“Where does that side door lead?” asked my friend.
“It opens into my room, which was formerly my mother’s,” she answered.
For a few minutes, Holmes prowled around listlessly. “I perceive that your brother was addicted to night reading,” he remarked.
“Yes. He suffered from sleeplessness. But how—”
“Tut, the pile of the carpet on the right of the armchair is thick with traces of candle wax. But hullo! What have we here?”
Holmes had halted near the window and was staring intently at a section of the wall up near the ceiling. Then, mounting the sill, he stretched out an arm and, touching the plaster lightly here and there, sniffed at his fingertips. There was a puzzled frown on his face as he climbed down and commenced to circle slowly around the room, his eyes fixed upon the ceiling.
“Most singular,” he said.
“Is anything wrong, Mr. Holmes?” asked Miss Wilson.
“I am merely interested to account for these odd whorls and lines across the upper wall and ceiling.”
“It must be those dratted cockroaches dragging the dust all over the place,” exclaimed Wilson apologetically. “I’ve told you before, Janet, that you would be better employed in supervising the servants’ work. But what now, Mr. Holmes?”
My friend, who had crossed to the side door and glanced within, now closed it again and strolled across to the window. “My visit has been a useless one,” said he, “and, as I see that the fog is rising, I fear that we must take our leave. These are, I suppose, your famous canaries?” he added, pointing to the cages above the stove.
“A mere sample. But come this way,” Wilson led us along the passage and threw open a door. “There!”
Obviously it was his own bedroom, yet it was unlike any bedroom that I had entered in all my professional career. From floor to ceiling it was festooned with scores of cages, and the little golden-feathered singers within filled the air with their sweet warbling and trilling.
“Daylight or lamplight, it’s all the same to them. Here, Carrie, Carrie!” he said and whistled a few liquid notes. The bird took them up into a lovely flow of song.
“A skylark,” I cried.
“Precisely. As I said before, the Fringilla if properly trained are the supreme imitators.”
“I confess that I do not recognize that song,” I remarked, as one of the birds broke into a low rising whistle ending in a curious tremolo.
Mr. Wilson threw a towel over the cage. “It is the song of a tropic night bird,” he said shortly, “and, as I have the foolish pride to prefer my birds to sing the songs of the day whilst it is day, we will punish Peperino by putting him in darkness.”
“I am surprised that you prefer an open fireplace here to a stove,” observed Holmes. “There must be a considerable draft.”
“I have not noticed one. Dear me, the fog is indeed increasing, and you have a bad journey before you.”
“Then we must be on our way,” said my friend.
We descended the stairs and, whilst Theobold Wilson fetched our hats, Sherlock Holmes leaned over towards our young companion. “I would remind you. Miss Wilson, of what I said earlier about a woman’s intuition,” he said quietly. “There are occasions when the truth can be sensed more easily than it can be seen. Good night.”
A moment later we were feeling our way down the garden path to where the lights of our waiting four-wheeler shone dimly through the rising fog.
My companion was sunk in thought as we rumbled westward through the mean streets whose squalor was the more aggressive under the garish light of the gas lamps that flared and whistled outside the numerous public houses. The night promised to be a bad one and already, through the yellow vapor thickening and writhing above die pavements, the occasional wayfarer was nothing more than a vague hurrying shadow.
“I could have wished, my dear fellow,” I remarked, “that you had been spared the need to waste your energies which are already sufficiently depleted.”
“Well, well, Watson. I fancied that the affairs of the Wilson family would prove no concern of ours. And yet”—he sank back, absorbed for a moment in his own thoughts—“and yet, it is wrong, wrong, all wrong!”
“I observed nothing of a sinister nature.”
“Nor I. But every danger bell in my head is jangling its warning. Why a fireplace, Watson, why a fireplace? I take it that you noticed that the pipe from the cellar connected with the stoves in the other bedrooms?”
“In one bedroom.”
“No. There was the same arrangement in the adjoining room where the mother died.”
