‘I made an attempt to feel walls and railings with my fingertips. The surface of something I was touching was reminiscent of the exterior of a house five doors away from mine, but usually a fragrant smell of roses emanated from the front garden. I explained this by the slight congestion in the throat that I had noticed in the morning when I first rose. I must have caught a cold and was therefore blocked, I thought. I kept going, and true enough a few houses away my hand touched the railing. I counted and the figure I came to was fifteen, but I accepted that I was in an excitable mood after having “unlost” myself, and had miscounted. I was reassured when my fingertips skimmed over the scroll top. Yes, I was home. I pushed the gate open and climbed the steps. The familiar fronds brushed my face and I sighed with relief. I had forgotten to count the steps leading to the front door in my excitement, but walked gingerly until I reached the top. I took out my key, but the door was unlocked and opened the moment the key touched it. I just pushed it and walked in. I was grateful for this, as I was quite drenched.’
‘Keep going.’ I urged.
‘The moment I was in the house, I immediately knew that it was not mine. I suddenly remembered that the gates had not screeched. The carpet here was much softer, the smell was different. Essex Street exudes a musty whiff. Instead of beating a hasty retreat before the owner sent for the police, as any sensible man would have done, I froze, unable to think. Or perhaps I was trying to regain my breath. It took me a whole minute before I decided that I should indeed turn back. Just as I was about to do this I heard people arguing. As my sense of hearing had developed in a spectacularly manner since my blindness, I gauged that the voices were coming from a distance.
Upstairs.’
‘So you allowed curiosity to overrule caution?’
‘Wouldn’t you?’ I said I wasn’t sure.
‘I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I was pulled upwards like by a magnet. I was just outside the room where an argument was taking place. It was no argument, it was a proper fight, with thumping on the desk and stamping on the floor for good measure. As I am endowed with a good memory, which has become even better now, I remember every word.’
Man in commanding voice: Now listen with both your ears. My decision is final. He has trespassed and must pay the price.
Woman in her thirties: But Boris, who are we? We are not God. You are not God.
Man in French accent: (jokily) Rosika, If Boris is not God, then who is?
Muffled sound of someone, probably a gagged man, trying to have his say.
Angry footsteps on the floor.
Boris: I don’t want to hear a squeak from you, Antonov. I told you to tighten the gag François. If anything goes wrong, Sofia will never forgive us. I don’t have to tell you what to expect. Rosika, have you got the gun? Give it to François.
He emphasises his order by banging on the desk.
François: I’m not doing it, Boris. Don’t look at me like this. Of course I’ve killed, but in a war it’s different. Rosika should do it...
Rosika: (Hesitates) Yes. But please Boris, there must be another way. Don’t make me. He’s made a full confession. He’s agreed to lead us to them.
What’s the use of si..silencing him.
Boris: I don’t know where Kirill is. He’s so irresponsible, he’s never on time, and as he’s bound to have forgotten his key, I left the door open for him...
Rosika: I don’t like you doing that. Anybody can walk in.
Boris: You see enemies everywhere. In my experience, people don’t just climb the steps of a random house to check if the door is locked or not. Not in broad daylight.
Rosika: I don’t think it’s fair to make me do it. We should ...
Muffled sounds as before. Footsteps are heard, followed by the sound of slaps and someone squealing with pain.
Boris: If you think that hurt, you sonofabitch...
Rosika: We should cast lots.
François: Yes. I’ll arrange it.
Boris: No, François, you are full of tricks.
Rosika: Yes, you worked as a magician. I’ll do it. I’ll write the numbers 1, 2 and 3 on identical bits of paper. I then fold them over, put them in a hat, shake it well. Then I pass the hat round and looking away we each pick a pellet. Shall we say the one who picks Number One is the ...winner … or loser …I mean gets to do the job.
Muffled sounds become more desperate. Footsteps are heard going towards the muffled sounds. They are Boris’. He slaps Antonov again and again.
