My Sherlock Holmes Page 18

  There was a mist round Bog Town when my master, Inspector Greg son, and myself found it, one of those strange, fugitive fogs that drift like ghosts at night in the hollows. Instantly, a tall fellow with a red nose and bushy whiskers put in an appearance with the suddenness of a specter, and gave them a military salute. He was Constable Miles, dispatched to us by the Lewisham Police, and had been watching out for our arrival a very long time in the cold with dutiful resignation. In the mist, his lantern was a glowworm and I told myself with a shudder that it would soon become a frail guide in the acrid fog.

  “The quarantine line … fully operational, Constable?” Gregson asked the bobby point blank.

  “Yes, sir. Since nightfall, sir.”

  “The ill?”

  “Taken away to hospital.”

  “The dead?”

  “Removed to the last, sir.”

  “The doctors, the nurses?”

  “They all left.”

  “Which means the four of us will be the only living ones tonight in Bog Town?”

  The constable’s voice shook: “In … indeed yes, sir.”

  A few hours before, Bog Town had been shut by a barbed-wire fence which endowed it with the grim aspect of concentration camp. Each fifty yards hung large boards with “Danger. No trespassing.” in red. The only possible entry was through a gate guarded by policemen in arms. Just past it, a tent had been pitched for sanitary purposes. There, we found the proper safety clothes for our visit. They consisted of black rubber robes which, reaching down to the ground, rose to a point above the head, entirely concealing form and face, except for the eye holes. Goggles, rubber gloves, and boots completed the equipment.

  “The Holy Mother Church hath need of thee, Great Inquisitor!” I jested, bowing at my master who had just arrayed himself in the gloomy robe.

  Holmes quelled me with a glance. “Stop cracking jokes and put on yours, too, my boy,” he said in acid voice while grinning secretly at Gregson who, in the black outfit, because of his very big stomach, looked like a corpulent rubber doll.

  We were now slowly passing through the foggy pall that overspread Bog Town. No doubt that, in other circumstances, our figures would have made an onlooker’s blood run cold, so ghostly we appeared in the gleam of the policeman’s lantern, seeming to glide without perceptible effort over the muddy ground. In fact, it was our lot to be scared in this deadly immensity, in the midst of the great, somber-hued heaps of refuse which rose menacingly, and we summoned every ounce of courage we possessed to move on without trembling knees.

  “It started Sunday morning … ,” began Constable Miles as we passed a row of wretched, tumbledown hovels, just to break the unbearable silence which hung upon Bog Town. But the effect was even worse for, through the rubber mask, his voice sounded deep and sepulchral. He broke off on the spot.

  “Please go on, Constable,” invited my master, laying a comforting hand upon his shoulder.

  Miles nodded and waved his arms, briefly resembling a hulking crow. He resumed:

  “Many ragmen were taken very sick all of a sudden. After a while, some fell dead on the ground without warning, but others had great sufferings; you heard them groan and cry. It was heartbreaking, you know. There were desperate fellows who ran screaming around. I have heard of an old woman in violent pain who broke out naked and ran direct to Deptford Creek, where she drowned herself. The disease spread very quickly and in the evening dead bodies were lying upon the ground all about the place … . Frightful! Doctors were sent for too late, you see; they could save only a few people. They told us it was some kind of very violent and infectious fever.”

  “A white lie, to prevent a panic,” whispered Holmes to my ear.

  “What a pity!” went on the policeman. “They were nice folks; sometimes a little bit rough, but nice, very nice.”

  He shook his head mournfully and added: “Think that the night before, they had a ball … music … fireworks!”

  “Fireworks?” I wondered.

  “Yes, fired from Deptford Bridge, and there was an organ, too … . It played polkas and waltzes.”

  Constable Miles drew a long breath and ceased to speak. For some time on, he led us round about Bog Town, and not a sound was to be heard, except the soft squelch of our footsteps in the mud.

