by Mitch Cullin
We soon made our way outside as quietly as possible, and in the waning sunshine of late afternoon, I requested one last thing of my client before departing. “Mr. Keller, you have something which may prove useful to me for the time being.”
“You have but to name it.”
“Your wife's photograph.”
My client nodded reluctantly.
“Certainly, if you need it.”
He reached inside his coat and retrieved the photograph, offering it to me while appearing wary to do so.
Without hesitation I slipped the photograph into my pocket, saying, “I thank you, Mr. Keller. Then there is no more to be done today. I wish you a very pleasant evening.”
And that was how I left him. With his wife's image upon me, I wasted not a moment in taking my retreat. Along the road moved buses and traps, hansoms and four-wheelers, bearing the figures of those riding home or elsewhere, while I weaved around fellow pedestrians on the paved walk, strolling in a deliberate pace towards Baker Street. A few country carts rolled past, displaying what remained of the vegetables which had been carried into the metropolis at dawn. Shortly, I knew well enough, the thoroughfares surrounding Montague Street would become as hushed and inanimate as any village after nightfall; and I, by then, would be leaning back in my chair, watching as the blue smoke from my cigarette floated to the ceiling.
9
BY SUNRISE, the note for Roger had escaped Holmes's consciousness altogether; it would stay inside the book until, several weeks later, he retrieved the volume for research purposes and found the folded sheet flattened between the chapters (a curious message in his own hand, yet one he couldn't fathom having written). There were other folded sheets as well, all hidden throughout his many attic books and ultimately lost—urgent missives never sent, odd reminders, lists of names and addresses, the occasional poem. He wouldn't recall concealing a personal letter from Queen Victoria, or a playbill kept since his brief engagement with the Sasanoff Shakespearean Company (playing Horatio in an 1879 London stage production of Hamlet). Nor would he remember putting away for safekeeping a crude but detailed drawing of a queen bee among the pages of M. Quinby's Mysteries of Beekeeping Explained—the picture having been done by Roger when the boy was twelve, and slipped beneath the attic door two summers ago.
Regardless, Holmes wasn't unaware of his memory's increasing fallibility. He believed he was capable of incorrectly revising past events, especially if the reality of those events were beyond his grasp. But, he wondered, what was revised and what was true? And what was known for certain anymore? More importantly, what exactly had been forgotten? He couldn't say.
Even so, he adhered to the consistent tangibles—his land, his home, his gardens, his apiary, his work. He enjoyed his cigars, his books, a glass of brandy sometimes. He favored the evening breezes, and the hours after midnight. Without a doubt, he knew that Mrs. Munro's chatty presence often annoyed him, yet her soft-spoken son had always been a dear, welcomed companion; but here, too, his mental revisions had changed what was, in fact, the truth: For he hadn't taken kindly to the boy upon first sight—that shy, awkward youngster peeking sullenly at him from behind his mother. In the past, he had made it an unwavering rule never to hire a housekeeper with children, except that Mrs. Munro, recently widowed and in need of steady employment, had come highly recommended. Moreover, finding reliable help had become quite difficult—particularly when being isolated in the country—so, he had told her plainly that she could stay as long as the boy's activities were restricted to the guest cottage, as long as his work wasn't disrupted by whatever ruckus her child might produce.
“No worries there, sir, I promise. My Roger won't cause you trouble. I'll see to that.”
“It is understood, correct? I may be retired—however, I am still a very busy man. Needless distractions of any sort are simply not tolerated.”
“Yes, sir, I understand that well enough. Don't concern yourself a bit over the boy.”
