The Sherlock Holmes Megapack: 25 Modern Tales by Masters: 25 Modern Tales by Masters (17 page)

Surely the intention had been to force from him the location of the fabled golden bird. Marks upon his torso were enough to sicken the viewer, while the final, fatal attack had come in the form of a sharpened blade drawn across his belly, exposing his vital organs and inducing the ultimate exsanguination.

Her Grace the Duchess had been treated in similar fashion. I will not describe the indignities which had been visited upon her. One prayed only that her more delicate frame had reached its limits and that she had been granted the mercy of a death more rapid and less agonizing than that of her husband.

Horses and dogs, like the human inhabitants of the estate, lay at random, slaughtered every one.

“Is this the work of Señor Cabrera and his men?” I asked.

“More likely of the servants of Isabella,” my guest replied. “The deaths of these unfortunate persons and their beasts are to be regretted, but of immediate concern is the whereabouts of the bird.” He stood over first one cadaver, then another, studying them as would a student of medicine the dissected remains of a beast.

“It appears unlikely that the secret was divulged,” he suggested at length. “Obviously the Duke was tortured and dispatched first, for such a nobleman as he would not have permitted his lady to be treated as we see her to have been. Nor, I would infer, did the Duchess know the whereabouts of the bird, for once her husband was deceased, she would have had no reason to protect the secret. On the contrary, having presumably seen her attackers, she would have sought to survive in order to exact revenge for the murder of her husband.”

His callous attitude toward the carnage we had only just beheld was appalling, but then the English are known to a cold-blooded race, and it may be that this Englishman felt a degree of sympathy and outrage that he did not show. Very well, then. When the hackman returned for us on the morrow, I would inform the mayor of the village of Lagny of our terrible discovery. The brutal criminals responsible would be sought and, one hoped, brought to face their fate beneath the guillotine in due course. But my guest was right, at least to the extent that our own presence at the Chateau de Lagny had been brought about by the report of the presence of the bird.

We would seek it, and if it was here, I knew that we would find it.

“Let us proceed to locate the golden bird,” I announced to my guest. “So splendid an object should be conspicuous to the eye of anyone save a blind man.”

“Perhaps not,” the Englishman demurred. “I will confess, my dear Dupin, that I have withheld from you one item in the history and description of the bird.”

I demanded that he enlighten me at once, and in what for him passed for a direct response, he complied. “You have doubtlessly noticed that in my descriptions of the bird I have referred to it both as golden and as black.”

“I have done so, sir. You may in fact recall my bringing this discrepancy to your attention, and your pledge to reconcile the conflicting descriptions. If you please, this would seem an excellent time to do so.”

“Very well, then. The bird as originally created by the captive Turkish craftsmen, of solid gold virtually encrusted with precious stones, was considered too attractive a target. At some point in its history—I confess to ignorance of the exact date—it was coated in a black substance, a thick, tarry pigment, so that it now resembles nothing more than a sculpture of ebony in the form of a standing hawk.”

“What leads you to believe that the bird is still in the chateau? Even if the Duke and Duchess died without revealing the secret of its hiding place to their enemies, those villains might still have searched the chateau until they found the bird. But look about you, sir, and you will see that we are surrounded by a scene not merely of carnage, but of despoliation. It is obvious that the chateau has been ransacked. You did not yourself know of the bird’s hiding place? Your employers did not inform you?”

“My employers did not themselves know the hiding place. It was the Duke himself who chose that, after the messengers had left.”

“Then for all we know, the bird has flown.”

“No, sir.” The Englishman shook his head. “By the condition of the bodies, even in winter, this horror occurred at least four days ago, before I left London. I would have received word had the villains succeeded. They have committed these horrendous crimes in vain. You may rest assured that the bird is still here. But where?”

