking.” Surely enough, the papers I held in my hands all had details circled in red upon them. I sighed, and said to my friend: “But Holmes, how on Earth could you have known which papers I was moving, being as deep in thought and across the whole of the room as you are?” To which he stated, without emotion: “My hearing, Watson, is quite keen as you should well have noted by now. I could tell which direction the rustling of the papers came from as you scooped them up into your hands... and also reasoned that as they are the largest pile upon my desk at present, from all I know of you I was right to conclude that you would be drawn to them first should you wish to clean things up a bit. I do not mind a bit of organization, Watson, but those papers I would prefer to sort and tend to myself.” I placed the pile back on the desk, more neatly as a proper stack this time rather than a pile in the usual sense of the world, and exasperatedly declared: “You do this every single time I try to put things in order here. Every single time! It is infuriating sometimes.” And lastly did Holmes retort: “Infuriating? Perhaps. But necessary! There is not a thing here which does not have some measure of significance either in placement or in purpose.” and after that he went back to a state of brooding once more. Upon what, I could never hope to guess, as the man was sometimes... difficult.
That was about when there was an unexpected knock upon the door. I rushed to answer it, whilst all at once Holmes sprang up and darted to his desk in an attempt to make himself look professional. Since he was already dressed for business, this did not take much effort on his part. For my part, I opened the door and before me stood a middle-aged gentleman with slicked back black hair and a swarthy face that I would have guessed marked him as hailing from somewhere in the Mediterranean. He spoke in most perfect English with no accent, however, as he stated: “Greetings to you, sir! I am looking to meet with the consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. Might you be he?” to which I chuckled and explained to the fellow: “No, I most certainly am not the man you seek! That would be my partner... the man sitting at the desk over there.” and I pointed to Holmes as I welcomed the stranger into the office. Such as it was. The man sat down in a chair across the desk from my friend, removed his wide brimmed hat, and neatly placed it on his lap as he looked Holmes in the eye and said to him calmly but with a hint of care in his words: “Good sir! I am in need of the services of a discreet detective, a man who would not mind at all taking on a case that the police might deem to be too peculiar to deal with.” Holmes returned his gaze, studying the man carefully as was his want as he replied with as close to warmth as my friend could so hope to mimic: “If the case interests me, I would be happy to oblige you, sir. However, you have yet to tell me your name! I prefer to know the names of my clients, as well as the details of the case, before I consider taking such on. You seem calm but concerned over something. What is weighing upon you?” And as he said that, the man frowned as his lower lip quivered a bit. Was it fear or sorrow? I could not be certain as I observed his and Holmes' meeting. The man then stated: “My name is Hector, sir. Hector Artino. My family came from Greece originally, but I have lived in England all my life despite that my parents were both immigrants. I have tried to fit in well enough, but sometimes old things follow you.”
“What sort of things, Hector?” asked the detective. Hector then answered nervously: “Bad things, sir! Bad things. My sister, Carissa, seems to have disappeared, and myself and my parents... old as they are, and quite infirm... have no way of knowing where it is she has gone. She did not run away, you see! All of her clothes, jewelry, belongings and money are all accounted for at our house. Her room appears just about untouched as if she merely stepped out for a moment, and nothing is amiss about it at all. But all the same, she is gone. The only thing to note is that her bedroom window was open. Very strange, and I can only assume she climbed out the window and left that way. But why! And where has she gone to?” Holmes then smiled, a strange look for his serious face, and asked: “And... what, is so peculiar that you could not go to the police with this? If she has been gone for more than several days, then it is clearly a missing person case, which most definitely falls within the sort of casework that the police deal with on a sadly all too regular basis at times. Why come to me in particular about it? So far, this does not truly interest me at all, I am sad to admit.” Hector's composure nearly broke I noticed, as he said finally: “It is in the details, sir! The Devil is in the details, perhaps literally. You see... a pentagram drawn in blood was left beneath the window. There were no hand prints, and nothing to indicate that it was there prior to my sister climbing out of the window... else the blood would surely have been disturbed or smudged. And the design of the pentagram is all too frighteningly perfect! Someone had to have left it there after Carissa left. If she was kidnapped, it may have been left by whoever took her. A warning to us, perhaps. To my family! Or to me. Is this all peculiar enough to warrant your involvement?” Clearly, this Hector fellow was quite intelligent to deduce certain facts about his sister's disappearance. That did not bode well, given he felt this was beyond his ability to deal with himself. I walked over and said to Homes: “I must admit, Holmes, this case does sound quite strange! And, rather diabolical. What say you... should we take it, or leave it to the police after all?” Holmes rubbed his temples, the cogs of his machine-like intellect already beginning to turn as he said: “Very well, mister Artino, I will be happy to take on your case! Give me your address and the details of what your house looks like so I can find it, and I will be on the case as swiftly as your Greek god Hermes himself.” They shook on it, and Hector give both his address and a full description of his family's residence. It was more than enough to get us well started.
The Artino house was a long way outside of London, in that part of the countryside where the natural landscape was beginning to be overtaken by the dawning of the age of industry. Factories belched their smoke to the heavens, but still there were woods in places, dark and strange... where all manner of dire crimes might be able to be undertaken without too much notice. Holmes remarked upon this whilst we traveled by carriage to our destination, the driver paid the fare necessary to take us hither. He said, in a musing sort of way, as he gazed out the carriage window: “Those woods, Watson... they are evil woods. Not in the supernatural sense, mind, but in the far worse sense that every conceivable sort of horror can occur in such places, away from prying eyes. I like such places not, John. But... you know that.” I had to agree, I had no love for such parts of the land either. It was not the wildness of nature that I disliked, as I knew Holmes also did not wholly dislike it. It was the human capacity for evil, and what places such as this brought out in evil men and women at times... that was what made such places so sinister. Once we arrived at the house, we found it remarkable how large it was. Easily a mansion, of the sort I doubt a man with an ordinary job could afford... let alone immigrants who have only been in the country for so short a span of time as Hector's family seemed to have been. “Holmes, I daresay I do not believe that at any point did our client tell us just what it is he does for a living! But whatever it may be, he must truly be doing phenomenally well for himself.” To which Holmes retorted: “Or, he has earned his wage by a means less common but more lucrative. And possibly, illegal. Whatever it may be, we shall I doubt not, soon discover. Come, Watson! Let us hasten to the front door and do the polite thing.” He meant, knock naturally. At least we did not have to pick the lock... although, my colleague was not above doing such.
The house was surrounded by woods on all sides... not for a far distance though. It was a small stretch of woods that filled the property on which the mansion was built, an indication that these people valued well their privacy. Or, that they perchance had something they wished to keep private. Holmes knocked on the sturdy oak door. The house was gray, somber, and dreary looking. Made worse by the fact that at the hour and on the day we arrived at it, the sky was gloomy from a recent rainstorm. We waited, as no one answered immediately. “Do you think we may have to pick the lock after all, Holmes?” I jokingly said. My friend replied mirthlessly: “No, John, I believe we can afford to be patient... at least this time.” Soon, there were footsteps and sure enough Hector answered the door for us, having arrived ahead of us likely also by carriage. He smiled, welcomed us in, and showed us to his sister's bedroom. It was just as the man had reported it, bloody pentagram beneath the window and all. It was not smudged, nor spoiled in any way. Even if someone had climbed in to paint it... how did they leave without disturbing it? This I asked of my colleague, and the detective answered: “There can be many reasons... or just one that at the last makes logical sense. I shall presently attempt to determine the logic, the how, and the why of all of this as best as I may.” He walked over to the scarlet symbol and examined it closely with his portable magnifying lens, which he held in his hand as he studied the symbol, the window, and the floor beneath it. He pointed to the carpeting, noting where it was indented in two places. Two places that had to them the look of shoe prints. “See, Watson! A man's shoes made these indents... the prints are too large for a woman's shoes to have made. And why would Hector's sister have been wearing shoes at all unless she was expecting to go somewhere? But that is indeed the strange thing! There are no indents on the floor from her shoes at all. Nothing is disturbed in any way. It is almost as if she had not actually been using this room for some time.” He pointed out that the wardrobe was full, and every garment accounted for that one would expect to be there. Her jewelry box was full, her bed unused for some time. “You see the pillows, John?” Sherlock explained, continuing: “If she had been sleeping upon this bed even for a matter of mere days, the pillows should be at least somewhat imperfect from her head thus laying upon them. But in the case of these particular pillows... they are too perfectly shaped. They almost look as if no one did ever actually use them at all. I find that strange.” He then turned to Hector, to inquire a bit.
“Can you tell me, Hector, if your sister was in fact sleeping in this room? It would appear as if she did not make use of it normally.” Hector then explained: “I never said she was using it, sir! I merely stated, as you will recall, that this is the room she disappeared from. She has been sleeping instead in the attic, in a room set aside for her there. That is one of the oddest things about her vanishing! Why would she choose to return to a room she has not used in some time? It is almost as if she had been waiting here, but for who or what I cannot say.” Holmes then went back to the window and ran his finger along the edge of the windowsill. His finger came way from it covered in dust, which he showed both Hector and myself, before stating: “You said you believed she climbed out the window, Hector. My finger, shows how that would be quite impossible! The dust was undisturbed, you see, and quite thick. Someone, very clearly, took the trouble to open the window to make it appear that your sister left by way of it. But they were not smart enough to clean off the windowsill in order to validate the claim that she climbed out of the window. Had she, the dust would not be as it is. So your theory as to how she disappeared... mister Artino... is completely wrong. Also, would you care to remove your shoes and hand them to me for but a moment?” Hector obliged, and handed his shoes to my colleague, who looked them over and then did place them upon the indents on the carpeting near the window. “Well, these shoes are clearly not at all a match for whoever made these indentations. Your feet are too small by far to have made such deep and wide impressions in the carpeting, Hector. So you may have your shoes back.” he handed the shoes to the man, who put them back on. “You suspected me, didn't you mister Holmes!” shouted the man, and Sherlock said honestly to him: “Of course I did! Everything pointed to you, until I compared the shoes.”
“However...” Holmes began, saying thereafter: “That does not erase the clear fact that your sister has to either be somewhere in this house... or she was taken from it by way of the front door. For clearly, it is impossible for her to have climbed out of that window. Which leaves the question... who, drew that symbol beneath the window? I already know why they did it! To make it appear that she was taken out that way. But why an inverted pentagram, and why go to the trouble of staging a disappearing from this room? That is all part of what I hope to discover ere long. You claim she lived in the attic, Hector. Will you be so kind as to show us to the room she was actually making use of?” He led us by various stairs, hallways, and corridors, to the attic stairs. We clambered up them, and through a hatch in the ceiling, to arrive in the rather stuffy, dusty, and cluttered attic of the large house. There were several rooms in the attic, one of which was a well-appointed bedroom clearly used by a woman. It was used indeed, and its' furnishings were every bit as fine and splendid as the bedroom below had been. This clearly, was where Hector's sister had been spending all of her nights. Holmes examined the room for clues, for any signs of anything that might indicate that the woman was planning to leave, or that she had any connections to people outside the house who might have wished to make her disappear. To that end, Holmes asked Hector: “Did you, or your sister, have any associates that might have wished either of you ill will? I got the impression back during our interview at my office on Baker Street that you believed someone might have meant that pentagram as a warning to yourself or your family. You even said as much! That does make me curious... who, any of you or your family may have been involved with, that would desire to give you such a gruesome warning. For that matter, just what sort of business are you and your family involved with that you can afford a house this size, and so much finery within it? Immigrants, if I may be so bold as to note, are often hard working and sadly underpaid in this country more oft than not. Call it a problem with society, something that needs to change ere long I should think. But the problem that presses me at present, is understanding what exactly is going on here! So Hector, please enlighten me.”
