by N. M. Scott
‘A monster,’ the Chinaman murmured, smoking an exotic, perfumed cigarette from an ivory holder carved with writhing black bears locked in combat. As our four-wheeler rattled along Drury Lane towards High Holborn, we were at last able to gain speed once we extricated ourselves from the jam of omnibuses and carriages along by the Theatre Royal.
‘Pardon me?’ said I, peering out as the dun-coloured fog, less persistent, lifted in places so that I could see we were approaching Long Acre upon our left.
‘A monster smash, Doctor Watson. Nothing shall stop the publicity machine now. Demand for tickets shall be phenomenal.’
‘Indeed,’ remarked Holmes, puffing on his pipe as our cab clattered through foggy London, onwards towards Oxford Street.
16
Doctor Wu Explains
Once indoors in the familiar surroundings of our diggings in Baker Street, blinds drawn, lamps lit, cosily aglow, a good fire raging in the grate, Holmes poured us each a glass of whisky. He charged his long cherry-wood pipe with the strongest shag from the Persian slipper attached to the corner of our mantelpiece and, once he was sat cross-legged in his favourite armchair beside the hearth, gently began to probe the clever if conceited mind of the Chinese doctor of alternative medicine.
‘You have a clinic, I believe?’
‘Yes, in Mayfair – in a brick and stucco terrace off Regent Street.’
‘Plagiarism – stolen ideas – that’s where part of the problem of this confounded multi-faceted puzzle of murder and bodily rejuvenation lies, is it not Doctor Wu Xing?’
‘You are of course correct, Mr Holmes. The original idea for the light opera that I am sure both of you enjoyed this evening at the Wimborne, came from Ethby Sands. Perhaps you noticed a Japanned upright piano he keeps in the bay in his sitting room at Albany. It possesses pleasant memories for him and has a very impressive history. When he first visited my clinic he told me how, as a young man, he was a passable pianist. He could play Chopin or a ragtime tune for friends at a supper party. He was not of a professional standard and was entirely self-taught.
‘One winter’s afternoon he claimed to me he saw the face of his long dead mother in the gilt mirror and was instantly moved to sit on the stool and randomly play at scales. He swears, gentlemen, that in under ten minutes he composed a catchy hymn tune, that at first he was convinced he must have heard before at a concert or choral gathering, or at a church. He wrote down the music upon the back of a cigarette packet and thought no more of it until, when entertaining some fellow residents in Albany he played it to the conductor Lonsdale Chymes, who instantly said he had a smash. The rest, as they say, is music publishing history. The Americans loved it, church choirs loved it, orchestras performed the piece, and even today it remains a popular tune played in front rooms throughout the land. Boosey & Hawkes have so far sold thirty million copies of the sheet music and counting. The title ‘Take Thy Tiny Hand in Mine’ was likewise Ethby’s, who of course wrote both words and music to his ‘little ditty’ as he fondly referred to the hymn.’
‘So Christopher’s father Lonsdale forms a link. It was the famous orchestra conductor who advised Ethby Sands, and you could say was partly responsible for the tune’s success,’ asked Holmes.
‘Lonsdale, through his music contacts, championed the song. He was very generous in his praise of the hymn and must have helped its path considerably,’ replied Doctor Wu.
‘And the son Christopher, who himself resides at Albany, using his father’s apartment, wanted Ethby Sands dead. He and Philip Troy presumably stole the idea for the show The Giant Rats of Sumatra.’
‘Listen,’ sighed Wu, ‘that plain and simple hymn dwarfed any of the achievements of Christopher Chymes and Philip Troy. A modest reputation they had as a songwriting team, certainly. They’d played as a duo at the Ritz and small venues, showcasing their material. But neither had hit the big money and they wanted in on celebrity and fame. However, neither Chyme nor Troy had a core idea, something to get theatre producers and impresarios knocking at their door. One evening they had a bachelor’s supper with Ethby Sands at his upstairs set. He was of course at the time an M.P. for Norwich and busy with affairs of constituency and Parliament. There was even talk that one day he might become a cabinet minister. Anyhow, they all got drunk and he got up and played them a tune on the ‘old Joanna’ and (foolishly he admits this) somewhat tight from too much wine and champagne confided to them his gay and romping tour de force, a light opera set on a paradise island in Indonesia – the island of Sumatra – but his biggest and most brilliant flash of inspiration was the inclusion of a chorus of giant cuddly rats.’
