The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

a deep breath to escape the spell he had cast.

'But this can only be a hypothesis!' I heard myself cry in protest.

'It is more than that,' said Holmes. 'Consider the significance of the second bag. A British jury might possibly have acquitted Howells for lack of evidence had she been brought to trial at

the time of Brunton's death: the butler had been found dead in the crypt; the Stuart crown in the mere. There was no evidence connecting Howells directly to either. She had in any event

disappeared. But now the second bag has been found and Howells's neck is in jeopardy for she, and only she, can have received it from Brunton's hand. Brunton never left that crypt alive. It was Howells, a jury will reason, who threw the one sack into the mere – her footsteps, leading to the edge of the lake, proclaim as much – after first secreting the other in its hiding place, a few steps from where she stood. This is no hypothesis, Watson. It is proof. This second linen bag places a hempen rope around the neck of Rachel Howells.'

'I am sure you are right,' said Nathaniel Musgrave, his eyes still fixed on Sherlock Holmes. 'The facts are indisputable.

They admit of no other explanation. Murder was done in our Hurlstone cellar that day: our butler the victim; our housemaid his executioner.'

Holmes continued. 'Aghast at what she has done, she snatches up Brunton's bag and flees to her room, her ears ringing with the sounds of muffled screams and the drumming of frenzied

hands from the cellar. In the haven of her room she makes her plans for flight. What can she do with the bags, the evidence of her dreadful crime?Their discovery in her possession means the

gallows. She decides to leave hers in its feudal hiding place. She spends the next two days in secreting her few belongings near the gate leading from the Hurlstone estate to the world beyond.

On her final night she retires to bed as usual then, quietly, to avoid waking the night nurse, she leaves the house and walks to the lake – carefully leaving tracks to the water's edge to establish the possibility of her death by drowning as an explanation for

her disappearance – flings Brunton's treasure into the mere and takes the gravel path leading from the grounds.'

'How do you know she took the path?' I asked.

'Because her footsteps took her to the edge of the mere next to the gravel path. It was at their junction that her trail ended. The mere was dragged the next day so thoroughly that the linen bag was detected and brought to the surface. But they found no body! No Rachel Howells! She had not entered the lake, therefore she had taken the path. It was always my opinion,' he went on, 'that she had carried herself and the memory of her crime to some land beyond the sea, an opinion I now find justified. She left your grounds, Musgrave, walked to the village, thence, taking every care to remain inconspicuous, by coach to Portsmouth.'

'But would a second housemaid be capable of devising such an undertaking?' Musgrave inquired.

'It was a formidable plan, but the Welsh have many characteristics besides passion and fire,' replied Holmes. 'Among them are courage, cunning, and intelligence. Your cousin had a high opinion of Rachel Howells. He told me so. Remember, too, she was engaged to Richard Brunton, a man of first rate education and intelligence. It is most unlikely that he would have allied himself to a simpleton.

'It now appears that the land she chose,' he continued, 'was North America. Her transatlantic vessel's first port of call was probably Halifax in Nova Scotia, or perhaps Boston in New England. From there she has made her way west, settling in the wilderness gold-mining town of Barkerville – an appropriate haven for an avaricious murderess with crown jewels on her mind. No doubt she changed her name and has supported herself there under her new identity.'

'You think it is Rachel Howells who has sent you this letter from Canada, then?'

'It can be no other.'

'The woman must be arrested, Holmes. She is a murderess! We know her abode. Why should we hesitate?'

'No, Watson, we cannot arrest her until we have identified her with certainty as the sender of this enigmatic letter which has, thanks to our dutiful playing of the role she has written for us, both revealed the treasure and laid claim to it. Consider: the murderess hid the second bag in the coffin. The sender of this letter, and she alone, knows that the bag was hidden there and has directed us to it. To bring home guilt to Rachel Howells we must identify her not only as Hurlstone's second housemaid, and Brunton's accomplice, but also as the sender of the letter.'

'But how dared she send the message and risk detection?' asked Musgrave.

'Let us put ourselves once again in her place. She has learned long ago from Watson's published account of the affair of the Musgrave Ritual that Brunton had told her no less than the truth: that the contents of the bags are indeed of immense value. Watson's narrative has told her also that her share of the treasure remained undetected when Brunton's bag was recovered from the mere. She ponders how she can lay her hands on her fortune, as she no doubt considers it. How does she reason? How can she secure the treasure but avoid the scaffold? Watson's account has told her of the legal difficulties and expense encountered by the Hurlstone estate in retaining the crown. Revelation of her own treasure will kindle a similar investigation. To reveal her knowledge of its existence is to put a noose around her neck. At the cost of her life she must not be identified as the treasure's finder. She needs an untermediary, an agent capable of dealing with the authorities and of meeting the expense necessary to retrieve the trove. She therefore finds a surrogate – or surrogates. In their name she lays claim to the treasure, relying on them to provide her with both a share of the proceeds and continuing anonymity.

'But she cannot act! Reginald Musgrave, she knows, can identify her by sight. She cannot risk claiming her fortune, even indirectly through her agents, while the possibility remains that he might, during the negotiations for its return, meet her in broad daylight.

'She learns of Sir Reginald's death in the shooting accident. The promptness with which she acts – within ten days; that's quick work, you know – argues against her having learned of it from the Hurlstone Village Chronicle, which she may possibly receive regularly. Musgrave's death may have been timely reported in the Canadian newspapers but more likely a Sussex crony has sent her a wire. She immediately makes her move by laying claim to the riches in the name of her confederates.

'Our envelope, Watson, must identify her surrogates! Its senders have, by directing us to the hideaway in the Norman catacombs of Hurlstone, effectively laid claim to the crown jewels of the ancient Stuarts. The finders of treasure have important rights, which are recognized in courts everywhere.' He turned to Nathaniel Musgrave. 'I believe, Mr Musgrave, that your family's rights vis-a-vis those of other claimants were in any case abandoned when your cousin signed a waiver of any further title when he established your claim to the Hurlstone crown. Yes? Then it is so: the right to our discovery today resides in the sender of this message – and that can only be the confederate, or confederates, of Rachel Howells. It is they, not we, who are the true finders. Knowing what we do, you and I, Watson, have no choice but to attest to that.You, Musgrave, will be wise to consider your position with care. These surrogates will undoubtedly approach you as negotiators but they may not be unreasonable.'

Holmes withdrew the mystery epistle from his breast pocket and examined it again carefully. 'So it is report system – together with our extra L – that we have available to us. What in the name of the devil can we infer from them?'

It was then that Sherlock Holmes looked up at me with a startled expression. He had evidently seen something on the envelope which we had missed.

'Watson, do you perchance have friends in the west of Canada?'

'None that I know of,' said I, 'save Sir Henry Baskerville, but we have already eliminated him from the equation. Why do you ask?'

'Because just as one inference often suggests another, one logogram can suggest another. But wait! I am not sure…' He scribbled furiously in his notebook. 'REPORT SYSTEM L rearranges to…'

I looked over Holmes's shoulder.

'… to STORMY PETRELS!' he cried in triumph. Musgrave and I stared at Holmes in astonishment. I checked his scribbled notes. It was just as he said. Holmes went on, speaking rapidly, as one whose brain races ahead of his power to communicate: 'What or who can these 'stormy petrels' be? It is a phrase that I have applied to you, Watson! And to myself! Could it be that this

is a reference to us? That it is yet another of those devices which this extraordinary woman has used to manipulate us? No. It cannot be so. The envelope is addressed not to 'Watson' but to `Musgrave'. And the words