“I see nothing in this save an old-fashioned system of heating flues.”
“And what of the marks on the ceiling?”
“You mean the whorls of dust?”
“I mean the whorls of soot.”
“Soot! Surely you are mistaken, Holmes.”
“I touched them, smelled them, examined them. They were speckles and lines of wood soot.”
“Well, there is probably some perfectly natural explanation.”
For a time we sat in silence. Our cab had reached the beginnings of the city and I was gazing out of the window, my fingers drumming idly on the half-lowered pane, which was already befogged with moisture, when I was startled by a sharp ejaculation from my companion.
He was staring fixedly at the window. “The glass,” he muttered.
Over the clouded surface there now lay an intricate tracery of whorls where my finger had wandered aimlessly.
Holmes clapped his hand to his brow and, throwing open the other window, he shouted an order to the cabby. The vehicle turned in its tracks and, with the driver lashing at his horse, we clattered away into the thickening gloom.
“Ah, Watson, Watson, true it is that there are none so blind as those that will not see!” quoted Holmes bitterly, sinking back into his corner. “All the facts were there, staring me in the face, and yet logic failed to respond.”
“What facts?”
“Here is a man from Cuba, he not only trains canaries in a singular manner but knows the call of tropical night birds, and he uses the fireplace in his bedroom. There is deviltry here, Watson. Stop, cabby, stop!”
We were crossing a junction of two busy thoroughfares, and the golden balls of a pawnshop glimmered above a streetlamp. Holmes sprang out. After a few minutes he was back again and we recommenced our journey.
“It is fortunate that we are still in the City,” he chuckled, “for I fancy that the East End pawnshops are unlikely to run to golf clubs.”
“Good heavens …” I began only to lapse into silence whilst I stared down at the heavy niblick which he had thrust into my hand. The first shadows of some monstrous horror seemed to rise up and creep over my mind.
“We are too early,” exclaimed Holmes, consulting his watch. “A sandwich and a glass of whisky at the first public house will not come amiss.”
• • •
The clock on St. Nicholas’ Church was striking ten when we found ourselves once again in that evil-smelling garden. Through the mist, the dark bulk of the house was broken by a single feeble light in an upper window. “It is Miss Wilson’s room,” said Holmes. “Let us hope that this handful of gravel will rouse her without alarming the household.”
An instant later there came the sound of an opening window. “Who is there?” demanded a tremulous voice.
“It is Sherlock Holmes,” my friend called back softly. “I must speak with you at once. Is there a side door?”
“There is one to your left. But what has happened?”
“Pray descend immediately. Not a word to your uncle.”
We felt our way along the wall and reached the door just as it opened to disclose Miss Wilson. She was in her dressing gown, her hair tumbled about her shoulders and, as her startled eyes peered at us across the light of the candle in her hand, the shadows danced and trembled on the wall.
“What is it, Mr. Holmes?” she gasped.
“
All will be well if you carry out my instructions,” my friend replied quietly. “Where is your uncle?”
“He is in his room.”
“Good. Whilst Dr. Watson and I occupy your room, you will move into your late brother’s bedchamber. If you value your life,” he added solemnly, “you will not attempt to leave it.”
“You frighten me!” she whimpered.
“Rest assured that we will take care of you. And now two final questions before you retire. Has your uncle visited you this evening?”
“Yes. He brought Peperino and put him with the other bird in the cage in my room. He said that as it was my last night at home I should have the best entertainment that he had the power to give me.”
“Ha! Quite so. Your last night. Tell me. Miss Wilson, do you suffer at all from the same malady as your mother and brother?”
“A weak heart? Why, yes, I do.”
“Well, we will accompany you upstairs where you will retire to the adjoining room. Come, Watson.”
Guided by the light of Janet Wilson’s candle, we mounted silently to the floor above and thence into the bedchamber where Holmes had found the markings on the walls. Whilst we waited for our companion to collect her things from the adjoining room, Holmes strolled over and, lifting the edge of the cloths which now covered the two bird cages, peered in at the tiny occupants.
