CHAPTER FOUR

MONSIGNOR ERMACORA

“Cholera?” came my horrified reply. “Are you sure?”

“The symptoms are clear for the police surgeon to see,” said Holmes. “The man had obviously been suffering from some kind of stomach complaint. There were traces of vomit on his cassock, which he had endeavoured to wipe clean. Then there was the smell. Even accounting for the evacuation of the bowels post mortem…”

“Mr Holmes, please,” Lestrade said, his discomfort obvious.

My companion raised a disparaging eyebrow. “I’m sorry, Inspector. I thought this was a mortuary. Surely such conversations take place as a matter of course.”

Lestrade let out an exasperated breath, and beckoned us over to a closed door on the other side of the corridor. Opening it, he led us into a small windowless room. At its centre were a table and four chairs, although I noticed Holmes’s eyes flick towards the modest leather case that sat against the wall.

Lestrade walked around the table and pulled out a chair, indicating that we should sit opposite him.

“Are we being interrogated?” I joked, eager to break the tension.

Lestrade did not smile. “According to the cabbie who brought the priest to your door, the man was feverish, almost beside himself with pain. He doubled over almost as soon as he’d entered the cab, clutching his stomach. As Mr Holmes said, he was… unwell on the way to Baker Street.”

“Did the cabbie attempt to clean up?” I asked, concerned for the poor chap.

Lestrade nodded. “Unfortunately so. He’s been quarantined, just in case.”

“May I question him?” Holmes asked.

Lestrade’s lips were tight as he replied, “I assume you know what quarantine means, Mr Holmes?”

Holmes’s lips tightened. “Where did he pick up the gentleman?”

“In Tyburnia, staggering down the Bayswater Road.” The inspector pulled out his notebook and flipped through its pages. “‘At last, at last,’ he said, when the cab stopped to pick him up. ‘Take me to Baker Street, at once.’”

“I see. And he was carrying that case?”

Lestrade viewed the article with suspicion, as if it were liable to jump up and bite him like a rabid dog. “You can tell from the leather, I suppose? Italian, is it?”

“I can tell from the address label,” Holmes replied, cocking his head to read the graceful handwriting from his seat. “Monsignor Ermacora.”

“Of the Holy City?” I guessed.

“Quite so.”

Lestrade was looking distinctly unimpressed. “As you suggested, the Monsignor had also…” he paused, in a display of squeamishness surprising for a policeman, “…soiled his undergarments.” He turned to another page in his notebook. “‘A thin, watery diarrhoea’ according to the police surgeon.”

“I would examine the vestments,” Holmes announced.

Lestrade looked up sharply from his notebook. “For what reason?”

“Clues, Lestrade. What else?”

Lestrade flipped the notebook shut and returned it to his pocket. “Then you’re out of luck. They’ve already been burned.”

“Standard procedure,” I interjected, “in cases of cholera.”

“If this is a case of cholera,” Holmes said.

“But you said…” I began.

“I said that the police surgeon believes it to be cholera. Cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea, followed by a heart attack. Am I right, Inspector?”

“You’ve hit the nail on the head, as usual.”

Now Holmes turned his attention to me. “Doctor, tell me – when was the last outbreak of cholera in London?”

“I don’t know. Sixty-two? Sixty-three maybe?”

“1866,” Holmes informed me, “and almost entirely confined to the East End. Inspector, may I?”

Lestrade’s brow furrowed. “May you what?”

“Examine the late Monsignor’s luggage? Or is that also due to be consigned to the furnace?”

Lestrade scratched his dark-brown sideburns. “I’m not sure.” “It should be quite safe,” I assured the policeman. “The leather itself won’t be contagious.”

“And even if it were, I still wear my gloves,” Holmes said, raising his hands to show the inspector. “You may burn them afterwards if it helps you sleep at night.”

Huffing, Lestrade waved Holmes to continue. The detective was out of his seat in an instant. He recovered the case and placed it on the table. I suppressed a smile at the scrape of Lestrade’s chair as he pushed himself back an inch or two.

Holmes examined the lock; satisfied, he pulled out his trusty lock picks. The case was open in a jiffy and Holmes was rifling through the Monsignor’s possessions as if they were historical artefacts rather than the effects of a man who had recently shuffled off this mortal coil.

The priest had obviously been a believer in travelling light. The case contained only a few items of clothing, a Holy Bible and a small black notebook, fixed with a clasp. The clothes were examined, the Bible thumbed through and the notebook read in silence.

Finally, Holmes uttered two short words: “Saint Nicole.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

Holmes passed me the notebook. “The last words Monsignor Ermacora wrote before meeting his maker.”

