Warlock Holmes--The Sign of Nine

by G. S. Denning

  He shrugged. “It’s fairly simple. We’ve got a copy of Devine’s Head of Napoleon, done as a mold, in two pieces. You fill both sides with plaster, then when they’re dry, you glue them together with extra plaster, sand down the seam, and you’re done.”

  “Have you ever sold any to Morse Hudson?”

  “Not for a year or so.”

  “And Harding Brothers, of Kensington?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t had any lately. I usually have the Italians whip up about a dozen a year, but it’s been some time.”

  “Ah, so you work with a lot of Italians, do you?”

  “If you need works of art produced quickly, they’re rather good. Oh, I mean… nothing compared to a proper British tradesman, you understand, but…” Gelder gazed at the floor a moment, trying to muster up some national pride. But no. Truth welled up in his heart and crushed whatever jingoistic sentence he was attempting to concoct. “…rather good.”

  I showed him the picture we’d gotten from Lestrade and asked, “I wonder if you know this fellow.”

  His response was instant. “That’s Beppo! He’s not supposed to come back here!”

  “Oh? And why is that?”

  “Well, there was that whole mix-up with Benito Marinetti, last year. A man got stabbed! And… well, I suppose none of it was Beppo’s fault, really. But he’s always going about with Marinetti. The two were almost inseparable. They always worked together, and Beppo was fiercely protective of the old man.”

  “Meaning Benito Marinetti? What can you tell me about him?”

  “He was a nice enough old fellow. Used to live in America. From what I hear, he’d been an organ-grinder in Philadelphia, as well as Venice.”

  Holmes gave a scandalized gasp. “Organ-grinder? Is that some kind of demon?”

  Gelder just gave another of his droopy little shrugs and muttered, “I always thought he made sausages. He was a good craftsman. Never drank, like some of the others. Strange, though. Whenever he met another Italian, he refused to talk to the man until he’d pulled back the other fellow’s shirt and had a look at his chest.”

  “Odd choice,” I noted.

  “He was in trouble with a gang of theirs, from what I gather. Call themselves the Red Circle, or the Scarlet Ring, or something like it. I think he had something they wanted. That’s what all the fuss was about. A year ago, somebody came after Marinetti, right outside my shop. Usually everyone was afraid to give him trouble, because of Beppo, but Marinetti was alone that day. There was a fight. Benito Marinetti stabbed his assailant and fled in here. Well, I refused to shelter him, of course. I called the police and turned him right over.”

  “And what happened?”

  “The other fellow lived, so they gave Marinetti a year in prison.”

  “A year? Seems a bit light for knifing a man, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh, no, no. Knifing an Italian.”

  I reeled back and stammered, “Oh. I suppose, I… I just didn’t realize how deeply this prejudice runs. Is that how everybody feels about Italians?”

  “Why not?” asked Holmes. “It’s the same way you feel about Canadians.”

  “Well yes, but that’s because they’re Canadian.”

  Mr. Gelder gave a serious shake of his head and confirmed, “Oh no. We wouldn’t hire Canadians.”

  “Hmmm,” I reflected, scratching my chin. “You say Benito Marinetti got a year’s imprisonment. And you haven’t sold any busts in that time? I wonder, is there any possibility he may have been released by now?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Gelder. “We could ask the boys in the back, I suppose. Come on.”

  He led us into his workshop where eight or nine Italian craftsmen were doing their utmost to remind everybody just who’d started the Renaissance. The army of back-room Botticellis went to their tasks with third-rate materials—plaster instead of marble, cheap wooden frames they constructed by hand—but the art they produced ranged from the attractive to the gobsmackingly gorgeous.

  “Oh!” said Holmes, gazing about at the works around him. “The colors!”

  “That’s just the problem!” Gelder shouted, and suddenly all the droop had gone out of him. It was replaced by a militant and familiar British zeal. “Too many damned colors! Look at this landscape painting of Castello Estense! Garbage! A red-stone fortress, surrounded by sunny vineyards? Ha! That is not a castle, sir! Chillingham! Now there’s a proper castle! Gray and wet, like a castle ought to be! These Italians have got it all wrong. And their food! So many tomatoes! So many herbs and spices! So light and yet so zesty! Where is the decorum, I ask you? Where is the restraint? They should learn from Britain! Yet they cannot fathom the simple truth: that proper cuisine is gray and wet!”