“The evil of man is as inventive as it is immeasurable,” said he, and I noticed that his face was very stern.
On Miss Wilson’s return, having seen that she was safely ensconced for the night, I followed Holmes into the room which she had lately occupied. It was a small chamber but comfortably furnished and lighted by a heavy silver oil lamp. Immediately above the tiled stove there hung a cage containing two canaries which, momentarily ceasing their song, cocked their little heads at our approach.
“I think, Watson, that it would be well to relax for half an hour,” whispered Holmes as we sank into our chairs. “So kindly put out the light.”
“But, my dear fellow, if there is any danger it would be an act of madness!” I protested.
“There is no danger in the darkness,” Holmes said.
“Would it not be better,” I said severely, “that you were frank with me? You have made it obvious that the birds are being put to some evil purpose, but what is this danger that exists only in the lamplight?”
“I have my own idea on that matter, Watson, but it is better that we should wait and see. I would draw your attention, however, to the hinged lid on the top of the stove.”
“It appears to be perfectly normal.”
“Just so. But is there not some significance in the fact that an iron stove should be fitted with a tin lid?”
“Great heavens, Holmes!” I cried as the light of understanding burst upon me. “You mean that this man Wilson has used the interconnecting pipes from the stove in the cellar to those in the bedrooms to circulate some deadly poison to wipe out his own kith and kin and thus obtain the property. It is for that reason that he has a fireplace in his own bedroom.”
“Well, you are not far wrong, Watson, though I fancy that Mr. Theobold is rather more subtle than you suppose. He possesses the two qualities vital to the successful murderer—ruthlessness and imagination. But now, douse the light like a good fellow and for a while let us relax. If my reading of the problem is correct, our nerves may be tested to their limit before we see tomorrow’s dawn.”
Lying back in the darkness and drawing some comfort from the thought that ever since the affair with Colonel Sebastian Morgan I had carried my revolver in my pocket, I sought in my mind for some explanation that would account for the warning contained in Holmes’s words. But I must have been wearier than I had imagined. My thoughts grew confused and finally I dozed off.
It was a touch upon my arm that awoke me. The lamp had been relighted and my friend was bending over me, his long black shadow thrown upon the ceiling. “Sorry to disturb you,” he whispered. “But duty calls.”
“What do you wish me to do?”
“Sit still and listen. Peperino is singing.”
• • •
It was a vigil that I shall long remember. Holmes had tilted the lampshade, so that the light fell on the wall with the window and the tiled stove with its hanging bird cage. The fog had thickened and the rays from the lamp, filtering through the window glass, lost themselves in luminous clouds that swirled and boiled against the panes. My mind darkened by a premonition of evil, I would have found our surroundings melancholy enough without the eerie sound that was rising and falling from the canary cage. It was a kind of whistling, beginning with a low throaty warble and slowly ascending to a single note that rang through the room like the peal of a great wineglass. As I listened to the song’s uninterrupted repetition, my imagination seemed to reach out beyond those fogbound windows into the dark lush depth of some exotic jungle. I had lost all count of time, and it was only the stillness following a sudden cessation of the bird’s song that brought me back to the present. I glanced across and, in an instant, my heart gave one great throb and then seemed to stop beating.
The lid of the stove was slowly rising.
My friends will agree that I am neither a nervous nor an impressionable man but I must confess that, as I sat there gripping the sides of my chair and staring at the dreadful thing that was clambering into view, my limbs momentarily refused to function.
The lid had tilted back a few centimetres or more and through the gap this created, a writhing mass of yellow sticklike objects was clawing and scrabbling for a hold. And then, in a flash, it was out and standing on top of the stove.