Hector cleared his throat, stroked his chin, and admitted: “I am not proud of how we actually did earn our wealth, mister Holmes. Not proud of what we did at all! Prior to leaving Greece, we robbed several sites of... shall we say... ancient historical importance. We sold the treasures we plundered from tombs and temples and old palaces in order to not simply start a new life here in England but a life of ease. A life where we would never need to struggle to get by, ever again. A life where we need never resort to... what amounts to basically grave robbing in a way... ever again. Now naturally, we did have quite a few accomplices that helped us in our former... profession. Some of them might have not been too pleased with us taking the lion's share of the treasures for ourselves and leaving them the lesser portions of our ill-gotten gains. Any one or several of them could be behind my sister's disappearance, and would very possible be the ones who left the pentagram beneath the window. The treasures were all sold long ago, and there is no evidence of our crimes back in Greece. Nothing to connect us to our former life. We had thought ourselves free, content, and able to breathe easily... until now.” I then understood why the man had been hesitant to tell us what his profession was. He clearly had none, preferring to live like royalty after having amassed a small fortune through illegal means. Holmes nodded, and then asked: “Where, if I may ask, are your elderly parents Hector? I should like to see them and ask them some questions if it be possible to do so. That is, if they are not too infirm to receive visitors at the moment.” Hector then said, nervously... showing visible signs of anxiousness: “No, mister Holmes! I am afraid that would be quite impossible at present. You see, they are both exceedingly ill, and likely asleep this time of day as is their want at their ages. But they always take a late dinner well after nightfall! You could always wait and see them then. That would be no trouble at all to arrange.” I then interjected, explaining: “Sir, I am a doctor and if they are ill I could happily examine them for you and perhaps give them some medicine to ease them in their illness. Let us see them now! What harm could there be in waking them both up?”
But Hector was adamant that it was impossible to see to this. We reluctantly agreed to wait and see the pair later when they took their dinner. Then, we went back to examining Carissa's attic chamber. I myself found it messy and disorganized, much like how at times Holmes left his living space back on Baker Street. If there was an order to things, only she would have known what it was. But there was my friend and colleague, looking over the messy room, searching for patterns in the chaos. He read through a leather bound diary tied with a red ribbon, untying the ribbon first and setting it aside on the dresser it had been found sitting upon. “Rather dull reading, sadly. Ordinary enough to bore me to tears I daresay! The mind of such a woman... how like a puzzle it can be sometimes.” Holmes remarked aloud after he finished with the diary, placing it back on the dresser once more. I then teased my friend, saying: “Well Holmes, women are always a puzzle to you. You've a mind for many things, but understanding women is sadly not one of them.” Holmes then rolled his eyes and said in a mocking tone: “Sadly!” Then, he returned to searching the bedroom for whatever might have struck his fancy or stood out to him. To be honest, I could not have found anything there and so far as I was certain... Holmes found nothing there either, at least nothing he wished to divulge. “Well, Watson, let us have a look at the cellar next! I am certain a mansion of this size must surely also possess a cellar. What say you, Hector... would you care to show us the way downward and below ground?” Hector agreed, and then led us to where the stairs to the cellar could be found on the mansion's ground floor, behind a sturdy old looking metal door with rusty hinges. He unlocked the door with a key from a key ring he had on his belt, beckoned for us to go down the stairs behind it, but did not proceed to go down them himself. He waited until right after we descended the stairs, and thereupon he closed the door and locked it. I screamed for him to unlock it and open it, but there was no answer. My colleague cautioned me: “Save your breath, John. He will not be prevailed upon to let us out, not after all we have learned thus far. He is in a panic right now, for we know of his family's secret and should it get out he fears they will be ruined reputation-wise. Also, he cannot let us see his parents for they are both quite dead I suspect. He probably killed them himself in order to not have to share the family's money with them. As for his sister... we shall look for her down here first and foremost, and consider a plan of escape afterward.” I was frustrated by our circumstances, and exclaimed to Holmes loudly: “You act as if a plan of escape is even possible! We could be stuck down here until Hector decides to 'deal' with us as he did his parents, assuming your suspicions about their demise are correct.” Then, the detective chuckled and admitted: “But that in and of itself can be a part of an escape plan, can it not? He comes to dispose of us, but we are hiding in the shadows out of his line of sight. We surprise him, disarm him, grab his keys and escape. Simple, really. Like a game of hide and seek, only more dangerous given we may be dealing with a murderer here.” Now then... let us begin our search for the missing woman. Alive or dead, my instincts tell me she has to be down here.”
The cellar was massive, perhaps even larger than the entire area of the mansion above us. And it was filled with wine bottles, kegs and casks, boxes and bags of every sort. There were countless rooms, all manner of hallways, and maze-like passageways. All was dark, but there were lamps that lit the dark of the cellar however dimly. Lamps, and candles that appeared to have only just been lit. “Well, that is a courtesy, however strange of one it may be!” I remarked, and my friend answered saying: “The light is not meant for us, Watson. Someone is living down here, perhaps unwillingly. Perhaps the woman that we were hired to find. A pity Hector did not pay us in advance as I should have liked! I thought it odd that he agreed to pay us only when the case was solved and not before. At any rate, let us follow where the candles and lamps lead us... see, there is a pattern, almost a trail, to how they are arranged. As if the one who keeps them lit wants to remember the way back to the stairs.” And so we followed this trail in the darkness, the only light we had to go by, and soon it led us to a chamber tucked away in a remote corner of this underground area. Whoever had lit all of those light sources... had to be living within it.
Inside the room was a woman who resembled Hector, clearly a twin sister. She had long straight hair of the blackest hue, and wore a long black dress of the sort widows or people in mourning favor. Tears streamed down her face, evidently she had been crying. “Are you alright madam?” I inquired, and she confided to my colleague and I: “As well as I can be... given I shall likely never see daylight again. My brother has imprisoned me here because I learned of the fate of our parents. He murdered them, buried them in the woods someplace. He is mad with paranoia, he believes that mother and father were going to disown him and leave everything to me when they died. The fool! He did not have to kill them... at their ages, it would not have been long to wait for their deaths. Sadly. But they never had the chance to cut him out of their will, which I suspect he believed they intended to do. He will not kill me, but he is intent on keeping me here as a prisoner for the rest of our lives. But who are you two gentlemen, and if I might ask... how did you come to fall afoul of my brother as well?” Holmes then introduced himself and I, and explained the circumstances leading up to us ending up locked in the mansion's cellar. “In a way, madam, we were actually looking for you.” Sherlock explained. “But now, we have a sticky sort of problem... we need to find a way out of this cellar, and proof that your brother has indeed murdered your parents. Do you know where he buried them, what part of the woods at least that buried them in?” She then nodded her head, explaining as she did so: “I heard him arguing with them, heard the horrible outcome of their fatal argument... I followed him as he dragged their bodies out to the woods after he put them in large sacks, and there I saw him bury them. I know precisely where they can be found! If we can indeed get out of here, I would be happy to lead you right to the spot.” Sherlock then said in a flat, almost grim tone of voice: “Very well, Carissa. But it is not we whom you will need to show the burial site to... it is the police whom you will lead there. This way, they can arrest your brother for his crime and justice can be done. I will still require payment for my involvement in all this though. Might I prevail upon you to pay us... your brother promised to, after all, but as you can imagine he will surely not be willing to now, after all this.” She nodded her head in agreement, promising: “Of course I will! Anything, if you can indeed help me to escape this wretched dungeon.” I noticed the woman was fully and wholly unharmed, which was good. She seemed a bit malnourished, but otherwise her brother had not done anything to her physically, not anything direct anyway. The only thing bothering me out of all of this was a single burning question... why did Hector even involved us at all? Had he left us out of it, he might have gotten away with the murder and his sister's imprisonment. But he wanted us here, and it was as if he had targeted us specifically. I mentioned this to Holmes, and he said of the matter merely: “I knew he intended us harm the moment he locked the door behind us, Watson. But I must admit, I am at a loss to guess why he should wish to harm you and I specifically. That is the final part of the puzzle, and I would wager that once we have the answer... we might not like it at all. But that is neither here... nor there... if we cannot get out of here. Let us see if there are any windows, small or large, that might allow one to reach outside from this miserable hole in the ground. That would be something, at least!”
After spending several hours searching the underground maze, we came to realize that there were no windows anywhere. Carissa then apologized, admitting: “I have never been down here except briefly to bring up the occasional bottle of wine or crate of goods, but I must say I have never seen any windows set into the mansion's foundation. I am afraid there is no avenue of escape by such means.” I then said in a despairing tone of voice that I let slip: “Well, that is comforting isn't it! I suppose now we will just have to wait until Hector comes down to try and kill us before we can concoct some means of escape. This is one instance, Holmes, when I am not happy at all that you were correct about something.” We searched for things we could use as makeshift weapons. Holmes found an ax, and I found a crowbar. It was better than nothing under the circumstances. “Carissa, does your brother own a gun? Did he use a weapon like that to murder your parents?” asked Holmes of our companion. She looked very agitated.
After a moment of silence, she said: “No, he strangled them with his hands.” Holmes then said to me, his voice betraying no emotion of any kind: “Watson... we should expect company when Hector comes down here. A single unarmed man would be no match of us, so he will have friends with him. This will not be as simple for us to handle as I had previously assumed.” Suddenly... the door clanged open, and the sound of many footsteps could be heard descending the cellar stairs. We were far enough from there so that they were unaware of us... whoever they were... and we made for the shadows. Hector's voice so called out in a confrontational manner: “Come out, mister Holmes! And Doctor Watson. We've come to deal with you... once and for all. We're being paid well enough for such an easy task. Don't you worry a bit about my sister... the boys here are going to take her away once we've put an end to you. After that, I shall have everything in this mansion to myself, especially my family's wealth... which is rightly mine. They say you're a brilliant man, Sherlock Holmes, and a worthy adversary. Why hide and scurry, like a rat in the dark?” But we never once betrayed our hiding places. The men began to search for us... I saw about five or six men in all, every one having the look of foreign thugs to them. Likely, these had been old accomplices of Hector's from back in Greece. The sort of cruel men who think nothing of harming the living, in addition to defiling the resting places of the dead. But who was Hector in the employ of? Someone wanted Holmes and I dead... and we needed to take Hector alive if we were ever to find out their identity. Luckily, the men were all unarmed. Perhaps that could work to our advantage! The men separated to conduct their search of the cellar, and soon they were scattered. Holmes motioned for me to go one way and he took the woman another way. After some time... I heard a brief struggle and the sound of a man being struck. The blow was quick and the man was taken out by it quietly. Then, the sounds of two sets of feet hurrying about. Holmes and the woman, evidently. Clearly, my colleague had managed to take out one of the thugs pursuing us. Then, another... and another. Though Sherlock was never a physically imposing man by any means, he was quite skilled with certain weapons. And though he could have easily killed these men with the ax he carried now, he was successfully rendering them unconscious in a way that left no blood in his hands whatsoever. To my credit, I managed to take out the remaining three men using the crowbar I had found, each in an isolated part of the cellar. That was indeed six men in all, then. I had counted correctly. Now, only Hector was left! I met up with Holmes and Carissa, and we began to search for Hector. At the last, Holmes called out: “Hector! I say, Hector my good fellow... why don't you come on out so we can talk a bit? Your friends did not have much to tell me, but I think there is a great deal I could learn from you.” I kept an eye on the stairs, which I was able to see from where we were. If Hector had a mind to race for the stairs, he would not get to climb up them before I could seize him. We would not be made prisoners of a second time! Hector's voice did cry out from nearby... a good ways to the left of the stairs from our position. Close, but still far enough.