“Let us consider,” I suggested. “The interior of the chateau and even, to the extent that we have searched, of the outbuildings, have been torn apart. Furniture is demolished, pictures and tapestries torn from walls. The Duke’s library has been despoiled, his priceless collection of ancient manuscripts and rare volumes reduced to worthless rubble. Even a suit of ancient armour has been thrown from its stand so that it lies in pieces upon the flagging. The invaders of the chateau may be monsters, but they are not unintelligent nor yet are they lacking in thoroughness.”

I paused, awaiting further comment by the Englishman, but none was forthcoming. I observed him closely and perceived that he was perspiring freely and that he alternately clenched and loosened his fists almost as one suffering a fit.

“If the bird is still on the estate,” I resumed, “yet it is not within the chateau or its outbuildings, logic dictates its location to us. Consider this, young man. We have eliminated the partial contents of our list of possibilities. Having done so, we are drawn irresistibly to the conclusion that the remaining possibilities must contain the solution to our puzzle. Do you follow the thread of ratiocination which I have laid before you?”

He seemed to relax, as if the fit had passed. He drew a cloth from a pocket of his costume and wiped the perspiration from his brow. He acknowledged the irrefutable nature of my argument.

“But,” he continued, “I fail to see the next step in your procedure.”

“You disappoint me,” I uttered. “Very well. If you will please follow me.” I retreated to the main entry hall of the chateau, and thence to the terrace outside. I proceeded still farther, my boots leaving a trail behind me in the heavy dew that had accumulated upon the lush lawn surrounding the chateau. The moon had attained fullness, and the sky above Lagny was even more impressive than that above the metropolis had been.

“Look upon the chateau,” I instructed my pupil, for I had so come to regard the Englishman.

He stood beside me and gazed at the structure, its stone pediments rendered in pale chiaroscuro by the light streaming from the heavens. “What see you?” I asked him.

“Why, the Chateau de Lagny,” he replied at once.

“Indeed. What else do you see?”

The young Englishman pursed his lips with the appearance of impatience. “Only that, sir. The stable and other outbuildings are concealed by the bulk of the chateau.”

“Indeed,” I nodded. I spoke no more, awaiting further comment by the other. There ensued a lengthy silence.

Finally, in a tone of impatience, my student spoke once more. “The lawn before the chateau. The woods which surround us. The moon, the stars. A tiny cloud in the southwest.”

I nodded. “Very good. More.”

“For the love of God, Dupin, what more is there to see?”

“Only that which is vital to our mission,” I replied.

As I watched, the Englishman raised his eyes once more, then froze. “I see a row of birds perched upon the parapet of the chateau.”

“My good fellow!” I exclaimed, “it appears now possible that you may have the makings of a detective. Further, I urge you, do not satisfy yourself with merely seeing, but observe, observe, observe, and report!”

He stood silent and motionless for some time, then took an action which won my admiration. Although we stood ankle-deep in the dew-soaked grass before the chateau, there was nearby a driveway used by carriages approaching and departing the estate. Our own cabman had followed this path, and it was my expectation that he would utilize it once more upon his return for us in the morning.

The Englishman strode to the driveway, bent, and lifted a handful of gravel. He threw back his cape so as to free his arm and flung the gravel at the birds perched upon the parapet. I was impressed by the strength and accuracy of his arm.

With an angry outcry several of the birds flew from their perch. They were silhouetted against the night sky, their form limned in a drab black against the glittering stars and clear darkness of the heavens. One of them passed across the face of the full, brilliant moon, its widespread wings and the shining disk behind it creating the illusion that the bird was as large as the legendary Pegasus.

My student and I remained motionless, observing the behaviour of the aerial creatures. They were more annoyed than frightened by the clattering pebbles, or so I inferred, for it took mere moments for the plurality of the creatures to return to their former places, midst an audible flapping of feathery wings and grumbling calls.

The Englishman bent and lifted another handful of gravel, drew back his arm and flung the stones at the birds. Once more his action evoked an angry response, most of the birds crying out in annoyance and flapping away from their perch. By now the solution to the mystery of the missing hawk was apparent.

“Good work,” I congratulated my student. “It is clear that you have grasped the difference between observing and merely seeing, and have observed that which is necessary to locate your prey.”