‘And this is where Alfred Russell Wallace comes in,’ said I, understanding at last.
‘Charles Darwin had been offered an animal hide wrapped around some old bones, purportedly belonging to a now extinct species of Sumatran tree-rat – an enormous rodent. For some reason he decided to sell the items, once the property of the naturalist and explorer Alfred Wallace, who had recently returned to England after a lengthy sojourn in the tropics. A London museum was the first choice but in the end it was Ethby Sands who purchased these extraordinary items for one hundred guineas. He kept them displayed in a glass cabinet for years – a curiosity – a conversation piece. Sometimes people would glance at the mummified skin and bone and comment on it. But when Ethby Sands came to be gravely ill, near death, and all the specialists in Harley Street had given up on him, he remembered its curious and spectacular provenance.’
‘I must be frank with you Doctor Wu, I have already interviewed Alfred Wallace who was, along with his family, down from Cornwall to see the play. At the Royal Geographical Society I have seen the rat with my own eyes, drawn on a sixteenth-century Portuguese map – a caricature of a giant rat, disturbingly and horribly portrayed by the illustrator. I can only draw the following conclusion. Somehow you and your team of microscopic chemists, who are specialised practitioners of Chinese alternative medicine, have managed to duplicate the Indonesian shaman’s anti-ageing formula, based on grinding down the bone of this long extinct creature to form a compound of fine power to which you add further ingredients.
‘At a time when Mr Sands had virtually given up all hope, as a last resort he decided to visit your radical clinic in Mayfair, and you and your team were able to somehow keep his wasting illness at bay and make him a young man again. But what you had not taken into account was the addictive nature of the serum and the fact that it produced terrible side-effects, the rat’s genes gradually infecting and eventually taking over his physical self, making him volatile, unbelievably aggressive and a predatory killing machine. Face it Doctor Wu Xing, you and your team have created a monster, sir, a person who, when dominated by this Sumatran rat’s genes, will kill mercilessly without fear or favour.’
‘When I first examined my patient he was suffering from a virulent strain of wasting disease. He was fifty-three but aged beyond his years, the ravages of the illness having left him wheelchair-bound and almost without energy to eat properly or digest the food so necessary to sustain life. It was when I performed the first phase of detoxification that I of course discovered he was initially being poisoned by an outside source. Antimony was present in his blood stream, gentlemen, and when I informed him of this he balled his fists and tears ran down his cheeks.’
‘“My valet Garson has betrayed me,” he stuttered, “but it is Chymes and Troy who want me out of the way most. Heal me, doctor, make me whole again so I may have my revenge, my just revenge. Go to my rented house in Norfolk – Foxbury Hall – money is no object. You have the old rat’s skin and bone, the provenance, the hand-written account by my dear friend Alfred Wallace detailing his miraculous recovery, the life-giving force for renewal the potion contained. Do it before it is too late. You have my complete trust. I am confident you will succeed.”’
17
Journey To Down House
Thus it was proposed to take a railway journey down to Kent to visit Charles Dar
win’s widow. By this time, the year being 1887 when this case I am writing of first came to the attention of Mr Sherlock Holmes, the famous author and naturalist had been dead these last five years. His legacy to Wallace was immense for he, along with his neighbour John Lubbock, who owned three hundred acres of land adjacent to Down House, Darwin’s family home, petitioned our Prime Minister Gladstone to provide his old friend with a civil pension, which was most agreeable, for Wallace did not have a salaried job and had lost money in stocks and shares.
Down House, with its delightful prospect, pretty garden and paved walk, proved a very homely and comfortable residence, and I was particularly moved, nay impressed, by the great man’s study where he wrote up all his research into the origin of species. One could almost feel his presence there, still studiously at work at his desk.
