The Adventure of the Irish Werewolf

by BG Patterson

Rated: E · Campfire Creative · Short Story · None · #2355210

In 1954, aging Sherlock Holmes aids young James Bond to solve Irish werewolf killings.

[Introduction]

Sherlock Holmes was ninety-nine years old.
He no longer paced the length of the sitting-room at 221B Baker Street; his legs would not permit it. Instead he sat in the high-backed armchair by the fire, wrapped in a tartan rug, the same one Watson had once draped over him during the chill of ’17. The violin rested untouched on its stand. The Stradivarius had not sung in years. His hands—long, veined, still remarkably steady—clutched a meerschaum pipe that had gone cold an hour before.
Mrs. Hudson had been gone twenty-three years. John Watson, eighteen. The house felt too large, too quiet. Only Elena Hornsby remained—Mrs. Hudson’s widowed daughter-in-law, a brisk, capable woman of sixty who had moved in after the war to “keep things tidy.” She brought him tea without being asked, dusted the shelves he could no longer reach, and never once mentioned how frail he had become.
On the evening of 14 November 1954—three days before his hundredth birthday—the bell rang.
Elena answered it. A tall man in a charcoal overcoat stood on the step, hat in hand. Dark hair greying at the temples. Eyes that had seen too much, too young.
“Commander Bond,” Elena said, not a question. “He’s expecting you.”
Bond removed his hat. “He still expects things?”
“Always,” she replied, and led him upstairs.
Holmes did not rise. He merely lifted his gaze from the dying fire.
“You are punctual, Commander. A rare virtue in your line of work.”
Bond gave the smallest of smiles. “I was told you were retired.”
“I am. Yet here you are.” A thin hand gestured to Watson’s old chair. “Sit. Speak. And omit nothing.”
Bond sat. He produced a slim leather folder marked only with the crown and the discreet letters SIS. Inside: a single photograph.
A man’s body on a rain-slick lane in County Kerry. Torso ripped from throat to groin. Claw marks gouged deep into the mud. Face mercifully averted.
“Captain Seamus O’Driscoll,” Bond said. “MI6 liaison to Dublin. Found four nights ago near Glencar. Official cause: bear attack. There are no bears in Ireland.”
Holmes took the photograph in trembling fingers that steadied the instant they touched paper. He studied it for a long minute.
“Continue.”
“Two more bodies since. Same pattern. Same place. A farmer. A woman. All within a mile of the ruined abbey on Carrauntoohil. The Gardaí blame a rabid dog. The press whispers werewolf. Downing Street wants silence. The Service wants answers.”
Holmes set the photograph down.
“And you, Commander Bond, want what?”
“The truth,” Bond said. “Whatever form it takes—even if it walks on four legs.”
Holmes was silent. The fire crackled. Outside, London traffic hummed like a distant hive.
At last he spoke. “I have not left this house in seven months. My legs betray me. My lungs are paper. Yet…” He looked at Bond with eyes still sharp as cut glass. “There are things worth rising for.”
Elena appeared in the doorway, arms folded.
“You’re not going anywhere, Mr. Holmes. Not without a doctor’s note and a wheelchair.”
Holmes gave her the ghost of a smile. “Then fetch the chair, Mrs. Hornsby. And pack my travelling case. The one with the hidden compartment.”
She stared at him. Then—without another word—she turned and went downstairs.
They flew that night.
An RAF de Havilland Dove, requisitioned quietly. Bond drove the wheelchair up the ramp himself. Holmes sat wrapped in rugs, oxygen mask at the ready, though he refused to use it. Elena came too—insisted, in fact—carrying the old Gladstone bag that had once belonged to Watson.
They landed at Shannon before first light. A black Wolseley waited. Bond drove west through soft rain and mist. Holmes sat in the back beside Elena, eyes half-closed, listening to the engine and the tyres on wet tarmac.
They reached Glencar by noon.
The ruined abbey crouched on the hillside. Grey stone. Ivy. A Celtic cross leaning like a drunkard. The ground around it was torn—enormous paw prints, bipedal for twenty yards, then dropping to all fours.
Holmes insisted on being wheeled to the edge of the prints. He leaned forward, measured one with a folding rule Elena handed him from the bag.
“Eighteen inches. Four hundred pounds. Bipedal transition. Remarkable.”
Bond watched him. “You’re not surprised.”
“At my age, Commander, surprise is a luxury I can no longer afford.”
They followed the trail to a small stone bothy hidden in gorse. Door ajar. Inside: chemical reek—sulphur, copper, bitter almonds. Retorts. A microscope. A notebook.
Holmes had Elena open it. Latin. Gaelic. Formulae. One phrase in English, underlined:
Lupus sapiens nocturnus – serum stable at 14° C.
“Someone has manufactured a werewolf,” Holmes said quietly.
Bond drew his Walther. “And someone is using it.”
A floorboard creaked.
A gaunt man in a stained lab coat stepped into the doorway. Revolver in one hand. Syringe in the other—green fluid gleaming.
“Mr. Holmes,” he said in soft Kerry tones. “You do me too much honour. And Commander Bond… I did not expect the Service to send its best.”
“Dr. Declan MacBride,” Holmes replied. “Dismissed from Trinity in 1949. Unethical animal trials. You disappeared six months ago.”
MacBride smiled. “I found better subjects.”
Bond’s hand moved toward his holster.
MacBride raised the revolver. “Don’t. I would prefer not to shoot an old man… or his nurse.”
Elena bristled. Holmes laid a hand on her arm.
“You are dying, Doctor,” Holmes said. “Mercury poisoning. Your pupils. Your skin. Three weeks, perhaps less.”
MacBride’s smile flickered. “Then I have time for one final hunt.”
He drove the needle into his own neck.
The change came fast—bones cracking, muscles swelling, black hair bursting across flesh. The revolver fell. Teeth lengthened. Eyes burned green.
The thing that had been MacBride snarled.
Bond fired twice—centre mass. The creature staggered but did not fall.
Holmes reached into the Gladstone bag. Elena handed him his walking-stick—the one with the silver ferrule engraved with a crescent moon. He rose—shakily—from the chair. Stepped forward.
The werewolf lunged.
Holmes drove the silver tip upward under the jaw—deep, precise. The beast convulsed. Collapsed. The green light faded from its eyes. Fur receded. Until only Declan MacBride lay there—dead, human, pitiful.
Silence.
Bond lowered his pistol. “Silver?”
“Silver alloy,” Holmes corrected, breathing hard. “Effective against certain metallic poisons in the blood. And against certain delusions of the mind.”
He sank back into the chair. Elena steadied him.
Bond looked at the body. Then at Holmes.
“I think we file this under ‘solved.’”
Holmes nodded once.
They left the bothy. Rain fell softly on the abbey stones.
Back in the Wolseley, Holmes leaned against Elena’s shoulder. His voice was faint.
“Commander Bond.”
“Yes?”
“When you write your report… omit my age. Let them think I am still the man I was.”
Bond glanced in the rear-view mirror. Met those ancient, unyielding eyes.
“I’ll omit nothing, Mr. Holmes. But I’ll make sure they remember the legend.”
Holmes closed his eyes. A small smile touched his lips.
“Three days until my birthday,” he murmured. “I believe I shall live to see it.”
Elena squeezed his hand.
And somewhere in the mist of Kerry, a lone wolf howled—not in rage, but farewell.
The end.

This item is currently blank.

Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/campfires/item_id/2355210-The-Adventure-of-the-Irish-Werewolf