By now, Dr. Watson, I have but little doubt that you must have begun to understand why Ogilvey has urged me to write you. I have read in the press several accounts of the extraordinary Mr. Holmes’s death in Switzerland, and I hope that the remarkable possibility, which I will not explicitly suggest here, but rather let stand as an unstated question for your consideration, will bring you no further pain. I have been made well aware of the great friendship that existed between you and Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and had not my reason been so vexed and controverted by the bizarre events at Whitby last August, I would have preferred to keep the encounter forever to myself. I would never have been led to reflect at such length on the identity of the man on the beach, a man whose appearance and demeanor I think you might recognize.
But I should continue my story now, and must continue to hope that you see here anything more than the ravings of an overtaxed mind and an overindulged imagination.
By the time I had at last finished my climb and regained secure footing at the crumbling summit of West Cliff, storm clouds were moving swiftly in from the southwest, darkening the murmuring waters of the Esk and creating an ominous backdrop for the abbey ruins. Fearing that I might lose my way among the unfamiliar streets should I attempt to discover a shorter route back to the hotel, I hurried instead along Pier Road, retracing my steps to the inn on Drawbridge Road. But I’d gone only a little way when the wind and thunder began and, in short order, a heavy, chilling downpour. I had neglected to bring an umbrella with me, thinking that the day would remain pleasant and clear, and not having planned on the walk down to the beach beforehand. As a result, I was now treated to a most thorough and proper soaking. I must have made for a dreary and pitiful sight, indeed, slogging my way down those narrow, rain-swept avenues.
When at last I reached the hotel, I was offered a hot cup of tea and a seat at the hearthside. As tempting as the latter was, I told the innkeeper that I preferred instead to retire at once to my room and acquire some dry clothes and rest until dinner. As I started up the stairs, he called me back, having forgotten a message that had been left for me that afternoon. It was written on a small, plain sheet of stationery and read, as best I can recalclass="underline"
Toby, will call again first thing in the morning. Please await my arrival. Reached Whitby earlier than expected. I have much to relate re: unusual fossils found in Devon Lias and now in my care. Are you familiar with Phoenician (?) god Dagon or Irish Daoine Domhain? Until the morrow,
Yrs., E. P.
Though rightly intrigued and excited at the prospect of the new Devon fossils which Purdy had mentioned, I was quite completely baffled by his query regarding Phoenician gods and those two words of unpronounceable Gaelic. Deciding that any mysteries would readily resolve themselves in the morning, I retired to my room, where I at once changed clothes and then busied myself until dinner with some brief notes on the urchin and other specimens from West Cliff.
I slept fitfully that night while the storm raged and banged at the shutters. I am not given to nightmares, but I recall odd scraps of dream where I stood on the shore at West Cliff, watching as the Demeter sailed majestically into the harbor. The tall man stood somewhere close behind me, though I don’t think I ever saw his face, and spoke of my wife and child. I finally awoke for the last time shortly after dawn, to the smell of coffee brewing and breakfast cooking downstairs, and the comforting sound of rain dripping from the eaves. The storm had passed, and despite my rather poor sleep, I recall feeling very rested and ready for a long day prospecting the seaside outcrops with Purdy. I dressed quickly, and armed with my ash plant and knapsack, my hammer and cold chisels, I went down to await my colleague’s arrival.
However, at eleven o’clock I was still waiting, sipping at my second pot of coffee and beginning to feel the first faint twinges of annoyance that so much of the day was being squandered when my time in Whitby was to be so short. I am almost puritanical in my work habits and despise the wasting of perfectly good daylight, and could not imagine what was taking Purdy so long to show.
The terrible things that soon followed, I must tell you, occurred with not the slightest hint of the lurid or sensational air that is usually attached to the macabre and uncanny in the penny dreadfuls and gothic romances. There was not even the previous day’s vague sense of foreboding. They simply happened, sir, and somehow that made them all the worse. It would be long weeks before I would begin to associate with the events the singular trepidation, indeed the genuine horror, which would gradually come to so consume my thoughts.
I was reading, for the second time, a long article in an Edinburgh paper (the paper’s name escapes me now, as does the precise subject of the article), when a young boy, possibly eight years of age, came in and announced that he’d been sent to retrieve me. A man, he said, had paid him sixpence to bring me to West Cliff, where there had been a drowning in the night.
“I’m sorry, but I am not a medical doctor,” I told him, thinking this must surely be a simple case of mistaken identity, but no, he assured me at once, he’d been instructed to bring the American Dr. Tobias Logan to the beach at West Cliff, with all possible haste. As I sat there scratching my head, the boy grew impatient and protested that we should hurry. Before I left the hotel on Drawbridge Road, however, I scribbled a quick note to Purdy and left it with the proprietor, in case he should come in my absence. Then I quickly gathered my belongings and followed the excited boy, who told me his name was Edward and that his father was a cobbler, through the narrow, winding streets of Whitby and once again down to West Cliff.
The body of the drowned man lay on the sand and clearly the gulls had been at him for some considerable time before he was discovered by a beachcomber. Yet, despite the damage done by the cruel beaks of the birds, I had no trouble in recognizing the face of Elijah Purdy right off. Several men had crowded about, including the constable and harbormaster, none of whom, I quickly gathered, had paid the boy sixpence to bring me to West Cliff.
“First that damned Russian ghost ship,” the constable grumbled, lighting his pipe. “Now this.”
“A foul week, to be sure,” the harbormaster muttered back.
I introduced myself at once and then kneeled down beside the tattered earthly remains of the man whom I had known and of whom I’d been so fond. The constable coughed and exhaled a great, gray cloud of pipe smoke.
“Here,” he said. “Did you know this poor fellow?”
“Very well,” I replied. “I was to meet him this very morning. I was waiting for him when the boy there fetched me from the inn on Drawbridge Road.”
“Is that so now?” the constable said. “What boy is that?”
I looked up and there was, to be sure, no sign of the boy who had led me to the grisly scene.
“The cobbler’s son,” I said, and looked back down at the ruined face of Purdy. “He said that he was paid to summon me here. I assumed you’d sent for me, sir, though I’m not at all sure how you could have known to do so.”
At that, the harbormaster and constable exchanged perplexed stares and the latter went back to puffing at his pipe.
“This man was an associate of yours, then?” the harbormaster asked me.
“Indeed,” said I. “He is Sir Elijah Purdy, a geologist from London. He arrived in Whitby only yesterday. I believe he may have taken a room at the Morrow House on Hudson Street.”