by Otto Penzler
“You have that note?”
“Unfortunately, no. I destroyed it, thinking it to be but the work of a stupid practical joker.” Pendarvis sighed. “Three days later came the second.”
“Which you kept, and brought with you?”
Pendarvis smiled wryly. “That would be impossible. It was chalked upon the garden wall, repeating the first warning. And the third was marked in the mud of the harbor outside my bedroom window, visible on last Sunday morning at low tide, but speedily erased. It said ‘Ready to die yet, Mr. Allen Pendarvis?’ ”
“These warnings were of course reported to the police?”
“Of course. But they did not take them seriously.”
Holmes gave me a look, and nodded. “We understand that official attitude, do we not, Watson?”
“Then you can also understand, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, why I have come to you. I am not used to being pooh-poohed by a local sub-inspector! And so, when it finally happened last night—” Pendarvis shuddered.
“Now,” interrupted Holmes, as he applied the flame of a wax vesta to his clay pipe, “we progress. Just what did happen?”
“It was late,” the ornithologist began. “Almost midnight, as a matter of fact, when I was awakened by the persistent ringing of the doorbell. My housekeeper, poor soul, is hard of hearing, and so I arose and answered the door myself. Imagine my surprise to find no one there. Without all was Stygian blackness, the intense gloomy stillness of a Cornish village at that late hour. I stood there for a moment, shivering, holding my candle and peering into the darkness. And then a bullet screamed past me, missing my heart by a narrow margin and extinguishing the candle in my hand!”
Holmes clasped his lean hands together, smiling. “Really! A pretty problem, eh, Watson? What do you make of it?”
“Mr. Pendarvis is lucky in that his assailant is such a poor shot,” I replied. “He must have presented a very clear target, holding a light in the doorway.”
“A clear target indeed,” Holmes agreed. “And why, Mr. Pendarvis, did not your brother answer the door?”
“Donal was in Penzance,” Pendarvis answered. “For years it has been his invariable custom to attend the Friday night boxing matches there. Afterwards he usually joins some of his cronies at the Capstan and Anchor.”
“Returning in the wee sma’ hours? Of course, of course. And now, Mr. Pendarvis, I believe I have all that I need. Return to your home. You shall hear from us shortly.” Holmes waved a languid hand at the door. “A very good evening to you, sir.”
Pendarvis caught up his hat and stick, and stood dubiously in the doorway. “I must confess, Mr. Holmes, that I had been led to expect more of you.”
“More?” said Holmes. “Oh, yes. My little bill. It shall be mailed to you on the first of the month. Goodnight, sir.”
The door closed upon our dissatisfied client, and Holmes, who had been leaning back on the sofa in what appeared to be the depths of dejection, abruptly rose and turned toward me. “Well, Watson, the solution seems disappointingly easy, does it not?”
“Perhaps so,” I said stiffly. “But you are skating upon rather thin ice, are you not? You may have sent that poor man to his death.”
“To his death? No, my dear Watson. I give you my word on that. Excuse me, I must write a note to our friend Gregson of the Yard. It is most important that an arrest be made at once.”
“An arrest? But of whom?”
“Who else but Mr. Donal Pendarvis? A telegram to the authorities of Penzance should suffice.”
“The brother?” I cried. “Then you believe that he was not actually attending the boxing matches at the time of the attempted murder of our client?”
“I am positive,” said Sherlock Holmes, “that he was engaged in quite other activities.” I waited, but evidently he preferred not to take me further into his confidence. Holmes took quill and paper, and did not look up again until he had finished his note and dispatched it by messenger. “That,” he said, “should take care of the situation for the time being.” Whereupon he rang for Mrs. Hudson, requesting a copious dinner.
My friend maintained his uncommunicative silence during the meal, and devoted the rest of the evening to his violin. It was not until we were at the breakfast table next morning that there was any reference whatever to the case of the Cornish ornithologist.
The doorbell rang sharply, and Holmes brightened. “Ah, at last!” he cried. “An answer from Gregson. No, it is the man himself, and in a hurry, too.” The steps on the stairs came to our door, and in a moment Tobias Gregson, tall, pale, flaxen-haired as ever, entered.
