Writing for Fun
February 2015
The Curious Incident - Peter Rogers
I was staying in the Highlands of Scotland with my friend and sometime colleague, Mr Sherlock Holmes. I had prescribed a fortnight's rest for my friend's jaded nerves and I felt that two weeks away from the anxious clients and sinister criminals he encountered in his day-to-day investigations would calm him down sufficiently. Alas, it was not to be!
We had been staying at the local inn in the peaceful village of Tyndrom in Scotland for a mere three days and even Holmes had eventually fallen prey to the glorious scenery surrounding us on all sides. Such tranquillity, however, was not to last.
It was on the fourth morning as we sat in the inn's lounge, basking in the rays of the early morning sun, that a man burst in and enquired of the innkeeper whether it were true that Mr Sherlock Holmes was indeed staying at the inn. I could have groaned when he pointed in our direction. It looked like Holmes' convalescence was over.
'Mr Holmes, ye must help me. My maister's been murdered,' blurted the kilted man, evidently a servant from the nearby Tyndrum Hall.
'That is Dr Watson, my colleague,' Holmes informed him, as he'd evidently assumed I was the famous detective. 'Now calm down and tell me slowly and clearly exactly what has happened.'
The man took Holmes' advice and in his broad Highland accent appraised us of the recent happenings at the Hall. It appeared that the Laird had been missed from his ancestral home and various ghillies and servants had been dispatched to find him. Eventually his body was discovered lying on the moor, with his head showing signs of serious bruising. The curious thing was that in his right hand was clutched a saw.
Holmes decided that the only way to get to the bottom of the mystery was to accompany the ghillie to the scene of the crime. Fortunately the body had not been moved. It seems that any law in this fairly remote spot was some way off and in any case word had somehow got out that the celebrated detective Sherlock Holmes was staying at the local inn, the White Cockade, so who better to solve the mystery of the Laird's murder?
So it was that in less than half an hour we three were standing next to Sir Thomas McKeller's corpse. My friend examined the body carefully and it was obvious that my lord had sustained a heavy blow on his forehead, which had evidently killed him instantly. To my surprise, however, he seemed far more interested in the saw in Sir Thomas' hand. It had obviously been used recently as the scuff marks on the blade clearly revealed.
'Surely, Holmes, Sir Thomas was in the act of sawing wood when his assailant came up behind him and struck the fatal blow?' I ventured.
'Indeed not, Watson,' replied Holmes. 'Firstly the blow was struck from the front. You perceive it was to the forehead. Secondly this is an open moor with no trees in the immediate vicinity. However, what do you make of this?' he cried, thrusting his hand into a thick clump of grass and grasping from it a peculiarly shaped thick branch, as it seemed.
'Why, it must be what Sir Thomas was cutting before he was attacked,' I cried triumphantly.
'Exactly,' said Holmes, 'And can you not see what it is?'
'Why no, I must confess it just seems a very oddly shaped object to me. What it's purpose could have been I cannot fathom.'
'Oh, Watson, Watson!' my colleague cried in exasperation. 'It is a stag's antler. Now do you see who the murderer must be?'
'No, Holmes, I am even more puzzled than before.'
'Aye, I ken weel what's occurred here now, Mr Holmes,' said the faithful ghillie, 'The maister had seen two stags fighting and their horns have got locked together in their combat, ye mind, and the maister has gone to fetch a saw to free the wee beasties.'
'Yes, and to repay their benefactor for his charity,' said Holmes, 'one of them, immediately after having his antler sawn through subjects his poor lordship to a headlong charge which kills him on the spot. That is your murderer, my good man, though I doubt whether you will have any success in apprehending the guilty party now.'
'Well, Watson, it seems our vacation has only been temporarily interrupted after all and since we have still some hours of daylight left I suggest we spend them on these moors, avoiding any stags engaged in mortal combat of course.'
Holmes had triumphed once again by making the mysterious clear.