Sherlock Holmes Case of the Gourmet Werewolf

  Sherlock Holmes

  Case of the Gourmet Werewolf

  John Pirillo

  Copyright 2016

  Chapter One: Destiny Arrives

  She moved through the night like a ghost through walls, one step at a time, but seeming to float just slightly above the thick snow, not leaving a single trace of her path as she moved stealthily along the snow packed ground. Puffs of white smoke exhaled from her nostrils and her mouth as she breathed. She didn't notice them. She was used to much worse than this. Much, much worse.

  Her home for a long time now had been high in the mountains of the Russias, where sky and clouds kissed the chin of sunrise and draped the face of sunset. A remote and singularly harsh environment for a woman who craved nothing less than the comforts of the man's arms she had once held about her. But no more. Alas, no more.

  She felt a warm flush through her body as she remembered his wiry body against hers, his face promising adventure and understanding like none she had had before. He was a chapter in a book with no ending possible, and yet it had. Suddenly. Torturously.

  She moaned as she thought of how she had stolen away from him in the night. Stolen because had she not, he would be dead now and even the memories she had of those precious few days would eventually fade with no possibility of new ones to replace them.

  But now. Now she could steal into his life at certain moments and comfort him, even though he could not comfort her. Her life was promised to a curse and she must live it out, even if it meant her own life be lost. For she dared not claim the prize of the curse no matter how much it pressured her. And it did. She could feel it weighing heavily on her heart, more and more each and every new day and night she didn't fulfill the promise she made. That's how powerful her father had been. That's how strong his hold over her still was!

  "Sherlock," she whispered gently into the freezing night. "I am coming."

  A strong and freezing wind blew from off the Atlantic and across the Thames, deep into the heart of frozen London. It reminded her that she had a mission to complete. And perhaps even a time when she could be once more with the man she loved more dearly than life: Sherlock Holmes! But first, she had something she must do. Something terrible.

  Chapter Two: To Sleep, To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

  Watson moaned in his sleep. He did that a lot lately. And it was probably a good thing he hadn't married Mrs. Hudson yet, for if he had, she surely would be even more a grouchy bear than he felt as he punched his pillows, trying to get them into some kind of shape that his sweaty face and hair could stand once more.

  But finally, he gave up.

  He sat up on his bed and once more contemplated the dread he had been feeling of late. A dread that quickened his heart, accelerated it dangerously, making him fear that perhaps he was about to have a heart attack. But he wasn't. It was something else. Something far more insidious and dark. Painful.

  The vision he had received.

  It had struck about two weeks ago when he and Holmes were investigating this rather peculiar kind of track that led from the scene of a brutal murder and robbery. One Sir Robert Wentfellow had been struck down in his sleep, his throat slashed. Not by a knife. But by teeth. Teeth sharp enough to not only sever his jugular vein, but the spine of his neck as well.

  "Werewolf." Holmes had uttered to the amazement of Watson.

  Watson had shaken his head in dismay. "Vampires, werewolves, dark wizards. When will all this rubbish stop happening?"

  Holmes had given him a patient smile. "When the rain stops forever and the sun never shines, then the plight of mice and men shall be settled and sane."

  "Yes, I know that verse. Shelly, isn't it?"

  Holmes didn't answer. Yet again, he didn't need to. Watson was growing so attuned to his new friend that his slightest mannerisms no longer left him at doubt about the meaning of the sometimes cryptic and vague words his companion spent on him and others.

  Sometimes he began to feel a bit perverse in that he could actually anticipate what Holmes was about to say.

  Just the other night he had stayed up into the wee hours with Mrs. Hudson, not talking about their future plans together, which they loved to do, but rather how of late he had been having these inexplicable visions and intuitions of things to come and places he had never been. And they seemed familiar, event thought that was impossible.

  "John," she had told him. "How can anyone be around Sherlock as long as you have in this world and the next, and not be just a bit different?"

  "Yes, I understand that," he had told her. "But that doesn't explain the psychic phenomena I've been experiencing of late."

  Mrs. Hudson had leaned into him and cuddled him gently. "My father told me when I began having such visions that God loved me and was giving me special attention."

  "Did you believe him?"

  "Not really," she laughed. She turned to look into his face. "But I stopped having nightmares."

  "Well, that just won't work with me," he told her, being stubborn and grouchy once more.

  She sat up and took his arms and placed them about her. "Well then, let's see if we can't find another way to convince you, shall we?"

  He had smiled.

  Watson smiled at the memories of that night. She was special. She had been right. It had stopped his fear of the experience, but drat it all, not the experiences. If anything they kept flooding in. Even sometimes when he walked with Holmes, he'd suddenly see someone standing in the middle of the street with a truck about to slam into them, but when he hollered at them to get them to move, the truck passed right through them.

  It startled him so much that even when Holmes asked him about it, he couldn't. He didn't know what words to use. His brain was too numbed by the experience.

  Finally, he yawned and slipped his feet into his slippers. He headed downstairs.

