The Empty Birdcage

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  As he and Huan drove off, Sherlock mentally tucked away Percy Butcher’s dog and the crow-like bird, for he could not as yet formulate anything substantial. Better to retread additional facts that he had gleaned from Daniel at The Cross Guns, in exchange for Huan’s performance.

  Butcher had fallen on his left side, his left hand most likely rising to the back of his head as he did so. Had Butcher been left-handed? Daniel had not known, and neither had the others at the table, but Sherlock’s guess was no.

  “If he fell to the left, then it stands to reason that he was struck on the right,” he said as the carriage made its way to Chichester, their next destination some ninety miles southeast, where Penny Montgomery had perished. “And as the door to the stable was on his right…”

  Huan pulled his cap down low to protect himself against the drizzle that had just begun to fall and reminded Sherlock in a weary voice: “The hit, Master Sherlock, does not cause them to turn this way or that. You yourself said so.”

  Sherlock wrapped his arms about his torso, lifted his shoulders, and tucked in his head like a condor, as if any of those activities could mitigate the annoying mist.

  “Indeed,” he agreed. “I do not believe it causes propulsion, as such. But you know better than most that it is still human nature, when one feels so much as a pinprick, to move the body away from the offense while moving the hand towards it, as balm or defense against further injury.

  “Butcher, from what we were told last night,” he went on, “was a hefty, muscular fellow. If indeed it was poison that felled him, as I surmise, it would take a bit more time to have its effect… long enough for him to raise a protective hand. Whereas ten-year-old Abigail Sykes ‘crumpled like a stone,’ in her mother’s words. The poison affected her so quickly that she simply spun and fell.”

  “Yes,” Huan assented with a nod. “Any move that places the hand above the heart line, it takes more strength.”

  “Precisely. The little girl’s spin was most likely involuntary,” Sherlock concluded.

  “But earlier today,” Huan countered, “you said you believe Butcher is right-handed, no? If so, would he not move his stronger hand, the—how do you say—dominating hand, to protect himself ?”

  “That is why I believe him to be right-handed,” Sherlock replied. “He moved his left hand to his head because his dominant hand, his right, held a grooming implement. Logical to the point of obvious, would you not agree? Still smarting a bit from last night, are we?” Sherlock added with a smile. “You put down enough eggs to start your own hatchery. Ghastly concoctions they are too.”

  “I shall never touch another,” Huan declared unhappily, pressing his temple with two fingers.

  Sherlock glared at the steel-colored sky. He had a hunch, in fact, more than a hunch; and he would have loved nothing better than to take out the killer’s note again to examine it, but at the moment he could not. And so he sat, wrapped in his own thoughts, as the rain kept on falling.

  26

  SPINSTER PENNY MONTGOMERY FELLED WHILE PULLING weeds, the headlines had read. If not the exact wording, a version thereof had rather breathlessly announced her death in every column that Sherlock had carefully clipped and saved. And, no matter how many times he had perused the news beyond the headlines, it was hardly enlightening. Each mentioned her marital status or lack thereof as if it were of primary import, while leaving more pertinent information—such as her number of years on earth or her general constitution—unremarked upon. The politeness that omitted age or weight and yet insisted upon divulging a lack of spouse seemed to Sherlock the height of arbitrary.

  “I cannot know if she was elderly and frail, or of middle years, with robust constitution and a perfectly sound mind,” he complained to Huan. “All things, I assure you, of more use to me than the fact that she was with or without husband! The only possible use of such a man would have been his ‘busybodying’ out of the window so that he may’ve got a look at the villain who murdered her!”

  When they finally reached Chichester, the drizzle had turned to an unseasonably cold rain that kept most people indoors. Sherlock asked the few locals that could be found such questions as seemed to him useful, only to be looked at askance for wishing to know the weight and mental acuity of the deceased. Not a one of them responded with a shred of goodwill.