Boris: Don’t let’s hear a squeak from you, you traitor.
‘I started trembling, and knew that I was putting my life at risk. I thought of poor Dickie in Afghanistan, risking his life to find stories for the English public. There was I witnessing something just as momentous, and thinking of running away just as it was becoming interesting. I chided myself for being so lily-livered. I briefly considered doing something to save the man’s life, but perhaps I am a coward. In my condition, I had no idea what I could have done. Later on I thought that I could have rushed out and enlisted the help of the first passer-by, but that day no such thought occurred to me. If I had pushed the door to go in, I had little doubt that there would be not one killing, but two. I was confused and scared. My heart was beating like the drums of those Tuareg medicine men that we saw, Dickie and I when we were travelling in the Sahara desert. I was in a haze and could no longer follow the conversation.’
‘The plotters must have carried out their plan. Suddenly I heard a shot and I was unable to stifle a cry, whereupon the door burst open. Someone must have knocked me on the head, for I lost consciousness. I remembered nothing until I woke up in my bed in Essex Street. How I got there, I had no idea. Mrs Parker said that I arrived by hansom. The cabbie climbed up and told her, and she rushed down to help me upstairs and into my bed. When she went down to thank the driver, he had disappeared. I had a big bump on my head. I conjectured that those brutes had attacked me, but perhaps realising that I was sightless, had decided that I was not a threat to them. Although I was sure that it was Rosika who had carried out the shooting, I became convinced that she it was who must have argued against my elimination. Don’t ask me how I know.’
Heaton recounted once more his ordeal at the police station. After he had signed the statement they produced from his testimony, he knew that they either thought that he was a fantasist or a madman. A blind rich man wanting a little entertainment. Which is why he went to Mr Holmes.
***
‘I know I have given you next to no clues to work on,’ Willard Heaton said apologetically, ‘apart from a few names.’
‘An important clue was that they were from the Bulgarian Secret Service. With the ubiquitous French anarchist thrown in for good measure,’ I said.
‘I thought they were Russians.’
‘Sofia,’ I began.
‘Oh, silly me,’ said the suddenly illuminated blind man. ‘Sofia. Of course. The Capital of Bulgaria. I thought Sofia might have been the puppet mistress.’
‘London has become a hotbed of spies, if we are to believe Mycroft Holmes.’ He frowned.
‘Mr Holmes’ brother. He works for the Cabinet office.’
‘But there is nothing you can do?’
I thought of Mycroft, but dismissed the idea. Maybe I’ll mention it to Holmes. It might be useful to discover where the murder took place. If the Foreign Office was to have a leg to stand on, the least we could do would be to tell the Bulgars we know where and why the killing happened. Would it serve any purpose? Perhaps only so they know that we do not tolerate extrajudicial killing on our green and pleasant land, and learn to behave themselves. Or shall I admit that the challenge of finding a house where a murder was committed by following the description of a blind man, to her quixotic mind, was a Holy Grail this misguided damsel found irresistible to go in quest of.
***
‘I was going to say close your eyes and think hard,’ I began. He laughed heartily. ‘Please tell me every single detail that you can remember. From the moment you heard the first peal of thunder. Tell me what you smelt, what you heard, anything you felt with your hands, under your feet. No start at the point where you left Essex Street.’
‘When I get down the steps and reach the gate, I have a ritual. I place my right hand...I have the cane in my left hand...on one of the ornamental wrought iron balls at the top of brick pillars framing the gate. They are the size of a football. Then I gently stroke the two scroll tops above the portals, as I told you. I make for the Victoria Embankment by my usual route. I derive a certain comfort in the stench of dead birds and rotting vegetables. It’s no doubt the familiarity that I find reassuring. I walk towards Waterloo Bridge. Today I am trying out new routes. I had asked Mrs Parker to remind me of the layout. I can hear the sounds of the barges as they glide over the water, the men laughing and swearing merrily. Overhead I hear sea gulls and at least three other types of birds I cannot identify. I smell the fragrance of flowers coming out of the many garden I pass by. I am aiming for Trafalgar Square. Having chosen a circuitous route I have taken over an hour to get there. I direct my steps towards the fountain, find a seat under Nelson Column to rest my tired legs.