  At one moment, my master climbed up a big junk heap and looked into the night. It was dark and foggy, and he could only catch sight of the vague shimmering of a stagnant pool down below. There was no point to remain any longer in these grim and repellent surroundings. Holmes shrugged his shoulders and told me that brandy, tobacco; and a hot bath would be most welcomed back home.

  CHAPTER 4

  MONSIEUR VICTOR

  My master was just on his way down when suddenly, with eyes accustomed to the darkness of the night, he noticed several moving figures noiselessly deploying themselves out towards his companions. We were waiting quietly for him at the foot of the mound, totally unaware of what was going on, and did not see the shadowy forms slowly creeping around us in deadly silence. At once Holmes knew the full extent of the danger and he shouted with stentorian lungs: “Lads, watch out!”

  We were startled by his command but, at first, we did not understand what it meant. So we turned round and stared at him blankly. However, we were not long in realizing the situation, for a mere second had elapsed when came a wild yell, followed by a rustle in the mud, and the attack of a posse of fiends. They were ten or twelve, perhaps more. Their faces were shriveled, their eyes bloodshot and glaring, their long hair disheveled, tangled, and matted.

  “Lord bless me!” groaned Gregson.

  Indeed, the sight of these repulsive creatures, dashing at us from nowhere in this empty, forbidden place, was truly nightmarish. The inspector sprang back, searching for his gun, and I did the same, but conversely, dropping his lantern, Constable Miles made a couple of swift strides forward. Before the assailants could react, he had seized the first one by his throat and belt, lifted him high in the air, swung him round, and hurled him clean into the others, who toppled and fell down. This clever and courageous action averted immediate danger and helped to gain a little time.

  “Here, lads! Come up! Quick!” cried Holmes.

  It was a steep climb to the top of the rubbish heap, one of the tallest in Bog Town, and the rubber outfits were not meant for such sport; nevertheless, the three of us did reach it in a few moments.

  “Thanks, Master! I’m glad to be with you again,” I said to Sherlock Holmes, who had offered me a helping hand, “and a thousand thanks more for your warning. What would have happened without it?”

  “Billy’s right, thank you, Mr. Holmes,” said Gregson in turn, “but phew! Speak of a mad rush!”

  He panted and coughed, and then said to Miles, who stood stolidly by his side: “Thank you, too, Constable, you’ve been capital. But damn it! What a scrapper you are!”

  The latter nodded unpretentiously with a slight laugh.

  For a long time Sherlock Holmes kept peering carefully into the night. The wild men who had attacked us had not pursued us up the mound, and they were now hardly visible in the gloom. It seemed, though, that they were standing round it, dreary and motionless, with their eyes fixed on the top.

  “What are we waiting for, Mr. Holmes?” asked the inspector at last. “Can’t we draw our guns and pitch into these freaks?”

  “That would be the last thing to do, Inspector.”

  “Why?”

  “Too dangerous!”

  Gregson shrugged his shoulders and said somewhat angrily: “I don’t follow you, Mr. Holmes. Aren’t these just a bunch of ragmen off their chumps?

  “Who really knows?” replied Holmes evasively.

  Miles, who had been prying around during all that time, suddenly fell on his knees and started digging the ground vigorously with his gloved hands, like a dog in search of a bone. Two or three minutes later, he gave a great cry of triumph.

  “What did you find?” asked Holmes, laying his
hand upon the constable’s shoulder.

  “Light your lantern and point it here, Mr. Holmes!”

  “All right.”

  My master followed Miles’s instructions. He whistled a long, low sound of wonderment and exclaimed: “Well, I’m damned! An interesting find indeed, Constable!”

  Amongst quantities of broken glass, splinters, rotten vegetables, and undescribable odds and ends, Miles. had discovered a hidden passage, a sort of dark pit with a rickety ladder which seemed to plunge into immeasurable depths.

  “They are coming up!” warned Miles, pointing a finger at the shadowy forms that had just begun to ascend the great dust heap.

  “That settles it,” declared Holmes sternly, “we must risk it down the pit!” Then turning to me, he added: “Go down first, my boy, and watch out. Here is my pocket lantern: wave it three times when you reach the bot tom; we will then follow you.”

