by June Thomson
It was Callister who spoke first. Before Drury could reply, he said, addressing Holmes, his voice light and courteous, ‘Mr Holmes, is it not? I have long admired the quality of your intellect which, if I may say so, is wasted on the criminal world. Allow me to show the Inspector the evidence to which you refer.’
Turning aside, he began to unbuckle the straps which fastened down the lid of the basket, at the same time glancing back over his shoulder with an amused smile as we crowded forward to see what it contained.
It was at this moment, when our guard was down, that Callister acted.
Before Holmes could shout a warning, he had flung back the lid with one hand, with the other sweeping the books and pieces of machinery off the bench and sending them crashing to the floor. As they fell, a large bird, terrified by the noise, burst from the basket with the velocity of a bullet in an explosion of wings and feet and feathers, beating at our hands and faces and causing all of us, even Holmes, to start back in alarm at its sudden eruption.
Our confusion was only momentary but it was long enough for Callister. Thrusting us aside, he darted for the door which opened on to the landing and disappeared up the spiral staircase.
Holmes was the first to recover. With a shout to us to follow, he sprinted off in pursuit, leading the way as we raced up the steps after him.
We emerged at the very top of the lighthouse, into a small circular chamber, completely enclosed with glass, which housed the lantern and its reflectors and where another door gave access to an open gallery which ran round the exterior of the beacon, guarded on the seaward side by a waist-high iron railing.
Callister sat crouched on its topmost bar, balancing himself with hands and feet. He remained perched there for no more than two or three seconds although to us, standing immobilised with horror in the doorway, it seemed an eternity of time.
The next instant, he had vaulted into the abyss.
Galvanised into motion by the energy of that leap, we rushed to the rails to watch as he plunged downwards, powerless to save him.
The breeze had caught his cape, billowing it out round him so that he had the appearance of a bird swooping on huge, black wings as he rode the air until it seemed to dissolve under him and he crashed on to the rocks below.
At that very moment of impact, the seabird which Callister had released from its captivity and which must have escaped from the open window in the laboratory, suddenly flew free and circled three times over the shattered body before soaring away in the direction of Penhiddy Point.
I am sure Holmes would consider it fanciful on my part but I confess when I saw that bird, it came to me that it was Callister’s soul breaking free from its own mortal captivity.
There was no time, however, for any such metaphysical speculation. Turning swiftly on his heel, Holmes had already begun the descent of the lighthouse stairs, the rest of us behind him, our feet pounding on the stone steps.
Having witnessed Callister’s fall, none of us expected to find him alive and one glance at the shattered remnants of his head was enough to persuade me that he was beyond all medical help. Nevertheless, as a doctor, I felt obliged to lift one lifeless hand and feel for a pulse.
Holmes stood silently beside me, arms folded, chin sunk on his breast, a look of such fierce concentration on his face that, even as I knelt by Callister’s body, I could feel the mental energy pouring from him in almost palpable vibrations.
Then he said curtly, ‘Callister’s death was an accident of which you, Watson, are the only witness. It is essential that neither Drury, McGregor nor I should be involved. We shall carry the body to the boat and take it back to the landing stage, where it will be left. At the top of the cliff steps, we shall separate. McGregor, you will make your way to the road and warn the driver of the official motor car to keep out of sight until we are ready for him. In the meantime, Drury and I will conceal ourselves in the garden of “The Firs” while you, Watson, go up to the house alone to report what has happened. And remember, my dear fellow, it was an accident.
‘You are on holiday and you were rowing in the bay when you saw someone fall from the top of the lighthouse. On disembarking, you found the man was dead. You have brought the body back to the landing stage but you were not able to carry it up the steps alone.
‘Miss Mai will answer the door to you. You must use some pretext to get her away from the house for as long as possible.’ He turned to Drury. ‘Where is the nearest residence which has a private telephone?’
‘The vicarage, which is in the small hamlet of Trebower. There is a short cut across the fields.’
Holmes turned back to me.
‘Then persuade Miss Mai to accompany you. You are a stranger and might lose your way. Once at the vicarage, telephone the police station at Portswithin and report the accident, making sure you keep Miss Mai with you. Then accompany her back to the house, again taking your time, to await the arrival of the constabulary.
‘In your absence, Drury, McGregor and I will enter “The Firs” with our search warrant, arrest whoever is living there as Callister’s accomplice and remove what evidence we can find. By the time you and Miss Mai return, we shall have left in the official car.’
‘Is all this subterfuge really necessary, Holmes?’ I protested.
‘You remember my brother’s warning that Callister should be taken cleanly? To my infinite regret, I have failed to do so. Our chief concern now must be to limit the damage by avoiding any scandal which could discredit the Government.’
‘But will not Miss Mai be suspicious if, when we return, Callister’s accomplice, who you say is hiding in the house, has disappeared?’
‘Leave that to me,’ Holmes said tersely. ‘I shall contrive some excuse when the occasion arises. And now we must hurry. Time is limited.’
We carried out his orders, placing Callister’s body in our own boat and rowing it back to the landing stage where we left it as together we climbed the cliff steps. At the summit, where McGregor departed to warn the driver of the official car, Holmes paused to give me his last instructions.
