The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part XVI by David Marcum

Author:David Marcum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sherlock, Holmes, mystery, murder mystery, detective, Undershaw, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, short story collection, stepping stones school, supernatural, ghosts, mythological creatures, curses, possessions, prophecies, monsters, eachy, water spirit, lake monster, Wylington, anchor, boat, Webley, altar, Barts, Trypanosoma, Africa, juju, African juju ceremony, zombies
ISBN: 9781787055049
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2019-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

The Adventure of the Giant’s Wife

by I.A. Watson

“All this landscape were becos’ of a marital dispute,” the dour guide who led Holmes and I up the steep slope beside Carr Beck informed us. Mr. Slaithwaite had evidently taken Londoners on walking tours up to Burley Moor before. “At least that’s what t’ legends say.”

The slushy remnants of a fading late winter made the ground treacherous. I was glad of my walking cane. The sharp wind off the peaks above us made me gladder of my Burberry.

“Burley Moor, y’see, and Ilkley Moor up there, are both rightly part o’ Rombald’s Moor,” the local went on. “And Rombald, well, ’e were a giant, back in t’ olden days ’afore t’ Romans ivver come.”

I glanced to see how Holmes was taking the impromptu history lesson. His attention seemed transfixed on the local landscape, the wild ridges and sudden valleys of the Yorkshire hills.

“Well Rombald, ’e were a fierce old monster that fritted[1] everybody. When ’is temper flared there were storms. ’E tossed around lightning and ’ole mountains. So they reckon, in the stories. But . . . ’e ’ad a wife.”

Holmes paused momentarily to examine an ancient waystone, half-lost in a clump of vervain. Under frost and green mould the rock had prehistoric cup and ring carvings. There are more than four-hundred such stones scattered about the area, and many more lost over the years.[2]

“Supposedly, this Rombald’s missus weren’t the sort t’ put up wi’ much. And one day, these two get into such a fight over ’is burned dinner that she starts tossing ’uge rocks at ’im. Old Rombald, ’e legs it off t’ try and get away from ’er. And ’is wife, she runs after ’im, chucking ’ills at ’im.” Slaithwaite gestured round the cold misty incline. “And this is what they left, ’im crashing through and splitting mountains into valleys, ’er lobbing giant boulders after ’im. We’re heading to t’ Great Skirtful of Rocks, what fell out of ’er pinny[3] as she chased ’er man. Over yon’s the Little Skirtful of Rocks, and below us the Skirtful Spring. Up there over that ridge is’t famous Cow and Calf Rocks, what Rombald broke as ’e scrambled away. There were a Bull Rock an’ all until eighty year or so back, that got quarried away to build Ilkley. But point is, according to t’ owd wives tales, all of this were caused by a ‘do-mestic incident’, as they calls it.” Slaithwaite breathed before his punchline. “And that’s why tha’ don’t go peeving a Yorkshire lass.”

“We’re not hunting Burley’s first giant,” Holmes acknowledged. It was the first indication that he had been listening to the fellow at all.

Slaithwaite became suddenly shy. “Well,” he responded, a little abashed by my companion’s sudden attention, “it’s only a bit un a story, like.”

“But we are here seeking giants,” Holmes reminded us. “And one of them a murderer.”

It was true. In Holmes’s Inverness coat pocket was the letter that had brought us to this wild Yorkshire landscape

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