A feeling of well-being envelopes me as I stretch them and lean against the backrest. I hear pigeons flapping their wings and cooing. There are a fair number of people in the square, as I said before, and you could hear constant talking and laughing. Am I being repetitious? Giving you too many details?’
‘Not at all. Do carry on.’
‘Suddenly there was this peal of thunder. As I said already.’ He stopped. I prodded him gently with a, Yes?
‘It’s funny, I missed that one the first time, but now I distinctly remember smelling the thunder a few seconds before it boomed. You know the sort of electric smell. Ozone. It’s pretty distinctive.’ I have heard that one can recall odours more readily than words.
‘After the cloudburst people were rushing about to find shelter. It was in this rush that I dropped my cane. Actually someone careered past me, and said, “Get out of people’s way, fellow, are you blind?” I went on all fours again, but I had no illusions about my chances of locating my prized possession without external help. I felt that any appeal on my part would fall on deaf ears, and I didn’t want people to get soaked on my account. I reflected upon the difference between two closely related phenomena. People greet an unheralded snowfall with merriment. They smile at each other and exchange pleasantries. With rain it’s different. Perhaps because you don’t get drenched in sparse snow coming down half-heartedly. Completely irrelevant. Sorry. Anyway, I have no clear idea for how long I had walked, as I told you earlier. Could have been anything from thirty minutes to more than three hours. I imagined that one day someone might invent a watch with embossed numbers for us sightless folks...eh, if it doesn’t already exist. It was at this point that I became convinced that I was back on my street.’
‘I am sorry Mr Heaton, but I was hoping that you would have told me more about the odours or scents you experienced on the way.’ Who cared about his thoughts of rain and snow? I was after facts.
‘Oh, I was carried away,’ he said. By rain and snow. ‘Yes. You said to recall odours and sounds. I forgot. I mean apart from the ozone. Let me see.’ Let me smell.
‘I distinctly remember the smell of vinegar at some point. A strong and invasive scent. Like it was coming from a factory making it.’ Now we’re going somewhere.
‘Then you were clearly in the vicinity of a vinegar factory,’ I said. ‘We’ve made some progress.’ He nodded happily. There can’t be that many vinegar factories in London.
‘I heard a bell ring once. It was the sort used at school at the start or end of break. At the same time I heard the excited cries of joys of the youngsters, no doubt as they rushed out of their classrooms to go into the play yard.’ Excellent. Means there was a school in the vicinity.
‘At some point there was a nauseating smell of what might have been broken drains, open sewer.’ Where in London are such odours absent?
‘That’s three important clues, Mr Heaton, what else?’
‘Let me see. Oh, perhaps I should say let me smell, ha, ha!’
‘There was a strong smell of coal tar shortly after I had passed the sewer smell. Oh, hang on, it might have been before.’
‘That would indicate that a road was up, I suppose.’
‘Absolutely right, I did hear workers and the sound of machinery.’ The clues are piling up now, we really seem to be going somewhere.
He talked about passing near building sites, hearing noise of hammering and sawing, material being moved about or hoisted, builders bantering. He then described how he first sniffed the odours of manure, then heard a dog barking, followed by cows mooing. Away from central London, there are a good few farms. He must have been a good few miles from the centre.
‘As I said before...did I? This information will probably be useless, but there were plenty of evidence of flowers on my path.’
‘Any special fragrance that you identified?’
‘There were a good few. Hyacinth for sure. I hate it, find it overpowering. There was lavender, carnation, lily- another one I’m not over fond of.’
‘Unfortunately one finds these almost anywhere. Any rare ones?’ Heaton nodded to himself and seemed plunged into thought. Suddenly his face lit up.
