Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (8 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“Or rather, I fancy, of that goose.
It was one bird, I imagine, in which you were interested—white, with a black
bar across the tail.”

Ryder quivered with emotion. “Oh,
sir,” he cried, “can you tell me where it went to?”

“It came here.”

“Here?”

“Yes. and a most remarkable bird it
proved. I don’t wonder that you should take an interest in it. It laid an egg
after it was dead—the bonniest, brightest little blue egg that ever was seen. I
have it here in my museum.”

Our visitor staggered to his feet
and clutched the mantelpiece with his right hand. Holmes unlocked his strongbox
and held up the blue carbuncle, which shone out like a star, with a cold,
brilliant, many-pointed radiance. Ryder stood glaring with a drawn face,
uncertain whether to claim or to disown it.

“The game’s up, Ryder,” said Holmes
quietly. “Hold up, man, or you’ll be into the fire! Give him an arm back into
his chair, Watson. He’s not got blood enough to go in for felony with impunity.
Give him a dash of brandy. So! Now he looks a little more human. What a shrimp
it is, to be sure!”

For a moment he had staggered and
nearly fallen, but the brandy brought a tinge of colour into his cheeks, and he
sat staring with frightened eyes at his accuser.

“I have almost every link in my
hands, and all the proofs which I could possibly need, so there is little which
you need tell me. Still, that little may as well be cleared up to make the case
complete. You had heard, Ryder, of this blue stone of the Countess of Morcar’s?

“It was Catherine Cusack who told me
of it.” said he in a crackling voice.

“I see—her ladyship’s waiting-maid.
Well, the temptation of sudden wealth so easily acquired was too much for you,
as it has been for better men before you; but you were not very scrupulous in
the means you used. It seems to me, Ryder, that there is the making of a very
pretty villain in you. You knew that this man Horner, the plumber, had been concerned
in some such matter before, and that suspicion would rest the more readily upon
him. What did you do, then? You made some small job in my lady’s room—you and
your confederate Cusack—and you managed that he should be the man sent for.
Then, when he had left, you rifled the jewel-case, raised the alarm, and had
this unfortunate man arrested. You then—”

Ryder threw himself down suddenly
upon the rug and clutched at my companion’s knee. “For God’s sake, have mercy!”
he shrieked. “Think of my father! of my mother! It would break their hearts. I
never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I’ll swear it on a
Bible. Oh, don’t bring it into court! For Christ’s sake, don’t!”

“Get back into your chair!” said
Holmes sternly. “It is very well to cringe and crawl now, but you thought
little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew
nothing.”

“I will fly, Mr. Holmes. I will
leave the country, sir. Then the charge against him will break down.”

“Hum! We will talk about that. And
now let us hear a true account of the next act. How came the stone into the
goose, and how came the goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for
there lies your only hope of safety.”

Ryder passed his tongue over his
parched lips. “I will tell you it just as it happened, sir,” said he. “When
Horner had been arrested, it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get
away with the stone at once, for I did not know at what moment the police might
not take it into their heads to search me and my room. There was no place about
the hotel where it would be safe. I went out, as if on some commission, and I
made for my sister’s house. She had married a man named Oakshott, and lived in
Brixton Road, where she fattened fowls for the market. All the way there every
man I met seemed to me to be a policeman or a detective: and, for all that it
was a cold night, the sweat was pouring down my face before I came to the
Brixton Road. My sister asked me what was the matter, and why I was so pale;
but I told her that I had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel. Then I
went into the back yard and smoked a pipe, and wondered what it would be best
to do.”

“I had a friend once called
Maudsley, who went to the bad, and has just been serving his time in
Pentonville. One day he had met me, and fell into talk about the ways of
thieves, and how they could get rid of what they stole. I knew that he would be
true to me, for I knew one or two things about him; so I made up my mind to go
right on to Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my confidence. He would
show me how to turn the stone into money. But how to get to him in safety? I
thought of the agonies I had gone through in coming from the hotel. I might at
any moment be seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my waistcoat
pocket. I was leaning against the wall at the time and looking at the geese
which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly an idea came into my head
which showed me how I could beat the best detective that ever lived.”

“My sister had told me some weeks
before that I might have the pick of her geese for a Christmas present, and I
knew that she was always as good as her word. I would take my goose now, and in
it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in the yard, and
behind this I drove one of the birds—a fine big one, white, with a barred tail.
I caught it, and, prying its bill open, I thrust the stone down its throat as
far as my finger could reach. The bird gave a gulp, and I felt the stone pass
along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature flapped and
struggled, and out came my sister to know what was the matter. As I turned to
speak to her the brute broke loose and fluttered off among the others.”

