A Study in Murder Read Online Free PDF

froze where he was. Watson, once he was certain Hanson wasn’t going to do anything foolish, turned to confront the guard. ‘Yes? Something
wrong?’
    ‘
Sie können nicht allein ausgehen
.’
    Watson’s German had improved considerably over the months of captivity, but this one, a beefy, round-faced boy barely into the shaving years, had a thick, impenetrable accent, as if he was
speaking through a mouthful of aniseed balls.
    ‘
Bitte?
’
    The German repeated himself, looking over his shoulder at the gate
Leutnant
for confirmation. It was a moment before the duty officer appeared in the side window of the hut.
    ‘
Nein, es ist in Ordnung
,’ said the
Leutnant
, wiping some crumbs from his lips, then waving them on. ‘
Sie brauchen nicht eine Eskorte.
’
    Watson caught the last bit. The guard had thought they should have an escort for the walk, as was common, although unescorted solo perambulations were not unknown. Watson mimed running and then
put his hand to his heart and gave exaggerated breaths, as if about to collapse from cardiac failure. He could hear the
Leutnant
laugh at the pantomime, but the guard just scowled and
lowered his rifle.
    ‘
Komm nicht zu spät, oder ich werde kommen suchen
,’ he mumbled, and swung the gate closed behind them. Watson didn’t catch a word, but he was fairly sure it was a
threat about what would happen if they didn’t return.
    The road from the camp took them between two large ploughed fields and, eventually, to the village and its railway station. But they had been warned not to venture there. The villagers, many of
whom had lost sons on the Western Front, were sometimes violent towards the prisoners. They thought the POWs lived a life of well-fed comfort, while they suffered the privations and indignities
that were the result of the Allied blockade.
    So as they approached the woods, Watson steered his charge to the left, towards a plantation of fir trees that formed part of the same estate as the camp. From there they could walk through to a
small river, which would normally be home to some wildlife, although anything edible, Watson knew, had long ago been snared or shot and cooked. But it was a charming spot, where you could sit and
watch the dancing, silvery waters and pretend the war didn’t exist or that a camp hemmed in by barbed wire would be calling you back all too soon.
    Watson turned up the collar of Hanson’s coat, pulled down his cap and began to talk.
    ‘I thought I might tell you a story. Just to pass the time. There was a time when I was driven to tell them. To write things down. Every day an idea popped unbidden into my head, demanding
to be shared. Plus, my old friend and colleague provided more narrative than one scribe could hope to have published in a single lifetime. But there is one tale that has come back to me of late.
Careful here.’ They stepped over some fallen branches. Above them the crows kept up their constant complaints. Behind them, one of the painfully thin horses – apparently the only breed
available – was dragging a dray towards the camp gates, plodding with terminal weariness towards its destination, like, thought Watson, Germany herself.
    ‘It was April 1890,’ continued Watson, ‘as the debilitating bone-chill of a lengthy winter had finally begun to relax its grip on the metropolis, when my friend Sherlock Holmes
turned his attention to what the daily press was calling The Rugby Mystery, and others, The Girl and the Gold Watches. Holmes had recently completed his investigation into a most gruesome business,
involving jealousy and murder.’
    They stepped into the quiet and gloom of the pines, the shrill voices of the birds suddenly muffled, the needles underfoot crackling like pork skin. His voice seemed small and insignificant amid
the sturdy, straight-backed trunks of the evergreens, but Watson carried on, enjoying the rhythm of the story.
    ‘The solution to the case had put him in a rather sombre mood.