by Wayward
After several minutes being petted the trovant disappears, then swiftly returns with a small group of observers.
“I’ll keep them amused,” says Anna and takes out a pin pad from her rucksack. She taps out its forms like a lacemaking machine, which set up standing waves of activity in the water that she knows the trovanti can read. Within minutes a shoal surrounds them – many more than the fifty they released back to the rio.
Salvi and Maria watch as the living stones configure themselves like a circus troupe into elaborate formations and incredible knots. It is a performance of precision, grace and virtuosity, one of those transcendent moments where it is impossible to say whether the structures before them are illusory, or real. Everything seems to stand still and the possibilities of life momentarily multiply. Then, with one accord, the trovanti sink noiselessly below the surface of the water, as if waiting to be summoned for a curtain call.
“How did they do?” asks Anna.
“Bravo!” Salvi cries. A group of children cheer from a second-floor balcony, then start squirting each other with water guns.
*
“We won’t use the lock gates,” Maria says. “We’ll go in via the gated bridge.”
“Excellent,” says Alberto. He checks his equipment, the bags, zippers and buckles, then pulls on a pair of reinforced rubber gloves. His eyes are shining with purpose. “Oh, and Maria – we won’t be using glyphosate. We’ll be using serious stuff – cyanide. You’d be well advised to stay well clear.”
“Cyanide? But that will kill everything!”
Alberto shrugs. “I told you we’d finish the job.”
*
Salvi pulls the boat up by the Accademia Bridge.
“We can walk from here,” he says.
“I know the way,” volunteers Maria, “follow me.”
They alight onto a wooden platform and reach a small bridge.
“We’ll take this path along the rio.”
Anna swings her stick along the ground and up the sides of the wall. She runs her fingers along the cabling and turns to Maria. Their footsteps echo on the iron walkway.
“It’s incredible,” she says. “Just listen to the noise in the rio. Even without a microphone, you can clearly hear them talking to each other!”
Salvi takes out a chain of keys and begins to open the padlocks.
“Excuse me a moment,” Maria steps into the shade of a doorway. She takes out her phone, squints at the screen. The battery icon is flashing.
“Is everything okay?” calls Salvi.
Maria nods, and gives him the thumbs up. She looks at the phone. It is trembling in her hand. Or her hand is shaking, her arm, her body. Her mind oscillates wildly. Two numbers. One call. One outcome. The battery icon is flashing more urgently. 3%. How the hell could she forget to charge it on this of all days? Anna is grumbling loudly that they need to get on. Two numbers. Two paths to salvation, each one equally damned. The phone is jumping in her grip. We cannot control things. She scrolls through the stored numbers. Alberto. They’re calling her. Anna again. Sweating profusely, she closes her eyes.
A seagull is staring implacably at her. It opens its beak and squawks.
She pockets the phone, returns and helps Salvi open the gates. They cross on to the bowed bridge. The atmosphere is charged. A few families have arranged themselves on the balcony, anticipating the event. Maria waves to them, heavy hearted. She hadn’t considered witnesses might be present. She sickens at the thought of what will happen next, looks into the rio where the living stones have formed structures that stretch to the sky like a lace web. Light runs through their delicate channels casting shadows that further enrich their intricate geometries. It is a transformative sight, she thinks, like the first glimpse of an illuminated cathedral after an eternity in the desert, on the ocean, in the dark.
“Anna,” she murmurs, “Do you remember the pattern you tapped out last time we came here?”
“Of course,” Anna replies.
“This is hard to put this into words… they have made your design … but at an architectural scale! Anna, it is simply the most amazing thing I have ever seen!” She wonders if the way that the trovanti have re-interpreted Anna’s patterns – carries a message.
Everything is happening at once. She wants somehow to stop it all. The water in the canal goes by, unhurried.
Anna lies down on the ground, pressing her cheek scar against the trovanti structures and splays her fingers over them. The site is singing, humming, clicking, creaking. It is like a colossal weaving loom. Anna exhales contentedly. This is not a machine, she says to herself, it’s a living thing, actively calculating the conditions for its existence – and for the continued future of the city.