“Not quite, Holmes,” I pointed out. “There’s a number, 930.”

Holmes addressed the inspector. “Lestrade, was a ticket found upon his person?”

“A ticket?”

“A train ticket. The Monsignor was picked up while transporting a case through Tyburnia. Surely it is no great leap to suggest that he had recently arrived at Paddington Station.”

“Why not hail a cab at the station?” I asked.

“The station, like the rest of the city, is still recovering from the events of Monday night. What was it he cried on finding a cab, Inspector?”

“At last, at last,” Lestrade provided.

“Suggesting that up to that point he had been searching in vain. Plus, the poor fellow was running a fever and in great discomfort. He would have been disorientated, confused; lost in a foreign city. But what of Saint Nicole?”

“A study of his?” I suggested.

“Quite possibly,” Holmes conceded, taking the notebook back from me. “Saint Nicole; also sometimes known as Saint Colette. She lived the life of an anchoress in Picardy, France; Corbie Abbey to be precise.”

“An anchoress?” Lestrade asked.

“Walled into a cell with only a small window to connect her to the outside world.”

“Good heavens,” said I.

Holmes continued flicking through the notebook. “While she certainly lived an interesting life, I do not believe she was the subject of the Monsignor’s devotions. This notebook contains nothing but dates, times and locations. The Monsignor obviously used it as an aide-mémoire, jotting down his appointments as they were made. The entry before ‘Nicole’ is an itinerary, detailing his journey across Europe. I hope his journey to Dover was less traumatic than my own.”

“Does it tell us his intended destination?” Lestrade asked. “When he arrived in England, I mean?”

Holmes shook his head. “Sadly not. Although look at the numbers that Watson so dutifully noticed: 930.” He held the page to his nose. “There is an indentation between the nine and the three, where the pen pressed into the paper but no ink flowed. Nine thirty then.”

“A train time!” I realised.

“A reasonable hypothesis, Watson. I believe that we are searching for a place bearing the saint’s name, an abbey or parish church, located somewhere between here and Taunton.”

“Taunton?” asked Lestrade.

“According to The Times, the line below Taunton is still impassable due to the snow. Lestrade, have you a register of Catholic churches, primarily in the west of England?”

Like a bloodhound with a new scent, Lestrade vanished from the room to reappear ten minutes later. Panting heavily, he slammed a heavy leather-bound tome on the table.

“Here,” he said, opening the book to the appropriate page. “The Church of St Nicole.”

“Corn Street, Bristol,” Holmes read. “Excellent work, Lestrade.”

The inspector positively beamed, like a child praised for tying his own shoelaces.

“We must send a telegram to your counterparts in Bristol,” Holmes announced, “to discover if there have been any recent cases of cholera in that great city. Will you do that for me?”

Lestrade said that he would.

“Excellent. Dr Watson and I shall return to Baker Street. Send a boy as soon as you have word.”

* * *

It was the following morning by the time a note was delivered to our door. Mrs Hudson brought up the envelope as Holmes was enjoying the latest in a long line of cigarettes.

Excitedly he called to me. “Watson, we’re in luck. A Father Kelleher has fallen sick and is being treated at Bristol Royal Infirmary. Look,” he thrust the paper into my hand. “Suspected cholera!”

“I doubt Father Kelleher finds it lucky,” my wife commented, not looking up from her needlepoint.

Holmes purposely ignored her. “Don’t you see what this means, Watson? Two Catholic priests, both with suspected cholera, but no other cases on record? Tell me, is that likely?” “Well, if it is the beginning of another epidemic—”

“Of a disease many acknowledge as a disease of the poor.”

“Only they are stupendously misinformed. Cholera pays no heed to class or position, Holmes. It kills rich and poor alike.”

“True, but statistically the impoverished are more likely to fall prey to its symptoms. Take the last outbreak in London – why the East End and nowhere else?” He continued without pausing for me to answer. “Because work on the sewers had yet to reach the affected areas. Over two thousand dead within eleven weeks, all because they were exposed to untreated water. Now, you saw Monsignor Ermacora… Did he look the kind of man who, despite his calling, lives with the poor and needy? Did he look like the kind of man who regularly consumes untreated water?”

“He looked the kind of man who was very, very sick.”

“But not from cholera, and neither is this Father Kelleher. I am sure of it, Watson, as sure as I am that you hurried shaving this morning, and your wife made a catastrophic mistake three rows back but has yet to notice.”

On the settee, Mary peered quizzically at her needlework. Holmes meanwhile was in full flow.

“Two men, Watson, both priests; one from the Holy City, one from Bristol. One is dead, one is dying. And why? Because they were poisoned, Watson, and I shall prove it!”