olmes hesitated as I took him aside and pressed my revolver into his hand once again. ‘Very well, Watson. But learn what you can from Cameron Coupe. At any cost.’ A violent wind had come up and as servants brought their coats, and more joined at Alistair’s behest, I will admit to worrying about Holmes’s physical state. But he would hear no objection, that was clear.
He and Alistair departed with three servants into the whirling snow. I turned my attention back to my patients. The laird was not in immediate danger and I ordered his valet to attend to him, adding strict instructions about pupil dilation and breathing and what to do if he regained consciousness. This allowed me to focus my attention on Coupe, who was still unconscious and declining rapidly. I needed to remove the bullet, and stop any internal bleeding.
A second pair of hands would be helpful in what I was about to do, but it could not wait. We quickly moved Coupe to a guest bedroom nearby on the ground floor. Hot water and clean sheets arrived, and I took from my bag the few surgical instruments that I carried.
As I made my preparations, the door was flung open and Isla peeked in. ‘The laird’s personal physician has arrived, are you in need of assistance?’
‘Send him in,’ I cried, grateful for this small bit of good fortune.
I poured boiling water over the instruments and was scrubbing my own hands in another vessel when a stout woman with blonde braids ringing her broad face rushed into the room, accompanied by a bony young man who resembled a scarecrow.
‘Madam, please!’ I cried. But Isla followed them in.
‘Dr Watson, this is Dr MacLeish and her assistant, Geordie,’ said Isla. ‘And this is Dr Watson, former army surgeon.’
Dr MacLeish was a woman! And a remarkable doctor, I was soon to discover.
‘How long since he was shot?’ she asked, moving to the bedside, and looking down at the handsome, pale face.
‘Twenty minutes.’
‘Ach, Cameron Coupe. Shame! Best distillery man in the county.’ I did not disabuse her of the notion. Without being asked, she began to scrub her hands.
With no need of instruction, the two of them nimbly assisted me as I set up a makeshift surgical theatre in the room. The patient was draped in clean sheets, and Dr MacLeish had called for even more boiling water and applied herself to sterilizing my instruments, adding a few of her own.
I nodded my approval. ‘Thank God. Not every doctor subscribes to the germ theory.’ I bent to examine the wound more closely. The patient had gone into shock. We would have to work quickly
‘Thank Joseph Lister, not God,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘Well, I guess him, too. I will take all the help I can get.’
Cameron Coupe’s pallor, sheen and rapid heart rate indicated shock, and I feared he was near death. I quickly finished washing. ‘Let us proceed,’ I said. Doctor MacLeish tied on a pristine white apron over her ample form, and faced me, her hands in the air to dry.
‘I certainly respect a war-trained surgeon,’ said she, peering sharply at me. ‘But you look as though you have been awake for three days straight, Doctor. I am glad to be here to assist you, sir.’
At my hesitation, she added simply, ‘I took a surgical degree in America. Edinburgh has not yet caught up to the idea of ladies with blood on their hands. But be assured, Doctor, I can help you.’ Behind her, Isla nodded silently to me. I wondered briefly at this, but let it pass.
In thirty minutes the two of us had the bullet out and the damage repaired as best we could. Doctor MacLeish was more competent than many battle-trained men, and was adept at clamping off bleeding vessels, freeing me to discover the bullet and remove it with minimal damage. I knew that Coupe had received his best chance at survival, though he had lost a lot of blood, and was not out of danger.
We departed from the room, leaving Dr MacLeish’s gangly assistant, Geordie, to watch over the patient. Charles McLaren was instructing a large, imposing footman to keep watch outside the door to make sure Cameron Coupe ‘did not escape’. The irony was poignant, as it would be a miracle if the man survived the night. Coupe knew more than he had been able to tell us, and while it was highly unlikely that he would regain consciousness, young Geordie promised to fetch me promptly if he did.
I briefly visited the laird in his rooms before retiring. The man was still unconscious, and resting peacefully. But his face was that of a man aged ten years in a single evening. A full recovery would be a miracle. Dr MacLeish concurred. She said she would remain with him through the night.
Finally free to help Holmes, I ran to his room, hoping to find him there. The door was ajar but the room was empty and freezing cold. Disappointed, I closed the door and busied myself by resurrecting a healthy blaze in the grate. A wave of exhaustion swept over me.
The discovery of Donal’s body floating in that cask was certainly one of the grislier moments of our adventures to date. But perhaps even more disturbing was the thought of what had transpired with little Anne some thirty years prior, at the end of the very hallway in which we were housed.