“I won't, my dear, although I suspect you should.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then almost a year passed before Holmes saw Roger again. One afternoon while strolling about the west corner of his property, near the guest cottage where Mrs. Munro dwelled, he glimpsed the boy at a distance, watching as Roger entered the cottage with a butterfly net in hand. Thereafter, he spotted the solitary boy more frequently—traversing the meadows, doing schoolwork in the gardens, studying the scree upon the beach. But it wasn't until encountering Roger in the beeyard—finding the boy facing the hives, one hand holding the wrist of the other, inspecting a single sting at the center of his left palm—that Holmes at last dealt with him directly. Seizing the boy's stung hand, he used a fingernail to brush the stinger off, explaining, “It was wise you resisted grasping the stinger; otherwise, you would have surely emptied the entire poison sac into your wound—so use your fingernail, brush it away like this, and don't compress the sac, understand? You were saved just in time—see, here, it has hardly begun swelling. I have had much worse, I assure you.”
“It doesn't hurt too bad,” said Roger, looking at Holmes with his eyes screwed up, as if the sun shone brightly on his face.
“It will soon—but only a little, I expect. Should it get worse, try soaking your hand in salt water or onion juice—that usually cures the smart.”
“Oh.”
And while Holmes expected tears from the boy (or, at the very least, some embarrassment at having been caught in the beeyard), he was impressed by how quickly Roger's attention then went from his wound to the hives—transfixed, it seemed, with apiary life, the light clustering of bees roaming before or after flight near the hive entrances. Had the boy cried once, had he shown even the slightest lack of courage, Holmes would never have urged him forward, leading him to a hive and lifting the top so Roger could see the world within (the honey chamber with its white wax cells, the larger cells that housed the drone brood, the darker cells below where the worker brood lived); he would never have given the child a second thought, or considered the boy to be of a like mind. (It is often the case, he had thought, that exceptional children usually come from mundane parents.) Nor would he have invited Roger to return the next afternoon, allowing the boy to witness firsthand the March chores: checking the hive's weekly weight, combining colonies when a queen ceased functioning in one, making sure enough food was available to the brood nests.
Subsequently, as the boy went from curious spectator to valued helper, Roger was given the clothing Holmes no longer wore—light-colored gloves and a veiled beekeeper's hat—which were then dispensed with once he grew comfortable handling the bees. Soon it became an effortless, innate association. After school, on most afternoons, the boy joined Holmes in the beeyard. During the summer, Roger awoke early and was busy at the hives when Holmes arrived there. While they tended the hives—or sometimes sat quietly in the pasture—Mrs. Munro brought them sandwiches, tea, perhaps something sweet she had created that morning.
On the hottest of days—following whatever work was done, when the refreshing waters of the tide pools beckoned—they hiked the winding cliff trail, where Roger walked beside Holmes, picking rocks off the steep path, peering repeatedly at the ocean below, stooping every so often to study something found along the way (broken bits of seashells, or a diligent beetle, or a fossil embedded within the cliff wall). A warm salty smell increased with their descent, as did Holmes's delight at the boy's inquisitiveness. It was one thing to take notice of an object, but an intelligent child, like Roger, had to inspect and touch carefully those things that drew his attention. Holmes was positive there was nothing too remarkable on the path, yet he was inclined to pause with Roger, contemplating all that enticed the boy.
When first traveling the trail together, Roger gazed up at the expansive rugged folds towering above and asked, “Is this cliff only chalk?”
“It is made of chalk, and it is made of sandstone.”
Within the strata beneath the chalk was gault clay, gre
ensand, and Wealden sands in successive order, explained Holmes as they continued downward; the clay beds and the thin layer of sandstones were covered with chalk, clay, and flint added throughout the aeons by countless storms.
“Oh,” said Roger, absently veering toward the path's rim.
Dropping a cane, Holmes pulled him back. “Careful, my boy. You must mind your step. Here, take my arm.”
The trail itself was barely wide enough for a full-grown adult, let alone an elderly man and a boy walking side by side. The path was about three feet across, and in places erosion had narrowed its width considerably; the pair, however, managed together without much trouble—Roger keeping mostly near the sheer edge, Holmes moving inches from the cliff wall as the boy gripped his arm. After a while, the path broadened in a spot, providing an overlook and a bench. Although it had been Holmes's intention to continue to the bottom (for the bathing pool could only be reached during daylight; otherwise, the evening tide swallowed the entire shore), the bench suddenly felt a more convenient location in which to rest and converse. Sitting there with Roger, Holmes dug a Jamaican from his pocket but soon realized he had no matches; instead, he chewed on the cigar, savoring the sea air, eventually following the boy's stare to where seagulls circled and swooped and cried out.
