The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (30 page)

“That should elucidate the matter for you, Parker.”

The clipping was a short news-article. I read it with care.

“Chicago, June 29: Prisoners paroled from Ft. Leavenworth yesterday included four Chicagoans. They were Mao Hsuieh-Chang, Angelo Perro, Robert Salliker, and Franz Witkenstein. They were convicted in 1914 on a charge of transporting and distributing narcotics. They had served eleven years. Evidence against them was furnished by a fifth member of the gang known as ‘Big Id' Persano, who was given a suspended sentence for his part in their conviction. ‘Big Id' dropped out of sight immediately after the trial. The four ex-convicts plan to return to Chicago.”

Two of the convicts were pictured in the article; one of them was Perro. Pons must have made the rounds of hotels and inns in Wapping, showing Perro's photograph, in order to find him at the “Sailor's Rest.”

“I take it ‘Big Id' was our client's employer,” I said, handing the clipping back to him.

“Precisely.”

“But pray tell me, how did you arrive at Perro as the murderer?”

“Dear me, Parker, surely that is plain as a pikestaff?”

I shook my head. “I should have looked to the Chinaman. The device of the worm is Oriental in concept.”

“An admirable deduction. Quite probably they were all in it together and the worm was the work of the Chinaman. But the murderer was Perro. I fear your education in the Humanities has been sadly neglected.

“The card, which was postmarked but two days after this item appeared in the papers, was an announcement from a friend of Persano's to tell him that the ‘little dog' was free. The ‘little dog' undoubtedly had information about Persano's whereabouts, and knew how to find him, even if Persano perhaps did not realize
how much of his life in London was known in America. Persano understood the card at once.

“Had Perro not wished Persano to know who meant to kill him, I might have had a far more difficult time of it. ‘Little dog catches big cat.' Perro is a little man. Persano was big. Perro is the Spanish for ‘dog.' It should not be necessary to add that Persano is the Spanish for ‘Persian.' And a Persian is a variety of cat.

“An ingenious little puzzle, Parker, however elementary in final analysis.”

THE ENGLISH SOCIAL
historian and author of science and mystery fiction Henry FitzGerald Heard (1889–1971) was born in London, studied at Cambridge University, then turned to writing essays and books on historical, scientific, religious, mystical, cultural, and social subjects, signing them Gerald Heard, the name under which all his nonfiction appeared. He moved to the United States in 1937 to head a commune in California, and later appeared as a character in several Aldous Huxley novels, notably as William Propter, a mystic, in
After Many a Summer Dies the Swan
(1939).

A Taste for Honey
(1941) introduced Mr. Mycroft, a tall, slender gentleman who has retired to Sussex to keep bees. The story is told by Sydney Silchester, a reclusive man who loves honey, which he obtains from Mr. and Mrs. Heregrove, the village beekeepers, until he discovers the lady's body, black and swollen from bee stings. After the coroner's inquest, Silchester turns to Mr. Mycroft for a fresh supply of honey and receives a warning about Heregrove's killer bees.

Anthony Marriott, along with Robert Bloch, the author of
Psycho
(1959) and many other novels and stories, adapted the novel for a truly awful contemporary screenplay titled
The Deadly Bees
(1966). For an episode of television's
The Elgin Hour
, Alvin Sapinsley wrote the script for “Sting of Death,” which starred Boris Karloff as Mr. Mycroft; it aired on February 22, 1955.

Mr. Mycroft appeared in two additional novels by Heard:
Reply Paid
(1942) and
The Notched Hairpin
(1949). Among Heard's other science fiction and mystery novels, perhaps his best-known work is the short story “The President of the U.S.A., Detective,” which won the first prize in
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
's contest in 1947.

“The Enchanted Garden” originally was published in the March 1949 issue of
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

“ ‘
NATURE
'
S A
queer one,' said Mr. Squeers,” I remarked.

“I know what moves you to misquote Dickens,” was Mr. Mycroft's reply.