  Mrs. Hudson stood there in her nightgown, holding out a cup of coffee for him. Her smile was radiant. "But how did you know I was coming?" He asked, perplexed at her being there.

  She smiled. "John, you've been doing this every night for the last two weeks. Give me credit for a bit better memory than that," she warned him, the tease of a smile on her lips.

  He took the coffee, stooped and brushed his lips against her cheek. "I guess this is practice for when we finally get married," he said with the hint of a smile.

  She smiled back, took his hand and led him into her apartment. "Maybe," she ventured in a soft voice filled with the hint of mystery, surprise and adventure.

  Chapter Three: On the Prowl

  Sniff.

  Currents of fragrance touched lightly.

  Sniff. Sniff.

  Another waft of fragrance from a different direction.

  Masculine.

  Sniff.

  Sweat.

  Sniff. Sniff.

  Sweat and fatigue. Sleep curling in mists about the taste of the two.

  Yum.

  Savored the essence of the breath that had entered its nostrils, as they flared outwards in anticipation.

  Could feel clothing starting to rip from shoulders and back, pants shredding, shoes tearing at the toes and heel, and then they were flung off and it dropped to all fours, a huge shaggy body free at last to hunt once more.

  Sniff!

  To Hunt.

  To Kill.

  To Eat.

  To howl!

  The night was shattered by its blood-freezing cry for blood and meat.

  Chapter Four: The Hunted

  Freddy Hampton was a humble man with a large appetite. He never admitted to any faults but his own and quickly forgave the faults of those about him, knowing that his o
wn quiver of faults was fully notched and feathered, ready to be shot into his own heart at any given moment. He neither feared nor envied any other's life, nor his own. Life was what it was; why complicate it?

  He was a man of simple means, simple pleasures, and simple needs. He ate when he had food, and fasted when he did not. But when he did eat, he ate all the wrong foods. Breads, cakes, pies, scones, anything of bread and sugar were fair game. And so it came as no surprise to him or anyone else for that matter that he would become as well rounded in body as he was in his tastes for sugar and bread.

  But as he walked wearily home this night from his factory job near the wharf and the fog, damp and cold, along with the breeze nipped at his bones, even through his thick layers of insulation.

  What was worse than the cold was the intense silence about him. He could hear nothing. Not even his own footsteps, which he found quite unusual. Why wouldn't he hear his own steps? This was worrying to him. Very much so.

  "Not a good night to be about alone," he told himself. As if that was going to solve anything, Freddy, he reminded himself a bit tartly. He smiled. Imagine him hollering at himself even. What had his life come to?

  He carried a lunch pail. It could be used as a not only as a weapon of defense, but a weapon of offense as well. But it was sorely lacking. One good smack at someone and it was all over. It would spring its lid; pop its hinges and break apart, thrusting noisily to the ground in a plunge of broken pieces.

  He knew that because he had done so once before when a mugger had attempted to rob him. He hadn't any money, but the mugger didn't believe him. He even offered to give him the apple left in his pail, but the blaggart wouldn't agree to anything less than everything. And that meant his life, since he had nothing of value apparently visible.

  The mugger had slipped a knife the size of his own large hand with a wicked blade about seven inches long to plunge into Freddy's sumptuous stomach and had done so. But fortunately for Freddy, the layers of fat absorbed the blow, but the mugger's head could not absorb the blow of the pail.

  It had broken his lunch box, but it had also broken the mugger's skull.

  After the constables arrived to carry the mugger off he had looked at his poor pail, all the pieces lying before him and had sworn he was going to lose weight and buy a better pail.

  Of course once the doctor, Watson, was his name, he believed. Once he had sewn up the wound and tied it together all pretty and told him, "This is one time I will say that fat has surely saved your life, Freddy. But in the future, you'd do better without it. Take my advice and lose some weight. Next time you'll be able to run away instead of being a target."

  Freddy had given the good doctor a nod, but inside himself he was thinking. "Being fat is not as dangerous as being skinny. That knife would have penetrated my lungs or my stomach otherwise and where would I be now? I'd be pushing up daisies, that's what!"

  But tonight there was no mugger; but he did carry a larger and stronger pail. This one was double thick. It might not only dent a poor mugger's skull, but break it as well.

  He heard something behind him.

  He froze.

  All his senses tensed, as he tried to ascertain what the source of the sound had been. When he didn't hear it again he relaxed, but hefted his lunch pail....just in case, mind you, he thought to himself.

  He smiled and kept walking. He got about four yards.

  He never made it to the fifth.

  He never got to use his garbage pail the way he intended.

  He no longer had to worry about all those cherry and rhubarb pies he had been eating, nor the strawberry and raspberry scones. Nor did he have to worry about the French bread he always kept in his cooler, or the wine in his cabinets. He didn't have to worry about anything anymore.

  He had stopped worrying.

  Entirely.

  Chapter Five: Feast or Famine

  Watson snatched his last scone from the silver platter it had been upon, spread some butter on it, and then began eating it. Holmes sat near the window, reading the morning London Times.

  "Watson."

  "Yes, Holmes?"

  "Do you believe in werewolves?"

