SHERLOCK HOLMES

DEVIL'S FOOT

This history is about Holmes and Dr. Watson find themselves in Cornwall one spring for the former’s health, but the holiday ends with a bizarre event. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, a local gentleman, and Mr. Roundhay, the local vicar, come to Holmes to report that Tregennis’s two brothers have gone mad, and his sister has died. Tregennis had gone to visit them in their village (Tredannick Wollas), played whist with them, and then left. When he came back this morning, he found them still sitting in their places at the table, the brothers, George and Owen, laughing and singing, and the sister, Brenda, dead. The housekeeper had discovered them in this state, and fainted. The vicar has not been to see yet. Tregennis says that he remembers one brother looking through the window, and then he himself turned to see some “movement” outside.
Mortimer Tregennis was once estranged from his siblings by the matter of dividing the proceeds from the sale of the family business, but he insists that all was forgiven, although he still lives apart from them. Indeed, everyone seemed to be in perfectly high spirits last night, and it is a mystery why Brenda died with such a ghastly look of horror on her face. The doctor who was summoned reckoned that she had been dead for six hours. He also collapsed into a chair for a while after arriving.
Holmes goes to the house in question and, apparently carelessly, kicks over a watering pot, soaking everyone’s feet. The housekeeper tells Holmes that she heard nothing in the night, and that the family had been particularly happy and prosperous lately. Holmes observes the remains of a fire in the fireplace. Tregennis explains that it was a cold, damp night.
None of this seems to make for an elementary case, but soon, new questions are raised. Dr. Leon Sterndale, the famous hunter and explorer, has chosen to miss his ship out of Plymouth to come back at news of this tragedy, the Tregennises being cousins of his. The vicar wired him with the news. He asks Holmes what his suspicions are, and is displeased when Holmes will not voice them. Holmes follows him discreetly after he leaves.
The morning after Holmes comes back to his room, apparently none the wiser for following Sterndale, the vicar arrives in a panic with the news that Mortimer Tregennis has now died in the same way as his sister. The two men, along with Watson, rush to Mortimer’s room, and find it foul and stuffy, even though the window has been opened. A lamp is burning on the table beside the dead man. Holmes rushes about, examining many things. The upstairs window seems especially interesting. He also scrapes some ashes out of the lamp, and puts them in an envelope. Holmes has already deduced how the victims died or went mad. It explains why people arriving later fainted or felt unwell in each case (a servant at the vicarage has also become sick).
He tests his hypothesis by buying a lamp like the one in Tregennis’s room. He lights it and puts in some of the “ashes” that he collected from the other lamp. The effect is immediate. It is clear that the smoke from this powder is a potent poison. Holmes and Watson get out of the room just in time.
It also seems clear to Holmes that Mortimer Tregennis killed his sister and maddened his brothers with this poison, but who killed him? Holmes’s investigation has made that quite clear. It is Dr. Leon Sterndale. He left physical evidence at the vicarage clearly implicating him. All that Holmes does not know is why Sterndale did it. Sterndale explains that he loved Brenda for years and killed Mortimer for what he had done. It also turns out that he knew about the poison long before Holmes. It is called Radix pedis diaboli (“Devil’s-foot root” in Latin), and he brought it from Africa as a curiosity, never meaning to use it. However, he once explained to Mortimer what it was and what it was capable of, and he apparently stole some to murder his siblings, throwing it on the fire that evening just before he left. Mortimer thought Sterndale would be at sea before news reached Plymouth. Sterndale, of course, recognized the poison’s effects from the vicar’s description of the tragedy, and deduced right away what had happened.Holmes’s sympathies in this matter lie with Sterndale, and he tells him to go back to his work in Africa.

