by Barry Day
“Young Sigmund Freud was doing some fascinating work in this area of—‘schizophrenia’, I believe he called it at the end of my time in practice. He would have relished this case. I don’t know if you ever met him, Watson? Ah well, it is of no matter.
“Alas, the dark power was the stronger, as it so often is, and from that point the outcome was inevitable. But try and remember Anna Kane, Watson. In her own way she was every bit as real as Nana and she clearly felt some affinity for you, felt that you might be able to help her. And had things been otherwise—who knows? But seeing her lover lost to her …”
We sat in silence for a few moments and I noticed the first tentative fingers of dawn toying with the venetian blind.
“But the Bird, Holmes. Where is the Bird?”
“Where it has been all along, my dear fellow. And where you will discover it when you have had some sleep. No …” he raised his hand in protest, as I started to get up— “on this occasion I am your medical advisor. And besides, it is not going to fly away, I promise you.”
And with that, he folded his hands in front of him, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. I could tell from a contented whiffling sound that Mike was already in doggie dreamland, no doubt fantasizing about which other human body parts he could append himself to, Dog-on-the-Arm having been such a palpable hit. Come to think of it, I was feeling more than a little sleepy mys …
Sixteen
I must have slept through the phone, for when I came to, the red message light was blinking like the flasher on a blue and white. All that was missing was the siren.
I immediately thought ‘McNulty’ but McNulty could never aspire to those modulated tones.
“My dear Mr. Watson, I am merely calling to inquire after your wellbeing. It was as much as I could do to prevent my more proactive colleagues from joining in the general mayhem. But once it became clear that the Bird had flown, shall we say, there seemed little point. You did your best, my dear sir, and for that I am truly grateful.
“As you Americans say—rather pointlessly, I might add—‘You win a few, you lose a few.’ A sentiment worthy of a fortune cookie—or even the blessed Confuscius. Oh, and what is that other saying—‘The beat goes on’?”
The second call was McNulty.
“Funny thing. Our pal Nicky was being bugged. Neat little number under his lapel. Know anything about it?”
Know anything about it? Did fortune cookies have mottoes? Did chopsticks come in pairs?
Then the dial tone took over.
“A patient people, the Chinese. I hardly think we need concern ourselves on Mr. Chan’s behalf. And now, Watson, if you are ready. You can, as you are fond of saying, grab a cup of coffee on the way.”
“The way to where?”
“The emporium of Quentin Mallory, of course …”
My shoulder was stiff but I could manage to drive. I thought of it as a war wound. Would it play up in wet weather, so that I could grimace bravely and win the sympathetic attention of lovely women? I somehow doubted it.
Mallory’s showroom had the deserted look of a film set that is about to be dismantled and taken to the back lot for storage until someone wanted to remake one of those Universal house of horror movies.
The impression was only heightened when the door swung open as soon as I pulled up and there was Igor—I mean Petit—standing in the doorway. He rushed over to help me out of the Corvette and was positively solicitous.
“Oh, Mr. Watson, thank heaven you’re still with us. I’m not very brave and when the shooting started, I’m afraid I ran. Then I told myself—‘Mr. Watson is doing this to help your old friend’. So I went back and helped the police clear up. You did a fine thing, sir, and on behalf of the late Mr. Mallory and myself, I thank you.”
He gave his formal little bow and held out his hand. I shook it awkwardly with my left. Then we both bowed. Nothing like old world courtesy.
“I know why you’re here. You think the Bird must be here and you may well be right. But I’ve looked everywhere all over again since I got back and I know every inch of this place.
“Mallory was affected by it, just like everyone else. We made these copies of it—several of them. Some were only intended as approximate replicas and nobody could have been fooled by those. But as he got into it, he had me make a few that were so close to look at that I flatter myself they would have deceived anyone but the original artist.
“One was for Kane, of course, his doppelganger Bird, so to speak. The other Mr. Mallory wanted for himself. I could hear him talking to it, when he thought he was alone. I though it was sort of a consolation prize after he had to return the original to Kane. But now I’m thinking maybe the clever old devil never did return the original. Maybe he kept it like Kane and gloated over it in secret. Nobody could see it but him and nobody knew he had it. I’ve heard of collectors who do that.”
Holmes’s voice was close to my ear.
“Suggest he looks through the showroom again and you’ll look in the workshop.”
That seemed to make sense to Petit and off he went. A moment later I could hear him rummaging around in the next room.
“What now, Holmes?”
“As I told you, old fellow, I cannot solve the problem for you. I can merely point you in a certain direction. There is a nice irony here, for the solution is one that nearly eluded me in one of my past cases. You will remember it as ‘The Musgrave Ritual’ …”
“The one where you found the burial site of the ancient crown of England?”
“Excellent, Watson. Just so. The old manuscript that contained the doggerel verse gave precise measurements leading to the treasure which I followed carefully—and found myself at a dead end. Hold on to that fact.
