Sherlock Holmes and the Legend of the Great Auk

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT AUK The Early Casebook of Sherlock Holmes Book Five Linda Stratmann In memory of the great auk, and other species uncaringly driven to extinction. Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE CHAPTER THIRTY CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO NOTE TO THE READER HISTORICAL NOTES HEAR MORE FROM LINDA ALSO BY LINDA STRATMANN From Memoirs of a Medical Man by A. Stamford FRCS 1924 CHAPTER ONE When I first knew Sherlock Holmes, he had yet to inhabit 221b Baker Street, that famous address to which the great, the good and the evil of this world would one day beat a path. We were both students at Barts Medical College, where I was advancing towards my qualification as a surgeon, while Holmes attended lectures in chemistry and anatomy, and conducted his own independent, unsupervised, and often hazardous experiments. His lodgings were in Montague Street, close by the British Museum, where he was often found in the great library, deeply engrossed in scholarly studies of the criminal mind. The museum had good reason to be grateful to Holmes, although his brilliant solution to the Rosetta Stone mystery was not made public at the time, due to the sensitive nature of the event. Once that alarming case was concluded, the museum’s directors returned to their everyday business of augmenting and maintaining its prized collections. They also supervised the perpetual rivalry for exhibition space between the antiquities and natural history departments, which were then obliged to share the Bloomsbury building. My good friend George Luckhurst, who is a scholar of classical Greek sculpture, and knew Holmes from their college days, was then an assistant keeper of the museum’s oriental galleries, and thus I was regularly invited to private viewings of new and important acquisitions before the public ever saw them. Holmes rarely showed an interest in these events, but I am about to describe the one occasion on which I was able to engage his earnest attention. Holmes was in the students’ reading room at Barts, where he often repaired to stretch his long frame after a day hunched over a bench in the chemistry laboratory. I found him scouring the daily newspapers for reports of sensational trials and shaking his head with vexation at the singular lack of imagination of the British criminal. I made bold to interrupt his research by suggesting he might like to go to the inaugural viewing of the museum’s new attraction in the ornithology department. ‘It is a specimen of the great auk, which is generally believed to be extinct,’ I said. ‘I assume it is dead,’ he said drily. ‘A living one would be something of a novelty.’ ‘Stuffed and mounted,’ I said, ‘and I have been told it now stands in a beautifully constructed display representing its natural habitat. It caused some excitement recently because it was found in the collection of Sir Andrew Caldie, who died last year. It seems he must have kept it a secret, because no-one who dealt with his estate even knew he had it. And of course, next moment museums all over the world started to make bids for it. But they needn’t have troubled themselves, because when his will was read it was found that he had left all his collection to the British Museum.’ ‘How generous,’ said Holmes. ‘Although I confess that the only stuffed bird which might attract my interest at present is a well roasted fowl.’ ‘But there is a mystery attached to this one,’ I said. I allowed myself a pause. Holmes remained impassive, but his nostrils quivered like those of a hound attracted by a scent. ‘There is no record of where and when Sir Andrew acquired it. I am sure it is genuine, as two of the greatest experts in that field, Professor Beare and Dr Woodley have examined it and are satisfied, but all the same, there is an air of secrecy which has resulted in all kinds of rumours, none of which are flattering to any of the parties involved.’ ‘Rumours so rarely are,’ said Holmes. ‘Do not regale me with them. I prefer to draw my own conclusions untarnished by another man’s bile.’ He folded his newspaper and laid it aside. ‘I am at your disposal.’ In 1877 the British Museum galleries were open to the public three days a week, and only during the hours of daylight, there being no artificial lighting allowed due to fear of fire. The viewing was to be held during one of the days of closure. The occasion was by ticket only, although Luckhurst was easily able to obtain permission for Holmes and me to be admitted as his guests. The new exhibit, I was told, had generated considerable anticipation amongst ornithologists since specimens of the great auk were rare and costly, and rarities were always deemed to be more interesting than commoner birds. The last acquisition of a great auk known to have been collected on British shores was bequeathed to the museum in 1819, but since the living bird was then still occasionally seen in northern waters it did not attract more than the usual numbers of visitors. Recent lectures on the subject of extinct birds had excited fresh interest, but the British auk had been temporarily withdrawn from display for necessary conservation work. It was hoped that the announcement in the scientific and public press of the new specimen would increase attendance. Just for a while, the humble bird would rival even the renowned Rosetta Stone. The afternoon of our visit lay on the cusp of spring and summer, and vivid daylight was streaming through the high windows of the museum