Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly Read Online Free Page A

fair.”
    â€œI had almost thought we should have to leave this afternoon,” he said, “At present, however, the glass is rising and I think tomorrow promises to be excellent ‘detective weather.’ It is of some importance that it should not rain before we have a chance to go over the ground. We shall entrust ourselves to an early train from Waterloo station to Portsmouth Harbour. The steamer crossings to the Isle of Wight are frequent. If we reach Ryde Pier by noon we shall take the local train to—Ventnor, I suppose?”
    Sir John Fisher inclined his head. “Ventnor indeed.”
    â€œIf my geography of the island is correct, a cab will then take us westwards to Bradstone St Lawrence and St Vincent’s. I suppose we should arrive by two-thirty or three o’clock. I take it the bird will not have flown by then and that the venerable Mr Winter will be available?”
    â€œI may guarantee it,” said Sir John enthusiastically. His good-natured features began to work into a smile of grateful acceptance. “I shall authorise the commissary office to book rooms for you both at the King Charles Hotel in Bradstone St Lawrence.”
    Sherlock Holmes stooped over the tea-table, and lifted the cover of the muffin-dish. He inspected the contents and then held it out to our Admiral of the Fleet.
    â€œPray take another, Sir John, before my brother Mycroft has the chance to eat them all.”
    â€œThe Case of the Greek Key” in The Execution of Sherlock Holmes , Pegasus Books, New York, 2007; “The Case of the Zimmermann Telegram” in Sherlock Holmes and the King’s Evil , Pegasus Books, New York, 2009.

2
    S hortly before noon on the following day we stepped out of a green South-Coast Railway carriage on to the platform of Portsmouth Harbour station. A stiff channel breeze was blowing and a red-funnelled paddle-steamer was waiting at the jetty. An hour later we were in an island railway carriage for the coastal journey to Ventnor. I had never seen the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight and was much taken by the little resort with its coastguard station and sheltered cove. Holmes, who seldom forgot anything that he read, assured me that Dr Thomas Arnold compared it for beauty to a resort on the Bay of Genoa. Mediterranean, Alpine and herbal flowers occupied the crevices of the rocks.
    Behind the line of the shore rose a green hill that becomes St Boniface Down. Gentility was everywhere in the villas, rising in crescents, row upon row, like the boxes at a theatre with the sea as their stage. The elegant terraces of Clifton or Cheltenham might have been snatched up and set down again in this quiet resort. Thanks to Fisher’s efficiency, a cab was waiting for us at the station. We followed the shore westwards, until the road levelled out among gabled houses, set back in their own gardens. Beyond the town, we passed at length through the small village of Bradstone St Lawrence. Ahead of us through a screen of trees rose the outlines of several buildings in red-brick gothic. One of them boasted a short spire and a stained-glass chapel window.
    Such was St Vincent’s Naval Academy, named in honour of John Jervis, victor of the battle of Cape St Vincent against the Spanish fleet in 1797. I recalled from my school lessons that his ferocity in the face of the enemy was equalled only by the grim acts of retribution by which he kept order among his men.
    Our cab set us down in a gravelled yard, from which an archway led to a portico, double doors and porter’s lodge. We followed the route to the “Headmaster’s Corridor” on which Mr Winter’s study was located. A single Persian runner lay the length of it with black varnish either side. Beyond a tall bookcase, several beechwood chairs with horsehair seats accommodated those summoned to his presence. The walls were hung on either side with long photographs of past intakes and shorter ones of Cricket XI