“I ran over there to check on him! He was trying to say something to me—tell me something about a rat.”
“A rat?”
“That’s what he said. Erm… I think. He tried to say it a couple of times, but then… his words left him, and…”
“And that’s when you went to get the lodge-keeper?” I asked.
“It was the closest place.”
“And how do you account for your arriving so soon after little Patience, having spent so much time at the scene of the murder?”
He shrugged again and suggested, “Longer legs?”
“And did you see the strange gray cloth again?” I wondered.
“Not that I can remember.”
“Indeed. Just one more question, Mr. McCarthy: do you know anybody besides your father who spent a great deal of time in Australia?”
“Well sure. John Turner. That’s where they met, you know. In the gold fields west of Melbourne.”
“West of Melbourne, you say? Hmmm… Thank you, Mr. McCarthy. I promise to do my utmost to aid you in your case.”
I shook his hand, turned and left. As we stepped back into the afternoon light, Torg Grogsson grumbled, “See? In-uh-sint. Right?”
“I do believe he is.”
“Whut now?”
“I rather think I’d like to ask John Turner about the whole affair.”
Torg gave a resolute grunt of assent.
“Got your handcuffs?” I asked.
Another grunt.
“Capital. Shall we?”
* * *
John Turner’s house was not so grand as I might have thought. It was certainly more than enough to accommodate an old widower, his daughter, and their servants. It just wasn’t quite what I’d have expected for a man who owned half a county and wanted to remind everybody of the fact. We were met by Turner’s butler, who informed us that his master was not receiving visitors at the moment, because his attentions were currently engaged with the process of… well… dying.
“A very reasonable response on most days,” I told the man. “Yet, this is official police business and—as it may reflect meaningfully on his legacy—John Turner would likely want to deal with it before he goes. Please inform him of the extreme urgency of this interview.”
The butler gave a deep sigh and said, “Very well. You can wait with the others.”
Apparently, John Turner had a rather full schedule his last day on earth. The butler led us up some stairs to a little antechamber just outside Turner’s bedroom where I found Warlock Holmes sitting on a bench beside Vladislav Lestrade—Scotland Yard’s droopiest vampire.
“Holmes! Lestrade! What are you doing here?”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Holmes cried, leaping to his feet. “What are you doing here? Lestrade, Grogsson, I am disappointed in you! I thought we agreed Watson must never be involved in supernatural investigations! And now I find you’ve dragged him down to a valley jammed full of murder fairies? For shame!”
“I thought you said it was a boggart,” said Lestrade.
“Well… nearly the same thing,” Holmes replied. “You’ve got fairies, you know. And then pixies, who are fairies, but they’re also a bit of a bastard. Boggart—as far as I understand the speech of the fey—means ‘partly fairy, total bastard’, so they must be handled with some care.”
Lestrade gave a groan of strained patience and said, “The only thing that must be handled, Holmes, is a man named James who has killed his father.”
“Oh, right by the side of Boggart Pool? Take my word for it: anyone who doesn’t think Charlie McCarthy was slain by evil fairies is a perfect dummy!”
“I’m afraid you are both wrong,” I whisper-hissed. The butler had gone inside Turner’s chamber to announce us, but I did not want him to overhear what I was about to say. “I am evermore confident that the murderer is none other than John Turner, who now lies expiring in that very room.”
Lestrade gave an audible scoff so I began to lay out my case. “Look here: James and Charles McCarthy were both present at Boggart Pool—that much has been established. But what if there was a third man present?”
“There is no reason to suspect a third,” Lestrade interjected.
“Ah, but there is! A third was expected. Let us recall that Charles McCarthy had an appointment at that pool with an unknown man. We do not know the identity of this person, but we do know that McCarthy tried to call out to him with the phrase, ‘Coo-ee, coo-ee.’ Now, that is an odd sound in this part of the world, but it is a common way to hail somebody in Australia.”
“Ah, but nobody actually saw Charlie McCarthy utter this call,” Holmes pointed out. “Anybody present may have made that noise—a noise which I believe James McCarthy misheard. It was in fact, ‘Squee! Squee!’ which—as everybody knows—is the war cry of the Northumbrian battle-pixie!”
“Oh? Really?” said Lestrade. “Everybody knows th—”
“Yes! Everybody!”
Even Grogsson had to shake his head at that one. He offered a comment that was—in the finest thread of his own deductive style—perfectly simple, yet also incisive. “Dis not North Um Bree Yah.”
“He’s got you there, Holmes,” I laughed. “Besides which, I have more evidence of a third man’s presence. Let us not forget the gray cloak.”
“Oh no,” moaned Lestrade. “Please don’t remind him of the gray cl—”
“Ah-ha! The gray cloak!” Holmes thundered, waving his finger in the air. “That is what first caught my attention. It was during a simple visit from Lestrade, you see. He was telling me the tedium of his current case, which had no feature worthy of my interest until—until—he mentioned the strange appearance and disappearance of the gray cloak! That was when I knew I must involve myself!”
“Why?” I wondered.
“Well, because… who do we know who wears a gray cloak?”
“Anybody, Holmes,” Lestrade groaned. “Just anybody.”
But Holmes shook his head and proclaimed, “Herne the Hunter!”
“Who?” said Torg and I together.
“Herne the Hunter!” said Holmes. When we continued to stare at him, uncomprehending, he gave a frustrated click of his tongue and demanded, “Herne! The antler’d king of night! Leader of the Wild Hunt! With his gray cloak and his owl! Do you not remember your Shakespeare?
“Sometime a keeper here in Windsor