‘When it is all over, Watson, meet me at the coastguard’s cottage. I shall then lay all the facts before you and give you a full account of the affair. Now go up to the house and take care to keep Miss Mai away from the place for as long as you can. I am relying on you.’
With that parting remark, he and Drury withdrew into the coppice, leaving me to set off alone along the narrow path which twisted its way between the trees.
As I walked, I turned over in my mind what ruse I could employ to delay Callister’s housekeeper, as my old friend had requested. A sprained ankle seemed a likely ploy and thus it was that, limping heavily, I reached the house.
It was a gloomy building, no doubt named after the fir trees which had been planted close about it, perhaps to serve as a wind-break but which over the years had grown so tall and dense that they shut out both light and air, giving the house a closed-in, melancholy air.
A wide wooden veranda faced me and, still limping, I mounted the steps to knock at a green-painted door. After a short interval, it was opened by a tiny, white-haired woman whose broad, wrinkled features and yellowish-brown skin spoke of her Eurasian origins. It was a face which also demonstrated that impassive, Oriental lack of expression, for when I had blurted out my story of the accident, she betrayed no emotion apart from a widening of the eyes and a small tremble of the lips.
‘Is there a telephone?’ I concluded. ‘I shall have to inform the police.’
‘Not in the house,’ she replied in good English, her voice betraying only a slight accent. ‘Wait here.’
She made no attempt to ask me inside, leaving me on the doorstep where I had a view of a dark, panelled hall, its walls hung with Chinese water-colours and porcelain plates. I thought, but could not be sure, that I heard the sound of voices, hers and a man’s, from somewhere deep inside the house.
As the event proved, there was no need for me to persuade her to accompany m
e for, when she returned within a few minutes, a shawl about her shoulders, she announced, ‘I shall come with you to show you the way.’
It is not necessary for me to describe in detail what happened afterwards – the walk to the vicarage at Trebower over the fields, my telephone call to Portswithin to report the accident, and the return to ‘The Firs’ – except to record that, because of my supposedly sprained ankle, I contrived to remain away for three quarters of an hour, enough time, I fervently trusted, for Holmes and Drury to carry out their own part in the plan.
There was no sign of them when we eventually arrived back and the house appeared deserted.
On this occasion, I was invited into a small drawing-room, furnished with Far Eastern objects and with a view of the fir trees which crowded close up to the windows. Here Miss Mai left me to wait alone and I did not see her again although once more I heard noises; not voices this time but the sound of doors opening and closing and feet moving rapidly about, as if someone were searching every room in the house, an explanation for which I was to learn later from Holmes.
After about half an hour, two policemen arrived by motor car from Portswithin and I told my story, giving my name and my Queen Anne Street address with the excuse that, as I was on a walking holiday in the area and would be returning that evening to London, I had no settled residence in the area.
My ‘sprained’ ankle also served as an excuse not to help the officers to carry Callister’s body up from the boat and, after my statement was taken down, I was allowed to leave.
Once I was out of sight of the house and my subterfuge was no longer needed, I set off at a brisk pace to walk back to the coastguard’s cottage, there to await my old friend’s return with considerable impatience, eager to learn what had happened at ‘The Firs’ during my absence and to hear the full account of Callister’s treason.
I did not have long to wait.
Within the hour, Holmes arrived and, at his suggestion, we carried two of the chairs into the overgrown garden where we sat in the sunshine and where, on his insistence, I told my part of the account first.
‘And now, Holmes,’ said I, when I had finished, ‘I have been patient for long enough. It is time you explained your “chain of reasoning” and the meaning of your nine enigmatic headings.’
‘Indeed I shall, Watson,’ he replied, lighting a cigarette, ‘although I feel I owe you far more than that. However, if an explanation will suffice, let me begin.
‘First there was Japan, where Sir Douglas Callister served for a time as a diplomat. Mycroft gave me this first link in my chain when he referred to the monograph which Sir Douglas had written on the use of masks in Noh drama, an entirely Japanese art form. As you will recall, Watson, I spent a morning in the Reading Room of the British Museum where I discovered that Sir Douglas had published other monographs, including one on the fishing communities on some of the Japanese islands, the relevance of which I shall shortly make clear to you.
‘My second heading concerned France and referred to Maurice Callister’s curious visit to that country last summer in which he moved from one provincial town to another. What, I asked myself, could Callister find to interest himself in such places and was there any link between them? A telegram to an old acquaintance of mine in Paris soon provided the answer. A search by him in the provincial newspaper records established the fact that a small touring circus had visited each of those towns during the relevant period. Among the performers was a certain Pierre Leblanc with whom Callister struck up a friendship and for whom the second arrest warrant was drawn up.
‘Leblanc was the link with my third heading, Callister’s interest in the circus, and led to the fourth, Miss Mai’s weekly grocery orders – too large for one elderly lady to consume on her own. I assume you do not need me to explain that connection?’