‘Whatever were you doing with that
bird. Jem?’ says she.

‘Well.’ said I, ‘you said you’d give
me one for Christmas, and I was feeling which was the fattest.’

‘Oh,’ says she, ‘we’ve set yours
aside for you—Jem’s bird, we call it. It’s the big white one over yonder. There’s
twenty-six of them, which makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen for
the market.’

‘Thank you, Maggie,’ says I; ‘but if
it is all the same to you, I’d rather have that one I was handling just now.’

‘The other is a good three pound
heavier,’ said she, ‘and we fattened it expressly for you.’

‘Never mind. I’ll have the other,
and I’ll take it now,’ said I.

‘Oh. just as you like.’ said she, a
little huffed. ‘Which is it you want, then?’

‘That white one with the barred
tail, right in the middle of the flock.’

‘Oh. very well. Kill it and take it
with you.’

“Well, I did what she said, Mr.
Holmes, and I carried the bird all the way to Kilburn. I told my pal what I had
done, for he was a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He
laughed until he choked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. My heart
turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I knew that some
terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird, rushed back to my sister’s, and
hurried into the back yard. There was not a bird to be seen there.”

‘Where are they all, Maggie?’ I
cried.

‘Gone to the dealer’s, Jem.’

‘Which dealer’s?’

‘Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.’

‘But was there another with a barred
tail?’ I asked, ‘the same as the one I chose?’

‘Yes, Jem; there were two
barred-tailed ones, and I could never tell them apart.’

“Well, then, of course I saw it all,
and I ran off as hard as my feet would carry me to this man Breckinridge; but
he had sold the lot at once, and not one word would he tell me as to where they
had gone. You heard him yourselves tonight. Well, he has always answered me
like that. My sister thinks that I am going mad. Sometimes I think that I am
myself. And now—and now I am myself a branded thief, without ever having
touched the wealth for which I sold my character. God help me! God help me!” He
burst into convulsive sobbing, with his face buried in his hands.

There was a long silence, broken
only by his heavy breathing, and by the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes’s
finger-tips upon the edge of the table. Then my friend rose and threw open the
door.

“Get out!” said he.

“What, sir! Oh, Heaven bless you!”

“No more words. Get out!”

And no more words were needed. There
was a rush, a clatter upon the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle
of running footfalls from the street.

“After all, Watson,” said Holmes,
reaching up his hand for his clay pipe, “I am not retained by the police to
supply their deficiencies. If Horner were in danger it would be another thing;
but this fellow will not appear against him, and the case must collapse. I
suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving
a soul. This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly frightened.
Send him to jail now, and you make him a jail-bird for life. Besides, it is the
season of forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical
problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you will have the goodness to
touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin another investigation, in which, also, a
bird will be the chief feature.”

“I’ve just told Fettle
about the will.

Like so many Americans, my sole
acquaintance with wassail was through the song “Wassail, Wassail, all over the
town,” and occasional mention of a wassail bowl. As neither my parents nor
their friends seemed to partake of wassail at Christmas, I came to suspect it
was either lewd, illegal, or at the very least, unsanitary.

Egg Nog was always the drink on hand
at Christmastime. Although there might be some dispute as to whether it should
be spiked with rum or brandy, there was always a dash of nutmeg on top to give
it some spice.

I have since read of a lady in
Brixton who added ground glass to her nogs to give them some tang, but I think
this is generally to be avoided, unless you have a limited amount and wish to
discourage seconds.

The gentleman pictured discovered
that an extract of mistletoe berries gave egg nog a certain festive quality. So
successful was his recipe, that he was persuaded to enter it in a Festival of
Britain Cookery competition where he was given first prize and ‘the Chair.’

Her heroes were an eccentric windbag
and a meddlesome old lady. Her writing seldom got more violent than a good bump
on the head. She was hopelessly unconvincing describing anyone under thirty.
And her approach to sex and passion was that of two arthritic porcupines
mating. Yet she was the most successful author of mystery stories that the
world has yet produced.

What made Agatha Christie the
writing phenomenon of her time? Plotting. No one could wring as many
possibilities out of a murder as she. And, because she couched them all in
cozy, English gentility, she caught her reader napping, more often than not.

When “The Adventure of the Christmas
Pudding” (also called “The Theft of the Royal Ruby”) was first collected, she
included an introductory memoir. The story, prefaced by her remarks, begins on
the next page.