Here was a double provocation: first, there was the injury of being told that the subject on which one was going to inform someone was already known to him, and secondly, there was the insult that the happy literary quotation with which the information was to be introduced was dismissed as inaccurate. Still it's no use getting irritated with Mr. Mycroft. The only hope was to lure his pride onto the brink of ignorance.

“Then tell me,” I remarked demurely, “what I have just been reading?”

“The sad, and it is to be feared, fatal accident that befell Miss Hetty Hess who is said to be extremely rich, and a ‘colorful personality' and ‘young for her years'—the evidence for these last two statements being a color photograph in the photogravure section of the paper which establishes that her frock made up for its brevity only by the intense virility of its green color.”

I am seldom untruthful deliberately, even when considerably nonplussed; besides it was no use: Mr. Mycroft was as usual one move ahead. He filled in the silence with: “I should have countered that naturalists are the queer ones.”

I had had a moment to recover, and felt that I could retrieve at least a portion of my lost initiative. “But there's no reason to link the accident with the death. The notice only mentions that she had had a fall a few weeks previously. The cause of death was ‘intestinal stasis.' ”

“Cause!” said Mr. Mycroft. He looked and sounded so like an old raven as he put his head on one side and uttered “caws,” that I couldn't help laughing.

“Murder's no laughing matter!” he remonstrated.

“But surely,
cher maître
, you sometimes are unwilling to allow that death can ever be through natural causes!”

“Cause? There's sufficient cause here.”

“
Post hoc, propter hoc
.” I was glad to get off one of my few classic tags. “Because a lady of uncertain years dies considerably
after
a fall from which her doctor vouched there were no immediate ill effects, you would surely not maintain that it was
on account
of the fall that the rhythm of her secondary nervous system struck and stopped for good? And even if it was, who's to blame?”

“Cause.” At this third quothing of the Raven I let my only comment be a rather longer laugh—and waited for my lecture. Mr. Mycroft did not fail me. He went on: “I'll own I know nothing about causality in the outer world, for I believe no one does really. But I have spent my life, not unprofitably, in tracing human causality. As you're fond of Dickens, I'll illustrate from Copperfield's Mr. Dick. The
causes
of King Charles's head coming off may have been due to four inches of iron going through his neck. I feel on safer ground when I say it was due to his failing to get on with his parliament. You say Miss Hess died naturally—that is to say (1) her death, (2) her accident a fortnight before, and
(3) the place where that accident took place, all have only a chance connection. Maybe your case would stand were I not watching
another
line of causality.”

“You mean a motive?”

“Naturally.”

“But motives aren't proof! Or every natural death would be followed by a number of unnatural ones—to wit, executions of executors and legatees!”

“I don't know whether I agree with your rather severe view of human nature. What I do know is that when a death proves to be far too happy an accident for someone who survives, then we old sleuths start with a trail which often ends with our holding proofs that not even a jury can fail to see.”

“Still,” I said, “suspicion can't always be right!”

What had been no more than an after-lunch sparring-match suddenly loomed up as active service with Mr. Mycroft's, “Well, the police agree with you in thinking that there's no proof, and with me in suspecting it
is
murder. That's why I'm going this afternoon to view the scene of the accident, unaccompanied—unless, of course, you would care to accompany me?”

I may sometimes seem vain but I know my uses. So often I get a ringside seat because, as Mr. Mycroft has often remarked, my appearance disarms suspicion.

“We are headed,” Mr. Mycroft resumed as we bowled along in our taxi, “for what I am creditably informed is in both senses of the word a gem of a sanctuary—gem, because it is both small and jewelled.”