“Please could you pass me my bag of pin pads?” she asks, preparing to find out exactly what the living stones can do – not by instinct – but in conversation with a human architect.
Salvi obliges, heaving the heavy rucksack over to where his friend can reach it. She looks happy. Radiant. Not for the first time in their twenty-odd year acquaintance, he feels a surge of love for her.
“Do you know, I think they’re actually ready to govern themselves!” Anna says delightedly.
Maria takes out her phone. The battery icon says 1%.
It’s now or never.
Anna seems to be peering pointedly at her. Hard to remember she is blind. Is she? How blind is she? Maria dials, holds the phone to her ear. It’s ringing. The architect turns away, sighs, covers her ears.
*
CHERITH BALDRY
The Adventure of the Apocalypse Vine
or
Moriarty’s Revenge
It was a raw March evening, almost a year after Sherlock Holmes had returned from the dead. I had spent the afternoon playing billiards with Thurstan at my club. Returning to Baker Street as the lamps were being lit, I found Holmes standing in front of the fire, a telegram in his hand.
“Ah, Watson!” he said as I appeared. “You return most timely. And Fortune smiled upon your game, I see.”
“True,” I replied. “Though I cannot imagine how you know that.”
Holmes smiled thinly. “When you play with Thurstan and win, you take a cab home. When you lose, you economise by walking. The streets are wet, yet your boots are clean…”
I laughed. “I suppose I should not be surprised any longer by your insight,” I said. “Does that telegram herald another client?”
“It does.”
Holmes handed the flimsy paper over, and I flung myself into the chair by the fire and read it aloud. “Must see you immediately. Grave danger. Erwin Wraxford. Wraxford!” I exclaimed.
“You know this man?” Holmes asked.
I nodded. “I know of him. In his younger days he was a colonel in a cavalry regiment, but he made his name as an explorer. I have read some of his books. Travels up the Amazon… An Expedition in the Hindu Kush… He is also considered to be something of an authority on astronomy, although an amateur. I wonder what such a man can want with you?”
“We shall soon find out,” said Holmes, as the door-bell sounded below. “For that, unless I am much mistaken, is our client now.”
I have to confess to a stirring of excitement as I heard Colonel Wraxford’s footsteps approaching up the stairs. Here was a man of courage and vision, who had endured many hardships and seen strange sights of which most of us can hardly dream.
Yet when Sherlock Holmes opened the door to usher our visitor inside, I felt a crushing disappointment. This was no manly figure, tanned and vigorous, his gaze fixed firmly on far horizons. Colonel Wraxford was a man of medium height, with a pronounced stoop that made him seem smaller still. His dress – a grey suit beneath a brown tweed greatcoat – was of good quality but pulled carelessly on. Cigar ash was scattered on his waistcoat and his fingers were stained by nicotine. His eyes were sunken, his complexion yellowish, and he had cut himself twice while shaving – no doubt because of the constant tremor in his hands. I d
id not need my friend’s deductive powers to realise that here was a man whose nerves were wellnigh shattered, and who was attempting to remedy the fact with too much drink.
“Mr Holmes!” he burst out as soon as he set foot through the door. “You must help me!”
“Pray calm yourself, Colonel Wraxford,” Holmes said. “I assure you I shall do all in my power. Sit down and tell me what troubles you.”
I took our visitor’s hat and stick and laid them on a side table. Wraxford’s gaze flickered over me indifferently, as if he was hardly aware that I was there.
“This is my friend and associate Doctor Watson,” said Holmes. “You may speak freely before him.”
The colonel sank down in a chair and covered his face with his hands. “I hardly know how to tell you this, Mr Holmes. I cannot feel any hope that you will believe me.” Looking up, he fixed a tragic gaze on my friend. “The world is about to end!”
I barely suppressed an exclamation of mingled shock and incredulity. Holmes, on the contrary, remained impassive.
“Perhaps you can tell us, Colonel Wraxford, what brings you to this conclusion?”
The colonel’s answer astounded me even more. “The vine is coming into flower!”
Though I could not help thinking that our client stood in far more need of my ministrations than my friend’s, I said nothing.
