How Holmes Cleared a Cursed Cave-in

Dear Investigators,

Thanks to your sharp wit, the matter of Mortimer Payne’s demise can now be laid to rest— as can the notion of The Celtic Curse afflicting him. There is likely some rubble and debris still littering the cromlech and its environs, but while the authorities handle that, we can move onto our next mysteries.

Until then, we urge you to take a look at Holmes’ personal analysis of the case. There may be some details you overlooked during this mess of a cavern collapse!

We’ll be in touch soon, as there’s always a need for artful sleuthing…

The Dear Holmes Team

——

4 November, 1902

Dear Reverend Skinner,

I have appreciated your detailed account of what I have come to call The Problem of the Celtic Curse. Your extraordinary ability to note and recount conversations with individuals makes it possible for me to know, with some certainty, that two serious crimes have been committed in your village: murder and attempted murder.

Your initial plea for help, dated October the 29th, set before me an accidental death that, as you wrote, seemed odd due to a melding of suggestive “circumstances and portentous facts”. In this case, the facts, though portentous, were quite simple: Four men enter a cave, and only three emerge. One of them might be a murderer, and if so, then the others would likely be witnesses. Yet, we had neither witnesses, nor any semblance of who among the explorers might be a murderer...

To begin with, I will admit that your letter swayed me in the direction of your, and Mr. Nichols’, concerns. That is to say, I suspected there was something more to the circumstances of Mr. Payne’s death– be it accidental or otherwise– than what we had learned from his associates. The condition of his corpse was not necessarily unusual, considering he was deceased, however, it seemed misaligned with the events that our witnesses claimed had occurred. No doubt, the “massive wound” on his head could have been a result of the cavern collapsing onto him, but his body was not found covered in stones or anything the like. What’s more, when a person falls, they tend to land on a side or the front of their body because their momentum carries them forward; they also tend to instinctively use their hands or arms to break their fall, leading to additional injuries on those limbs. Perhaps he had fallen from a great height, or somehow been thrown backwards to the ground, I thought at the time, but even this seemed rather unlikely given that the cromlech consisted of narrow tunnels and a large central chamber.

There was also the question of Mrs. Payne and her reaction. Specifically, I wondered, why had Mrs. Payne demanded to return to the camp with Rory Campbell in the aftermath of the incident? Had Campbell and the others failed to locate or retrieve Mr. Payne’s body, this reaction would have been quite understandable, but this was instead her response to the fact his body had been extracted from the cavern. She might have thought it had been taken to their camp site, but even so, the fact she insisted they return to the camp, rather than to her husband’s body, was of note. Considering these details, I was, as I have already stated, inclined to agree with Mr. Nichols’ assessment of the circumstances, and eager to start thoroughly investigating.

With regard to suspicious people, your first letter brought forth a number of those who would have had the opportunity to act against Mr. Payne– namely, the survivors of the expedition, the Heathers, who owned the land, and Elis Nichols, who knew where they were. Nichols had personally led us to this investigation, and displayed no obvious motives. Greed was a possibility, but in that case, he would have been the last to draw attention to the death. Unless he had been driven by an intensely personal, secret motive, then it was implausible for him to be our culprit. Thus he was dismissed from the start. The Heathers, I could not dismiss without additional information, for though a motivating force was yet unclear, they surely knew the explorers’ whereabouts, and had ample opportunity and means by which to commit the theoretical crime. Last, but not least, were the survivors, who had arguably more opportunity than the Heathers would have had– although a precise motive was difficult to discern. My preliminary theories were not few, but my strongest general inclination was thus:

Mr. Payne had met his demise at the hands of somebody who sought to profit from the cromlech he was exploring. I still could not say whether the profit was money itself, or an intangible treasure– fame– and an accidental death was not entirely implausible, nevertheless, there were far too many curious facts to declare his death a product of pure chance.