We had been swaying and sweeping up one of those narrow rather desolate canyons in southern California through which the famous “Thirteen suburbs in search of a city” have thrust corkscrew concrete highways. The lots became more stately and secluded, the houses more embowered and enwalled, until the ride, the road, and the canyon itself all ended in a portico of such Hispano-Moorish impressiveness that it might have been the entrance to a veritable Arabian Nights Entertainments. There was no one else about, but remarking, “This is Visitors' Day,” Mr. Mycroft alit, told our driver to wait, and strolled up to the heavily grilled gate. One of the large gilt nails which bossed the gate's carved timbers had etched round it in elongated English so as to pretend to be Kufic or at least ordinary Arabic the word PRESS. And certainly it was as good as its word. For not only did the stud sink into the gate, the gate followed suit and sank into the arch, and we strolled over the threshold into as charming an enclosure as I have ever seen. The gate closed softly behind us. Indeed, there was nothing to suggest that we weren't in an enchanted garden. The ground must have risen steeply on either hand. But you didn't see any ground—all manner of hanging vines and flowering shrubs rose in festoons, hanging in garlands, swinging in delicate sprays. The crowds of blossom against the vivid blue sky, shot through by the sun, made the place intensely vivid. And in this web of color, like quick bobbins, the shuttling flight of hummingbirds was everywhere. The place was, in fact, alive with birds. But not a single human being could I see.

Birds are really stupid creatures and their noises, in spite of all the poetry that has been written about them, always seem to me tiring. Their strong point is, of course, plumage. I turned to Mr. Mycroft and remarked that I wished the Polynesian art of making cloaks of birds' feathers had not died out. He said he preferred them alive but that he believed copies of the famous plumage-mantles could now be purchased for those who liked to appear in borrowed plumes.

“This, I understand,” continued Mr. Mycroft, “is supposed to be the smallest and choicest of all the world's bird sanctuaries. It is largely reserved for species of that mysterious living automaton, the hummingbird,” and as was the way with the old bird himself, in a moment he seemed to forget why we were there. First, he scanned the whole place. The steep slopes came down till only a curb-path of marble divided the banks of
flowers from a floor of water. At the farther end of this was a beautiful little statue holding high a lance, all of a lovely, almost peacock-green hue. And from this lance rose a spray of water, a miniature fountain. This little piece of art seemed to absorb him and as he couldn't walk on the water and examine it, he took binoculars from his pocket and scanned it with loving care. Then his mind shifted and slipping the glasses back in his pocket, he gave the same interest to the birds. His whole attention now seemed to be involved with these odd little bird-pellets. Hummingbirds are certainly odd. To insist on flying all the time you are drinking nectar from the deep flask of a flower always seems to me a kind of
tour de force
of pointless energy. In fact, it really fatigues me a little even to watch them. But the general plan of the place was beautiful and restful: there was just this narrow path of marble framing the sheet of water and this wall of flowers and foliage. The path curved round making an oval and at the upper end, balancing the fine Moorish arch through which we had entered, there rose a similar horseshoe arch, charmingly reflected in the water above which it rose. It made a bridge over which one could pass to reach the marble curb on the other side of the water.

“A bower,” remarked Mr. Mycroft. He loitered along, cricking back his neck farther and farther to watch the birds perched on sprays right against the sky. He had now taken a pen from his pocket and was jotting down some ornithological observation. Poor old dear, he never could enjoy but must always be making some blot of comment on the bright mirror of—well, what I mean is that I was really taking it in and he was already busy manufacturing it into some sort of dreary information. And poor Miss Hess, she too must wait till he came back to her actual problem, if indeed there was one.

I watched him as he stepped back to the very edge of the marble curb so that he might better view a spray of deep purple bougainvillea at which a hummingbird was flashing its gorget. Yes, it would have been a pretty enough bit of color contrast, had one had a color camera to snap it, but: I had seen a sign on the gate outside asking visitors not to take photographs. So I watched my master. And having my wits about me I suddenly broke the silence. “Take care,” I shouted. But too late. Mr. Mycroft had in his effort to see what was too high above him stepped back too far. The actual edge of the marble curb must have been slippery from the lapping of the ripples. His foot skidded. He made a remarkable effort to recover. I am not hard-hearted but I could not help tittering as I saw him—more raven-like than ever—flap his arms to regain his balance. And the comic maneuver served perfectly—I mean it still gave me my joke and yet saved him from anything more serious than a loss of gravity. His arms whirled. Pen and paper scrap flew from his hands to join some hummingbirds but the Mycroft frame, under whose over-arching shadow so many great criminals had cowered, collapsed not gracefully but quite safely just short of the water.