Smartest and sharpest of the Scotland Yard Inspectors, Holmes had always called him. But Gregson was in a bad frame of mind at the moment.
“You have had us for fair, Mr. Holmes,” he began. “I felt in my bones that I should not have obeyed your unusual request, but remembering the assistance you have given us in the past, I followed out your suggestion. Bad business, Mr. Holmes, bad business!”
“Really?” said Holmes.
“Quite. It’s this man Pendarvis, Donal Pendarvis, that you wanted arrested.”
“No confession?”
“Certainly not. And moreover, the fellow is no doubt instituting a suit at law this very minute, for false arrest.”
Holmes almost dropped his cup. “You mean that he is no longer in custody?”
“I mean exactly that. He was arrested last night and held in Penzance gaol, but he made such a fuss about it that Owens, the sub-inspector, was forced to let him go free.”
Sherlock Holmes drew himself up to his full height, throwing aside his napkin. “I agree, sir. Bad business it is.” He stood in deep thought for a moment. “And the other request I made? Have they located a man of that description?”
“No, Mr. Holmes. Sub-inspector Owens has lived in Penzance all his life, and he swears that no such person exists.”
“Impossible, quite impossible,” said Holmes. “He must be mistaken!”
Gregson rose. “We all have our successes and our failures,” he said comfortingly. “Good morning, Mr. Holmes. Good morning, doctor.” As the door closed behind him, Holmes turned suddenly to me. “And why, Watson, are you not already packing? Do you not choose to accompany me to Cornwall?”
“To Cornwall? But I understood…”
“You have heard everything, and understood nothing. I shall have to demonstrate to you, and to the sub-inspector, on the scene. But enough of this. The game is afoot. You had best bring your service revolver and a stout ash, for there may be rough work before this little problem is solved.” He consulted his watch. “Ah, we have just half an hour to catch the ten o’clock train from Paddington.”
We boarded it with but a moment or two to spare, and when we were rolling southwest through the outskirts of London my friend began a dissertation upon hereditary tendencies in fingerprint groupings, a subject upon which he was planning a monograph. I kept my impatience to myself as long as I could, and finally interrupted him. “I have but one question, Holmes. Why are we going to Cornwall?”
“The spring flowers, Watson, are at the height of their season. The perfume will be pleasant after the fogs of London. Meanwhile, I intend to have a nap. You might occupy yourself with considering the unusual nature of the warning notes received by Mr. Allen Pendarvis.”
“Unusual? But they seemed clear enough to me. They were definitely intended to let Mr. Pendarvis know that he was a marked man.”
“Brilliantly put, Watson!” said Sherlock Holmes, and placidly settled down to sleep.
He did not awaken until we were past Plymouth, and the expanse of Mount’s Bay was outside our window. There were whitecaps rolling in from the sea, and a gusty wind. “I fancy there will be more rain by dusk,” said Holmes pleasantly. “An excellent night for the type of hunting we expect to engage in.”
We had hardly alighted at Penzance when a broad man in a heavy tweed ulster approached us. He must have stood fifteen stone of solid brawn and muscle
, and his face was grave. An apple-cheeked young police constable followed him.
“Mr. Holmes?” said the elder man. “I am Sub-inspector Owens. We were advised that you might be coming down. And high time it is. A sorry muddle you have got us into.”
“Indeed?” said Holmes coolly. “It has happened, then?”
“It has,” replied Sub-inspector Owens seriously. “At two o’clock this afternoon.” The constable nodded in affirmation, very grave.
“I trust,” Holmes said, “that you have not moved the body?”
“The body?” The two local policemen looked at each other, and the constable guffawed. “I was referring,” Owens went on, “to the suit for false arrest. A writ was served upon me in my office.”
My companion hesitated only a moment. “I should not, if I were you, lose any sleep over the forthcoming trial of the case. And now before going any farther, Dr. Watson and I have just had a long train journey and are in need of sustenance. Can you direct us to the Capstan and Anchor, inspector?”