“Now—do you recall that when Mallory was talking about himself that day, he made a rather obscure reference … think, old fellow, think!”
I could see that elegant, elongated figure as he teased Petit. Now, what was it he’d said? I remember it had seemed the affected imagery of an old queen.
Suddenly it came to me.
“He said something about being ‘Caesar’s wife’. No, he said that, when it came to secrets, he was the opposite of Caesar’s wife.”
“And Caesar’s wife was …?” Holmes prompted.
“‘Above reproach’.”
“Which means …?”
“Mallory was beneath!”
“Capital, old fellow!”
“And in the Musgrave Ritual, I remember now. You had followed all the instructions, except for the three last words, which didn’t seem to mean anything. ‘And then under.’ The treasure was at the point you had reached but under your feet.
“So the Bird is beneath—but beneath what?”
“What was Mallory’s actual phrase?”
I racked my brain again and then I heard Mallory say—‘I think I’m safe in saying that’. His safe, of course. But his safe had been ransacked and there was clearly nothing there. What else was it he’d said? “Surface impressions can be deceptive.”
Then all the pieces fell into place and I saw where Holmes had been leading me. From somewhere I suddenly had total recall of the Musgrave case, almost as if I had written the account myself.
‘And then under’ had been the three words that unlocked that secret—just as ‘beneath’ was the key to this one.
Mallory had hidden the Bird underneath his safe! Where do you hide a leaf? In the forest. Where do you hide something precious when your safe isn’t safe? In the last place anyone would think of looking, because lightning isn’t supposed to strike in the same place twice. Oh, no?
“Mr. Grandhomme,” I called out, “I wonder if I could enlist your services for a moment?”
I heard the sound of small feet scurrying as I moved over to the safe. Holmes was already there when I reached it, smiling lik
e a teacher whose backward pupil had finally got the hang of quadratic equations. It stood in a corner with its mouth hanging open and its contents of papers regurgitated on the floor in front of it.
‘Anna/Nana Kane’, went through my mind. She made him open it and when she found it empty, she shot him.
Holmes seemed to have read my thoughts.
“Does it not strike you as strange, Watson, that a woman will take endless trouble over her toilette, so that when she steps out to face the world she looks the picture of perfection? Yet, invariably what she leaves behind her in her dressing room is another picture—one of sheer devastation. One of these days you must explain that phenomenon to me, old fellow. Ah, here is Mr. Grandhomme.”
I explained to Petit what I wished to achieve and what an odd sight we must have made as we struggled to move that safe off its concrete base. Petit straining his whole diminutive body and me with my one arm. I had almost given up, when inch by inch I felt it begin to slide. With one final effort it began to tip and, finally, its own momentum caused it to fall on to its back, its mouth agape, looking as exhausted as we both felt.
There, in the center of the concrete, was the outline of a small trap door with a ring pull set flush into it. Before I could stop him or say a word, Petit had it in both hands and was pulling it back towards him, a magician demonstrating his crowning trick.
I could feel myself holding my breath as a golden glow started to rise from the depths of that cavity and it would not have surprised me if a live phoenix had slowly flapped its wings in flight and soared over our heads.
Instead I knelt and reached down with my left hand to retrieve the object that had caused the violent death of so many people.
Nicky had chosen to enshroud his Bird to protect it from prying eyes. Mallory, having got it, preferred to flaunt his. He had even had the conceit of having the Bird sit on a nest of gold lamé, so that it appeared to be rising from the lick of flames. The man had had a certain taste—a little outre, perhaps, but taste, nonetheless.
I held it up to the light coming into the workroom from the skylight and the ruby eyes seemed to glare right through me. ‘So who are you?’ they asked ‘and how dare you invade my privacy?’
“I wouldn’t get too close, Watson,” Holmes said warningly. “Remember, the Bird’s kiss is supposed to spell death. A fanciful description, I dare say, but clearly not without some foundation. I see a box over on the counter that should serve as a cage for the last part of our journey.”
“And where does that take us, Holmes?” I said aloud and much to Petit’s surprise.
“Why, back to where we came in, old fellow. To Osgood Kane’s.”
I have always believed in the genius loci—the spirit of the place—and the genius of Kane Towers was distinctly pissed off this morning.
Although the place was stiff with moving bodies, the house itself had a For Sale feel about it. Somebody was making sure all the physical pieces were in place but the house knew. It was simply going through the motions and holding its breath until the moving men came by.
Today I left Mike in the car. The visit would not be of prolonged duration and, besides, he’s very sensitive to atmosphere.
The Jeeves character was doing door duty again but even he seemed to have lost some of his previous luster. The previously taut waistcoat seemed distinctly baggy today, as though someone had let some of the air out of him. I suppose to lose both ladies of the house in one fell swoop—the one by the hand of the other—and then have the Master returned like a sack of rotting potatoes is not exactly designed to boost staff morale.
This time we were taken by the short route. On the corner of the stairs we passed the portrait of the young Kane, caught in a random ray of sunlight that—now that I knew the man’s background—seemed to create some sort of wishful statement about the glorification of the Aryan race.