When your second letter arrived, it took but two paragraphs of your missive to convince me that Mortimer Payne had indeed been murdered. Plainly speaking, the clue that veritably proclaims “Murder!” was his corpse. It may be true that dead men tell no tales, however Doctor Watson and I have dealt with enough corpses to know that the body of a man speaks volumes. For instance, the time of death can be determined by several factors, including rigour, or the stiffness of the body and limbs. Less than twenty-four hours after Payne’s body was discovered, you described his limbs as being “pliable,” making it easy for you to remove his clothing. Even little Rozzie herself revealed this when she poke her finger into the soft flesh of the corpse’s cheek. This, combined with the “reddish tint” you described, indicates that death occurred much more than a day earlier– I estimate closer to thirty-six hours, which would have been prior to the cave-in. Also, we must not overlook the fact that, in your examination of the corpse, you found no wounds or lacerations besides the massive one on the back of the skull. Not a cut, scrape, or bruise anywhere on the hands or arms, further supporting the theory that his death was not the result of a fall. I will also note that the state of Mr. Payne’s clothes, which you observed to be “caked in mud” piqued my curiosity; but I think it best we return to this after just a trifle of further analysis, for this same letter also cast doubt upon Dylan Dewey, Fiona Payne, and Rory Campbell.

As you and others in your community took note of, Dewey’s recent purchase of a horse was extravagant, to say the least. Despite the fact Dewey was known as a “regular goer” at the racecourse, the timing of what was his very first equestrian acquisition was worthy of scrutiny. Had he suddenly come across a large sum of cash, and if so, how? If he had received such a sum as payment for Payne’s expedition, he would have surely mentioned it when interviewed, rather than simply stating there had been no treasure in the cromlech. In addition to this, Mr. Nichols’ statement regarding Mrs. Payne and Mr. Campbell emerging from their tents together, “frenzied”, led me to question their acquaintanceship. “Just how friendly were they?” I wondered, and more importantly, were there any connections between them, Dewey, and Mr. Payne’s demise, that we had not yet unearthed? After all, a dalliance between Mrs. Payne and Mr. Campbell could have motivated one or both of them to act against Mortimer– likewise, he might have been spurred to act against them if he suspected deceit. Still, there was the matter of Colin Biddle and his unexpected promotion. Bearing in mind that his new position at the British Museum was a direct consequence of Mr. Payne’s death, it seemed he stood most to gain from it. Were these other details irrelevant, or was there an even more elaborate conspiracy underway?

The answers to my quandaries were not in plain sight, however, the contents of your November 1 letter did lead me to the cusp of this mystery’s solution. My theory began to take shape as I read Mr. Biddle’s response to your inquiry, “How did Payne meet his death?” According to Mr. Biddle, Payne was fatally injured after slipping in the cavern, whilst the others were investigating the pool found in the cromlech’s grotto– this was later corroborated by the interview with Mr. Campbell detailed in your most recent letter, dated November the 4th. Reviewing Mr. Biddle’s account, I was reminded of the very first reports of the cavern collapse, and of the survivors’ reactions. Specifically, I noticed an alarming discrepancy between their reactions on the day of the collapse, and their respective accounts in the aftermath. When asked of Mr. Payne’s death, Biddle and Campbell claimed that he fell to his demise as they probed the cavern, still, when rescued from the cavern collapse, they told Nichols and the other rescuers that they “feared Mr. Payne was still trapped inside”. Here I finally started seeing through the deception underway. I hypothesised:

Campbell and the other adventurers were truthfully startled by the cavern collapse, however, they were nonetheless obscuring the truth about Mortimer Payne, who most certainly was deceased prior to the cave-in. Given the similarity between Biddle and Campbell’s reactions, as well as Mrs. Payne’s own interest in returning to the camp after the collapse, I suspected there were several people aware of the true circumstances of his death. Thus I was left with two questions. On the one hand, the question of “Who”; that is, who was personally responsible for the death, and was it one or more individuals. On the other hand, the question of the collapse. I did believe it caught the adventurers by surprise, yet I hesitated to accept it was a natural occurrence.

Thankfully, I did not have to ponder this for long, as your latest letter brought light to these questions and all others that persisted. Elis and Mrs. Heather’s discovery at the campsite, together with the information gathered from your meetings with Mrs. Payne and Rory Campbell, helped answer the “Who” question, whereas the truth to the cavern collapse was made plain by Mrs. Heather’s other revelation, and your subsequent encounter with Dylan Dewey. I will explain forthwith.