‘How could I have forgotten! When we were in Cyprus- Doyle and I - that was the first time I came across the frangipani.’ Plumeria rubia. ‘I even said to myself, strange, this doesn’t grow here.’
‘But it does Mr Heaton. The plumeria rubia … people keep them indoors, in large earthenware pots or barrels, it needs warmth, but in this mild spring we’re having now, they leave them outdoors in the daytime. They really thrive in the spring sun. That’s interesting. Not too many people have them. That might prove a vital clue.’
‘Oh, and on two occasions I came across lime trees.’ Tilia? Again not a very common fragrance.
I asked him to describe the house he went into once more, and I wrote down relevant informations. There was a vital thing I needed to help me in my quest: the order in which these various sounds and smells occurred. I questioned my visitor but he shook his head. No, he couldn’t for the life of him remember the order. He reminded me of the predicament he was in. He was too confused. I advised him to make the effort of recalling his route first thing when he woke up. Preferably when he was still in a semi-somnolent state. Unless we had an idea of what came first, the vinegar factory and the lime trees, for example, we could end up going round and round for ever.
‘I happen to have a telephone machine,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you my number and you can call me when you want to ask something.’ Mine kept breaking down, but Mr Selfridge who recently opened a shop round the corner from my office has been very helpful in the past.
***
My friends from the Club des As gladly volunteered to help me in my quest. I organised a posse. I instructed them to scour specific areas of London, to discover the locations of lime trees, houses with frangipani, vinegar factories, building sites, smelly drains etc.
Many regions yielded next to nothing at first, but over a period of one week, some concrete results began to emerge. Most of them ended up by providing me with addresses where there was some sort of construction sites. The assiduous Bartola who went south across the river found a vinegar factory on Stockwell Road, six building sites, two farms and three schools.
Armande located one lime tree, two schools, four building sites, one smelly drain, three farms. Ivan found one place where the road was being tarred. Algie found one frangipani in Bartholomew Road near the Cantelowes Gardens in Camden Town, a school, two building sites. I had gone east towards Aldgate and found three schools, four blocked sewers, a
building site and one farm. So far Algie seemed to have provided the most valuable clue, but Artémise had also found a frangipani near Clapham Common. We spent time poring over our findings before deciding on a strategy. We thought that we would concentrate on the Clapham Common area and Camden Town. We agreed that they may not be the only alternatives, as there might well be frangipani that we had missed. Or vinegar factories. Half of our numbers scoured Clapham Common and its neighbourhoods and the other half the area around Cantelowes Gardens. As I had expected, in both cases we were able to find all the features Heaton had identified. There was a lime tree in Cliff Road. There was a farm, and there was a school in the area. There was a broken drain at the junction between Torriano Avenue and Camden Road. A stretch of Camden Road near Canal Boulevard was being macadamised. There were a few building sites. The vinegar factory was on Murray Street just off Camden Road.
There was a lime tree in the grounds of the Holy Trinity Church. There was a broken drain in Orlando road. Lillieshall Road was being resurfaced, with machinery and material very much in evidence. The party I was with found a vinegar factory on Macaulay Road. There were a good few few building sites. There was a school in Victoria Rise. The frangipani was near The Polygon. And again, there was a farm.
There was every chance that the house of mystery was situated in one of these two regions. If the original problem of looking for one house in London had boiled down to finding it in just two boroughs, it had not become any less daunting. As Heaton had no exact recall of the order in which he encountered these, it was still a mountain to climb. The reader will assuredly not have expected us to give up on the job just because it was impossible. I set myself the task of finding an angle of attack. By experience I knew that sitting down in the pose of Mr Rodin’s Thinker and knitting one’s brows did not help much under the circumstances. I therefore went about doing my usual chores. In the middle of the night – when I usually come up with my best ideas - I woke up suddenly and I had an illumination: Sherlock Holmes.
The Adventures of Irene Adler : The Irene Adler Trilogy Page 7