Owens scowled, then turned to his assistant. “Tredennis, will you be good enough to show these gentlemen to the place?” He turned back to Holmes. “I shall expect you at the police station in an hour, sir. This affair is not yet settled to my satisfaction.”
“Nor to mine, sir,” said Holmes, and we set off after the constable. That strapping young man led us at a fast pace to the sign of the Capstan and Anchor. “Into the saloon bar with you, Watson,” my companion said to me in a low voice. He lingered a moment at the door, and then turned and joined me. “Just as I thought. Constable Tredennis has taken up his post in a doorway across the street. We are not trusted by the local authorities.”
He ordered a plate of kidneys and bacon, but left them to cool while he chatted with the barmaid, a singularly ordinary young woman from all that was apparent to me. But Holmes returned to the table smiling. “She confesses to knowing Mr. Donal Pendarvis, at least to the point of giggling when his name is mentioned. But she says that he has not been frequenting the public house in recent weeks. By the way, Watson, suppose I asked you for a description of our antagonist? What sort of game are we hunting, should you say?”
“Mr. Donal Pendarvis?”
Holmes frowned. “That gentleman resembles his extraordinarily dull brother, from best accounts. No, Watson, dig deeper than that. Look back upon the history of the case, the warning messages—”
“Very well,” said I. “The intended murderer is a poor shot with a rifle. He is a person who holds a grudge a long time—even a fancied grudge, for Mr. Allen Pendarvis does not even have an idea of the identity of his assailant. He is a man of primitive mentality, or else he would not have stooped to the savagery of torturing his intended victim with warning messages. He is a newcomer to the town, a stranger…”
“Hold, Watson!” interrupted Holmes, with an odd smile. “You have reasoned amazingly. Yet I hear the patter of rain against the panes, and we must not keep our constable waiting in the doorway.”
A brisk walk uphill, with the rain in our faces, brought us at last to the steps of the police station, but there I found that the way was barred, at least to me. Sub-inspector Owens, it appeared, wished to speak to Mr. Holmes alone.
“And so it shall be,” replied Holmes pleasantly, to the burly constable in the door. He turned to me. “Watson, I stand in need of your help. Would you be good enough to occupy the next hour or so in a call on one or two of your local colleagues? You might represent yourself as in search of a casual patient whose name has escaped you. But you have, of course, some important reason for locating him. A wrong prescription, I fancy…”
“Really, Holmes!”
“Be as vague as you can about age and appearance, Watson, but specify that the man you seek is a crack shot, he is very conversant with the locality, of unimpeachable respectability and—most important of all—he has a young and beautiful wife.”
“But Holmes! You imply that is the description of our murderer? It is the exact opposite of what I had imagined.”
“The reverse of the coin, Watson. But you must excuse me. Be good enough to meet me here in—shall we say—two hours? Off with you now, I must not keep the sub-inspector cooling his heels.”
He passed on inside and I turned away into the rain-swept street, shaking my head dubiously. How I wished, at the moment, for the warmth and comfort of my fireside, any fireside! But well I knew that Holmes had some method in his madness. With difficulty I managed to secure a hansom cab, and for a long time rattled about the steep streets of the ancient town of Penzance, in search of the ruby lamp outside the door which would signify the residence of a medical man.
My heart was not in the task, and it was no surprise to me that, in spite of the professional courtesy with which I was greeted by my medical colleagues, they were unable to help me by so much as one iota. Owens, for all his pomposity, had been correct when he reported that of all the citizenry of Penzance, no such person as Holmes sought had ever existed. Or if he had, he was not among their patients.
I returned to the police station to find Holmes waiting for me. “Aha, Watson!” he cried genially. “What luck? Very little, I suppose, else you should not wear the hangdog look of a retriever who has failed to locate the fallen bird. No matter. If we cannot go to our man, he shall come to us. I have to some extent regained the confidence of the sub-inspector, Watson. You see, I have given my word that before noon tomorrow Mr. Donal Pendarvis shall have withdrawn his suit for false arrest. In return we are to have the support of a stalwart P.C. for this night’s work.” In a few moments there appeared down the street the figure of a uniformed man astride a bicycle. It turned out to be our friend Tredennis, who apologized for his delay. This was to have been his evening off duty, and it had been necessary to hurry home and explain matters to his better half.