He said to Holmes: “If you think I would ever divulge my employer's identity to you, then you clearly underestimate me, detective. I am a professional, if nothing else... just like you, are. I shall put an end to you yet... and then, who shall be left to tell the police all that transpired here! My sister? Should she so manage to escape and tell the police all she claims to know... I say to that, so what! I shall go to prison for murder, you think? Or do I! Did my sister tell you that it was I who did the deed that put an end to our parents? It was she who strangled mother, she who put a pillow over father's face to smother him to death. She, who then painted the pentagram beneath her window before faking her own kidnapping so she could hide out down here... her own personal touch and idea, the pentagram. Totally unnecessary! So, what crime am I guilty of here? Wrongful imprisonment, she might claim! But can it be wrongful to imprison the woman who murdered your parents and buried their bodies in the woods? I will say that I discovered the burial site after following her there, deny that I was ever involved in it at all. My part in all of these matters shall remain firmly in the shadows, where you two gentlemen shall both so perish.”
Hector then declared excitedly: “It will be her word against my own. A woman's tears and deceit will not fare as well as my calm and collected nerves in any court of law in the land. As for the two of you... neither of you are getting out of this place alive. And once you are entirely dead, I will bury you in the woods where no one shall ever find you. Far enough, from where my sister and I buried our parents so that even should they be found, you two shall remain missing forever.” Suddenly a gunshot rang out, a hunting rifle by the sound of it. Hector was firing it in the direction of Holmes' voice, trying to hit him. Trying to hit us! But his shots fell a bit short of their mark, hitting a keg of spirits behind us, causing the keg to spill its' contents. Holmes then whispered to me: “I must admit, I did suspect the lady having had a hand in these sinister doings all along. Well, since first we found her hiding place! Her fingernails still have blood under them from having painted the pentagram. Likely animal blood, rather than human given the decidedly bloodless way by which she dispatched her parents, according to Hector. As far as I am concerned, the two of them are both equally guilty. Though it is clear they have had a falling out. I have no doubt that he means to do away with her too ere long... and I must wonder whether she is fully ignorant of whomever her brother works for.” He then whispered to Carissa: “Madam, your brother is not intending you any good will here... it seems that he is far from willing to share your family's wealth. If we can escape from here and get you to safety, would you be willing to at the very least just tell us... totally and quite confidentially of course... all you do know about whatever it is that Hector is involved in?” The woman then sighed, and promised in a soft whisper: “I do swear that if you can get me safely away from him... I will tell you exactly who it is that he works for. I will even tell the police, if that is needed.” Holmes then said quietly: “It may or may not be wise to involve them. We shall need to see.” Right at that moment, a second shot rang out, this one landing much closer to us. We rushed away from our hiding place to seek another, as Hector's voice rang out again: “I can hear you whispering, though I can't make out what you are saying! You are all rats, the three of you... chattering away in the dark like rodents.” Suddenly, Carissa withdrew a small pistol from a pocket of her dress and fired it in Hector's direction, missing her mark. She shouted out: “Hector, you fool! Do you think you will be rewarded for this betrayal of me? There are no rewards at all awaiting you! Only the reward of the grave.” Holmes called for her to stop and be silent, but she would not listen. Hector fired once more, the sound of his reloading of the rifle resounding quickly and nervously in the darkness where he waited like some sort of predatory beast. He would surely shoot the weapon again and again until he ran out of ammunition, if given the chance. We had to either find a way around to where he lurked, so we could apprehend the man at last... or, we had to hope for the worst, that his sister might get lucky with her pistol and manage to either incapacitate him or kill him with it. By the look of things, she meant to kill him. Holmes and I left her to her devices, sneaking around as best we could whilst Hector was occupied focusing solely on his sister. She could prove a worthy distraction for his attention, giving us the chance we need. Shots kept being exchanged between brother and sister, without success on either part. She moved quickly to avoid his shots, and he did as well to avoid hers, making it even easier to spot his location and move towards it. This brought me back to my army days, and the memory of other weapons being fired under other terrifying circumstances. But just when we got near Hector, Carissa got lucky and landed a bullet straight through the man's left eye, killing him in short order. He collapsed to the floor, where we then grabbed for the cellar keys and liberated them from his body. Holmes took charge of them, and I ran to where the woman was and grabbed her by the arm, ushering her up the stairs with my colleague behind us. Whoever was the individual who had hired Hector to kill us... the man took that knowledge to his grave with him. And whether his sister knew or not, she had yet to reveal. She seemed to have utterly no reaction to having killed her brother. She clutched her pistol in her right hand, smoke pouring out of the weapon's barrel, and was as silent as a statue. Whatever secrets she had to reveal to us, they would have to wait until we got well free of the cellar. That was no fit place to linger, by any rational stretch.
As soon as we emerged from the cellar, Holmes locked the door so that the men we had knocked out down below would not be able to escape once they woke up. It was doubtful they knew who Hector had actually worked for either... them being men in Hector's employ only. Sherlock confirmed as much, as soon as I asked him his thoughts on the matter. “The police can pick the thugs up later, Watson. For the moment, we shall linger in this mansion a while more whilst we ask the lady here... very politely, nicely and kindly... to tell us all that she can of the reason why her brother wished us dead.” The woman was far from forthcoming, though. She told us nothing we did not already know, and it seemed this case had reached as far as it could go. She promised to pay us double if we took her to the police and left things exactly as they were. Holmes chuckled at the very notion, considering it an insult to his sensibilities, as he explained: “I am often paid a flat rate for my services, madam... neither more, nor less. I am far from a greedy man, and neither am I a stupid man. What is foolish, however, is writing down certain secrets for anyone with a mind to, to read. As you did, Carissa, when you bared your soul in your diary. That is where I learned that you used to be a woman of the night, if you understand the meaning of that rather lurid expression. As I am certain you do, given that it was your profession for a time. You attempted to supplement your family's ill-gotten wealth through such illicit means, and to make matters worse it was your brother Hector who was your pimp. But that is not your biggest secret by far! No, that would have to be the fact that you were for a time earning a substantial income as the paid mistress of a certain man with whom Watson and myself used to be well acquainted. I am quite sure that you will remember him, Watson! His name, when he still lived and drew breath... was Charles Augustus Milverton.” I was very familiar with that name indeed. I exclaimed at once: “That odious blackmailer! If ever a man died and his death brought cheer to others, there was just such an example. He was a villain, plain and simple. I fail to see where you are going with this though, Holmes... he could not have wished us harm from his current residence in the hereafter.” But Carissa then swiftly interrupted me, exclaiming: “That is where you are wrong, Watson! According to the police, there were two burglars who fled the scene of Charles' death. I hired a detective of my own to look into the whole matter, and obtained a description of the two men. One of them bore an uncanny resemblance to you, Watson. To you! Once, I was able to learn of your partnership with mister Holmes, it became obvious to me who the two men were who killed my former patron. And a very generous patron he was! Generous enough, that I decided to take it upon my own self to avenge his death. It was I, who orchestrated this whole matter to bring the two of you here so I could engineer your demises. He may not have been a good man, or even a decent one, but I shall never say that his money had never been good to me.” Holmes then explained to her the truth about the circumstances of the deceased blackmailer's death, and how it had been another hand entirely which did bring it about... how it had been through mo fault of ours. Sherlock then concluded by stating: “I truly had always intended on keeping silent about all I knew of the death of mister Milverton, and I had for some time now urged Watson to keep silent about it likewise. But madam, your misplaced anger and need for vengeance necessitated my unsealing of my lips on this singular occasion.” He then went into the full details of the moment of Milverton's death, and so perfect were those details and the logic of them that even one as blinded by rage as Carissa had to admit that Holmes' words were truthful ones. “We witnessed the man's end, madam, but ourselves had no part in it.” He then said once he had said all else. Carissa slumped down unto the floor and threw her pistol away from her. “It seems that I have wasted my time in pursuit of this vengeance, then.” she muttered almost drunkenly as if in a trance. It appeared that her mind could not bear the realization of this fact. “Now, I will rot in prison for the rest of my days for the murder of my parents and my brother... and there will be no one to pay you two fine gentlemen for your troubles.” She then withdrew some money from a nearby lock box that was under an end table... after withdrawing the key for it from another pocket of her dress. She pressed all of the money into Holmes' hands, but he took of it only his usual rate and no more, giving the rest back to her.
But Holmes smiled, something he did not do often, and said to the woman: “You will not go to prison for anything, madam! That I can promise you. I read your diary... all of it, as quickly as time permitted. I know that your parents abused you dreadfully as a child. Your father, in particular, did so in the most loathsome ways imaginable. It was heartbreaking to read what you wrote of it. It was not a desire at all for money that drove you to kill them... it was revenge for their abuse of you. Your bother was the only one who was ever after their money. You had other means of earning your own, after all, as we made mention of previously. Not wholly legal means, but they served you nonetheless. You are lucky we are not the police, miss Artino. Once we have left, contact them at once and tell them how your brother so tried to imprison you once you witnessed his savage murder of your parents. Say that you saw him drag their bodies to the woods, but do not know where the burial site is. Let the police search for it and find it. Those men as were in your brother's employ down the cellar, were ONLY in your brother's employ. Do you understand me? Emphasize that to the police, and anything those men might say to attempt to indicate your involvement, the police will think are only lies they are telling. I and Doctor Watson here will of course contact the police as well, and give our statements to them. All that we tell them shall be favorable to you, of course! You shot your brother in self defense. We all witnessed it, and I will swear to it. You have been crying, you are dressed for mourning, you have clearly been traumatized by every bit of what you have been through. Oh, and before the police get here... burn your diary. Otherwise, the police will discover it and that will be bad for you, and make liars of us all. As far as I am concerned, you have never had any connection to anyone by the last name of Milverton. We shall forget that, all of us, and move on from here. Hector was the only murderer here! With his demise... you, stand to inherit all of your family's wealth. Enjoy it, Carissa! Do me only one favor, and we shall never speak of any of this again... be more careful the sort of men you trust in the future. Consider this a second chance at a better life. Few women of the night ever get such opportunities to begin anew. Many, meet dark ends.” Holmes then threw her the keys to the cellar and told her to give them to the police when they arrived.
Carissa Artino was never charged with any crime, and lived to a proper old age after inheriting all of her parents' money. She eventually married a wealthy man of reasonable means, and they even started a family. For her, it was a happy ending after all, rather than a dark one. The men who had worked for her brother were all charged for their crimes and sent to prison. That everything went as smoothly as it did, was due no doubt, to the fact that Holmes' and my testimony was a match for hers, and all of it was just as favorable on her behalf as Holmes had promised it would be. It is never easy having to tell lie to save a person's life, but on this occasion it had to be done. We never did learn why it was that the lady chose to paint an inverted pentagram in animal's blood of all things, beneath that open window when she tried so desperately to fake her own kidnapping. But there will always be certain aspects of certain cases that occasionally are expected to escape even one as brilliant as my friend and colleague, Sherlock Holmes. This, however, was not one of them! For, clever as always, the great detective found a possible motive, but one that defied all logic and reason if viewed from a certain perspective. Had I said never? I was a fool! For one evening, I noticed Holmes reading a book of ancient Greek history of all things. He called me over to his cluttered desk and pointed to the page, asking me what my thoughts were about it. It was a section about a dark coven of witches, in ancient Thessaly, who enacted at times blood sacrifices of animals, and sometimes also of people, in forests and farmlands. At the sites, of many such sacrifices, the witches sometimes painted inverted pentagrams in the blood spilled from those very same offerings, in an attempt to procure the blessings of the dark goddess Hecate who was their honored deity. Holmes jokingly said to me: “Well, dear Watson, either miss Artino was a clever student of some very obscure history... or she was a member of a very ancient and at one time feared order of witches. Which do you believe to be the truth?” I said merely: “Either way, I am relieved we parted with her on friendly terms.”
