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 Colonel Warburton's Madness |
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| Part Twelve by Watson's Bull Pup (Frank Coffman) |
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And so runs the account of details written out for me by my friend Sherlock Holmes regarding his
meeting with Nana Sahib.
Holmes was a bit amazed for once, I believe, as he was reviving from his drugged and drowsy state that
his cheeks and aquiline nose were being licked by the terrier I had acquired at his bidding. He was initially
clearly dazed and momentarily confused, but I have never seen anyone so drugged metamorphose into
such complete awareness as Holmes on that occasion. He bolted up to a sitting position and then
immediately regained his feet with only a split second of uncertainty as to his balance.
"Watson, I fear we will be too late. Nana Sahib is indeed alive and has escaped me! What a fool I was to be
lulled and gulled owing to my interest in his version of the story!"
"Holmes," I responded, "if the cook we met here was Nana Sahib then he has neither escaped, nor is he
alive. Come here to the doorway."
At that, my friend joined me there, and I directed his gaze to the border of the the lawn of the great park
which ended only a few yards beyond the kitchen in a grove thick with oak trees. There, from the sturdy
branch of a tree not far into the small forest, dangled the limp and lifeless body of Nana Sahib, Butcher
of Cawnpore, erstwhile incompetent cook and arch-criminal against the Empire, his face darkened and
glazed eyes bulging in their sockets.
Around one ankle of the corpse was a dog's coller done in leather with brass ornament, but the leather
was stitched around what proved to be a circlet of purest gold, finely and delicately wrought with the lacy
work of the Hindu smiths of India.
More interesting to Holmes whose quick work with his penknife had deomostrated the mystery of the
collar was the note done in typewriter that had been tucked between the collar and the dead man's ankle
-- "Blickensderfer Model 1 prototype!," as Holmes attested almost immediately upon opening the folds of
the paper. The note read as follows:
"Thank you, Mr. Holmes, for delivering the 'Artifact' to us. We had long heard the rumors that he still
lived and had left Nepal very early on and had settled in England, but we never suspected until recently
that one of Her Majesty's own might me sheltering him. We had hoped that Col. Warburton might do the
honourable thing and turn Nana Sahib over to us -- or at least to the national authorities.
"Failing that, we have found out the truth, chiefly through our observations of your involvement in this
matter. Justice is done. Col. Warburton too should pay for harbouring this fiend, but we will leave that
to you, the authorities of Her Majesty the Queen, and God. We trust that you will do that which is right in
this matter.
"You may keep the gold bauble for your troubles if you like, but its rightful home is a Hindu temple just
north of Madras. The 'Artifact' that we were seeking has found a fitting home in Hell.
Her Majesties Servants,
The Avengenging Sons of Kanpur
[and then appended the Greek letters Alpha-Sigma-Kappa done in sealing wax from a signet ring]"
It was later determined by Holmes and by Scotland Yard that both Lord Broxton and Mr. A. J. Raffles
(both of whom were already in the pages of Holmes's Commonplace Books and both of whom proved to be
sons of Army men killed in the Cawnpore affair) were in London at the time in which Nana Sahib met his
end, and so were untouchable. Holmes was firm in his belief that he could identify the exact typing
machine upon which the note was created if it could be found. But a search of both the Broxton estates
and offices of business and of Raffles' flat produced no such machine of any sort.
Col. Warburton was taken into custody by Lestrade, but almost immediately turned over to Her
Majesty's government in this matter, the truth of which has not been made public until the present
writing. While the old man was being questioned by none other than Mycroft Holmes himself, he fainted
away again -- but this time into the great beyond. His heart had failed much as, at the end, his last
shreds of sanity.
"A most interesting case, Watson," remarked my friend that evening as we took a train back to London.
"I shall remember it as one in which an initially quick flash of insight was clouded by my delay and lack of
cautiousness -- which I am lucky to have survived!"
"Indeed, Holmes, your surmises of the connection to Cawnpore and the probability that not only was Nana
Sahib alive, but in England were astounding. But I must say that, when I opened the door to that kitchen, I
feared the worst when I saw you upon the floor!"
"Yes, Watson, it's a good job for me that the honey was only drugged and not poisoned. I allowed the
mellifluity of Nana Sahib's voice and version of the atrocities to lull me into carelessness. Such an error
shan't happen again."
Those who disposed of Nana Sahib were never brought to any accounting. My friend, the younger
Warburton, came into his inheritance, of course, and he eventually forgave Holmes the ruse of alarm
that he himself might be either or both in danger and insane. As I discovered in talk with him later, he
believed that he did indeed benefit from his visit to his mother's grave that day. I later heard that he
made a pilgrimage to India and visited a Hindu temple not far north of Madras.
And the replacement terrier became young Wharburton's dearest companion at his ancestral halls -- but
the name he chose for it, "Doctor John," I never did really care for.
Go to Epilogue
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