From Mrs. Payne, you learned much of the deceased, and of the history of their relationship. As she stated, they met while she held the post currently held by Pamela Windgate. She also noted that she insisted she join her husband on his adventures, regardless of the fact she did not fully approve of the “circus atmosphere and the carousing” that was so often a part of these excursions. Coupled with the knowledge that Mr. Payne was an “alco”, and Miss Windgate was so bereft after his death, I am inclined to believe Mrs. Payne suspected infidelity during her husband’s trips. Furthermore, this suspicion did not wane over time, instead, it motivated Mrs. Payne to seek affection from elsewhere– from Rory Campbell. Their closeness was apparent from the start, and supported by Mrs. Payne’s abrupt withdrawal from your interview once questioned about him.

Now, I urge you to consider your recent conversation with Campbell, during which he raised his hand to his neck when describing his remaining bruises. For my part, this detail immediately reminded me of the bruises on Mrs. Payne’s neck, which she attributed to her husband. Thereafter, I was able to piece together what occurred to Mortimer Payne: On the day of the cavern collapse, the tension between Mr. Payne, his wife, her lover Mr. Campbell, and Biddle, who was no particular fan of Payne, came to a whisky-fueled boil. Payne, while at the camp with the others, attacked Campbell in a drunken jealous rage, taking him by the neck as he had previously done to his wife– Mrs. Payne, having experienced similar attacks, impulsively struck her husband with the first object she had at hand, a whisky bottle, and there he fell. I posit that the group offered Dylan Dewey a generous sum to say nothing of the ordeal, and then determined to place Payne’s body in the cavern and blame the fatal wound on an accident. And in the process of transporting the body, I will add, they managed to sully it with mud to an extent that would have been unlikely to occur had Payne simply been exploring the cavern. This, as I suggested before, drew my eye to their plot in the earlier parts of our investigation. What the group failed to predict, unfortunately, was Dewey’s devotion to his “god-bound duty”.

With regard to my second question, that of the cavern collapse, I am inclined to say that it was Mr. Dewey’s own attempt at punishing the group for their sacreligious actions. What began as a debaucherous exploration of the cave eventually turned into a foul crime, and further still, Campbell, Mrs. Payne and Biddle, were all hoping to veil their involvement by means of the cromlech. This, I surmise, Mr. Dewey refused to allow, so he took advantage of their panicked return to the cavern and caused a collapse that would seem like both an accident and act of divine retribution. Young Rozzie herself said there were many good places to hide among the ruins surrounding the cromlech, so it is most likely that Dewey remained hidden nearby while the rescue ensued, until scurrying back to the entrance to play hero.

Mrs. Payne was, as Mrs. Heather noted, truly devastated by news of the collapse, and for good reason; the rest of her group, including her lover, were now possibly dead, and trapped in the cavern with her husband’s corpse. And we should not forget, that once she knew Campbell had survived, her objective was to return to the camp rather than her husband’s body. I now realise this is because the collapse had interrupted her own part of the obfuscation– removing evidence, like the whisky bottle, from the true site of Payne’s death.

After the survivors were recovered from the cavern along with Payne’s body, the group undoubtedly suspected their guide, but were bound to silence by their crimes. I believe this explains the general animosity towards Dewey during our investigation, not to mention Mr. Campbell’s reference to the man as “Lord Mammon”, known for his greed.

I was made more certain of my theory, and of Dylan Dewey’s role, after reviewing Elis’ initial observations of the surviving adventurers. As he stated, the light from the rescue party’s lanterns hurt the eyes of Colin Biddle and Rory Campbell, who had to be guided out from the cave. This would make sense, because when we are in darkness for an extended period, our pupils dilate wider to let in more light, and if a light suddenly appears, it creates a sensation of pain until our eyes can adjust. What does not seem right, on the contrary, was Dewey’s response upon being found at the entrance of the cromlech. Indeed, his vision was unimpaired by the light outside, and he required a lantern before charging inside with the others to retrieve Payne’s body. This suggests that he was never in the tomb when the collapse occurred.

What next, you ask? We must see to it that all those involved are brought before the law.

I have already sent word to an acquaintance, a young lieutenant from North Wales Police Headquarters, who is en route to Amlwch as of this morning. While he ensures that Dylan Dewey is brought into custody of the police, his colleagues will seek out Biddle, Mrs. Payne, and Campbell. Although there may be a need for further questioning, I doubt their lies will persist for much longer. If any of the people involved change their story, then like the stones in that ancient cromlech, their entire charade will tumble. Especially in light of the collapse survivors’ disdain for Dewey.

Should the need arise, do not hesitate to write me again in the future, Reverend. I would be most happy to lend my mind to another singular puzzle.

Sincerely yours,