It was in early autumn, on a foggy London day if ever there was one, when I was attempting without any real or proper success to tidy up ever so slightly the living space of my dear friend and partner in the business of detection, mister Sherlock Holmes. He sat glumly in his favorite chair, staring out of the window that overlooked the street below, smoking his pipe and muttering things to himself that were just out of my hearing range. “Leave those papers there, Watson!” he suddenly exclaimed, and I felt a slight amazement that he knew precisely which papers I was attempting to move. He continued, saying: “Those are the records of some of my more interesting recent cases, and I should like to review a few of their details when time permits. The facts circled in red are particularly intriguing, and seem to be near common in almost all criminal ventures. If I am ever to understand the criminal mind, I should think it prudent to comprehend those similarities in all criminal thinking.” Surely enough, the papers I held in my hands all had details circled in red upon them. I sighed, and said to my friend: “But Holmes, how on Earth could you have known which papers I was moving, being as deep in thought and across the whole of the room as you are?” To which he stated, without emotion: “My hearing, Watson, is quite keen as you should well have noted by now. I could tell which direction the rustling of the papers came from as you scooped them up into your hands... and also reasoned that as they are the largest pile upon my desk at present, from all I know of you I was right to conclude that you would be drawn to them first should you wish to clean things up a bit. I do not mind a bit of organization, Watson, but those papers I would prefer to sort and tend to myself.” I placed the pile back on the desk, more neatly as a proper stack this time rather than a pile in the usual sense of the world, and exasperatedly declared: “You do this every single time I try to put things in order here. Every single time! It is infuriating sometimes.” And lastly did Holmes retort: “Infuriating? Perhaps. But necessary! There is not a thing here which does not have some measure of significance either in placement or in purpose.” and after that he went back to a state of brooding once more. Upon what, I could never hope to guess, as the man was sometimes... difficult.
That was about when there was an unexpected knock upon the door. I rushed to answer it, whilst all at once Holmes sprang up and darted to his desk in an attempt to make himself look professional. Since he was already dressed for business, this did not take much effort on his part. For my part, I opened the door and before me stood a middle-aged gentleman with slicked back black hair and a swarthy face that I would have guessed marked him as hailing from somewhere in the Mediterranean. He spoke in most perfect English with no accent, however, as he stated: “Greetings to you, sir! I am looking to meet with the consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. Might you be he?” to which I chuckled and explained to the fellow: “No, I most certainly am not the man you seek! That would be my partner... the man sitting at the desk over there.” and I pointed to Holmes as I welcomed the stranger into the office. Such as it was. The man sat down in a chair across the desk from my friend, removed his wide brimmed hat, and neatly placed it on his lap as he looked Holmes in the eye and said to him calmly but with a hint of care in his words: “Good sir! I am in need of the services of a discreet detective, a man who would not mind at all taking on a case that the police might deem to be too peculiar to deal with.” Holmes returned his gaze, studying the man carefully as was his want as he replied with as close to warmth as my friend could so hope to mimic: “If the case interests me, I would be happy to oblige you, sir. However, you have yet to tell me your name! I prefer to know the names of my clients, as well as the details of the case, before I consider taking such on. You seem calm but concerned over something. What is weighing upon you?” And as he said that, the man frowned as his lower lip quivered a bit. Was it fear or sorrow? I could not be certain as I observed his and Holmes' meeting. The man then stated: “My name is Hector, sir. Hector Artino. My family came from Greece originally, but I have lived in England all my life despite that my parents were both immigrants. I have tried to fit in well enough, but sometimes old things follow you.”
“What sort of things, Hector?” asked the detective. Hector then answered nervously: “Bad things, sir! Bad things. My sister, Carissa, seems to have disappeared, and myself and my parents... old as they are, and quite infirm... have no way of knowing where it is she has gone. She did not run away, you see! All of her clothes, jewelry, belongings and money are all accounted for at our house. Her room appears just about untouched as if she merely stepped out for a moment, and nothing is amiss about it at all. But all the same, she is gone. The only thing to note is that her bedroom window was open. Very strange, and I can only assume she climbed out the window and left that way. But why! And where has she gone to?” Holmes then smiled, a strange look for his serious face, and asked: “And... what, is so peculiar that you could not go to the police with this? If she has been gone for more than several days, then it is clearly a missing person case, which most definitely falls within the sort of casework that the police deal with on a sadly all too regular basis at times. Why come to me in particular about it? So far, this does not truly interest me at all, I am sad to admit.” Hector's composure nearly broke I noticed, as he said finally: “It is in the details, sir! The Devil is in the details, perhaps literally. You see... a pentagram drawn in blood was left beneath the window. There were no hand prints, and nothing to indicate that it was there prior to my sister climbing out of the window... else the blood would surely have been disturbed or smudged. And the design of the pentagram is all too frighteningly perfect! Someone had to have left it there after Carissa left. If she was kidnapped, it may have been left by whoever took her. A warning to us, perhaps. To my family! Or to me. Is this all peculiar enough to warrant your involvement?” Clearly, this Hector fellow was quite intelligent to deduce certain facts about his sister's disappearance. That did not bode well, given he felt this was beyond his ability to deal with himself. I walked over and said to Homes: “I must admit, Holmes, this case does sound quite strange! And, rather diabolical. What say you... should we take it, or leave it to the police after all?” Holmes rubbed his temples, the cogs of his machine-like intellect already beginning to turn as he said: “Very well, mister Artino, I will be happy to take on your case! Give me your address and the details of what your house looks like so I can find it, and I will be on the case as swiftly as your Greek god Hermes himself.” They shook on it, and Hector give both his address and a full description of his family's residence. It was more than enough to get us well started.
The Artino house was a long way outside of London, in that part of the countryside where the natural landscape was beginning to be overtaken by the dawning of the age of industry. Factories belched their smoke to the heavens, but still there were woods in places, dark and strange... where all manner of dire crimes might be able to be undertaken without too much notice. Holmes remarked upon this whilst we traveled by carriage to our destination, the driver paid the fare necessary to take us hither. He said, in a musing sort of way, as he gazed out the carriage window: “Those woods, Watson... they are evil woods. Not in the supernatural sense, mind, but in the far worse sense that every conceivable sort of horror can occur in such places, away from prying eyes. I like such places not, John. But... you know that.” I had to agree, I had no love for such parts of the land either. It was not the wildness of nature that I disliked, as I knew Holmes also did not wholly dislike it. It was the human capacity for evil, and what places such as this brought out in evil men and women at times... that was what made such places so sinister. Once we arrived at the house, we found it remarkable how large it was. Easily a mansion, of the sort I doubt a man with an ordinary job could afford... let alone immigrants who have only been in the country for so short a span of time as Hector's family seemed to have been. “Holmes, I daresay I do not believe that at any point did our client tell us just what it is he does for a living! But whatever it may be, he must truly be doing phenomenally well for himself.” To which Holmes retorted: “Or, he has earned his wage by a means less common but more lucrative. And possibly, illegal. Whatever it may be, we shall I doubt not, soon discover. Come, Watson! Let us hasten to the front door and do the polite thing.” He meant, knock naturally. At least we did not have to pick the lock... although, my colleague was not above doing such.
The house was surrounded by woods on all sides... not for a far distance though. It was a small stretch of woods that filled the property on which the mansion was built, an indication that these people valued well their privacy. Or, that they perchance had something they wished to keep private. Holmes knocked on the sturdy oak door. The house was gray, somber, and dreary looking. Made worse by the fact that at the hour and on the day we arrived at it, the sky was gloomy from a recent rainstorm. We waited, as no one answered immediately. “Do you think we may have to pick the lock after all, Holmes?” I jokingly said. My friend replied mirthlessly: “No, John, I believe we can afford to be patient... at least this time.” Soon, there were footsteps and sure enough Hector answered the door for us, having arrived ahead of us likely also by carriage. He smiled, welcomed us in, and showed us to his sister's bedroom. It was just as the man had reported it, bloody pentagram beneath the window and all. It was not smudged, nor spoiled in any way. Even if someone had climbed in to paint it... how did they leave without disturbing it? This I asked of my colleague, and the detective answered: “There can be many reasons... or just one that at the last makes logical sense. I shall presently attempt to determine the logic, the how, and the why of all of this as best as I may.” He walked over to the scarlet symbol and examined it closely with his portable magnifying lens, which he held in his hand as he studied the symbol, the window, and the floor beneath it. He pointed to the carpeting, noting where it was indented in two places. Two places that had to them the look of shoe prints. “See, Watson! A man's shoes made these indents... the prints are too large for a woman's shoes to have made. And why would Hector's sister have been wearing shoes at all unless she was expecting to go somewhere? But that is indeed the strange thing! There are no indents on the floor from her shoes at all. Nothing is disturbed in any way. It is almost as if she had not actually been using this room for some time.” He pointed out that the wardrobe was full, and every garment accounted for that one would expect to be there. Her jewelry box was full, her bed unused for some time. “You see the pillows, John?” Sherlock explained, continuing: “If she had been sleeping upon this bed even for a matter of mere days, the pillows should be at least somewhat imperfect from her head thus laying upon them. But in the case of these particular pillows... they are too perfectly shaped. They almost look as if no one did ever actually use them at all. I find that strange.” He then turned to Hector, to inquire a bit.
“Can you tell me, Hector, if your sister was in fact sleeping in this room? It would appear as if she did not make use of it normally.” Hector then explained: “I never said she was using it, sir! I merely stated, as you will recall, that this is the room she disappeared from. She has been sleeping instead in the attic, in a room set aside for her there. That is one of the oddest things about her vanishing! Why would she choose to return to a room she has not used in some time? It is almost as if she had been waiting here, but for who or what I cannot say.” Holmes then went back to the window and ran his finger along the edge of the windowsill. His finger came way from it covered in dust, which he showed both Hector and myself, before stating: “You said you believed she climbed out the window, Hector. My finger, shows how that would be quite impossible! The dust was undisturbed, you see, and quite thick. Someone, very clearly, took the trouble to open the window to make it appear that your sister left by way of it. But they were not smart enough to clean off the windowsill in order to validate the claim that she climbed out of the window. Had she, the dust would not be as it is. So your theory as to how she disappeared... mister Artino... is completely wrong. Also, would you care to remove your shoes and hand them to me for but a moment?” Hector obliged, and handed his shoes to my colleague, who looked them over and then did place them upon the indents on the carpeting near the window. “Well, these shoes are clearly not at all a match for whoever made these indentations. Your feet are too small by far to have made such deep and wide impressions in the carpeting, Hector. So you may have your shoes back.” he handed the shoes to the man, who put them back on. “You suspected me, didn't you mister Holmes!” shouted the man, and Sherlock said honestly to him: “Of course I did! Everything pointed to you, until I compared the shoes.”