CREEPING MAN

Mr. Trevor Bennett comes to Holmes with a most unusual problem. He is Professor Presbury's personal secretary, and until recently he has enjoyed the old Camford physiologist's implicit trust as though he were a close member of the family. Mr. Bennett is also engaged to the professor's only daughter, Edith.
Professor Presbury is himself engaged to a young lady, Alice Morphy, a colleague's daughter, although he himself is already sixty-one years old. Their impending marriage does not seemed to have caused a great scandal; so that is not Mr. Bennett's problem. Nonetheless, the trouble seems to have begun at about the time of Professor Presbury's and Alice's engagement.
First, the professor suddenly left home for a fortnight without telling anyone where he was going. He returned looking rather travel-worn. It was only through a letter from a friend sent to Mr. Bennett that the family learnt that Professor Presbury had been to Prague.
Also, the professor's usually faithful wolfhound has taken to attacking him on occasion, and has had to be tied up outside. Holmes knows from his study of dogs that this is significant.
Upon returning from Prague, Professor Presbury told Mr. Bennett that certain letters would arrive with a cross under the stamp, and he was not to open these. Until this time, Mr. Bennett had enjoyed the professor's implicit trust and had opened all his letters as part of his job. As the professor said, such letters did arrive, and he gave them straight to the professor. Whether any replies were sent Mr. Bennett does not know, as they never passed through his hands.
The whole household feels that they are living with another man, not the Professor Presbury that they once knew. He has become furtive and sly. There are definite changes in his moods and habits, some quite bizarre; however, his mind does not seem to be adversely affected. His lectures are still brilliant, and he can still function as a professor.
Mr. Bennett observed a curious behaviour in his employer. He opened his bedroom door one night, as he tells Holmes and Watson, and saw the professor crawling along the hall on his hands and feet. When he spoke to Professor Presbury, his master swore at him and scuttled off to the stairway.
Edith Presbury, who arrives at 221 B Baker Street halfway through her fiancé's interview with Holmes says that she saw her father at her bedroom window one night at two o'clock in the morning. Her bedroom is on the second floor, and there is no long ladder in the garden. She is sure that she did not imagine this.
The professor brought a small carved wooden box back with him from Prague. One day, as Mr. Bennett was looking for a cannula, he picked the box up, and the professor became very angry with him. Mr. Bennett was quite shaken by the incident.
Mr. Bennett mentions that the dog attacks came on July 2, 11, and 20. Holmes does not mention it aloud at the time, but these are intervals of nine days each time.
Holmes and Watson go to Camford to see the professor the next day. They decide to pretend that they have an appointment, and that if Professor Presbury does not remember making one, he will likely put it down to the dreamworld that he has been living in lately. Things do not go quite this way. The professor is quite sure that he has made no appointment, and confirms this with his embarrassed secretary, Mr. Bennett. Professor Presbury becomes furiously angry at the intrusion, and Watson believes that they might actually have to fight their way out of the house. Mr. Bennett, though, convinces the professor that violence against a man as well known as Sherlock Holmes would surely bring about a scandal. Holmes and Watson leave, and then Holmes confides to Watson that the visit has been worthwhile, as he has learnt much about the professor's mind, namely that it is clear and functional, despite the recent peculiar behaviour.
Mr. Bennett comes out of the house after Holmes and tells him that he has found the address that Professor Presbury has been writing to and receiving the mysterious letters from. The addressee is a man named Dorak, a Central European name. This fits in with the professor's secret journey to Prague. Holmes later finds out from his "general utility man" Mercer that Dorak is indeed a Bohemian, elderly, suave man who keeps a large general store. Before leaving the professor's house, Holmes has a look at Edith's bedroom window, and sees that the only possible way for someone to climb up there is by using the creeper, rather unlikely for a 61-year-old man.
Holmes has formed a theory that every nine days, Professor Presbury takes some kind of drug which causes the odd behaviour. Holmes believed that he became addicted in Prague, and is now supplied by this Dorak in London. Holmes has told Mr. Bennett that he and Watson will be in Camford once again on the next Tuesday. As is usual with Holmes, he does not explain why.
He and Watson show up on the appointed evening, and Holmes suddenly realizes something. He has observed the professor's thick and horny knuckles, and until now, has not made the connection between these, the odd behaviour, the dog's change in attitude towards his master, and the creeper. The professor is behaving like a monkey!
Shortly after the realization, Holmes and Watson are treated to a firsthand display of Professor Presbury's odd behaviour. He comes out of the house, scampers about on all fours, climbs on the creeper, and torments the tied-up dog. Unfortunately, the wolfhound gets loose and attacks the professor. The two of them, with Mr. Bennett's help, manage to get the dog off the professor, but he is wounded badly. Watson and Bennett, who is also a medical man, tend to the professor's injuries.
Holmes then examines the professor's little wooden box after having obtained the key from the now unconscious owner. It contained a drug, as Holmes expected, but there was also a letter there from a man named Lowenstein who, it turns out, is a quack whose help the professor sought out as a way of achieving rejuvenation, which he thought would be advisable if he were going to marry a young woman. The drug is an extract obtained from langurs, and although it has apparently given the professor renewed energy, it has also given him some of the langur's traits.