“I've heard the nightjars, have you? I heard them last night,” Roger said, his memory stirred by the seagulls' squalling.
“Did you? How fortunate.”
“People call them goatsuckers, except I don't believe they feed on goats.”
“Insects, for the most part. They catch their prey on their wings, you know.”
“Oh.”
“We have owls, as well.”
Roger's expression brightened. “I've never seen one. I'd like one for a pet, but my mother doesn't think birds are good pets. I think they'd be nice to have around the house, though.”
“Well then, perhaps we can catch you an owl some night. We have plenty on the property, so one won't be missed, surely.”
“Yes, I'd like that.”
“Of course, we had best keep your owl in a place where your mother won't find it. My study is a possibility.”
“Wouldn't she look there?”
“No, she wouldn't dare. But if she did, I would tell her it belonged to me.”
A mischievous grin formed on the boy's face: “She'd believe you, too. I know she would.”
Letting on that he wasn't being serious about the owl, Holmes gave Roger a wink. All the same, he appreciated the boy's confidence—the sharing of a secret, the covert alliances inherent to a friendship—and this pleased Holmes so much that he found himself offering what he'd ultimately forgotten to say: “In any case, Roger, I will speak with your mother. I suspect she will allow you a parakeet.” Then to further their camaraderie, he promised that they would start earlier the next afternoon and reach the tide pools well before dusk approached.
“Should I fetch you?” asked Roger.
“Indeed. You will find me at the hives.”
“When, sir?”
“Three is early enough, don't you imagine? That should allow ample time for the hike and a bathe and the stroll back up. I fear we started off too late today to complete the journey.”
Already the waning sunlight and the burgeoning ocean breeze enveloped them. Holmes inhaled deeply, squinting his eyes against the setting sun. With his sight blurred, the ocean beyond appeared like a blackened expanse fringed with a massive fiery eruption. We should begin heading up the cliff, he thought. But Roger seemed to be in no hurry. Neither was Holmes, who glanced sideways at the boy and beheld that intent young face tilted toward the sky, those clear blue eyes fixed on a seagull circling high overhead. A little while longer, Holmes told himself, smiling as he observed Roger's lips parting in strange fascination, the boy somehow undaunted by the sun's brilliant glare or the wind's persistent rush.
10
MANY MONTHS afterward, Holmes would find himself alone within Roger's cramped bedroom (the first and last time he ever set foot among the boy's few possessions). On an overcast, gray morning—with no other soul present at the guest cottage—he unlocked Mrs. Munro's gloomy living quarters, going inside to where the impermeable drapes remained drawn, and the lights were kept off, and the woodsy barklike smell of mothballs obscured whatever else he inhaled. Every three or four steps, he paused, peering ahead into the darkness, and readjusted his grip on the canes, as if anticipating some vague, unimaginable form to emerge out of the shadows. Then he continued forward—the taps of his canes falling less heavily and wearily than his footsteps—until making his way past Roger's open doorway, entering the only cottage room that wasn't sealed wholly from daylight.
It was, in fact, a very tidy room, far from what Holmes had expected to discover—the careless, random droppings of a boy's vibrant life, that clutter. A housekeeper's son, he concluded, was surely more inclined than most children to maintain an ordered space—unless, of course, his bedroom was also tended by the housekeeper. Still, as the boy was rather fastidious by nature, Holmes felt positive it was Roger who had organized his things so dutifully. Furthermore, the pervasive mothball smell hadn't yet filtered into the bedroom, suggesting the absence of Mrs. Munro's bearing; instead, a musty but not unpleasant, somewhat earthy aroma was evident. Like dirt during a good rain, he thought. Like fresh soil on the hands.
