I do not think that the events I describe below can be published in my lifetime; indeed, for the good of the British state and the British public, it may be necessary to conceal them for ever, although they took place more than forty years ago and all the principal persons who took part of them are dead — many of them for almost all that time, but we shall come to that painful matter later. Nvertheless, I must set down my record, lest knowledge of it be lost for ever.
The affair took place early in my friendship with Sherlock Holmes when I, recently out of the army and still not entirely recovered from a wound received in the Afghan campaign, began lodging with him in his rooms at number 221B Baker Street. To that date I had occasionally assisted him in his cases as a bungling amateur, eager to help but of little use as he applied his great intelllect to the problem. However, after the terrible discoveries me made at this time, we became inseparably bonded together by the shared knowledge of what we had found and the memory of the measures we had had to take to deal with it.
It started on a beautiful April morning. The windows were open and, above the clatter of passing hooves and the objurgations of carters, the sound of birdsong was faintly audible from Regent’s Park fifty yards up the road. As I looked southwards down the street I saw a private carriage drawn by two fine horses galloping towards us. Despite the clemency of the weather the hood was closed. The horses were pulled to a halt outside our door, and there was the familiar sound of the bell, pulled with a a force that suggested urgency.
The imperturbable Mrs Hudson knocked on the door of our apartment to announce that there was a gentleman to see us, with an aside that he seemed ‘all of a fluster’. And so he was when he burst into the room flushed and panting. We recognised him at once from his portrayal in the illustrated daily papers: it was none other than the Home Secretary.
‘Mr Holmes,’ he said, ‘I have come to consult you as a last resort. We have already called on the assistance of the police in this urgent matter, and they have come up with nothing — nothing at all. I am in despair; indeed we all are. Please, if there is anything you can to resolve this disastrous affair, do it for us with the utmost dispatch. I need not say that expense is no object, and you shall have all the support we can provide.’
In the manner of politicians, among his appeals he had not actually stated the nature of his problem, and even the astute Holmes remained in the dark. I saw a hint of a smile in the look he conferred on the minister. ‘Sir H—,’ he said, ‘Pray begin at the beginning, and hold nothing back, for if this trouble is truly urgent we must know every detail if we are to help you to good effect.’
Holmes motioned him to a comfortable chair, and I set a decanter of brandy (not our best, he was only a politician), a syphon of soda water, a glass and a tin of Bath Olivers on the table at his elbow. After he had fortified himself and calmed down somewhat, he began his tale.
‘Let us begin,’ he stated, ‘with the core of the matter. His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury is missing, and as far as we can see he has vanished off the face of the earth. No one has seen him for three days. As you doubtless know, it is his custom to officiate at the morning service in Westminster Abbey on Easter Sunday, at which Her Majesty will be present as well as countless dignitaries from the Empire and other lands. If he were to miss this occasion it would be no less than a disaster for the standing of our nation. It is now Maundy Thursday, and the ceremony is to take place in three days.’
Holmes regarded him quizzically.’How long,’ he enquired, ‘is it since you, ahem, mislaid the good cleric?’
‘Three days. We called the police after the first day, but as I said they have found nothing that may assist us in finding him.’
‘A pity that it took you so long to consult me,’ said Holmes mildly. ‘Yet we will do what we can. Come. Watson, the first place to visit will be his residence in Lambeth Palace.’
We trooped down to the waiting vehicle and rattled southwards, toiled up the sloping approach of the increasingly rickety suspension bridge at Lambeth Bridge, and were soon at the palace. Set in an extensive garden, it is a rambling structure of stone and weathered red brick parts of which date to the Middle Ages, with later additions from the 16th century in a style familiar to anyone who has visited the ancient universities of Oxford or Cambridge.
I had expected the Archbishop’s private apartment to be palatial, and in a certain sense it was, since the rooms were spacious. But the cleric seemed to have been living in corners, and never expanding into the spaces. The reception rooms were almost bare of furniture and showed little trace of recent use. When the housekeeper took us to his private rooms, it seemed that a monk had inhabited them. The bedroom contained an iron-framed cot, a pine washstand and a hard chair. The wardrobe with his ecclesiastical vestments made a strong contrast with the surrounding austerity, but for all their magnificence of gold thread and coloured silk these were working garments and told us nothing about the man himself. Nor did the garments he wore as a private individual, though the bishop’s reversed shirt collars, archaic breeches and gaiters, and the top hats with strings running from the top to the brim, were a sign of his office. His underclothing was of plain flannel: there was no luxury of silk here.