  Miss Montgomery’s abode was a two-story terraced house. Because it was on the end of the row, hers was the only one with a bit of land on one side, and she shared but one wall, rather than the usual two, with her neighbors. These terraced houses had been built on the ancient Roman road known as Stane Street; quite convenient for the killer, Sherlock noted, as the town was both an unromantic little backwater, and thus unlikely to attract crowds, as well as remarkably well paved, with good access in and out. And although Chichester did not yet have such amenities as a piped water supply, it was nevertheless connected by railway to Brighton and Portsmouth, allowing the murderer easy access.

  The spinster—for so she had been referred to in life and would be referred to evermore in death—had been plucking stubborn weeds from her vegetable garden in that bit of earth on the corner of Stane Street that she had claimed for herself. Though large windows overlooked the thoroughfare, there were no side windows with a view of any garden except for Miss Montgomery’s own. The hour was early enough that there would have been little to no foot traffic on the road; and the town large enough that strangers would attract hardly more than a cursory glance.

  “After being struck, she could not have fallen forward, for then she would have hit the wall,” Sherlock said aloud as he knelt on the ground, ignoring both mud and pelting rain. “And a bruise upon her forehead would surely have been commented upon,” he added. “More likely, she fell to the side, though which side is still a mystery. I should take a look within…”

  “Within? Do you mean to enter without permission?” Huan asked, and Sherlock shrugged.

  “We have come all this way.”

  With Huan reluctantly standing watch, Sherlock tried the knob and found that the door was unlocked, typical for a town where all the neighbors were well acquainted. He wiped mud off the knees of his trousers, pushed open the front door and became, for the second time in as many days, a felon in the eyes of the law.

  Miss Montgomery’s two-story dwelling was composed of sitting room, dining room, and kitchen downstairs, along with two small bedrooms upstairs, one of which had been converted into a study. All of it was rather dark and frayed, but tidy. Sherlock moved through one room after the other, seeing nothing that piqued his interest. In her desk, he came upon a ledger of bills all paid on time; and a note to herself, dating from Gladstone’s last birthday, where she remarked that she was born the same year, thus making her nearly sixty-four years of age at her death. From the writing itself to the positioning of the papers and documents, every indication was that she was right-handed; nothing unusual in that. She had no correspondence of note, beyond a pile of letters—some four dozen in all—tied with a red ribbon. The return address read simply “Harold Navarro Rogers.” From the postmarks Sherlock deduced that a letter arrived on average once per month. And inside each envelope was a check made out to Miss Montgomery for ten pounds.

  None had been cashed. Perhaps Miss Montgomery could abide without the extra funds. Or perhaps the checks, signed by Harold Navarro Rogers, who in each accompanying note declared himself her “loving nephew,” were worth more than the money.

  You shall no longer be needing these, old girl, Sherlock thought as he pocketed the package.

  Near the window that overlooked the vegetable garden was only one other item of note: an empty bird cage.

  Odd, he thought, recalling both the old man’s puzzlement at a strange bird lurking about, and Lady Anne’s mention of a crow cawing. But Chichester was more than ninety miles from Avoncliff. And Miss Montgomery’s birdcage was small, much too small to hold anything resembling a crow.

  Sherlock inspected the cage. There was see
d in a miniscule bowl and a container with a thimbleful of water at the bottom. Three mottled gray-and-yellow feathers upon the liner suggested that the missing inhabitant was not the smallest crow in creation but a parakeet. And Miss Montgomery was much too painstaking in her housekeeping to leave seed, sitting water, and feathers lying about… to say nothing of a few drops of dried blood.

  The latter, Sherlock noticed just to the right of the little door, on the inside of one of the bars. There was a possibility that it was Miss Montgomery’s own blood. Had she been sewing and pricked her finger, she might have inadvertently left the stains as she reached inside the cage. But what would she have been reaching for, with blood on her fingers?

  No, the most practical explanation was that it was the bird’s own blood. Why the creature might have been bleeding, or why it was no longer in its cage, even though the door was closed, were two mysteries that Sherlock could not as yet solve.

  He was leaving the house when he saw a most unusual sight. Standing in the rain under a massive umbrella and staring at Miss Montgomery’s vegetable garden was a heavy-set woman wearing a small lavender hat, with reddish hair that fell down in rather excessive ringlets below her shoulders. Huan, unseen behind her, was in the process of executing a capoeira move whose sole goal was to kick that umbrella clean out of the unsuspecting woman’s hand.

