Free THE IRREGULAR CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by Ron Weighell

Sturleson, who held in her arms the subdued, blanket-wrapped form who had saved the life of Sherlock Holmes.
    ‘I have deceived you, gentlemen, and for that I apologise. I can only say that I did it with the best of intentions. Perhaps if I tell you my story you may understand.
    ‘I worked for years as the first Mrs Sturleson’s nurse. She was a fine woman and a good friend, but suffered constant ill-health. Although I was employed for my orthodox nursing skills, I had, as I told you, learned of Tibetan medicine in my travels with my father, and was able to relieve her pain with my potions, even bringing her short periods of relatively good health.
    ‘Mr Sturleson was a man of dark and brooding temperament even then. He lived in constant fear that the shadow of the wolf would fall on him. His only delight was his daughter Freya. She was a lovely child, the favourite not only of her father but of her mother and brothers too. One night, when Mr Sturleson was away, Freya had been allowed to sleep in her mother’s bed. I was awoken by terrible screams. Rushing to her room, I found Mrs Sturleson hysterical, driven mad by the sight of a ravening dog-like creature crouched upon her pillow. I snatched up a chair and drove the thing into a cupboard, and locked the door.
    ‘Freya’s nightdress lay on the floor, torn, and she was nowhere to be seen. The house was searched without result. It was only in the morning when the cupboard door was opened that we found the sleeping form of Freya.
    ‘I had locked a wild animal in that cupboard, Mr Holmes. All it contained next morning was a sleeping child. I could no longer doubt that her father’s worst fears had been realised, although ironically it was his beloved daughter, and not he himself, on whom the curse had fallen.
    ‘My first thought was that he should be protected from this knowledge. Here I was aided by my herbal knowledge. There is, in Tibet, a formula to produce Moon Balm, a fabled cure for all lunar maladies. It is distilled from a rare relative of the mountain poppy called Mecanopsis Horridula. I was able to produce enough to administer a dose to Freya at the time of the next full moon.
    ‘I succeeded, Mr Holmes. Freya was untroubled. I continued to nurse Mrs Sturleson, who never regained her sanity, and administered the drug to Freya by slipping it into her food. No one knew my secret.’
    ‘It was a fearful burden,’ said Holmes gently.
    ‘I did it for him. By that time I had come to love him, though I told no one. And yet I failed him. I accidentally spilled some of the potion, and did not have enough when the full moon came.
    ‘Freya was playing with her brother Karl here,’ she continued, stroking the head of the gaunt silent man by her side. ‘They did not return at sunset. It was a childish game, but the consequences were disastrous.
    ‘After a desperate search we found Karl covered in blood, crouched over the body of one of their playmates. Karl could not speak, and the continued absence of Freya encouraged them to conclude that he had killed her too. When she was found next day, alive but unable to remember anything, it only seemed to confirm her innocence. Only I had reason to know that she had committed the atrocity, leaving Karl, who had witnessed the horror, frozen with shock.
    ‘Her father was convinced that the curse had fallen on his eldest son. I remember him thanking God that Freya had been spared. How could I have told him the truth, Mr Holmes? It would have destroyed him.
    ‘As it was he fell into an even blacker depression. Only Freya could make him happy. I was able to distil more Moon Balm which held Freya in a state of relative normality for years. Mrs Sturleson died, and in time I took her place in the household.
    ‘All this time I had visited Karl, who was being held at St Anthony’s. For all the years I went there he neither spoke nor responded, but I felt that it might do him some good. So things went on, in an uneasy truce,