The housekeeper, a Mrs Abigail Armitage, confirmed our impression. ‘His Grace,’ she said, lived very simply. I had little to do for him above cleaning the rooms and changing the bed linen. He had little appetite for food, and lived largely on boiled eggs and toast.’
‘If I may be permitted a personal remark,’ she added, ‘it was clear that he dreaded public occasions where he was required to make a show of magnificence or cordiality. When not officiating or dealing with his correspondence he spent most of his time in his study reading. He did have one friend who visited him often, a gentleman of colour by the name of — let me think — Dr Esdras Obote. He was the head of a missionary society devoted to bringing Christianity to the natives of West Africa, a matter in which His Grace was keenly interested. I believe its name was The Brethren for the Promotion of the Gospel.’
By this time we had reached his study. While its furnishings were as austere as elsewhere — an upright chair, a desk and a lamp — the bookcases which lined three of the walls were full to overflowing. Much of the literature might have been expected: dusty volumes of Crockford’s Clerical Directory, works on the history of the English Church and on its buildings. Holmes ran his finger across the top of these volumes and winced as it picked up dust showing that these had not been touched for years. However, the shelves nearer the desk held volumes revealing more eclectic studies. There was an obviously well thumbed copy of the Gnostic Gospels with improvised paper bookmarks sticking up from the pages. Beside them were various books of Cabbalistic studies and original works in translation, with copies of the Zohar and the Koran. His interests clearly related farther afield, as there were works on Buddhism, the various religions of the Hindoos, and the animistic religions of West Africa. All showed signs of recent use. Among these books, however, there was a notable lack of works on the Church of England or on any subject related to conventional Christianity. To be sure these were present in plenty, but on distant and dusty shelves.
The only ornament that he had permitted here was a photograph of himself standing beside the Pope, set in a silver frame on his desk. Clearly taken on an official visit, it showed him smiling vaguely, while the Pontiff’s expression verged on grim.
After the anonymity of his other rooms we felt that we were forming a view of the man’s character. Dr Pascal Littleworth, to give him his true name, was far from the usual English cleric, and seemed to have been interested in any religion but his own. Another notable lack was of any documents or letters written by the man himself. The small grate in the room had traces of charred paper among the ash. Holmes examined these eagerly, but they were mere corners of pages and did not seem to bear any useful information. He did, however, pick up what seemed to be a fragment of an envelope and folded it carefully in his handkerchief.
‘Before we cease to trouble you, Mrs Armitage.’ he said, ‘May we look at His Grace’s bathroom? It may show traces of the the manner in which he left the palace, and his preparations for any journey.’
The bathroom was as austere as his bedroom. The usual fittings were of the plainest kind. A small cabinet above the washbasin contained almost nothing: a cake of soap still in its paper wrapping, a packet of cascara tablets, a well used toothbrush and a pot of dentifrice, and a broad crepe bandage such as one might apply to a sprained ankle. There was no hairbrush, but we remembered from newspaper photographs that Dr Littleworth had been completely bald, a small, slight person little over five feet tall. One object struck an incongruous note: a stick of what appeared to be theatrical greasepaint, of a dull bluish-grey colour. This Holmes pocketed while no one else was looking.
The last room we visited on our way out was a large reception room, as always barren of furniture, its only hint of domestic comfort a large Persian rug covering much of the middle of the floor. As we entered, something caught Holmes’s eye and he dropped to his knees. Drawing out a large magnifying glass, he closely examined the floor. ‘Look here, Watson,’ he said. ‘What do you see?’
‘It looks to me like a dribble of candle wax,’ I replied. ‘But what an unusual colour: it seems to be black.’
‘Precisely,’ said Holmes. ‘I think we need to take this carpet up.’
We rolled back the carpet to reveal bare floorboards. Yet on inspection they were not quite bare. There were traces of lines drawn in chalk which had been partly erased, but of which enough survived to show that they had formed a pentagram, a five-pointed star, enclosed in a circle. There were further traces of black candle wax at the points, but it was to the centre of the star that Holmes was paying attention. I followed his gaze. There were brown smears, dried and crusted — and at one edge was what, to my horror, could be nothing but the print of a tiny human hand, the hand of a newborn infant.
Holmes seldom betrayed horror, but it was there in the glances we exchanged. He quickly looked down again and, taking out his pocket knife, scraped a little of the deposit into a slip of paper. ‘This is a matter for the police,’ I said. ‘We must send for Inspector Lestrade.’
‘I think not,’ replied Holmes. ‘If the official world gets a hint of this devilry it will inevitably leak out, and when it does it will shake Church and State to their foundations. No, Watson, we must get to the bottom of this thing ourselves, and take any steps necessary to rectify it.’
— To be continued.
© Tachybaptus 2026