“However...” Holmes began, saying thereafter: “That does not erase the clear fact that your sister has to either be somewhere in this house... or she was taken from it by way of the front door. For clearly, it is impossible for her to have climbed out of that window. Which leaves the question... who, drew that symbol beneath the window? I already know why they did it! To make it appear that she was taken out that way. But why an inverted pentagram, and why go to the trouble of staging a disappearing from this room? That is all part of what I hope to discover ere long. You claim she lived in the attic, Hector. Will you be so kind as to show us to the room she was actually making use of?” He led us by various stairs, hallways, and corridors, to the attic stairs. We clambered up them, and through a hatch in the ceiling, to arrive in the rather stuffy, dusty, and cluttered attic of the large house. There were several rooms in the attic, one of which was a well-appointed bedroom clearly used by a woman. It was used indeed, and its' furnishings were every bit as fine and splendid as the bedroom below had been. This clearly, was where Hector's sister had been spending all of her nights. Holmes examined the room for clues, for any signs of anything that might indicate that the woman was planning to leave, or that she had any connections to people outside the house who might have wished to make her disappear. To that end, Holmes asked Hector: “Did you, or your sister, have any associates that might have wished either of you ill will? I got the impression back during our interview at my office on Baker Street that you believed someone might have meant that pentagram as a warning to yourself or your family. You even said as much! That does make me curious... who, any of you or your family may have been involved with, that would desire to give you such a gruesome warning. For that matter, just what sort of business are you and your family involved with that you can afford a house this size, and so much finery within it? Immigrants, if I may be so bold as to note, are often hard working and sadly underpaid in this country more oft than not. Call it a problem with society, something that needs to change ere long I should think. But the problem that presses me at present, is understanding what exactly is going on here! So Hector, please enlighten me.”
Hector cleared his throat, stroked his chin, and admitted: “I am not proud of how we actually did earn our wealth, mister Holmes. Not proud of what we did at all! Prior to leaving Greece, we robbed several sites of... shall we say... ancient historical importance. We sold the treasures we plundered from tombs and temples and old palaces in order to not simply start a new life here in England but a life of ease. A life where we would never need to struggle to get by, ever again. A life where we need never resort to... what amounts to basically grave robbing in a way... ever again. Now naturally, we did have quite a few accomplices that helped us in our former... profession. Some of them might have not been too pleased with us taking the lion's share of the treasures for ourselves and leaving them the lesser portions of our ill-gotten gains. Any one or several of them could be behind my sister's disappearance, and would very possible be the ones who left the pentagram beneath the window. The treasures were all sold long ago, and there is no evidence of our crimes back in Greece. Nothing to connect us to our former life. We had thought ourselves free, content, and able to breathe easily... until now.” I then understood why the man had been hesitant to tell us what his profession was. He clearly had none, preferring to live like royalty after having amassed a small fortune through illegal means. Holmes nodded, and then asked: “Where, if I may ask, are your elderly parents Hector? I should like to see them and ask them some questions if it be possible to do so. That is, if they are not too infirm to receive visitors at the moment.” Hector then said, nervously... showing visible signs of anxiousness: “No, mister Holmes! I am afraid that would be quite impossible at present. You see, they are both exceedingly ill, and likely asleep this time of day as is their want at their ages. But they always take a late dinner well after nightfall! You could always wait and see them then. That would be no trouble at all to arrange.” I then interjected, explaining: “Sir, I am a doctor and if they are ill I could happily examine them for you and perhaps give them some medicine to ease them in their illness. Let us see them now! What harm could there be in waking them both up?”
But Hector was adamant that it was impossible to see to this. We reluctantly agreed to wait and see the pair later when they took their dinner. Then, we went back to examining Carissa's attic chamber. I myself found it messy and disorganized, much like how at times Holmes left his living space back on Baker Street. If there was an order to things, only she would have known what it was. But there was my friend and colleague, looking over the messy room, searching for patterns in the chaos. He read through a leather bound diary tied with a red ribbon, untying the ribbon first and setting it aside on the dresser it had been found sitting upon. “Rather dull reading, sadly. Ordinary enough to bore me to tears I daresay! The mind of such a woman... how like a puzzle it can be sometimes.” Holmes remarked aloud after he finished with the diary, placing it back on the dresser once more. I then teased my friend, saying: “Well Holmes, women are always a puzzle to you. You've a mind for many things, but understanding women is sadly not one of them.” Holmes then rolled his eyes and said in a mocking tone: “Sadly!” Then, he returned to searching the bedroom for whatever might have struck his fancy or stood out to him. To be honest, I could not have found anything there and so far as I was certain... Holmes found nothing there either, at least nothing he wished to divulge. “Well, Watson, let us have a look at the cellar next! I am certain a mansion of this size must surely also possess a cellar. What say you, Hector... would you care to show us the way downward and below ground?” Hector agreed, and then led us to where the stairs to the cellar could be found on the mansion's ground floor, behind a sturdy old looking metal door with rusty hinges. He unlocked the door with a key from a key ring he had on his belt, beckoned for us to go down the stairs behind it, but did not proceed to go down them himself. He waited until right after we descended the stairs, and thereupon he closed the door and locked it. I screamed for him to unlock it and open it, but there was no answer. My colleague cautioned me: “Save your breath, John. He will not be prevailed upon to let us out, not after all we have learned thus far. He is in a panic right now, for we know of his family's secret and should it get out he fears they will be ruined reputation-wise. Also, he cannot let us see his parents for they are both quite dead I suspect. He probably killed them himself in order to not have to share the family's money with them. As for his sister... we shall look for her down here first and foremost, and consider a plan of escape afterward.” I was frustrated by our circumstances, and exclaimed to Holmes loudly: “You act as if a plan of escape is even possible! We could be stuck down here until Hector decides to 'deal' with us as he did his parents, assuming your suspicions about their demise are correct.” Then, the detective chuckled and admitted: “But that in and of itself can be a part of an escape plan, can it not? He comes to dispose of us, but we are hiding in the shadows out of his line of sight. We surprise him, disarm him, grab his keys and escape. Simple, really. Like a game of hide and seek, only more dangerous given we may be dealing with a murderer here.” Now then... let us begin our search for the missing woman. Alive or dead, my instincts tell me she has to be down here.”
The cellar was massive, perhaps even larger than the entire area of the mansion above us. And it was filled with wine bottles, kegs and casks, boxes and bags of every sort. There were countless rooms, all manner of hallways, and maze-like passageways. All was dark, but there were lamps that lit the dark of the cellar however dimly. Lamps, and candles that appeared to have only just been lit. “Well, that is a courtesy, however strange of one it may be!” I remarked, and my friend answered saying: “The light is not meant for us, Watson. Someone is living down here, perhaps unwillingly. Perhaps the woman that we were hired to find. A pity Hector did not pay us in advance as I should have liked! I thought it odd that he agreed to pay us only when the case was solved and not before. At any rate, let us follow where the candles and lamps lead us... see, there is a pattern, almost a trail, to how they are arranged. As if the one who keeps them lit wants to remember the way back to the stairs.” And so we followed this trail in the darkness, the only light we had to go by, and soon it led us to a chamber tucked away in a remote corner of this underground area. Whoever had lit all of those light sources... had to be living within it.
Inside the room was a woman who resembled Hector, clearly a twin sister. She had long straight hair of the blackest hue, and wore a long black dress of the sort widows or people in mourning favor. Tears streamed down her face, evidently she had been crying. “Are you alright madam?” I inquired, and she confided to my colleague and I: “As well as I can be... given I shall likely never see daylight again. My brother has imprisoned me here because I learned of the fate of our parents. He murdered them, buried them in the woods someplace. He is mad with paranoia, he believes that mother and father were going to disown him and leave everything to me when they died. The fool! He did not have to kill them... at their ages, it would not have been long to wait for their deaths. Sadly. But they never had the chance to cut him out of their will, which I suspect he believed they intended to do. He will not kill me, but he is intent on keeping me here as a prisoner for the rest of our lives. But who are you two gentlemen, and if I might ask... how did you come to fall afoul of my brother as well?” Holmes then introduced himself and I, and explained the circumstances leading up to us ending up locked in the mansion's cellar. “In a way, madam, we were actually looking for you.” Sherlock explained. “But now, we have a sticky sort of problem... we need to find a way out of this cellar, and proof that your brother has indeed murdered your parents. Do you know where he buried them, what part of the woods at least that buried them in?” She then nodded her head, explaining as she did so: “I heard him arguing with them, heard the horrible outcome of their fatal argument... I followed him as he dragged their bodies out to the woods after he put them in large sacks, and there I saw him bury them. I know precisely where they can be found! If we can indeed get out of here, I would be happy to lead you right to the spot.” Sherlock then said in a flat, almost grim tone of voice: “Very well, Carissa. But it is not we whom you will need to show the burial site to... it is the police whom you will lead there. This way, they can arrest your brother for his crime and justice can be done. I will still require payment for my involvement in all this though. Might I prevail upon you to pay us... your brother promised to, after all, but as you can imagine he will surely not be willing to now, after all this.” She nodded her head in agreement, promising: “Of course I will! Anything, if you can indeed help me to escape this wretched dungeon.” I noticed the woman was fully and wholly unharmed, which was good. She seemed a bit malnourished, but otherwise her brother had not done anything to her physically, not anything direct anyway. The only thing bothering me out of all of this was a single burning question... why did Hector even involved us at all? Had he left us out of it, he might have gotten away with the murder and his sister's imprisonment. But he wanted us here, and it was as if he had targeted us specifically. I mentioned this to Holmes, and he said of the matter merely: “I knew he intended us harm the moment he locked the door behind us, Watson. But I must admit, I am at a loss to guess why he should wish to harm you and I specifically. That is the final part of the puzzle, and I would wager that once we have the answer... we might not like it at all. But that is neither here... nor there... if we cannot get out of here. Let us see if there are any windows, small or large, that might allow one to reach outside from this miserable hole in the ground. That would be something, at least!”
After spending several hours searching the underground maze, we came to realize that there were no windows anywhere. Carissa then apologized, admitting: “I have never been down here except briefly to bring up the occasional bottle of wine or crate of goods, but I must say I have never seen any windows set into the mansion's foundation. I am afraid there is no avenue of escape by such means.” I then said in a despairing tone of voice that I let slip: “Well, that is comforting isn't it! I suppose now we will just have to wait until Hector comes down to try and kill us before we can concoct some means of escape. This is one instance, Holmes, when I am not happy at all that you were correct about something.” We searched for things we could use as makeshift weapons. Holmes found an ax, and I found a crowbar. It was better than nothing under the circumstances. “Carissa, does your brother own a gun? Did he use a weapon like that to murder your parents?” asked Holmes of our companion. She looked very agitated.