  “Um… sure,” said Holmes.

  “Even their portraiture,” Gelder continued, gesturing angrily at one of the half-finished pictures on his back wall. “Too vibrant. Too energetic. It spoils the whole thing! With good, proper British paintings there’s always something in the subjects’ eyes, you know? A certain restrained propriety that lets you know that the soul that resides within is more…”

  “Gray and wet?” Holmes volunteered.

  “There you go! Yes! Exactly!” Gelder bellowed, then settled into a nearby corner to cry a bit.

  Three minutes of interrogation gave us to understand that the local Italian position was that Benito Marinetti had been released from prison, but had not been seen since. Additionally, anybody with information as to his whereabouts might want to come forward and say so because they knew a number of very bad men with very big wallets who would readily pay for that information.

  Now, at last, I was getting somewhere. “Mr. Gelder, is there a way to tell where the last batch of Napoleon busts was sent, before Mr. Marinetti was sent to prison?”

  There was. A quick check of the books indicated that—in all likelihood—six such statues had been in the process of being made on the day of Marinetti’s knife-fight. Of these, three had gone to Morse Hudson, and three to Harding Brothers.

  “Now we are getting somewhere, Holmes!” I said. “Quickly, we must hasten to Kensington!”

  Holmes puffed with annoyance. “But, Watson, why?”

  “To track down the two final busts.”

  “We’re going to go somewhere else and talk to someone else and get more information and blah, blah, blah?”

  “Well… yes.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  I gave him a hard look. “What do you mean you don’t want to?”

  “Look, I don’t know if this is the sort of thing a gentleman is supposed to say, but…” He leaned in very close to me. “I want to fight a battle monkey! I’ve never done it before!”

  I stared at him.

  “Please, Watson? Please? I know I’m supposed to pay attention to all this sneaking about and clue-getting, but… Gads, all I can think about is fighting that monkey! Do you suppose it will be close?”

  “No! You fight demons and sorcerers! I’ve no idea how a simple chimpanzee is supposed to hold his own against—”

  “He’s got a hammer, Watson. Don’t forget.”

  “You’ve got a demonic soul-blade!”

  “Well, I still think it will be fun. And I’m losing my patience with all this driving about London, talking and talking! When do I get to fight a monkey?”

  “Oh… very well. I suppose I can solve the whole thing with a couple of telegrams. Let’s head for home.”

  “Yes, excellent! I’ll have some toast and soup and rest up for my monkey-battle!”

  I suppose it was no worse than any other big game hunter’s desire to bag their first rhino. Nevertheless, I stopped by the fruit stand on the way home to purchase alternatives, should they be wanted. Once at Baker Street, I began a furious campaign of telegram writing while Holmes retired to his chamber to draw pictures of fierce apes with hammers fighting big-chinned, sword-swinging gentlemen of—ahem—unknown identity.

  My first telegram went to Harding
Brothers. I sat in agony for almost two hours before I had the reply. Hearing that their customers’ lives might be in danger, they happily provided the names and addresses of the gentlemen who had purchased the last two busts. I sent each of the purchasers a telegram. My final missive went to Lestrade, begging him to join us at our lodgings when the sun went down. We hadn’t long to wait, for my flurry of activity had taken most of the afternoon. Barely half an hour after sunset, he knocked on our door.

  “What news, Lestrade?” I asked, as I ushered him in.

  “Some,” he mumbled. “The dead man on Horace Harker’s doorstep has been identified. His name was Pietro Venucci, a Sicilian by birth, but he had spent much time in America. He’d recently arrived in London but was well known to the Italian community here. It seems he was a knifeman for the Mafia—that’s a little gang the Italians have. Bless me, they do try, though lord knows they will never match London’s gangs for toughness, fearfulness or organization.”

  “Ha! Of course not,” I agreed.

  “Recently, Venucci has been affiliated with a splinter faction called the Red Ring, or something like it. They’re an extremist Italian-nationalist secret society. Well… secret, I say, but Pietro Venucci had a red circle tattooed on his chest above his heart. Apparently it is required of all full members. So they must have a new definition of ‘secret’ I was previously unaware of.”