  A second later, his foot made contact with the canopy and sent it flying.

  As she stared at her fleeing umbrella, the woman cried out; only to fall into slack-jawed silence as an Oriental stranger seemingly manifested out of the raindrops, pursued her runaway umbrella, and handed it back to her with a shy smile and a bow.

  This final exchange, Sherlock glimpsed out of the carriage window, where he had hurried to sequester himself. For he had gleaned Huan’s intent to provide a needed distraction—lest the woman with red ringlets should observe Sherlock exiting the home of her deceased neighbor and take it upon herself to call a constable.

  “Isn’t your man terribly kind!” she exclaimed to Sherlock as he stepped out of the carriage. “But should he not get out of the rain? I cannot know what people do in China, of course, but here in England we seek shelter, else we catch a chill and die!”

  “Madam, might we have a word?” Sherlock asked, touching the brim of his hat. “For we have come a very long way and are most eager to know more.”

  “From where do you hail?” she asked, in an upper-class accent that seemed thoroughly invented.

  “From London, madam.”

  “Ah! Well now, I cannot invite you indoors, for you are strangers to me,” she said, “especially given that one of you is a Chinaman. But you are welcome to step under the eaves so that we may talk. My name is Miss Boyd…”

  “I am Mr. Holmes, madam, and this is Huan.”

  As the two men followed her to slightly dryer ground, Miss Boyd continued: “You are a detective, then, young man?”

  “No, madam, I am not. I am simply fascinated by the darker deeds that humanity wreaks, one upon the other.”

  She smiled and tipped her head coquettishly to the side. “Oh, well put, well put. I understand perfectly. Although the poor unfortunate was my neighbor, it is the humanity of it all that intrigues me.

  “Now, there were none today,” she went on, “not in this miserable, spitting rain, but most days we have quite the number of gentlemen and ladies stopping by to have a look, and very nearly to a person they marvel that I am not undone by the idea of a monster lurking about! I do confess, however, that the notion has done nothing for my sleep!”

  Sherlock was certain that her sleep had not suffered a whit. After all, he had caught her staring at the little vegetable garden as if hoping to frame every moment of the savagery, as she understood it. And nothing he had heard thus far failed to confirm what he’d already deduced: that she confounded meanness of opinion for honesty; and was the typical small-town busybody who feigned repulsion but was instead fascinated by evil. And, as time passed and the commotion at last moved on to fresh calamities, she would miss it like her own life’s blood.

  “You are Miss Montgomery’s neighbor?” Sherlock stated rather obviously, as they now stood directly before the two front doors.

  “Yes. That is hers. Was hers, I suppose, and this one here is mine.”

  “And you were well acquainted?”

  “Hardly,” Miss Boyd sniffed. “I knew little of her. She kept to herself, had for years. Oh, I know it is not kind to speak ill of the dead, but she was the snooty one, I fear to say. ‘Neglectful neighbor’ is how I would put it. Perhaps if she had been more generous with her time, she would not have been alone at the moment of death. For we neighbors do watch out for each other,” she concluded without a shred of irony.

  “What will happen to her house?” Sherlock asked.

  “It will be let to someone else. Someone a bit more engaging, I should hope!” she added with a small, tinkling laugh.

  “Had you heard her mention a nephew named Harold?” Sherlock asked.

  “A nephew? Why, no! I knew of no relatives at all. I doubt she was in touch with anyone. I have not known her to darken the doorway of a post office, for she hardly ever left her house. I could count on this one hand the number of times she wished me so much as a good morning. I am someone who enjoys a bit of a chat now and again, but not she! She made that perfectly clear.”

  As would I, Sherlock thought, though what he said was: “I am curious how someone as… sturdy as Miss Montgomery could have been felled so quickly.”

  “However would you know it was quick?” Miss Boyd inquired, sounding displeased at the prospect.

  “Because, had her killer taken his time, surely someone would have noticed his presence and been suspicious.”