I could not wait to be gone from this place.
In the meantime, the temperature had dropped well below freezing and I grew concerned about Holmes down at the distillery after his earlier misadventure in the icehouse. But I was not to worry long, for soon afterwards the door clicked open and there stood Holmes, snow dusting his shoulders and dishevelled hair. He was pale as candle wax, and from his defeated posture, I knew at once he had not been successful.
‘The bird has flown, Watson. A man called Jowe Lammas was involved, without a doubt, though his motive eludes me. Disfigured in the Afghan wars. Gone some twelve hours ago. The trail is covered by snow, and is now cold in every sense of the word.’
‘Joey Lammas? A singular name. Is he the man we saw in the distillery with the laird?’
‘Yes. One eye, facial scarring. But it is “Jowe.”’ He pronounced it ‘jow – way’. ‘A Scottish word, apparently. But long gone.’
Holmes stood swaying in the doorway as the energy left his body. I judged him to be on the brink of collapse, and ushered him to the sofa. I removed his coat, and threw a blanket over his shoulders. He stared at the flames, unable to speak for several minutes.
‘Coupe?’ he asked, finally, his voice a near whisper.
‘I removed the bullet. The laird’s personal physician arrived in time to help and is attending to Coupe and the laird. Coupe’s chances are slim.’
‘A double loss, then. I fear he was our only source to untangle the final strands of this web.’
‘But what of this man Lammas? Fled, you say?’
Holmes’s investigation in the workers’ dormitory had only added to the puzzle. This Jowe Lammas, the man seen often in Coupe’s company, had vanished apparently after having murdered a fellow workman, Seamus Marchand, with a knife. Other workers confirmed that Lammas had indeed been the facially disfigured man we had noticed on our first visit to the distillery, who had separated the two fighting men. He had a fearsome reputation, prone to violence whenever he was called up to restore order, providing Coupe was not present.
Lammas had made no effort to conceal the evidence of his crime; bloodstains and the murder weapon had been left behind, as had gin bottles, gambling stubs and chewing tobacco beneath his bed.
‘A common thug, then,’ I exclaimed.
Holmes sighed. ‘It would appear so.’
Holmes reckoned that it had been either Lammas or Marchand who removed the ladder and threw water down upon him. But why, or at whose behest?
‘That puzzle remains,’ said he, ‘as does the reason for Lammas and Marchand switching the casks for this evening, thus exposing Coupe.’
‘It was them, do you think?
‘It is the only thing I learned for certain. They were seen in the area of the maturation warehouse late this afternoon with no reason to be there.’ Holmes shook his head ruefully.
‘But how would Lammas know about Donal’s body in the cask?’
‘That is the question, Watson. We have presumed that only Clarion and Coupe knew of the ghastly interment. This leaves two possibilities. Either Coupe was so hell-bent on revenge at the time that he was sloppy, and was seen, or there was yet another party involved.’
‘What about this August Bell Clarion fellow? Might he be somewhere, somehow still in the picture?’ I asked.
Holmes sighed. ‘I think not. I had a theory before I found Marchand’s body and the suggestive detritus left by Lammas. But it appears I was wrong.’
‘What theory, Holmes?’
He did not reply, but leaned back on the sofa and sighed.
‘I am inclined to think it was Lammas or Marchand who brought the head down to the Grand Hôtel du Cap,’ said-Holmes.
‘But why? Initiated by them, or by some other?’
‘I wish I could say. Increasingly Cameron Coupe seems to be the answer. I had discounted this, but perhaps I have misjudged the man. And if he does not recover, we shall have no way to find out.’
‘Did you encounter the police? Alistair said they had been summoned?’
Holmes closed his eyes. ‘Regrettably. The local man, Gerald, an “inspector” in name only, is an idiot. We spoke briefly of the icehouse bodies, and he ignored my findings entirely. His conclusion was that the two young people had probably killed each other!’
‘What a fool! I recall Mrs McLaren describing him to us in Baker Street.’
‘Yes. Alistair had the good sense to throw Gerald and his even more obtuse young constable off the property without even mentioning Donal’s body in the cask. He then wired the regional lawmen in Aberdeen. They will be out in the morning. God willing there is an intelligent man on the force there.’
At this point exhaustion overcame us both. Things felt perilously out of control, and it was with great unease that we both retired. Once again, I chose to remain on the sofa in Holmes’s room, our door secured against any unwanted entry. I slept restlessly, but had I any foreknowledge of what would transpire in the morning, I might not have slept at all.