‘Welcome Mr Holmes. My dear departed husband and I were always most entertained by the fire of an evening reading aloud your various adventures, so aptly recorded for posterity by your acclaimed biographer Doctor Watson. Would you both like a pot of Earl Grey?’ She rang a bell that summoned a maid who hurried away to prepare the tea things.
We settled down on a comfy sofa before the sitting room fire.
‘And how may I help you? Your letter was a trifle vague.’
‘Alfred Wallace mentioned the other evening he had come into the possession of a peculiar mummified animal skin wrapped around a set of old bones. A shaman from the island of Sumatra presented him with this queer trophy upon his recovery from a virulent strain of yellow fever from which he nearly died.’
‘I remember, Charles and I were most relieved to learn of his surviving the illness. He suffered terribly from tropical ulcers on his legs and could barely crawl across the hut in which he sought refuge. That was in 1858 I believe, on one of the remotest Indonesian islands.’
‘Do you perchance know what became of that bundle of old bones, Mrs Darwin?’
‘I have more than an inkling. I well recall how repulsive the items were and, like dear Annie, Alfred’s wife, I would not allow Charles to bring them into the house. You must understand, the place was already crammed with umpteen specimens, and research material took up every available space. There was just no room. The book he was then writing meant he must needs be surrounded by so much clutter. But, there you are.’
‘What did your husband make of the specimen?’
‘I will be completely frank, Mr Holmes. Upon close inspection he was at first of the opinion that the remains of the rodent were very ancient and unique to the evolutionary chain. And indeed the giant Sumatran tree-rat presented him with much to ponder. He remained in an intense fever of excitement for a day or two at least. However, after a visit to Down House by his friend, the Irish anthropologist and zoologist Sir Terence Maguire, an eminent member of the Royal Geographical Society to whom he presented the animal hide for appraisal, Charles changed his mind and, despite its provenance and associations with the spice islands of Indonesia, believed the rodent’s skin to have been cleverly manipulated, sewn together to form this large, terrifying beast. A fake in other words, a novelty, possibly used in magic ceremonies as a hex – a harbinger of ill luck.’
‘So it was dismissed.’
‘Forthwith, Doctor Watson. We contacted Alfred’s agent and suggested he might dispose of it for us – sell the item for say a hundred guineas to a museum and pass the proceeds on to Wallace, who had only recently returned to England from the tropics and was in need of money.’
‘Did the agent manage to make a sale?’ Holmes asked.
‘We were contacted shortly after and the agent informed us that the M.P. Ethby Sands had agreed to purchase the item together with the provenance and personal written account of the almost fatal illness from which Wallace made such a miraculous recovery. Ethby was well known to us because he was always helping Wallace out, funding his long absences from home by the welcome purchase of rare bird skins, birds of paradise which he would stuff and have mounted for display at Albany. I do not know what became of the old bones and animal hide after that, Mr Holmes.’
18
Lunch at the Criterion
The following morning Doctor Wu Xing visited our diggings with an urgent request. We were to meet Ethby Sands at noon for lunch at the Criterion restaurant, Mr Sands apparently anxious to allay any fears we might have that he was in fact a mutable rat or a raving madman, out of control and capable of committing murder.
This ridiculous state of affairs caused the Chinese physician and my colleague to fear that an attempt on Christopher Chymes’s life may have been the real motivation for this lunchtime invitation.
The composer, although busy with press interviews and putting some last-minute touches to the score of the sensational new musical that had taken the West End by storm, helped of course by the ensuing publicity in all the morning editions concerning the grisly murder of Philip Troy, that would ensure a long and profitable run both here and on Broadway, agreed to meet Holmes, myself and Doctor Wu at the Criterion, No. 224 Piccadilly, for this impromptu luncheon, the involvement of Mr Sands kept deliberately from him.