“Maudie she worries if I’m not reporting in by nine o’clock,” he said, his pink cheeks pinker than ever with the exertion of his ride. “But I told her that any man would be glad to volunteer for a tour of duty with Mister Holmes, the celebrated detective from England.”
“From England?” I put in wonderingly. “And where are we now?”
“In Cornwall,” said Holmes, nudging me gently with his elbow. “Ah, Watson, I see that your hansom has been kept waiting. Any moment now and we shall be setting our trap, somewhere near the home of Mr. Pendarvis.”
“It’s a good three miles, sir,” said Constable Tredennis. “By the road, that is. Along the shore it’s a good bit less, but it’s coming high tide and no easy going at any season.”
“We shall take the road,” Holmes decided. Soon we were rattling along a cobbled street that wound up and down dale, past looming ranks of fisherman’s houses, with the wind blowing ever wet and fresh against our cheeks. “A land to make a man cherish his hearth, eh, Watson?”
We rode on in silence for some time, and then the constable stopped the cab at the head of a steep sloping street that wound down toward the shore. There was a strong odor of herring about the place, mingled with that of tar and salt seaweed. I observed that as we went down the sloping street Holmes gave a most searching glance right and left, and that at every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to see that we were not followed.
Frankly, I knew not what near-human game we were hoping to entrap in this rain-swept, forgotten corner of a forgotten seaside town, but I was well assured, from the manner in which Holmes held himself, that the adventure was a grave one, and nearing its climax. I felt the reassuring weight of the revolver in my coat pocket, and then suddenly the constable caught my arm.
“In here,” he whispered. We turned into a narrow passage near the foot of the street, passed through what appeared to be in the dimness a network of mews and stables, and came at last to a narrow door in the wall, which Holmes unlocked with a key affixed to a block of wood. We entered it together, and closed it behind us.
The place was black as ink, but I felt that it was an empty house
. The planking beneath my feet was old and bare, and my outstretched hand touched a stone wall wet with slime. Then we came to an empty window with a broken shutter, through which the dank night air came chilly.
“We are in what was the Grey Mouse Inn,” whispered the young constable. “Yonder, Mr. Holmes, is the house.”
We peered across a narrow street and through the open, unshaded window panes of a library, brilliantly lighted by two oil lamps. I could see a line of bookcases, a table, and a mantelpiece in the background. For a long while there was nothing more to see except the dark street, the darker doorway of the house, and that one lighted window.
“There is no other entrance?” demanded Holmes in a whisper.
“None,” said the constable. “The other windows give out onto the harbor, and at this hour the tide is passing high.”
“Good,” said Holmes. “If our man comes, he must come this way. And we shall be ready for him.”
“More than ready,” said young Tredennis stoutly. He hesitated. “Mr. Holmes, I wonder if you would be willing to give a younger man a word of advice. What, do you think, are the opportunities for an ambitious policeman up London way? I have often thought of trying to better myself…”
“Listen!” cried Holmes sharply. There had come a sharp screaming sound, like the shriek of a rusty gate. It came again, and I recognized it as the cry of a gull.
The silence crept back again. From far away came the barking of a dog, suddenly silenced. Then suddenly appeared in the room across the way, a man in a wine-colored dressing gown who entered the library, turned down the lamps, and blew them out. It could be none other than our client, Mr. Allen Pendarvis.
“As usual he keeps early hours,” said Holmes dryly. We waited until one might have counted a hundred, and then another light showed in the room. The man returned, bearing a lamp—but mysteriously, in the few minutes that had passed, he had changed his apparel. Mr. Pendarvis now wore a dinner coat with the collar and tie askew. He crossed to the bookcase, removed a volume, and from the recess took out a small flask, which he placed in his pocket. Then he put back the book and left the room.