  “And yet, it corroborates the story I’ve formed to explain this bizarre rash of crimes. It explains why Benito Marinetti checked the chests of every Italian he met.”

  “Benito who?”

  “I think I’ve figured the whole thing out, Lestrade. Let me tell you what I know.”

  Holmes tilted his head to the side and said, “Eh? That’s not like you, Watson. Usually you make us wait until the end.”

  “Well this time I’m not going to. It all begins with an organ-grinder, named Benito Marinetti, who worked with a chimpanzee named Beppo.”

  “An organ-grinder?” said Lestrade quizzically.

  “A kind of demon,” Holmes explained.

  “Really?” Lestrade wondered. “Because most of my homes are underneath slaughter-houses and I’ve always thought—after they’ve taken the muscles of the cow for meat and the skins for leather—there must be somebody whose job it is—”

  I cut him off. “Organ-grinder is carnival slang; it denotes an entertainer who works with a hand-cranked calliope and a trained primate. The man plays music while the monkey dances and begs the audience for coins.”

  “I have heard of such things,” Lestrade reflected. “Yet, aren’t the monkeys usually quite small?”

  I had to admit that they were and that I had no idea what a full-grown chimpanzee might be doing in such a role. Holmes was wiser. “Ha!” he scoffed. “Perhaps it might be easy to deny your pocket change to the average capuchin, but what if you knew he could snatch you up and throw you over the nearest fence?”

  “Good point,” I admitted. “Organ-grinding was Mr. Marinetti’s trade in Italy and America yet, upon his arrival in England, he took new work, shaved his ape, stuck a false moustache on its face and passed him off as a fellow Italian.”

  “That would never work,” said Lestrade.

  “You’d be surprised,” I told him. “Now, why did Marinetti need to hide? Because he was in possession of an item that was sought by this Red Circle gang, or whatever they’re called. Unless I miss my guess, the item must be fairly small—probably no bigger than a man’s fist and possibly much smaller. What do you say, Lestrade, do you know of any items stolen roughly one year ago that are connected with Italy?”

  Lestrade barely had to reflect at all before leaping to his feet and crying, “The Black Pearl of the Borgias! It went missing from the prince of Colonna’s bedroom at the Hotel Dacre, just over a year ago. Suspicion fell on the princess’s maid—a girl named Lucretia—but nothing was ever proved.”

  “Perhaps now it may be,” I said, smirking. “You see, one year ago, Benito Marinetti found himself in possession of a small item desired by the Red Ring. He was accosted outside Gelder & Co. and badly wounded his attacker with a knife. He knew he had only a matter of minutes before he was killed or taken into custody. What should he do with his treasure? He fled into the wholesaler’s where he saw just the expedient he needed: six freshly cast busts of Napoleon, drying in the molds. He thrust his treasure—probably the Borgia pearl—into the wet plaster before the constables came for him. Can it be coincidence that—just after Marinetti’s release from prison—busts of Napoleon started getting smashed all over London? And not just any busts! Holmes and I have traced every single one to the particular batch made at Gelder & Co. on the day that Benito Marinetti was arrested.”

  “Only four have been smashed!” Lestrade cried. “Quickly, we must track down the last two busts!”

  “Already done,” I told him. “Both were bought and subsequently sold by Harding Brothers, near Kensington High Street Station. One went to Josiah Brown, of Laburnum Lodge, Laburnum Vale, Chiswick. The other to Mr. Sandeford of Lower Grove Road, Reading. I have dispatched telegrams to both men, warning them to expect attempts on their busts, urging them not to confront any intruder as he is quite dangerous, and offering to purchase the busts if they will bring them to 221B Baker Street tomorrow morning.”

  “Well done!” Lestrade crowed. “Have you had any answer to your inquiries?”

  Just at that moment, the bell rang.

  “I was about to say ‘no’ but perhaps I’d better hold my tongue until we see who is at the door.”

  Sure enough, it was a messenger boy with a telegram from Mr. Sandeford, promising to hide his bust of Napoleon that night and bring it to Baker Street the next morning.

  “Well, that simplifies matters,” I said. “It leaves only one bust vulnerable this evening. Gentlemen, I suggest we hurry to Chiswick and lie in wait outside the house of Mr. Josiah Brown.”

  “Yes, perhaps we shall capture this Benito Marinetti,” said Lestrade.