What was left of Kane was arranged once more in the Aviary. There was the wheelchair in its preordained place. There were the flocks of birds, wheeling, shrieking and generally doing what birds are destined to do. And there was Kane, propped up with pillows, the eyes dull and the claws of hands still on the arm rests. A slight twitch on the good side of his face was the only sign that he was aware of my presence.
No sophisticated patter today. I hoped that everything Osgood Kane had to say had already been said, because there were no more words where they came from—just a few mewling sounds that meant nothing.
Slowly he inched his head round to face me and I saw something in his eyes that gave me the shivers. It was fear. Not an emotion he had had much to do with, I fancied. And then I realized why. The essence of Osgood Kane was still there, trapped in this treacherous carcass that now frustrated his simplest desires. It was a fitting punishment for someone who had treated the lives of others so lightly and I hoped it would continue long enough for him to learn at least that lesson.
We looked at one another for a long moment. I had little enough to say and he had nothing. Which suited me just fine.
I took the Borgia Bird from its box and placed it in his hand, wrapping the fingers around it, so that it wouldn’t fall. Then I stepped back and looked at this pathetic tableau.
So this is what it had all been about. A vicious old man and a chunk of malignant metal. They deserved each other. Now they could have each other.
“And that, Mr. Kane, concludes our business. Have a good life!”
And with that, I turned on my heel and made for the door, where Holmes was already waiting. Behind me, I heard what I could have sworn was a liquid crooning sound.
“Elegantly handled, Watson,” said Holmes. Then, as I was about to open the double doors, he raised a hand, indicating that I should wait for a moment more. From where we stood we could no longer see Kane, merely hear the sub-human noises he was making over his prodigal Bird.
But suddenly the noise changed dramatically. The crooning turned into a highpitched screech that came from no bird ever seen on land or sea. On it went and on and the rest of the birds fell silent.
“The Kiss of death, I fancy, old fellow. You remember our Chinese friend told you of the Bird’s secret mechanism? It would seem that Kane now knows that secret but I’m afraid that—like its previous owners—he will not be passing it on.
“And now I think we may take our leave …”
The cacophony of the birds resumed as if on cue. In the midst of death life goes on in their world.
The butler was not in attendance as we closed the outer door behind us. Perhaps he had not heard the passing of Osgood Kane. Perhaps he had simply not wanted to acknowledge it. Perhaps he was busy polishing up his resumé. In any event, Holmes and I were free to stroll back down those cheerless corridors.
Now that it was all over, I was frankly feeling a little down. I suppose I had solved the case—with more than a little help from Holmes—but the cost in terms of human life and happiness weighed upon me. Perhaps taxidermy would be a suitable alternative occupation after all. At least your clients started out dead!
Holmes seemed to read my mood.
“I know how you feel, old fellow. Once or twice in my career I feel I may have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. But that is not true in this case. You have helped achieve something the law would have failed to do. You have brought about that little thing called—Justice.”
There was to be one more postscript that will not go into my account, should I ever write it.
We were passing Kane’s portrait once more, when Holmes stopped for some reason and moved up close to it. Then I saw him frame the face with his hands, obliterating the rest of the body and background. Even though his own body was insubstantial, it still served to crop the picture, so that only the center of the face was now visible.
“My eyes have been trained to examine faces and not their trimmings,” I hear
d him say.
“Oh, my God!” I heard myself say.
I was looking at the face of Nicky Parmentieri!
“A Greek tragedy, Watson. I do declare, a veritable Greek tragedy. Nicky was clearly the other twin. Kane dispatched him and put the child out of his mind. He no longer existed. The last thing he expected was that the boy should acquire another and even more deadly family and then come back to plague him—in total ignorance, of course, about his own parentage.
“Then—confusion worse confounded—brother and sister meet and feel the strong empathy that often exists between twin siblings. Not knowing that they are, in fact, committing incest, they become lovers. Perhaps Nana in her already disturbed mental state begins to have some premonition that something is wrong but Nicky certainly does not. He takes his pleasures lightly and wherever he can find them. His true father’s true son. He moves on to his surrogate mother. I tell you, Watson, if Euripides had ever devised such a plot, it would have transformed classical theatre.
“And then the Eumenides arrive—in the shape of Watson and Holmes—summoned up by Kane of all people. And thus the tragic outcome we have just witnessed became inevitable. Pity and terror, old fellow. The Unities. Catharsis.”
It took a few moments for it all to sink in and then I said—
“The only consolation, Holmes, is that none of them knew what they had done.”
“I imagine you have observed, Watson, the plethora of gardeners Mr. Kane has working on his property this morning? The fact that they appear without exception to be of an Oriental persuasion is surely a tribute to the horticultural skills of that ingenious race.”
Epilogue
We were driving along with the top of the Corvette down to take advantage of the late sun.
Mike was leaning out to scrutinize passers-by for criminal tendencies.