When the composer arrived, flanked by Langton Lovell and Charles Lemon, bottles of Moet were instantly uncorked. We all settled down beneath the remarkable Byzantine-style gilded ceiling for a first-rate meal, our convivial conversation interrupted when a row broke out between Holmes and Christopher Chymes, for my colleague had decided there and then to confront the young composer over his ill usage of Ethby Sands, and plagiarism of certain of his ideas. Langton and Lemon loved a theatrical spat, and looked on with quiet amusement. My colleague gave no quarter.
‘Chymes, you are the worst blackguard I ever knew, defrauding poor old Ethby Sands out of royalties and, worse still, along with your collaborator Troy, seeking to deliberately steal all his ideas for your wretched musical entertainment which, as we now know, is wildly popular and assured of making a fortune at the box office.’
‘You mustn’t speak ill of the dead, Holmes. Troy is no more – murdered on the very eve of his triumph. I shan’t admit to anything.’
‘We must gain you time, Chymes. Your very life may depend upon it. You are, I am afraid, in imminent danger of extinction. Scotland Yard must be in on this, your set at Albany put under twenty-four hour watch. I choose not to go into the many particulars. Suffice to say Ethby Sands is alive. He is due to attend this luncheon at the Criterion presently.’
‘Alive! That can’t be the case. I read his obituary in The Times only the other day, Holmes.’
‘Listen, he is being kept alive and youthful by an infernal serum compounded from the ancient bones of a long extinct giant tree-rat of Sumatra, not I might add the cute and fluffy caprices we saw cavorting about the stage in your show on opening night. The serum was developed at a location in Norfolk by a clever group of microscopic chemists under the leadership of Doctor Wu Xing, himself an unorthodox practitioner of alternative Chinese medicine with a clinic in Mayfair. Doctor Wu Xing saved him from being poisoned and additionally helped save his life, but at tremendous cost. The terrible side-effects of the previously untested serum are truly fearful to behold, the risks of addiction underestimated. Although no longer middle-aged and a young man again, his mind and metabolism are irrevocably altered. Doctor Wu blames overuse of the serum. Too high a dosage has at times created a change in the man’s physical self.’
‘My God, you mean he’s changed? Ethby’s changed into a raving, psychotic madman?’
‘How can I make you understand, Chymes? There can be no turning back. There is no known antidote, or cure. The animal proclivities grow ever stronger.’
Out of the corner of my eye I observed a fellow wearing a hefty tweed overcoat, muffled up against the worst of the wintry weather, the chilly November fogs, with a thick wrap-around scarf, low-brimmed hat and pigskin gloves. It had to be Ethby Sands. He entered the Criterion, pausing over by the cashier’s desk. An immaculately liveried waiter instantly approached but the ne
w diner would brook no disrobing and, with a peculiar lurching gait, came across to our table.
‘Hello Chymes, Holmes, Doctor Watson. You too, Lovell, Lemon; and there of course sits Doctor Wu. Delighted you could all make it at such short notice. Damn chilly this morning,’ he said good-naturedly, ‘The fog lies thick along the embankment and the circus is all snarled up with carriage traffic.’
‘Would you remove your gloves, Mr Sands?’ asked Holmes in a determined way, instantly getting up from his chair and cautiously sliding across to our fellow diner. I knew from experience my friend had already made a brief assessment of the chap’s character and had found something wanting. ‘I can’t abide people who will insist on lunching with their gloves on, especially in such a prestigious restaurant as the Criterion. Watson, your revolver. Clamp it against his spine, there’s a good fellow.’
I leapt up and did just as Holmes requested, much to the amazement of Langton and Lemon, who sat with mouths agape, their meals temporarily abandoned, horrified at my lack of decorum and the impertinence.
‘No need for that, gentlemen. I was only about to take my seat. I did book the table, after all.’
‘Your gloves – remove them at once,’ snarled Holmes.
‘Forgive my bundled-up appearance. The fog affects my circulation. I am something of a valetudinarian and my aversion to this chilly, damp climate of ours inhibits me taking off my gloves, except in more comfortable, humid conditions such as a palm house.’
‘Your gloves,’ my colleague said impatiently, seizing the fellow’s wrists with all his considerable strength, trying to prise off one of Sands’s gloves, rolling the leather down the sleeve and causing a shriek of muffled protest.