After a moment of silence, she said: “No, he strangled them with his hands.” Holmes then said to me, his voice betraying no emotion of any kind: “Watson... we should expect company when Hector comes down here. A single unarmed man would be no match of us, so he will have friends with him. This will not be as simple for us to handle as I had previously assumed.” Suddenly... the door clanged open, and the sound of many footsteps could be heard descending the cellar stairs. We were far enough from there so that they were unaware of us... whoever they were... and we made for the shadows. Hector's voice so called out in a confrontational manner: “Come out, mister Holmes! And Doctor Watson. We've come to deal with you... once and for all. We're being paid well enough for such an easy task. Don't you worry a bit about my sister... the boys here are going to take her away once we've put an end to you. After that, I shall have everything in this mansion to myself, especially my family's wealth... which is rightly mine. They say you're a brilliant man, Sherlock Holmes, and a worthy adversary. Why hide and scurry, like a rat in the dark?” But we never once betrayed our hiding places. The men began to search for us... I saw about five or six men in all, every one having the look of foreign thugs to them. Likely, these had been old accomplices of Hector's from back in Greece. The sort of cruel men who think nothing of harming the living, in addition to defiling the resting places of the dead. But who was Hector in the employ of? Someone wanted Holmes and I dead... and we needed to take Hector alive if we were ever to find out their identity. Luckily, the men were all unarmed. Perhaps that could work to our advantage! The men separated to conduct their search of the cellar, and soon they were scattered. Holmes motioned for me to go one way and he took the woman another way. After some time... I heard a brief struggle and the sound of a man being struck. The blow was quick and the man was taken out by it quietly. Then, the sounds of two sets of feet hurrying about. Holmes and the woman, evidently. Clearly, my colleague had managed to take out one of the thugs pursuing us. Then, another... and another. Though Sherlock was never a physically imposing man by any means, he was quite skilled with certain weapons. And though he could have easily killed these men with the ax he carried now, he was successfully rendering them unconscious in a way that left no blood in his hands whatsoever. To my credit, I managed to take out the remaining three men using the crowbar I had found, each in an isolated part of the cellar. That was indeed six men in all, then. I had counted correctly. Now, only Hector was left! I met up with Holmes and Carissa, and we began to search for Hector. At the last, Holmes called out: “Hector! I say, Hector my good fellow... why don't you come on out so we can talk a bit? Your friends did not have much to tell me, but I think there is a great deal I could learn from you.” I kept an eye on the stairs, which I was able to see from where we were. If Hector had a mind to race for the stairs, he would not get to climb up them before I could seize him. We would not be made prisoners of a second time! Hector's voice did cry out from nearby... a good ways to the left of the stairs from our position. Close, but still far enough.
He said to Holmes: “If you think I would ever divulge my employer's identity to you, then you clearly underestimate me, detective. I am a professional, if nothing else... just like you, are. I shall put an end to you yet... and then, who shall be left to tell the police all that transpired here! My sister? Should she so manage to escape and tell the police all she claims to know... I say to that, so what! I shall go to prison for murder, you think? Or do I! Did my sister tell you that it was I who did the deed that put an end to our parents? It was she who strangled mother, she who put a pillow over father's face to smother him to death. She, who then painted the pentagram beneath her window before faking her own kidnapping so she could hide out down here... her own personal touch and idea, the pentagram. Totally unnecessary! So, what crime am I guilty of here? Wrongful imprisonment, she might claim! But can it be wrongful to imprison the woman who murdered your parents and buried their bodies in the woods? I will say that I discovered the burial site after following her there, deny that I was ever involved in it at all. My part in all of these matters shall remain firmly in the shadows, where you two gentlemen shall both so perish.”
Hector then declared excitedly: “It will be her word against my own. A woman's tears and deceit will not fare as well as my calm and collected nerves in any court of law in the land. As for the two of you... neither of you are getting out of this place alive. And once you are entirely dead, I will bury you in the woods where no one shall ever find you. Far enough, from where my sister and I buried our parents so that even should they be found, you two shall remain missing forever.” Suddenly a gunshot rang out, a hunting rifle by the sound of it. Hector was firing it in the direction of Holmes' voice, trying to hit him. Trying to hit us! But his shots fell a bit short of their mark, hitting a keg of spirits behind us, causing the keg to spill its' contents. Holmes then whispered to me: “I must admit, I did suspect the lady having had a hand in these sinister doings all along. Well, since first we found her hiding place! Her fingernails still have blood under them from having painted the pentagram. Likely animal blood, rather than human given the decidedly bloodless way by which she dispatched her parents, according to Hector. As far as I am concerned, the two of them are both equally guilty. Though it is clear they have had a falling out. I have no doubt that he means to do away with her too ere long... and I must wonder whether she is fully ignorant of whomever her brother works for.” He then whispered to Carissa: “Madam, your brother is not intending you any good will here... it seems that he is far from willing to share your family's wealth. If we can escape from here and get you to safety, would you be willing to at the very least just tell us... totally and quite confidentially of course... all you do know about whatever it is that Hector is involved in?” The woman then sighed, and promised in a soft whisper: “I do swear that if you can get me safely away from him... I will tell you exactly who it is that he works for. I will even tell the police, if that is needed.” Holmes then said quietly: “It may or may not be wise to involve them. We shall need to see.” Right at that moment, a second shot rang out, this one landing much closer to us. We rushed away from our hiding place to seek another, as Hector's voice rang out again: “I can hear you whispering, though I can't make out what you are saying! You are all rats, the three of you... chattering away in the dark like rodents.” Suddenly, Carissa withdrew a small pistol from a pocket of her dress and fired it in Hector's direction, missing her mark. She shouted out: “Hector, you fool! Do you think you will be rewarded for this betrayal of me? There are no rewards at all awaiting you! Only the reward of the grave.” Holmes called for her to stop and be silent, but she would not listen. Hector fired once more, the sound of his reloading of the rifle resounding quickly and nervously in the darkness where he waited like some sort of predatory beast. He would surely shoot the weapon again and again until he ran out of ammunition, if given the chance. We had to either find a way around to where he lurked, so we could apprehend the man at last... or, we had to hope for the worst, that his sister might get lucky with her pistol and manage to either incapacitate him or kill him with it. By the look of things, she meant to kill him. Holmes and I left her to her devices, sneaking around as best we could whilst Hector was occupied focusing solely on his sister. She could prove a worthy distraction for his attention, giving us the chance we need. Shots kept being exchanged between brother and sister, without success on either part. She moved quickly to avoid his shots, and he did as well to avoid hers, making it even easier to spot his location and move towards it. This brought me back to my army days, and the memory of other weapons being fired under other terrifying circumstances. But just when we got near Hector, Carissa got lucky and landed a bullet straight through the man's left eye, killing him in short order. He collapsed to the floor, where we then grabbed for the cellar keys and liberated them from his body. Holmes took charge of them, and I ran to where the woman was and grabbed her by the arm, ushering her up the stairs with my colleague behind us. Whoever was the individual who had hired Hector to kill us... the man took that knowledge to his grave with him. And whether his sister knew or not, she had yet to reveal. She seemed to have utterly no reaction to having killed her brother. She clutched her pistol in her right hand, smoke pouring out of the weapon's barrel, and was as silent as a statue. Whatever secrets she had to reveal to us, they would have to wait until we got well free of the cellar. That was no fit place to linger, by any rational stretch.
As soon as we emerged from the cellar, Holmes locked the door so that the men we had knocked out down below would not be able to escape once they woke up. It was doubtful they knew who Hector had actually worked for either... them being men in Hector's employ only. Sherlock confirmed as much, as soon as I asked him his thoughts on the matter. “The police can pick the thugs up later, Watson. For the moment, we shall linger in this mansion a while more whilst we ask the lady here... very politely, nicely and kindly... to tell us all that she can of the reason why her brother wished us dead.” The woman was far from forthcoming, though. She told us nothing we did not already know, and it seemed this case had reached as far as it could go. She promised to pay us double if we took her to the police and left things exactly as they were. Holmes chuckled at the very notion, considering it an insult to his sensibilities, as he explained: “I am often paid a flat rate for my services, madam... neither more, nor less. I am far from a greedy man, and neither am I a stupid man. What is foolish, however, is writing down certain secrets for anyone with a mind to, to read. As you did, Carissa, when you bared your soul in your diary. That is where I learned that you used to be a woman of the night, if you understand the meaning of that rather lurid expression. As I am certain you do, given that it was your profession for a time. You attempted to supplement your family's ill-gotten wealth through such illicit means, and to make matters worse it was your brother Hector who was your pimp. But that is not your biggest secret by far! No, that would have to be the fact that you were for a time earning a substantial income as the paid mistress of a certain man with whom Watson and myself used to be well acquainted. I am quite sure that you will remember him, Watson! His name, when he still lived and drew breath... was Charles Augustus Milverton.” I was very familiar with that name indeed. I exclaimed at once: “That odious blackmailer! If ever a man died and his death brought cheer to others, there was just such an example. He was a villain, plain and simple. I fail to see where you are going with this though, Holmes... he could not have wished us harm from his current residence in the hereafter.” But Carissa then swiftly interrupted me, exclaiming: “That is where you are wrong, Watson! According to the police, there were two burglars who fled the scene of Charles' death. I hired a detective of my own to look into the whole matter, and obtained a description of the two men. One of them bore an uncanny resemblance to you, Watson. To you! Once, I was able to learn of your partnership with mister Holmes, it became obvious to me who the two men were who killed my former patron. And a very generous patron he was! Generous enough, that I decided to take it upon my own self to avenge his death. It was I, who orchestrated this whole matter to bring the two of you here so I could engineer your demises. He may not have been a good man, or even a decent one, but I shall never say that his money had never been good to me.” Holmes then explained to her the truth about the circumstances of the deceased blackmailer's death, and how it had been another hand entirely which did bring it about... how it had been through mo fault of ours. Sherlock then concluded by stating: “I truly had always intended on keeping silent about all I knew of the death of mister Milverton, and I had for some time now urged Watson to keep silent about it likewise. But madam, your misplaced anger and need for vengeance necessitated my unsealing of my lips on this singular occasion.” He then went into the full details of the moment of Milverton's death, and so perfect were those details and the logic of them that even one as blinded by rage as Carissa had to admit that Holmes' words were truthful ones. “We witnessed the man's end, madam, but ourselves had no part in it.” He then said once he had said all else. Carissa slumped down unto the floor and threw her pistol away from her. “It seems that I have wasted my time in pursuit of this vengeance, then.” she muttered almost drunkenly as if in a trance. It appeared that her mind could not bear the realization of this fact. “Now, I will rot in prison for the rest of my days for the murder of my parents and my brother... and there will be no one to pay you two fine gentlemen for your troubles.” She then withdrew some money from a nearby lock box that was under an end table... after withdrawing the key for it from another pocket of her dress. She pressed all of the money into Holmes' hands, but he took of it only his usual rate and no more, giving the rest back to her.
But Holmes smiled, something he did not do often, and said to the woman: “You will not go to prison for anything, madam! That I can promise you. I read your diary... all of it, as quickly as time permitted. I know that your parents abused you dreadfully as a child. Your father, in particular, did so in the most loathsome ways imaginable. It was heartbreaking to read what you wrote of it. It was not a desire at all for money that drove you to kill them... it was revenge for their abuse of you. Your bother was the only one who was ever after their money. You had other means of earning your own, after all, as we made mention of previously. Not wholly legal means, but they served you nonetheless. You are lucky we are not the police, miss Artino. Once we have left, contact them at once and tell them how your brother so tried to imprison you once you witnessed his savage murder of your parents. Say that you saw him drag their bodies to the woods, but do not know where the burial site is. Let the police search for it and find it. Those men as were in your brother's employ down the cellar, were ONLY in your brother's employ. Do you understand me? Emphasize that to the police, and anything those men might say to attempt to indicate your involvement, the police will think are only lies they are telling. I and Doctor Watson here will of course contact the police as well, and give our statements to them. All that we tell them shall be favorable to you, of course! You shot your brother in self defense. We all witnessed it, and I will swear to it. You have been crying, you are dressed for mourning, you have clearly been traumatized by every bit of what you have been through. Oh, and before the police get here... burn your diary. Otherwise, the police will discover it and that will be bad for you, and make liars of us all. As far as I am concerned, you have never had any connection to anyone by the last name of Milverton. We shall forget that, all of us, and move on from here. Hector was the only murderer here! With his demise... you, stand to inherit all of your family's wealth. Enjoy it, Carissa! Do me only one favor, and we shall never speak of any of this again... be more careful the sort of men you trust in the future. Consider this a second chance at a better life. Few women of the night ever get such opportunities to begin anew. Many, meet dark ends.” Holmes then threw her the keys to the cellar and told her to give them to the police when they arrived.