  "I've known a few," Watson replied between bites. "But why are you asking?"

  "There have been several murders lately that claim a werewolf was responsible."

  Watson snickered. "Good old London Times. Always good for a laugh."

  Holmes folded the paper and set it upon his lap. He watched one of the newer Tesla electric cars driving by chased by several Baker Street Lads on bicycles he had bought for them last Christmas. They were screaming and hollering like normal kids, but he knew they were far from it. They lived in a small community of children who had struck out on their own to escape abusive parents.

  "But what if it's true?"

  Watson finished his scone, wiped his mouth with his napkin, then shoved his plate back and eyed Holmes. "A new case?"

  Homes smiled. "How well you know me, Watson."

  "Too well, I suspect, sometimes."

  Holmes stood up and went for the coat rack. "I am going for my morning constitution. I should be back shortly if anyone asks."

  "Very well. Shall I ask Mrs. Hudson to hold the breakfast then?"

  "No need, I shall tell her on the way out."

  Holmes slipped his hat and coat on and then descended from view.

  Watson got up, went to the chair where Holmes had laid the morning paper. He glanced at the headlines, which Holmes had laid for him to see, knowing that Watson's curiosity would be aroused by his comments.

  "Mmmm."

  A portrait of a huge beast shaped like a man but with immense clawed hands, hairy body and clawed feet was the center photo. Droplets of blood were portrayed falling from massive fangs.

  Watson sighed again. "I'm so tired of London being the hub of all things dark and unnatural. The monsters never cease do they?" He asked the air, shook his head and then headed for the coat rack. Put on his coat and hat.

  He went downstairs and opened the front door, where he knew Holmes would be waiting.

  "Right then," Watson said, clearing his throat at the same time.

  Holmes smiled and stepped to the sidewalk and began a brisk walk.

  Watson stepped down to follow him.

  Chapter Six: Scotland Yard

  Inspector Bloodstone paced his office, scowling angrily as Constable Evans read the coroner's report on the latest victim of the so-called Werewolf Murders that the London Times screamed each morning with its headlines. No doubt it had furthered its sales quite a bit. Londoners seemed to thrive on the mysterious and the macabre.

  "Father?"

  "Yes, yes, what is it?" He growled angrily. Then he sensed he had hurt his son's feelings and turned a smile on him. "Forgive me, son. Just too much on my mind these days. There must be another occupation I could retire to that doesn't involve monsters of some type."

  Constable Evans laid the report on his father's desk, folded his arms, his youthful face lit up with mirth. His mustache twitched like a bird singing when he laughed.

  "You say that every year this time, and you never retire," Constable Evans pointed out.

  Inspector Bloodstone examined his son's face more closely. He remembered when he had been young like that. Young, enthusiastic. Driven by purpose and hope to make a difference in the world.

  Constable Evans, his son, took after him in so many ways, even down to the shocking red hair and mustache.

  He was still so young. He wished there was some way he could spare him the further horrors that his career would bring, but knew it was useless to discuss it with him, anymore than it had been his father's inability to persuade his own father otherwise. Sons must make up their own minds; and that decision rarely fit the father's prognosis for them anymore. A long time ago it might have, but times were changing. Science and magic were developing so fast that few could keep up with the changes.

  He growled lightly. Modern society was going
to be the ruin of the common man.

  "Father?"

  "Oh, sorry. I'm just off again on one of my silly rants to myself again."

  He motioned to Constable Evans to have a chair.

  He sat behind his desk, folded his arms on it, and then looked his son in the eyes. "I want you to lead this investigation."

  Constable Evans gave his father a look of utter disbelief.

  "I'm serious."

  "But only a detective can do that," Constable Evans protested.

  "And I feel you would be a fine one, Constable Evans," Holmes said, having overheard the conversation before entering.

  He and Watson entered.

  Constable Evans jumped to his feet.

  Holmes motioned him to sit back down. "We shan't be long. Inspector."

  "Holmes. Watson."

  "Inspector," Watson replied in his usual guarded manner when dealing with the volcanic Inspector.

  The Inspector hid a smile. He found some humor in rattling Watson's cage; even though he would never ever do anything directly to harm the man. He was a good man, but they just didn't always hit it off well. He couldn't understand why, unless he believed that nonsense his son always spouted about them both being stubborn, mule headed and obnoxious at times.

  He smiled and eyed Holmes, who was waiting for the question. "What is it, Holmes?"

  "I should like to borrow Constable Evans, if you don't mind."

  The Inspector smiled. "Borrow him, use him, bend him, and break him. He needs to get out and become the man I know him to be."

  "Father!"

  "It's true," the Inspector insisted. "Detective Evans needs practice."

  Constable Evans looked stunned. He eyed Holmes who smiled and his father whose face was never more serious. "Then you're serious about it?" He stammered...

  "Never more so. Holmes and I have been talking about this for quite some time and..."

  "Even Watson agrees that you are more than adequate for the job; we can both think of numerous occasions when your insights were valuable, Constable Evans. Or should I say... Detective Evans?"