Everybody shrugged.
“Damn,” I muttered. “I was hoping someone would know. I would have looked awfully smart just then. Humph… I bet he is, though.”
“Why do you keep thinking it’s John Turner?” Lestrade asked, with audible frustration. “The man is a dying invalid!”
“It’s to do with Charles McCarthy’s final words. James said he was trying to say something about ‘a rat’.”
“A fairy name!” Holmes insisted. “Ricky-Ticky-Ratty! Rataghast! Ratatouille!”
“You just made those up!” Lestrade shouted.
“Except for the one that is a French vegetable stew,” I added.
“Well, what do you think it means then, Mr. Smarty?” Holmes pouted.
“James McCarthy said his father met John Turner west of Melbourne, Australia.”
“So?” said at least two of my companions.
“West of Melbourne,” I said. “Ballarat.”
Grogsson gave a huge bellow of triumph, as if my final point erased all doubt, which—I will admit—it did not. Both Holmes and Lestrade seemed still willing to press their theories, but Grogsson’s exuberant display robbed them of their chance. Even as the echoes of his roar faded, the long-absent butler burst back through the door and demanded, “What noise is this? I don’t know if you cretins remember it, but there is a man dying in that room! What possibly could be so important that you must argue it with such vigor right outside a death-bed chamber?”
I did not care for his tone.
“To be honest,” I said, “we were discussing if your master is Charles McCarthy’s murderer, or if the whole thing was done by fairies.”
Let me just say that if the butler was well-pleased by my answer, his face did not convey it.
“Get out,” he growled. “Leave this house. My master will not see you.”
“Unacceptable, I’m afraid,” I said, then turned to my largest companion and added, “Grogsson, please inform this fellow that yes, in fact, we will be seen.”
This, Grogsson accomplished with a single backhanded swat that sent the butler rocketing across the ante-chamber until he smashed into the stairway railing. The collision knocked free all the man’s breath, all the man’s half-digested lunch, and no small quantity of blood. The only rebuttal the unfortunate butler mounted was to curl up into a ball and roll insensibly down the stairs.
“Hmmm…” I noted. “It looks as if my list of patients that won’t be paying for my services just increased by one. But that’s a concern for a later hour. For now: to business, gentlemen.”
Inside the chamber, we found John Turner lying on his bed, surrounded by a magnificent pile of cushions and one whisker-sprout of a country doctor, who seemed to have no other course of treatment prepared than to sit and await the inevitable. Which is not to say he was wrong. Both of Turner’s legs had swollen to prodigious size; he was pallid and gray. His every breath seemed to be a trial for him, and his eyes bespoke a profound and insurmountable lethargy. I’d seen it before. Even from across the room, I could diagnose him.
Kidney failure.
Nothing to be done.
Some incense had been lit to keep the smell pleasant, but the thing that really stood out was the collection of large gray stones spread out in what I supposed was meant to be a decorative arrangement. But then, there is no accounting for taste, they say.
Turner’s eyes rose to meet us as we walked in, and—summoning with great effort something of the masterful air that was his habit—he demanded, “Gentlemen, what is the meaning of this intrusion?”
“We want to know why you killed Charles McCarthy,” I told him.
He gave a splutter of surprise and mumbled, “Oh? Hmm…. well… that’s inconvenient.” Then, realizing what he’d said, he gave a sudden start and demanded of his doctor, “Ah! Alice! Is she here?”
“No, sir,” the doctor said gently. “You did not wish for her to see your final moments. Don’t you remember? Your farewells have been said. She is gone.”
“Well thank God for that,” the old man sighed. “Don’t want her hearing all this mess, do I? You go, too. Thank you for your help, but bugger off!”
“But, sir, you may have only minutes.”
“Well then, what good are you doing anyway? Go on! Out with you!”
As soon as the doctor was gone, and we heard his footsteps receding down the stairs, Turner grumbled, “All right, how did you figure it out?”
What a moment! Lestrade forgot all caution in hiding his fangs and let his mouth droop open. Grogsson let out another victory cry. Holmes, I must say, looked rather crestfallen. I’m sure if he’d known this would only be a matter of people killing people with no fey involvement, he’d have stayed home.
“It was the cloak, chiefly,” I told him. “Young McCarthy spotted it as he returned to his father’s side. But before he rose again, it was gone. As I read it, you discarded it to do your mischief, then spirited it away while James was distracted.”
“It wasn’t easy,” Turner grumbled. “I don’t move as quick as I used to, you know. But it’s hard to go out without a cover, nowadays. These old bones get cold.”
“What I don’t understand is this: after so many years of living so close to Charles McCarthy, what suddenly induced you to kill him?”
“Ha! It’s because I heard what he and that dratted son of his were arguing over! I don’t suppose James McCarthy told you about that, eh? Didn’t tell you about his little ‘visits’ to Bristol, did he?”
“Not in detail,” I admitted.
“Poor bastard!” Turner laughed. “He’s a handsome lad, isn’t he? Attracted the eye of some scheming barmaid a few years back. Got all tangled up with her. Got married, in fact. Tried to keep it secret, but we all knew. His father—that black goat—always had the gall to assume young James would marry