  Sherlock Holmes, Gregson, and Miles looked eagerly down the gloomy pit. At last they saw my faint light far below. “Let’s go!” said the master quietly. He clung to the ladder, and with a few encouraging words, bade his companions to follow. Slowly and cautiously they descended, the frail ladder oscillating violently with them in the pitchy darkness. At last they reached the bottom, and found themselves at what was the end of a rocky passage, which had been roughly hewn out and sloped upwards. Vague draughts seemed to prove that it communicated with the outside. Only half reassured about the exit, but knowing that the only chance to stop our opponents was at that price, Holmes pulled down the ladder, whose rotten wood easily crumbled into pieces. We all walked swiftly then, in Indian file, through the passage. My master’s lantern led the way, awakening bats whose rustle and squeak broke for once the unearthly silence that brooded in there. After some fifty or sixty yards, we reached a large cave, and though it shone dimly in the inky darkness, the light given by the lantern was sufficient to show the nature of our new surroundings. The place was empty save for a deep layer of dust and a strange object that filled half the chamber. It looked at first sight like some enormous insect, lying upon its back, with long twisted legs extended in the air above it, and a glimmering body of irregular shape beneath them. But closer investigation brought a truer explanation. The bent and twisted bands of metal were all that remained of what had once been a huge, iron-bound chest of wood.

  “The people who broke it open were in a great hurry,” declared Sher lock Holmes.

  “Was it full of riches, Master?” I asked him.

  “I think so, my boy. No wonder then that …”

  Holmes left the sentence unfinished, for at that moment came a sound as of a stifled moan from the other end of the cave. He turned round and flashing his lantern in that direction, he discovered a man lying on his back, in the thick dust of the floor, his body covered with blood. He had very dark hair and a black, waxed mustache, which brought out the extreme paleness of his face.

  “Hey! He’s at death’s door!” exclaimed Gregson.

  At once, we all knelt by his side, and my master gently raised his head.

  “You’ll give him a little brandy, Billy,” he said. “Here is the flask.”

  The stranger opened his eyes. “Merci, mon vieux,” he muttered in French, with a painful attempt at a smile. He drank greedily and a little color came back to his cheeks. For a moment he stared silently, then delirium seized him and he said, or rather shouted: “L’or! … ratissé l’or! … et puis pan pan dans les tripes! … Tout d’même, me faire ça à moi, Victor! … Môssieu Victor, le roi des dompteurs de puces!” He stopped abruptly and drew a deep breath, his last one, for the next moment, he was dead.

  Silence fell upon the little group. Bats could be heard again, squeaking around in the cave. Then Gregson cleared his throat and questioned:

  “Tell me, Mr. Holmes, what was all that twaddle the Frenchman said? Can you translate it for me?”

  “Hm!” replied my master, setting his hand to his brow. “You see Greg’, he simply meant that someone stole the gold kept in the chest, and fired a pistol at him, Victor … Mr. Victor, king of the flea trainers!”

  CHAPTER 5

  FIREWORKS

  “In Paris,” began François Le Villard, “the Folies Bergere and the Moulin Rouge are large music halls that draw crowds of wealthy night birds; but less sophisticatedly, on the boulevard, to the four winds of heaven, stand the small booths, petites baraques, as we call them. Here, there is a zest in the air which is absent from more expensive places, and a diversity of entertainments that is truly amazing. Think that, without spending a centime, you can dawdle along from parade to parade, and gaze at such performers as monkeys riding bicycles, plumed wizards crunching glass or swallowing swords, Arabian girls doing the belly dance with enormous snakes around their neck, cavemen eating fire, Chinese spitting it … and many, many more!”

  The French detective paused. He leaned back in his armchair and for some minutes enjoyed silently the glass of sherry wine my master had served him. But I, who was all ears, and could not wait to know the rest, asked: “Tell me, Monsieur, was Monsieur Victor one of these entertainers?”