For a while, he sat at the edge of the boy's neatly made bed, taking in the general surroundings—the walls painted baby blue, the windows covered by transparent lace curtains, the various oak furnishings (nightstand, single bookcase, chest of drawers). Peering through the window directly above a student's writing desk, he noticed the crisscrossing of slender branches just outside, which appeared somewhat ethereal behind the gauze of lace, scraping almost noiselessly against the panes. And then his attention turned toward the personal, those things Roger had left there: six textbooks stacked on the writing desk, a sagging schoolbag hung from the closet doorknob, the butterfly net propped upright in a corner. Eventually, he stood, wandering slowly about, moving from wall to wall like one respectfully surveying a museum exhibit, then stopping briefly to take closer looks, resisting the urge to touch certain belongings.
But what he observed didn't surprise him, or offer any new insights into the boy. There were books about bird-watching and bees and warfare, several tattered science-fiction paperbacks, a good many National Geographic magazines (spanning two shelves, arranged chronologically), and there were rocks and seashells found at the beach, assorted by size and likeness, lined up in equal-numbered rows on the chest of drawers. Aside from the six textbooks, the writing desk displayed five sharpened pencils, drawing pens, blank paper, and the vial containing the Japanese honeybees. Everything had been ordered, given a proper place, aligned; so, too, were the objects occupying the nightstand—scissors, a bottle of rubber cement, a large scrapbook with an unadorned black cover.
Nevertheless, the most revealing items, it seemed, had ended up either taped or hung on the walls: Roger's colorful drawings—nondescript soldiers firing brown rifles at one another, green tanks exploding, violent red scribbles bursting like explosions from chests or the foreheads of cross-eyed faces, yellow antiaircraft fire streaming upward toward a blue-black bomber fleet, massacred stick figures strewn about a bloodied battlefield as an orange sun rose or set on the pink horizon); three framed photographs, sepia-toned portraits (a smiling Mrs. Munro holding her infant son while the young father stood proudly beside her, the boy posing with his uniformed father on a train platform, toddler Roger running into his father's outstretched arms (each photograph—one near the bed, one near the writing desk, one near the bookcase—showed a stocky, strong-looking man, a square, ruddy face, sandy hair combed straight back, the benevolent eyes of someone who was now gone and someone who was terribly missed).
Yet, of all the things there, it was the scrapbook that, in the end, held Holmes's attention the longest. Returning to the boy's bed, he sat and stared at the night
stand, considering the scrapbook's black cover, the scissors, the rubber cement. No, he told himself, he wouldn't pry into the pages. He wouldn't snoop any more than he already had. Best not, he warned himself, reaching for the scrapbook—and with that, he left his better thoughts unheeded.
Thereafter, he leisurely perused the pages, his gaze lingering for a while on a series of intricate collages (photographs and words clipped from assorted magazines, then glued together shrewdly). The first third of the scrapbook betrayed the boy's interest in nature, in wildlife and foliage. Upright grizzly bears roamed forests near spotted leopards that lounged within African trees; cartoon hermit crabs hid with snarling pumas amid a cluster of Van Gogh sunflowers; an owl and a fox and a mackerel lurked beneath an aggregate of fallen leaves. What soon followed, however, was increasingly less scenic, although similar in design: The wildlife became British and American soldiers, the forests became the bombed-out ruins of cities, and the leaves became either corpses or single words—DEFEATED, FORCES, RETREAT—scattered across the pages.
Nature complete in and of itself, man forever at odds with man—the yin-yang of the boy's worldview, Holmes believed. For he assumed the initial collages—those at the front of the scrapbook—had been done years earlier, while Roger's father was still alive (the curled, yellowed edges of the cut images suggested this, as did the lack of odor from the rubber cement). The rest, he decided after sniffing at the pages, examining the seams of three or four collages, had been fashioned little by little over the recent months, and appeared more complicated, artful, and methodical in their layout.
