The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [202]
Over breakfast, he unbent a trifle. “Well, Watson, what do you make of our case?”
“Very little … I had thought,” I ventured, “that you would dissect or analyse the leech itself and perhaps identify its toxins.”
“The naked eye sufficed.” He pulled the red thing from his dressing-gown pocket and tossed it casually on to my plate of kippers, causing me to recoil in horror. “As you may readily discern for yourself, it has been artfully made from rubber.”
“Good heavens!” I studied the ugly worm more closely, and was struck by a thought. “Holmes, you suspected this artificial leech from the outset, or the excursion to Hampstead Heath would have been futile. What gave you the clue? And has Traill deceived us – are we the butts of some youthful jest?”
Holmes smiled languidly. “In a moment you will be telling me how obvious and elementary was the reasoning that led me to distrust that repulsive object. Look again at the newspaper cutting.”
I took it from his hand and examined it once more, to no avail.
“Setting aside the fact that the type fount does not correspond to that of any British newspaper known to me (the work of a jobbing printer, no doubt) … setting aside the extreme unlikelihood that such a striking report should have escaped my eye and failed to be pasted into our own celebrated index volume … may I direct your attention to this red leech’s scientific name?”
“Sanguisuga rufa,” I repeated. “Which I should say means something like ‘red bloodsucker’.”
“You are no taxonomer, Watson, but you are a doctor – or, as some country folk still call the profession, a leech. Can you bring to mind the Latin name for the leech once used in medicine?”
“Hirudo medicinalis, of course. Oh! That is strange …”
“In fact, Sanguisuga is not a scientific class name. It is poetic. It was used of leeches by Pliny. Our villain, who may or may not be ‘Dr James’, knows his Latin but not – if I may so phrase it – his leechcraft.”
I said: “How obvious and elem … that is, ingeniously reasoned!”
Holmes inclined his head ironically. “Here is our client at the door. Good morning, Mr Traill! Dr Watson has just been explaining with great erudition that your red leech is a fake – a rubber toy. And now the chase leads us to Theobald’s Road, to the law office of Jarman, Fittlewell and Coggs, where today you will at last claim your inheritance. Watson, that excellent revolver of yours might well be of use.”
“My reconstruction,” said Holmes as our cab rattled through a dismal London fog, “is a trifle grisly. There you were, Mr Traill, arguably somewhat drowsy from the compounded effects of warm weather, literary reveries and a bottle of Bass. Your habit of picnicking near the Highgate Ponds is well known to your friends – even, I dare say, your sister?”
“That is so. In fact, Selina has publicly twitted me more than once for what she calls my shiftless habits.”
“Thus the miscreant ‘Dr James’, whose appearance is a transparent disguise but whose true surname I fancy I know, had little difficulty in locating you. It was easy for him to approach you stealthily from behind and drop or place this little monstrosity upon the back of your hand as you sprawled on the grass.” He displayed the leech once more.
“The thing still revolts me,” Traill muttered.
“Its underside seems to have been coated with dark treacle: that would provide a convincingly unpleasant-looking and adhesive slime. But in addition, the ‘mouth’ section was dipped in some corrosive like oil of vitriol – see how it is eaten away? That was what you felt.”
Again Traill convulsively massaged the back of his hand. “But, Mr Holmes, what was the purpose of this horrid trick? It strikes me that your investigations have made matters worse! Before, I could blame my hand’s infirmity on the leech poison.