  “Yes indeed,” said Le Villard, gazing with half-closed eyes at the liquor through the finely carved crystal, “and not the least one, believe me, young man! His show attracted a lot of people in Montmartre. You gave twelve pence to a blond girl who sat behind a brass grille, and you entered the booth: it was a plain, rather cramped place with no chairs, lit a giorno by a big electric bulb hanging from the roof. In the center, on a table, was laid a sort of fish tank—but an empty one—which had the shape of a large suitcase and was shut by a glass lid. When some twenty people had been admitted, an invisible barrel organ started playing a lively march and Monsieur Victor came in. He bowed at the audience, smiled, twisted his waxed mustache, did this and that, then rolled up his left sleeve. When the music was over, he took a pair of tweezers, opened a pillbox, picked up a few black tiny things which looked like pinheads, and laid them carefully on his arm … . These were fleas.”

  “Fleas?” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, and that’s how he fed them.”

  “You mean, with his own blood?”

  “Well, a good drink never harmed anybody, you know!” retorted the French detective with a mischievous smile. He finished his sherry wine and went on: “Now the show really began. Monsieur Victor plucked off the fleas one by one with the tweezers, and put them in the fish tank. All sort of minuscule accessories were displayed in it, like a tiny cardboard sleigh or a cart built with toothpicks and four collar buttons: well, he’d hitch up couple of fleas with hair to one or the other, and make them draw it on a distance of a few inches; or he’d pick up two fat ones and make them ride a seesaw; he might also organize a race between half a dozen others; sometimes he’d make them jump over obstacles like a small pile of matches or through a wedding ring … . It was very clever indeed.”

  “Are you serious, Monsieur?” I wondered.

  “Most serious, Billy. It may be staggering, but it is the honest truth. Monsieur Victor really deserved the title of ‘king of the flea trainers,’ and the audience always gave him a big hand.”

  I would probably have asked many more questions about the man we had found agonizing in a cave the night before, if Mrs. Hudson had not appeared at that very moment. She stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips, with indignation in her eye.

  “What’s the matter, Mrs. Hudson?” asked Sherlock Holmes with a smile.

  “Pah! They’ll muck up the roofs fifty yards around and break our tiles, no doubt!”

  “What with?” wondered my master.

  “Fireworks!” she sniffed.

  “Fireworks?” I exclaimed. “What do you mean, Mrs. Hudson?”

  “Pshaw! Don’t you play the fool with me, young man! It’s yourself who gave them permission this morning to put in the whole kit and caboodle on the roof.”

  My jaw dropped. “Me?”

  “You!”

  “I don’t unders
tand,” said I.

  “Damn it! I do!” cried Holmes abruptly:

  “But … but … what’s going on, old man?” wondered Le Villard in turn.

  “Most abominable things! Presto! Follow me, François!”

  Pushing Mrs. Hudson aside in his haste, my master reached the door in one single stride and rushed up the stairs all the way to the attic; there he climbed up a ladder at breakneck pace, banged open a skylight, and landed on the terrace roof. It was pitch dark outside and at first, he could see absolutely nothing.

  “I’ve got a lantern, let me light it, saperlotte!” exclaimed Le Villard, who had just joined him; but, at the very second, he was bumped into by someone or something and he collapsed on the ground with a cry of pain. Strangely enough, a second shrill cry echoed to his in the gloom, a short distance away.

  Just then the moon came out from behind a great bank of clouds and flooded the sky with its brilliant and ethereal radiance. To his great amazement, my master found himself in the presence of a young girl wearing a nightgown. She looked terrified.

  “What are you doing up here, miss?” he asked gently.

  “I … I don’t know … . I’m a bit of a sleepwalker at times … . I woke up here a moment ago … and … ( )h my God!”

  A shudder of terror passed through her frame as she cried, pointing a trembling finger at something behind the detective’s back: “look! It’s coming back!”

  Sherlock Holmes turned round. He could not help giving a start for what he had seen was truly abominable: somewhere in the distance, its huge figure outlined against the sky, a dreadful creature was floating over the rooftops, waving menacingly at him. It had a white, fleshless face—almost a skull—with two greenish glows deep in the eye sockets and long, long red hair flowing like flame all around it.