‘Oh, that part is simple! The extra food was bought for Pierre Leblanc who was living in hiding at “The Firs” and whom Callister had met in France and had brought back to this country. But I still fail to see the connection between Leblanc and Japan.’
‘Do you, Watson? Then let us pass on to links five, six and seven – the lighthouse, the fishing-boat, and the contents of the picnic basket and the bucket.’
‘The picnic basket contained a seabird, as we found to our cost.’
‘Exactly, my dear fellow. But it was a very particular type of seabird; a member of the Phalacrocorax carbo species; a cormorant, in short. And there lies the connection between France, Japan, the circus and the last two links in my chain. On certain of the Japanese islands, cormorants are trained by the local fishermen to assist with the catch. They are naturally endowed with a small gular sac or pouch in the throat in which they can retain a fish. Before the bird is put over the side of the boat, a ring is placed round the neck to prevent it from swallowing the fish once it has caught it. Then as soon as the cormorant has done so, it is taken back on board and disgorges its catch.
‘Now we have already established the fact that Leblanc was a performer in the circus which Callister followed so assiduously from one small French town to the next. His act? Surely you can deduce that for yourself, my dear fellow? No? Then allow me to explain. He worked with birds – doves, in that particular instance, which were trained to remain hidden inside different receptacles and to perform tricks at given signals.
‘Watching Leblanc’s act must have given Callister the idea of how he might smuggle information concerning the secret Admiralty research he was engaged on to his old boyhood friend and fellow scientist Otto von Schlabitz-Hoecker in Germany, believing, as Callister did, that all scientific knowledge should be freely available, regardless of national boundaries. If Leblanc could train a dove, why not a cormorant, a seabird* with a natural capacity for holding a fish in its throat sac and later disgorging it?
‘He had all the necessary props for such an act, the isolated house, the abandoned lighthouse and an abundance of wild cormorants which nest about the headlands. For a financial consideration, Leblanc proved willing to co-operate and the plan was put into operation.
‘While in France, Callister contacted von Schlabitz-Hoecker, explaining the scheme and suggesting that a Dutch-registered boat should be made available at a later date. Leblanc was then brought secretly to England last summer and kept hidden at “The Firs” where he was set to training a young cormorant which was no doubt trapped in some way and hand-reared.
‘The rest of my chain surely needs little explanation. You yourself witnessed the method by which Callister carried out his plan. He took the cormorant, by now trained to obey certain signals, to the lighthouse concealed inside the picnic basket and carried it up to his laboratory where, later that day, he fed it with a small packet containing a piece of paper on which were written details of the latest development of the submarine and which was wrapped in several layers of oiled silk. A ring placed round the cormorant’s neck prevented the bird from swallowing the package. The basket was then carried down to the water’s edge where Callister opened the receptacle ostensibly to take out some bread which he fed to the gulls.
‘You will recollect that the cape he was wearing conveniently hid his hands and arms, thus concealing his exact movements, which, at the same time as he removed the bread, were to release the cormorant into the water where its presence would pass unnoticed among the other birds waiting to be fed.
‘His next action, you will recall, was to cast the lines of his fixed fishing rods into the water, a signal to the cormorant to begin to swim out to sea, lured towards the Margretha by the man who stood on deck smoking the pipe.
‘You recollect my remark that, on this occasion, the man had only one arm on the rail? The other was at his side, out of sight as he reeled in the line to which the lure, in the form of a brightly-coloured, artificial fish, was attached and to which the cormorant was trained to respond. As the bird neared the boat, the second man appeared on deck with his bucket, apparently to empty it overboard and fill it with sea-water. You may a
lso recall that as he lowered the bucket into the water, he banged it against the side of the boat, another signal to the cormorant to dive under the water, swim into the bucket and be hauled on deck. Once it was on board, the bird was carried down to the cabin where it disgorged the small packet containing details of the plans.
‘The following morning, the procedure was put into reverse operation. The bucket containing the cormorant was lowered over the side, only this time it was carrying in its pouch a message from one of von Schlabitz-Hoecker’s colleagues who was on board the Margretha, requesting further clarification of one of the submarine engine parts.
‘Meanwhile, on the lighthouse rock, Callister, who was apparently baiting his fixed fishing rods, reeled in the line to which another similar lure was attached. If you recollect, he appeared to have difficulties disentangling one of the lines, a pretext to give him time to attract the cormorant towards him. Once he had done so, he took the bird from the water and placed it inside the basket, his actions again hidden by his cloak. He then carried the cormorant back to his laboratory where it disgorged the message. That was the piece of paper I found rolled up on Callister’s work-bench. The system of the lures had, of course, been set up much earlier, before Callister was suspected of treason and was placed under observation.
‘Had we not surprised him this morning, I have no doubt that the cormorant would have later been taken back to “The Firs” inside the basket to be kept there until the next occasion when the Margretha anchored in the bay. Callister would then have answered the message, sending the further clarification of the engine part which von Schlabitz-Hoecker had requested, together with fresh information on any other research which had taken place in the meantime.
‘Ingenious, was it not? I have Leblanc to thank for confirming the details of exactly how the operation was carried out when we interviewed him this morning at the police station in Portswithin.’
