The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [143]
“If it can destroy a malignant tumour it will be an enormous blessing,” I said. “But how came Sir Andrew to die of its effects and why does the snow still not lie on the Black Barrow? Is there more of the stuff still in there?”
Holmes shook his head. “Sir Andrew would have realized his son’s crime when he saw what was in the dead man’s trunk, and to spare his dead son further shame he hid the urn. Somewhere secure, apparently, for it took ten years for the influence to affect him. When it did he will have realized the significance of the unique decoration on the outer casket. It was a warning that nobody heeded. He could not leave that deadly urn to destroy others. His notes prove that he connected it with his son’s death and also suggested to me the remedy that he devised. The bolster confirmed it.”
“Bolster?” I said, “Where was there a bolster?”
“A wooden implement, Watson, known as a bolster or lead-dresser, used by plumbers for knocking sheet lead into shape, as a moleskin pad impregnated with tallow is used to wipe the joints of leaden pipes and containers. Sir Andrew evidently recalled the leaden lining of the bronze casket and reasoned, perhaps, that it had some inhibiting influence on the ore’s emanations. This morning’s visit and Mr Swain’s photographs confirmed my deduction. Sir Andrew’s last visit to Addleton may have been to stand at his son’s grave, but it was also to return the stolen urn to the Black Barrow. He was quite right. No one will re-open that mound, the locals keep away and there will never be a road or railway or houses on the Moor. Its poisonous influence is as harmless there as if it was at the bottom of the ocean.”
“I admit that it all makes sense,” I said, “but it still seems very theoretical to me.”
“Theoretical!” he snorted. “The pieces of my puzzle have been the words of witnesses who had no cause to lie. All I have added is the unproven, but entirely reasonable, theory of a number of eminent scientists. In the absence of data, Watson, it is permissible to theorize in directions which do not conflict with such data as does exist. It seems that my application of their theory has provided Curie and his friends with further data. In connection with which, Watson, I must ask you not to add this case to your published stories if only because publication might prematurely disclose the reasoning of my French friends and rob them of their just triumph in due course. But I must really write and tell Curie this singular tale.”
I confess that I had no intention of publishing an account of the Addleton affair. I could not fault Holmes’s reasoning, but I could not quell a suspicion that it was all rather too logical and was not capable of proof.
Holmes wrote to Lady Cynthia and to Dr Leary, assuring them that the Addleton disease would never occur again and also to Edgar, explaining his understandable error. That fair-minded man wrote at once to the papers saying that, in the light of new information, he wholeheartedly and entirely withdrew any implication he had made against Sir Andrew Lewis.
Twenty-five years have elapsed since the Addleton tragedy and science has moved on. I owe my friend an apology for doubting him and I make it here. It was less than two years after Holmes had explained his reasoning to me that Becquerel established the existence of an emission from uranium ore which affected photographic plates. Miss Sklodovska, or Madame Curie as she is now widely known, realized that pitchblende contained something that emitted “Becquerel rays” more strongly than uranium and, thereby, discovered radium, the medicinal use of which has saved countless lives. The Curies and Becquerel have richly deserved their Nobel prizes for their efforts in turning a freak of nature to the advantage of mankind, and it seems to me that my friend Sherlock Holmes deserves recognition for having made what must surely have been the earliest practical application of their theories.
As to the deadly aspects of “Becquerel rays”, they are now well understood by scientists. Now we know their