  “Ah, I see. No, she was not sturdy in the least, my heavens, she was a frail old thing, seven stone sopping wet, I’d say.”

  “I was told…” Sherlock said, leaning in as if he were revealing a great truth, “… that she had a little bird. Would you happen to know what became of it?”

  Miss Boyd, having leaned in for the morsel of confidence, looked at him askance.

  “Her bird?” she repeated. Suddenly fidgety, she readjusted her little hat upon her head while removing a stray lock of ringlets that had, in the wet, become stuck to her cheek.

  “Well, it was dead,” she declared. “Dead in the cage, I mean. Good riddance, too. Squawky, noisy thing. The day after Penny’s demise, when I did not hear it, I went inside and there it was. Perhaps it had starved to death. Is that possible? Can birds succumb in just one day?”

  “You went into Miss Montgomery’s house?” Sherlock asked.

  “Yes, why not? No one around these parts locks their doors. We are not London, you know!”

  “Of course. So, upon finding the bird… deceased, you took it out of the cage. And after removing it, did you shut the cage door?”

  “I may have,” she said, frowning. “I suppose so, yes.”

  “And did you then bury it?” Sherlock asked.

  “Bury it? Dear me, no! I tossed it out with the rubbish. With pleasure, I might add.”

  “You tossed it out? Is it perchance retrievable? Might I recover it, if I wished to?”

  “You would wish to retrieve a dead bird? Whatever for? And no, for the rubbish was burned three days ago.”

  “When you found the bird, was it bleeding?” Sherlock asked with more verve that was probably warranted for the occasion.

  “Not that I saw. It was simply… dead.”

  “And the morning of Miss Montgomery’s death, do you recall that it cried out?”

  “You ask quite peculiar questions for someone who is not a detective,” Miss Boyd complained.

  “I might someday become one,” Sherlock replied. “Was it making sounds?”

  She shrugged. “No more than usual. It always chirped in the morning, or whatever budgies are wont to do,” she replied in an indifferent tone. “Penny—Miss Montgomery—would open the side window
, you see, place the cage there, upon the sill, then go to work in the garden. Quite proud of the fact that she was the only one among us with a bit of dirt to call her own. When she was done, she would close the window and put the cage back… well, wherever she kept it. A creature of habit, that one,” she said, confirming what Sherlock had suspected. “Open the window, put the cage at the sill, work in her garden, remove the cage, close the window. For years, she did that.”

  “But the newspapers described her as a near-recluse. How would one be privy to her habits?”

  “Well certainly one can watch what a person does at a window. Or in a vegetable garden. Surely there is no harm in observing someone while they are in the public eye! As I stated, I am a student of humanity! And in point of fact you seem more taken with the bird than you do with Miss Montgomery’s demise,” she added, eyeing him sourly. “Or with my welfare, for that matter, given that the murderer has not yet been caught!”

  “And do you recall any days that she did not go out into the garden as usual?”

  “Why, yes. Nearly all of the last week. I heard her with quite the cough. But the moment she was better, there she was, at it again.”

  There is your answer to the killer’s delay between killings, Sherlock thought.

  “Miss Boyd,” he said. “We need no longer intrude upon your time and patience. Good day.”

  With that, he turned and hurried through the downpour back to the carriage.

  “Well, how… remarkable!” she called out peevishly, and Sherlock smiled to Huan beside him.

  “Clearly, bird queries are not salacious enough for our dear Miss Boyd’s tastes,” he whispered as they climbed into the sprung seat and bid a stormy adieu to Stane Street.

  27

  ELSEWHERE IN CHICHESTER, SHERLOCK AND HUAN FOUND shelter at The Fountainhead, a fairly modern pub that reclined, like a body upon a fainting couch, against an ancient Roman wall. It was said to be haunted by several ghosts, among them a Roman soldier, or so the young barman enthusiastically announced as he brought their meat pies and ale. He had the thick, coal-black hair and ice-blue eyes of Joe McPeel, the lad from Nickolus House whom Sherlock had befriended for a time; though he did not possess McPeel’s raw intelligence. He was instead a rather bovine creature.