I always carry a cane. It gives poise. The piece of paper and even the pen—which was one of those new “light-as-a-feather” plastic things—were bobbing about on the surface. Of course, Mr. Mycroft, who was a little crestfallen at such an absent-minded slip, wouldn't let me help him up. In fact he was up before I could have offered. My only chance of collecting a “Thank-you” was to salvage the flotsam that he had so spontaneously “cast upon the waters.” I fished in both the sopped sheet and the pen, and noticed that Mr. Mycroft had evidently not had time to record the precious natural-history fact that he had gleaned before his lack of hindsight attention parted the great mind and the small sheet. Nor when I handed him back his salvaged apparatus did he do so; instead he actually put both pen and sopped sheet into his pocket. “Shaken,” I said to myself; “there's one more disadvantage of being so high up in the clouds of speculation.”

As we continued on our way along the curb and were approaching the horseshoe Moorish arch-bridge, Mr. Mycroft began to limp. My real fondness for him made me ask, “Have you strained anything?”

Mr. Mycroft most uncharacteristically answered, “I think I will rest for a moment.”

We had reached the place where the level marble curb, sweeping round the end of the pond, rose into the first steps of the flight of stairs that ran up the back of the arch. These stairs had a low, fretted rail. It seemed to me that it might have been higher for safety's sake, but I suppose that would have spoiled the beauty of the arch, making it look too heavy and thick. It certainly was a beautiful piece of work and finished off the garden with charming effectiveness. The steps served Mr. Mycroft's immediate need well enough, just because they were so steep. He bent down and holding the balustrade with his left hand, lowered himself until he was seated. So he was in a kind of stone chair, his back comfortably against the edge of the step above that one on which he sat. And as soon as he was settled down, the dizziness seemed to pass, and his spirits obviously returned to their old bent. He started once more to peek about him. The irrelevant vitality of being interested in anything mounted once again to its usual unusual intensity.

After he had for a few moments been swinging his head about in the way that led to his fall—the way a new-born baby will loll, roll, and goggle at the sky—he actually condescended to draw me into the rather pointless appreciations he was enjoying. “You see, Mr. Silchester, one of their breeding boxes.” He pointed up into the foliage, which here rose so high that it reared a number of feet above the highest pitch of the arch.

“Surely,” I asked, for certainly it is always safer with Mr. Mycroft to offer information armored in question form, “surely breeding boxes are no new invention?”

Mr. Mycroft's reply was simply, “No, of course not,” and then he became vague.

I thought: Now he'll start making notes again. But no, poor old pride-in-perception was evidently more shaken by his fall than I'd thought. I felt a real sympathy for him, as I stood at a little distance keeping him under observation but pretending to glance at the scene which, though undoubtedly pretty, soon began to pall for really it had no more sense or story about it than a kaleidoscope. Poor old thing, I repeated to myself, as out of the corner of my eye, I saw him let that big cranium hang idly. But the restless, nervous energy still fretted him. Though his eyes were brooding out of focus, those long fingers remained symptomatic of his need always to be fiddling and raveling with something. How important it is, I reflected, to learn young how to idle well. Now, poor old dear, he just can't rest. Yes, Britain can still teach America something: a mellow culture knows how to meander; streams nearer their source burst and rush and tumble.

The Mycroft fingers were running to and fro along the curb of the step against which he was resting his back. I thought I ought to rouse him. He must be getting his fingernails into a horrid condition as they aimlessly scraped along under that ledge and the very thought even of someone rasping and soiling his nails sets my teeth on edge.