  “No, I shouldn’t think so. Marinetti has gone into hiding. Nobody has seen him since his release. He has a well-trained confederate who has been breaking into the targeted houses and smashing the busts.”

  “And who is this well-trained confederate?” Lestrade wanted to know.

  I handed him back the picture we’d taken from Pietro Venucci’s pocket only that morning. “His chimpanzee, Beppo.”

  “But no,” said Lestrade. “This is just some random Italian fellow.”

  “He’s not!” Holmes declared, in strident tones. “He’s an anti-Napoleon battle monkey! And he’s wonderful! And I’m going to fight him! Oh, it will be a sight to see!”

  Lestrade gave Holmes exactly that same disbelieving glance I’d used earlier that day. “No it won’t. You’ll kill him in an instant. He’s only an ape. Or maybe an Italian, but either way…”

  “All right, but he’s got a hammer! Did Watson tell you that? He’s armed.”

  “So?” said Lestrade. “Holmes, I’m not sure there’s any such thing as a god, but if there is, and if you were going to fight it, I really wouldn’t know where to place my bet.”

  And then a strange light lit up in Lestrade’s eye. He did have a bit of a mania for gambling, after all, and putting this thought into words helped him realize that—at least in the case of this night’s festivities—he knew exactly where to place his bet. He turned to me and shouted, “Five pounds on Holmes!”

  “No! I’m not taking that.”

  “Five pounds on Holmes in five seconds! Monkey dead in five seconds from the first blow or the initial challenge!”

  “No bet, Lestrade.”

  “I’ll give you two to one!”

  I gave a heavy sigh. “Very well. But I tell you this: I intend to win. I know it will disappoint Holmes terribly, but it’s the right thing to do. For Beppo’s sake, I’ll take that bet.”

  We shook on it and Lestrade gave me one of his rare smiles. “Done! I suppose we’d best head for Chis
wick, eh?”

  “Yes!” Holmes cried. “To battle! To greatness! To Chiswick!”

  * * *

  If there’s one thing I regret about my career as a criminal/magical investigator, it is this: just how often I wind up standing about in the cold and dark, waiting for mischief to start. If only criminals would publish their timetables in advance, the whole job would be eminently more pleasurable.

  We took up position in the front garden of a vacant house, just down the row from Mr. Josiah Brown’s front door. Though I repeatedly urged my companions to silence, a thousand primate-slaying tips and observations passed between the two of them. Though—to his credit—Lestrade insisted that if there was any question of our foe being an Italian and not a chimp, Holmes was forbidden from murdering him. In such a case the bet was off, of course. Though, if I were any kind of gentleman I must own that the mistake had been mine and pay the forfeit anyway.

  Such was the stealth of our foe and such the strenuousness of my friends’ discussion that I had no warning until it was nearly too late. A sudden, joyous shriek split the night. Popping up over our garden wall, I beheld the shadowy form of Beppo jumping over Mr. Brown’s front gate. He wore blue overalls over a bright red shirt. A jaunty little red cap rested atop his (clearly simian) head and the glued-on moustache waggled back and forth as he bounded down the street towards us. No sooner had he reached the first streetlamp than he raised one of his hands up over his head.

  A plaster bust of Napoleon gleamed in the gaslight.

  With a second screech, our foe flung the bust down upon the pavement and jumped on it twice, with great violence. Then, he treated the unfortunate emperor to three lightning-quick blows from the wooden hammer in his other hand, then one more jump. He bent over the dusty wreckage and—with some diligence—sifted through it for some moments. At last, he gave a frustrated “ook” from which I inferred that the object of his search must not be present.

  Apple, Beppo? Apple?

  By this time we were all approaching him at a full run. Holmes was well in the lead, enjoying the advantages of both the longest legs and the greatest zeal. I was just behind, pointlessly urging caution. Lestrade brought up the rear, stopwatch in hand, eager to claim the spoils of his bet. As we neared Beppo, Holmes threw his left hand back and cried, “Melfrizoth!” No sooner had he spoken the name of the blade than it materialized in his hand—black and gleaming, curved like a serpent’s tooth and burning with demonic green flame. Those same otherworldly fires lit in Holmes’s eyes as his voice dropped an octave or three and he cried out, “Battle monkey: face me!”