Carissa Artino was never charged with any crime, and lived to a proper old age after inheriting all of her parents' money. She eventually married a wealthy man of reasonable means, and they even started a family. For her, it was a happy ending after all, rather than a dark one. The men who had worked for her brother were all charged for their crimes and sent to prison. That everything went as smoothly as it did, was due no doubt, to the fact that Holmes' and my testimony was a match for hers, and all of it was just as favorable on her behalf as Holmes had promised it would be. It is never easy having to tell lie to save a person's life, but on this occasion it had to be done. We never did learn why it was that the lady chose to paint an inverted pentagram in animal's blood of all things, beneath that open window when she tried so desperately to fake her own kidnapping. But there will always be certain aspects of certain cases that occasionally are expected to escape even one as brilliant as my friend and colleague, Sherlock Holmes. This, however, was not one of them! For, clever as always, the great detective found a possible motive, but one that defied all logic and reason if viewed from a certain perspective. Had I said never? I was a fool! For one evening, I noticed Holmes reading a book of ancient Greek history of all things. He called me over to his cluttered desk and pointed to the page, asking me what my thoughts were about it. It was a section about a dark coven of witches, in ancient Thessaly, who enacted at times blood sacrifices of animals, and sometimes also of people, in forests and farmlands. At the sites, of many such sacrifices, the witches sometimes painted inverted pentagrams in the blood spilled from those very same offerings, in an attempt to procure the blessings of the dark goddess Hecate who was their honored deity. Holmes jokingly said to me: “Well, dear Watson, either miss Artino was a clever student of some very obscure history... or she was a member of a very ancient and at one time feared order of witches. Which do you believe to be the truth?” I said merely: “Either way, I am relieved we parted with her on friendly terms.”
Written by Kou_Indigo
(Karam L. Parveen-Ashton)
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Mysteries of Time
Who killed the first man who was killed by someone?
Who threw the foundation stone in his forehead
and left him to bleed out on the floor?
Who painted caves with his oxidizing blood?
Was it a crime of passion or a crime without compassion
practiced by anyone who wants someone else to die...
It was a crime without regrets!
It was a crime without records!
It was an unsolved crime...
Forgotten in time and lost in the halls
of an infinite labyrinth of genetic chains.
It was a crime that everyone knows they have committed.
It was a crime that nobody knows why it was committed.
Written by PAR
(PAULO ACACIO RAMOS)
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I Caught Her Cheating and Lost My Head
Rain slammed against the windshield like buckshot. The wipers slapped in vain, simultaneously creating bands of smeared grime and the torrents that reduce them into a jigsaw of brake-lights, concrete, and ashen sky. Still angered by the thought of my wife with that Neanderthal, I was unconcerned with—perhaps incapable of—focusing on the dawdling, incompetent drivers around me. Stopping, and going, and slowing, and accelerating. The erratic, herky-jerky motion of the imbeciles served only to heighten my frustration. I cut the wheel left and right, leapfrogging the other vehicles on the freeway at a preposterous speed for the hazardous conditions. My mind was screaming. My hands vice-gripped ten and two. When Dave Matthews belted out "PICK ME UP LOVE!" from the phone lying on the passenger seat it caught me off guard. I looked down at it just before the semitrailer pulled in front of my car.
Although the next instant lumbered obnoxiously, I never saw the Mansfield bar break away under the force of my front end. I never saw the taillights come through the windshield. I did feel a violent stinging pain on my cheek and left jaw, and a lateral tearing sensation in my neck. But none of it compared to the dread I felt when I saw the phone and the passenger seat were moving in a counter clockwise whorl along with the rest of the interstate...and the perfect terror of seeing above me, my headless corpse, still clutching the steering wheel, getting farther and farther away.
Although the next instant lumbered obnoxiously, I never saw the Mansfield bar break away under the force of my front end. I never saw the taillights come through the windshield. I did feel a violent stinging pain on my cheek and left jaw, and a lateral tearing sensation in my neck. But none of it compared to the dread I felt when I saw the phone and the passenger seat were moving in a counter clockwise whorl along with the rest of the interstate...and the perfect terror of seeing above me, my headless corpse, still clutching the steering wheel, getting farther and farther away.
Written by Fizzle
(Ammiture)
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The Harlot of Hadrian's Wood
The lovers danced gaily through the forest as if it was Arden, or as if they were sprites of Greek myth, pale-limbed and without care. She wore a pale pink halter top and denim cutoffs that showed off her thick, rounded thighs. She was large and pink-cheeked but packed with a ruddy vigour and Rubenesque sturdiness that appealed to some men. In what would once have been called the first flower of her womanhood, she'd grown from a homely girl picked first for hockey sticks but last for dances to a confident, flame-haired young adult.
He was skinny and gangling and with a few broken teeth, but again not without physical charm for some tastes. The pronounced pelvic "V" that came up through the jeans, the wiry muscles and the compact buttocks. The girl had stopped by a fallen tree in a clearing. She sat on the stump. The boy peeked through the nearest line of trees like Actaeon espying Artemis as she bathed on Mount Cithaeron. He grinned, clinging to a tree as if affecting concealment, and she grinned back.
She leaned back and undid the top button of her shorts. 'Are you just gonna stand there and watch?' she said. He stepped into the clearing, pulling down his trousers and pants as much out of need as desire, the excitement becoming painful. Exposing himself in this natural place carried its own erotic charge. She stood up and turned around as if preparing to brace herself against the supine trunk, a slit down the middle of which exposed its insides to the baking sun.
She put her hands to her face and started screaming. The boy hastily pulled up his trousers. 'What?! What is it?' he said, taking her by the shoulders. She gestured at the trunk. He walked over to it and looked inside. He had a weekend job killing chickens at a farm, with a broomstick he placed on their throats. But what he saw in the elm caused his stomach to lurch.
It was a woman. Nude and with full breasts, cradled tightly in the elm like a Satanic mockery of a newborn babe in a crib. Her long blonde hair flowed about her head and mounded on her shoulders, one hand draped carelessly across her vulva. Her eyes were wide open and there was a Mona Lisa smile on her face. Rigour mortis and rot had set in, but only just.
***
Chief Inspector Rawlings of Arrowfield Police stood with Detective Mitchell where the lovers once had. The body had been removed from the tree and placed on plastic sheeting. The clearing was cordoned off. 'Recognise her?' said Rawlings.
'No' Mitchell replied, wondering if he was making a joke about their shared sex and hair colour. The woman could have been Rebecca Mitchell's older, fuller-figured sister. And Dan Rawlings had a weird sense of humour. 'I doubt she's local' he said. 'Might be connected with organised crime. These woods have been used as a dumping ground by gangs up the city way.' He crouched beside her, holding his tie so that it didn't make contact. 'She doesn't look the type, though. And according to that pathologist, we've no clue yet how she died. So the question remains: who put Bella in the witch elm?'
'Sir?'
'Old case, from WWII. In Worcestershire, they found the skeletal remains of a woman in a wych elm.'
'Well, this one's not a skeleton.'
'No...' said Rawlings. He stood up suddenly and scanned the perimeter for officers ensuring that the public couldn't stumble in. 'Supposedly she died about 1941' he continued. 'This Bella, I mean. The case was never solved and many theories have been put forward, from a Dutch woman killed by a German spy ring to an occult ritual by Romani gypsies.'
Mitchell snorted. 'I hope it's not the second one this time' she said. 'The last thing we need is more trouble with that caravan park.'
Rawlings waved a hand. 'They're no more trouble than anyone else' he said. 'Besides, Bella was missing a hand, in accordance with a supposed Hand of Glory ritual; so goes the witchcraft theory.' He looked at the woman, her open eyes and enigmatic expression, her hair fanned out about her head, her unblemished body without obvious signs of violence or misuse besides a few track marks down one arm. (The pathologist speculated that she might have been a burgeoning heroin addict.)
'There doesn't seem to be anything missing from this one' he said.
***
Much like Bella in the witch elm, the case of the Harlot of Hadrian's Wood (the rather distasteful name given it due to her beauty, nudity, and location) would never be solved in Rawlings' lifetime, the chief impediment being a failure to identify her.
Two incidents from very different places in time shed some unusual light on it, however.
A magistrate's journal from the late 1600s records peasant superstitions about Hadrian's Wood. Translated to modern English, it describes the trials and execution of an accused witch fifty years prior:
'They walked her, naked, until she was dead on her feet. She was thirty-two, unmarried, and beautiful still, much past her first flower. Though frigid, according to the wags of the town.
'The lads started saying that she must be getting her satisfaction somewhere, and it was not long after when the first accusation was made. The accuser claimed that he'd seen her lighting fires in the woods, where the Devil was said to take his Whores to sign the Book.
'Her father, who'd protected her, was dead by this time. She was pricked with a needle at several points down her arms, and after being walked was pricked again. This time she made no reaction, her body exhausted of soul and response beyond a persistent low moaning.
'They hung her right there in the woods, there being no friends or family to demand a proper hearing. A thunderstorm roiled that night, and in the morning when the witchfinder returned he found the tree where they'd hung her struck down, her body crushed underneath it. Ever since then, it's been said that she walks the woods at night, and few will go near them today.'
Many years after the Harlot was found, a businessman was telling a group of men down the pub about when he housed a European immigrant during a refugee crisis. He regaled his quietly disgusted audience with tales of what she was willing to do in exchange for her room and board. 'What happened to her?' someone asked.
He shrugged. 'Last I heard, she was living with a gypsy up at Arrowfield.'
He was skinny and gangling and with a few broken teeth, but again not without physical charm for some tastes. The pronounced pelvic "V" that came up through the jeans, the wiry muscles and the compact buttocks. The girl had stopped by a fallen tree in a clearing. She sat on the stump. The boy peeked through the nearest line of trees like Actaeon espying Artemis as she bathed on Mount Cithaeron. He grinned, clinging to a tree as if affecting concealment, and she grinned back.
She leaned back and undid the top button of her shorts. 'Are you just gonna stand there and watch?' she said. He stepped into the clearing, pulling down his trousers and pants as much out of need as desire, the excitement becoming painful. Exposing himself in this natural place carried its own erotic charge. She stood up and turned around as if preparing to brace herself against the supine trunk, a slit down the middle of which exposed its insides to the baking sun.
She put her hands to her face and started screaming. The boy hastily pulled up his trousers. 'What?! What is it?' he said, taking her by the shoulders. She gestured at the trunk. He walked over to it and looked inside. He had a weekend job killing chickens at a farm, with a broomstick he placed on their throats. But what he saw in the elm caused his stomach to lurch.
It was a woman. Nude and with full breasts, cradled tightly in the elm like a Satanic mockery of a newborn babe in a crib. Her long blonde hair flowed about her head and mounded on her shoulders, one hand draped carelessly across her vulva. Her eyes were wide open and there was a Mona Lisa smile on her face. Rigour mortis and rot had set in, but only just.
***
Chief Inspector Rawlings of Arrowfield Police stood with Detective Mitchell where the lovers once had. The body had been removed from the tree and placed on plastic sheeting. The clearing was cordoned off. 'Recognise her?' said Rawlings.