A small indication of pleasure made itself visible upon his face, the momentary upward twitching of the corners of his mouth by a few millimeters. Without uttering a word he seated himself upon the grass and proceeded to remove his boots and stockings. I watched in equal silence as he strode to the outer wall of the chateau.

It has been my expectation that he would return to the interior of the structure and seek access to the roof by means of interior staircases. Instead, to my amazement, after studying the wall with its closely fitted stones and creeping ivy, he proceeded to climb the exterior of the chateau, using his powerful fingers and almost orangutan-like toes to assure his grasp. As he advanced his cape flapped about his form like two huge wings.

As he approached the parapet he called out to the winged creatures perched there, making a peculiar sound unlike any I had previously heard. Without preliminary, the avians watching his advance extended their wings and rose from the chateau, disappearing into the blackness that surrounded them. All save one. A single bird remained stationary, silhouetted against the starry domain.

The strange, almost inhuman, being into which my erstwhile visitor had transformed himself, perched now beside the sole remaining avian, so high above the earth that a single slip, I could see, would plunge him to a certain doom. Yet no sound reached me from this strange personage, nor any indication of fear.

He lifted the unmoving bird from its place and in a moment it disappeared beneath his cloak. I could only infer that he had come prepared with an extra section of leather belting or rope, concealed until now by his outer garments.

Then as I stood aghast, he lowered himself to lie flat upon the parapet, then reached over its edge to gain a handhold on the stone wall, then slid from his safe perch and proceeded to climb down the wall of the chateau, headfirst, the bird secured beneath his clothing. His appearance, for all the world, was that of a gigantic bat.

When he reached the greensward he righted himself and drew the bird from beneath his cape. “I thank you, my dear Dupin, for the lessons you have given me, equally in observation and in deduction. Our prey is recovered.”

So saying he held the black bird toward me. Even through its black coating I could make out the shape of its feathers, its claws, its beak, its eyes. It was clearly a magnificent example of the sculptor’s art. My student asked me to hold the figurine while he once more donned his stockings and boots. The weight of the black bird was so great that I felt even greater astonishment at his ability to descend the wall of the chateau with it strapped beneath his clothing.

We spent what little remained of the night exploring the interior of the chateau, utilizing torches which remained from that sad structure’s happier era. The only clues that we uncovered were further evidence of the brutality of the invaders who had slaughter the Duke and Duchess as well as their retainers, all in a futile attempt to learn the whereabouts of the treasure which my pupil and I now possessed.

With morning our hackman arrived, somewhat the worse for wear and—one inferred—for the consumption of excessive amounts of spirit.

I instructed him to take us to the village of Lagny, where we concealed the bird inside the boot of the hack, promising the hackman a generous tip in exchange for his silence. We thereupon made a full report of our gory findings at the chateau, making no mention of the bird. The reason we gave for our visit to the chateau was the truthful one that I was an old acquaintance of the Duke and Duchess and had been eager to introduce to them my visitor from England.

The mayor of the village of Lagny and the
chef des gendarmes
were duly horrified by our descriptions, but permitted us to depart for Paris upon our pledge to provide what information and assistance we could, should these be called for at a later stage of their investigation.

In due course, the hack pulled up at my lodgings in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. A light snow had fallen in the metropolis, and I picked my way carefully to my door lest I slip and fall to the stones. Exhausted by the activities of the past day and night, I turned my key in the lock of my lodgings and pushed the door open so that my guest and I might enter. When we did so we were confronted by an unanticipated sight. My quarters had been ransacked. Furniture was overturned, drawers were pulled from their places and inverted upon the floor. The carpeting had been torn up and rolled back to permit a search for trapdoors or loosened boards.

Every picture was pulled from the wall and thrown to the floor, including that of my friend and idol, the great Vidocq. Shocked and offended by the invasion of my quarters I proceeded to examine their contents, assessing the damage and grieving for the destruction of precious mementos of a long career. I clutched my head and expostulated my outrage.