Though I have always viewed with horror the bird-eating tarantulas of South America, they shrank into insignificance when compared with the loathsome creature that faced us now across that lamplighted room. It looked to be bigger in its spread than a saucer, and it had a hard smooth yellow body surrounded by legs that, rising high above it, conveyed a fearful impression that the thing was crouching for a spring. It was absolutely hairless save for tufts of stiff bristles around the leg joints and, above the glint of its great poison mandibles, clusters of beady eyes shone with a baleful iridescence.
“Don’t move, Watson,” whispered Holmes, and there was a note of horror in his voice that I had never heard before. The sound roused the creature and, in a single lightning bound, it sprang from the stove to the top of the bird cage, and then, reaching the wall, it whizzed around the room and over the ceiling with a swiftness that the eye could scarcely follow.
Holmes flung himself forward like a man possessed. “Kill it! Smash it!” he yelled hoarsely, raining blow after blow with his golf club at the shape racing across the walls.
Dust from broken plaster choked the air and a table crashed over as I flung myself to the ground when the great spider cleared the room in a single leap and turned at bay. Holmes bounded across me, swinging his club. “Keep where you are!” he shouted and even as his voice rang through the room, the thud—thud—thud of the blows was broken by a horrible squelching sound. For an instant the creature hung there and then, slipping slowly down, it lay like a mess of smashed eggs with three thin bony legs still plucking at the floor.
“Thank God that it missed you when it sprang!” I gasped, scrambling to my feet.
He made no reply and glancing up I caught a glimpse of his face reflected in a wall mirror. He looked pale and strained and there was a curious rigidity in his expression. “I am afraid it’s up to you, Watson,” he said quietly. “It has a mate.”
I spun round to be greeted by a spectacle that I shall remember for the rest of my days. Sherlock Holmes was standing perfectly still within two feet of the stove and on top of it, reared up on its back legs, its loathsome body shuddering for the spring, stood another monstrous spider.
I knew instinctively that any sudden movement would merely precipitate the creature’s leap and so, carefully drawing my revolver from my pocket, I fired point-blank.
Through the powder
smoke I saw the thing shrink into itself and then, toppling slowly backward, it fell through the open lid of the stove. There was a rasping slithering sound rapidly fading away into silence.
“It’s fallen down the pipe,” I cried, conscious that my hands were now shaking under a strong reaction. “Are you all right, Holmes?”
He looked at me and there was a singular light in his eyes. “Thanks to you, my dear fellow!” he said soberly. “If you—but what is that?”
A door had slammed below and, an instant later, we caught the swift patter of feet upon the gravel path.
“After him!” cried Holmes, springing for the door. “Your shot warned him that the game was up. He must not escape!”
But fate decreed otherwise. Though we rushed down the stairs and out into the fog, Theobold Wilson had too much start on us and the advantage of knowing the terrain. For a while we followed the faint sound of his running footsteps down the empty lanes towards the river, but at length these died away in the distance.
“It is no good, Watson. We have lost our man,” panted Holmes. “This is where the official police may be of use. But listen! Surely that was a cry?”
“I thought I heard something.”
“Well, it is hopeless to look further in the fog. Let us return and comfort this poor girl with the assurance that her troubles are now at an end.”
“They were nightmare creatures. Holmes,” I exclaimed, as we retraced out steps towards the house, “and of some unknown species.”
“I think not, Watson,” said he. “It was the Galeodes spider, the horror of the Cuban forests. It is perhaps fortunate for the rest of the world that it is found nowhere else. The creature is nocturnal in its habits and, unless my memory belies me, it possesses the power to actually break the spine of smaller creatures with a single blow of its mandibles. You will recall that Miss Janet mentioned that the rats had vanished since her uncle’s return. Doubtless Wilson brought the brutes back with him,” he went on, “and then conceived the idea of training certain of his canaries to imitate the song of some Cuban night bird upon which the Galeodes fed. The marks on the ceiling were caused, of course, by the soot adhering to the spiders’ legs after they had scrambled up the flues.
Sons of Moriarty and More Stories of Sherlock Holmes Page 10