'No' Mitchell replied, wondering if he was making a joke about their shared sex and hair colour. The woman could have been Rebecca Mitchell's older, fuller-figured sister. And Dan Rawlings had a weird sense of humour. 'I doubt she's local' he said. 'Might be connected with organised crime. These woods have been used as a dumping ground by gangs up the city way.' He crouched beside her, holding his tie so that it didn't make contact. 'She doesn't look the type, though. And according to that pathologist, we've no clue yet how she died. So the question remains: who put Bella in the witch elm?'
'Sir?'
'Old case, from WWII. In Worcestershire, they found the skeletal remains of a woman in a wych elm.'
'Well, this one's not a skeleton.'
'No...' said Rawlings. He stood up suddenly and scanned the perimeter for officers ensuring that the public couldn't stumble in. 'Supposedly she died about 1941' he continued. 'This Bella, I mean. The case was never solved and many theories have been put forward, from a Dutch woman killed by a German spy ring to an occult ritual by Romani gypsies.'
Mitchell snorted. 'I hope it's not the second one this time' she said. 'The last thing we need is more trouble with that caravan park.'
Rawlings waved a hand. 'They're no more trouble than anyone else' he said. 'Besides, Bella was missing a hand, in accordance with a supposed Hand of Glory ritual; so goes the witchcraft theory.' He looked at the woman, her open eyes and enigmatic expression, her hair fanned out about her head, her unblemished body without obvious signs of violence or misuse besides a few track marks down one arm. (The pathologist speculated that she might have been a burgeoning heroin addict.)
'There doesn't seem to be anything missing from this one' he said.
***
Much like Bella in the witch elm, the case of the Harlot of Hadrian's Wood (the rather distasteful name given it due to her beauty, nudity, and location) would never be solved in Rawlings' lifetime, the chief impediment being a failure to identify her.
Two incidents from very different places in time shed some unusual light on it, however.
A magistrate's journal from the late 1600s records peasant superstitions about Hadrian's Wood. Translated to modern English, it describes the trials and execution of an accused witch fifty years prior:
'They walked her, naked, until she was dead on her feet. She was thirty-two, unmarried, and beautiful still, much past her first flower. Though frigid, according to the wags of the town.
'The lads started saying that she must be getting her satisfaction somewhere, and it was not long after when the first accusation was made. The accuser claimed that he'd seen her lighting fires in the woods, where the Devil was said to take his Whores to sign the Book.
'Her father, who'd protected her, was dead by this time. She was pricked with a needle at several points down her arms, and after being walked was pricked again. This time she made no reaction, her body exhausted of soul and response beyond a persistent low moaning.
'They hung her right there in the woods, there being no friends or family to demand a proper hearing. A thunderstorm roiled that night, and in the morning when the witchfinder returned he found the tree where they'd hung her struck down, her body crushed underneath it. Ever since then, it's been said that she walks the woods at night, and few will go near them today.'
Many years after the Harlot was found, a businessman was telling a group of men down the pub about when he housed a European immigrant during a refugee crisis. He regaled his quietly disgusted audience with tales of what she was willing to do in exchange for her room and board. 'What happened to her?' someone asked.
He shrugged. 'Last I heard, she was living with a gypsy up at Arrowfield.'
Written by Casted_Runes
(Mr Karswell)
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The Mystery of Brownie the Magical Poo
One day when father entered the bathroom,
On the toilet seat there sat a big poo,
And though no one claimed to have done it,
Father was upset and didn’t know what to do.
But mother on the other hand was furious,
That someone would be that absurd,
So she decided to question the children,
And find out who left that big turd.
First mother asked the baby and the baby said:
“I’m a baby, I can’t even reach the bowl,
Besides that poo is a long curvy thing,
That can’t have come out of my bung hole.”
The mother then asked her little daughter,
And she said “I couldn’t have left that dung,
That’s a very un-lady like thing for me to do,
It’s so big I would’ve coughed up a lung.”
Next the mother questioned her little boy,
“Did you take a poo and just leave it there?”
“No mom I swear, but I think it’s magical,
Let’s take a picture of it, post it and share.”
The mother then questioned her older daughter,
“Eww no, really? Mom! That’s really gross,
I don’t even like to think about bowel movements,
Let alone think about one of those!”
Mother than turned to her oldest son,
“I didn’t do it mom, I swear it wasn’t me,
But my little brother is right, it’s magical,
I think we should name it Brownie.”
Mom fought, argued, begged and pleaded,
But no one would cop to it or make a deal,
So she left it there for days making her angrier,
They all knew that shit was about to get real.
A week later just like it had started,
It disappeared and still no one had a clue,
How or where that stool came or went,
And that’s the mystery,
Of Brownie, the Magical poo.
The End.
Next week Comet, the Inexplicable Vomit.
On the toilet seat there sat a big poo,
And though no one claimed to have done it,
Father was upset and didn’t know what to do.
But mother on the other hand was furious,
That someone would be that absurd,
So she decided to question the children,
And find out who left that big turd.
First mother asked the baby and the baby said:
“I’m a baby, I can’t even reach the bowl,
Besides that poo is a long curvy thing,
That can’t have come out of my bung hole.”
The mother then asked her little daughter,
And she said “I couldn’t have left that dung,
That’s a very un-lady like thing for me to do,
It’s so big I would’ve coughed up a lung.”
Next the mother questioned her little boy,
“Did you take a poo and just leave it there?”
“No mom I swear, but I think it’s magical,
Let’s take a picture of it, post it and share.”
The mother then questioned her older daughter,
“Eww no, really? Mom! That’s really gross,
I don’t even like to think about bowel movements,
Let alone think about one of those!”
Mother than turned to her oldest son,
“I didn’t do it mom, I swear it wasn’t me,
But my little brother is right, it’s magical,
I think we should name it Brownie.”
Mom fought, argued, begged and pleaded,
But no one would cop to it or make a deal,
So she left it there for days making her angrier,
They all knew that shit was about to get real.
A week later just like it had started,
It disappeared and still no one had a clue,
How or where that stool came or went,
And that’s the mystery,
Of Brownie, the Magical poo.
The End.
Next week Comet, the Inexplicable Vomit.
Written by wallyroo92
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Tunnel Vision
In a forest during dusk
An intensely bright light had struck
Over a large lake where drinking animals had fled
Than it abruptly disappeared; had I imagined it all in my head?
From my position on top of a cliff overlooking the lake
I pulled out my binoculars, and I didn’t know what to make
Of what I saw; it was strange
A group of figures in the middle of an exchange
Yet one group was shorter than I’d have envisioned
As if my line of sight was through tunnel vision
I adjusted my binoculars, and what I saw blew me away
Strange, humanoid creatures with skin the color of grey
Heads larger than their bodies, and big eyes as black as the night
Just looking at them had me trembling in fright
Why was a group of humans dealing with them?
If it had to be done in secrecy, then surely, it’s to be condemned
Yet when I crawled out to get a better view from among the trees
A black helicopter suddenly appeared on top of me…
One day, I received an envelope in my mailbox
It read: “Keep quiet, or you’ll get bashed with rocks.”
An intensely bright light had struck
Over a large lake where drinking animals had fled
Than it abruptly disappeared; had I imagined it all in my head?
From my position on top of a cliff overlooking the lake
I pulled out my binoculars, and I didn’t know what to make
Of what I saw; it was strange
A group of figures in the middle of an exchange
Yet one group was shorter than I’d have envisioned
As if my line of sight was through tunnel vision
I adjusted my binoculars, and what I saw blew me away
Strange, humanoid creatures with skin the color of grey
Heads larger than their bodies, and big eyes as black as the night
Just looking at them had me trembling in fright
Why was a group of humans dealing with them?
If it had to be done in secrecy, then surely, it’s to be condemned
Yet when I crawled out to get a better view from among the trees
A black helicopter suddenly appeared on top of me…
One day, I received an envelope in my mailbox
It read: “Keep quiet, or you’ll get bashed with rocks.”
Written by LunasChild8
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I haven’t got a Cluedo how I got here
Heavy rain washed over the wiper blades
the car juddered to a halt, steam rising
from the radiator like a Roman spa.
As I looked around for any sign of help, lightening
flashed across the silhouette of large
foreboding house set back from the road.
I started the 60-yard dash, coat over my head.
The solid oak of the front door gave a dense thud
as I banged three times. It opened before the fourth
“come in Reverend” said a well-placed butler
“We’ve been expecting you”, I was about to say
you have me mixed up with someone else,
when I saw my reflection in a large ornate mirror,
I run my finger inside the white collar
that had appeared around my neck.
I was ushered into the Library
sat down on an old chesterfield.
“May I take your coat” asked the butler
exchanging if for a large silver dagger.
“My cars broke down” I said in a distant voice
looking at my reflection in the blade.
“Can I introduce you to Mrs. Peacock”
he said as he left the room.
She strutted in, all her finery and
feathers interlaced with her dress,
“hello reverend how lovely to meet you again”,
I saw the candlestick behind her back,
her eyes burning with a dark madness.
In a flash she lunged towards me,
candlestick high above her head.
I instinctively stood up and raised my arms
causing her to run onto the dagger.
Its sharp blade sliding into her torso,
as the madness drained from her eyes
she tried to tell me something.
I collapsed at the sight of blood
and came-round in thin white room
that smelled like a dusty old envelope
with just the dagger and a sign that said Library.
As I scanned the walls, trying to find a door
I began to panic.
I could hear voices outside
giant footsteps each one called out by its number
I could hear names, rooms and weapons
being listed in different orders.
Then someone mentioned the dagger,
its blade glistened as it spun round
standing on its tip in perfect balance.
Next the Library sign jumped to attention
as if waiting for further instruction.
Then I heard the words “Reverend Green”
the paper-thin walls of the room
fell apart in a blinding white light
and I was stood outside again
back with my car in the pouring rain
blood dripping from my shaking hands.
the car juddered to a halt, steam rising
from the radiator like a Roman spa.
As I looked around for any sign of help, lightening
flashed across the silhouette of large
foreboding house set back from the road.
I started the 60-yard dash, coat over my head.
The solid oak of the front door gave a dense thud
as I banged three times. It opened before the fourth
“come in Reverend” said a well-placed butler
“We’ve been expecting you”, I was about to say
you have me mixed up with someone else,
when I saw my reflection in a large ornate mirror,
I run my finger inside the white collar
that had appeared around my neck.
I was ushered into the Library
sat down on an old chesterfield.
“May I take your coat” asked the butler
exchanging if for a large silver dagger.
“My cars broke down” I said in a distant voice
looking at my reflection in the blade.
“Can I introduce you to Mrs. Peacock”
he said as he left the room.
She strutted in, all her finery and
feathers interlaced with her dress,
“hello reverend how lovely to meet you again”,
I saw the candlestick behind her back,
her eyes burning with a dark madness.
In a flash she lunged towards me,
candlestick high above her head.
I instinctively stood up and raised my arms
causing her to run onto the dagger.
Its sharp blade sliding into her torso,
as the madness drained from her eyes
she tried to tell me something.
I collapsed at the sight of blood
and came-round in thin white room
that smelled like a dusty old envelope
with just the dagger and a sign that said Library.
As I scanned the walls, trying to find a door
I began to panic.
I could hear voices outside
giant footsteps each one called out by its number
I could hear names, rooms and weapons
being listed in different orders.
Then someone mentioned the dagger,
its blade glistened as it spun round
standing on its tip in perfect balance.
Next the Library sign jumped to attention
as if waiting for further instruction.
Then I heard the words “Reverend Green”
the paper-thin walls of the room
fell apart in a blinding white light
and I was stood outside again
back with my car in the pouring rain
blood dripping from my shaking hands.
Written by Razzerleaf
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