A moment later Colonel Wraxford appeared to make a massive effort to compose himself. “Allow me to explain,” he began. “Some years ago I spent two years with a primitive tribe in the South American jungle. I learnt their language and they told me their legends. Among them was the tale of a plant – a vine – which would only flower when the world was about to end. On my return home I brought cuttings of many plants, including one of the vine. It flourished in my conservatory, but in all the years since then it has never flowered – until now. The buds are swelling, and when they open…all is over!”
“And you believe this tale?” I asked.
“If you had visited the places I have visited,” Colonel Wraxford replied, “and seen the things I have seen, you would believe stories far stranger.”
Holmes laid his fingertips together and regarded our client, a faint frown between his brows. “Let us for the present assume the possibility that you are right,” he said. “What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Mr Holmes, if any man can stop this cataclysm, it is surely you!”
“You flatter me,” Holmes murmured. “But without more information, my hands are tied, unless your vine will furnish us with the details of where and how the apocalypse is to take place.”
It would be tedious to recite all our client’s pleas and protestations, though it was some time before he could be persuaded to leave.
“If the vine’s flowering upsets you,” I suggested as I handed him his hat and stick, “perhaps it would help if you were to cut the buds off.”
He gave me no reply but a distracted look, and went out. Holmes and I listened to his steps as he stumbled down the stairs.
“A good man ruined,” I said. “Drink and the devilry of these primitive legends have quite done for him, I fear.”
“Quite, Watson,” said Holmes. He crumpled the telegram, tossed it into the fire and reached for his violin. “And let us pray that our next client has retained at least some tenuous hold on his sanity.”
~
The following morning Holmes and I had scarcely finished breakfast when there came a peremptory ring at the door-bell and hurried footsteps on the stairs. I rose to open the door and admitted a uniformed police constable.
“Begging your pardon, sir, for disturbing you so early,” he said, before either of us had a chance to greet him. “But Inspector Lestrade sent me to fetch you.”
“Fetch me where?” Holmes asked, rising to his feet and tossing his napkin aside.
“The Pines, Hampstead Heath, sir,” the constable replied. “Colonel Erwin Wraxford’s house. The inspector would deem it a favour if he could consult you there.”
“Wraxford?” I exclaimed, with an astonished glance at Holmes. “Good Lord, that’s the man who – ”
Holmes raised one long-fingered hand to silence me. “What does Inspector Lestrade want?”
“Colonel Wraxford is dead, sir. Murdered. And your appointment with him was in his engagement book.”
Holmes stiffened. “Murdered, you say? You interest me strangely. I will come at once. Watson, you will accompany me?”
“Of course, Holmes.”
Moments later we were following the police constable into a four-wheeler which was waiting outside our door. The cabbie whipped up his horse, and we set off with a lurch.
I seethed with impatience to discuss the matter with Holmes, but in the presence of the constable I could say nothing about the strange visit of Colonel Wraxford the night before. Surely, I thought, the man’s death could have nothing to do with the incredible story he had told us?
At last the cab halted outside an ugly, four-square house surrounded by dark evergreens. A couple of spindly pine trees gave the place its name. There was some kind of structure on the roof, which I could not make out clearly because of a balustrade running around the edge. Another constable was standing outside the front door, and opened it to let us in.
We entered a spacious hall, handsomely panelled in oak. From here the constable led us down a short passage and into the conservatory. This was evidently an addition to the house, octagonal in shape, with soaring walls of glass and wrought iron, and a floor tiled in black and white. A variety of shrubs in pots lined the walls, and a heavy, exotic scent hung in the air.
“No doubt that is the famous apocalypse vine,” Holmes murmured into my ear.
The vine which had so terrified Colonel Wraxford grew from a large ceramic jar of oriental design; its stems were trained up the far wall and along the ceiling, twining vigorously around its supports. A lush growth of leaves attested to its health, as did a number of dangling tendrils and several pendulous buds, the sepals just beginning to part, showing streaks of purple petals ready to emerge.
“Mr Holmes!” Inspector Lestrade stepped forward and shook my friend by the hand. “Doctor Watson.” He gave me a brisk nod. “Thank you for coming – though I’m beginning to think I’ve brought you out on a wild goose chase. It’s fairly obvious what has happened here.”
“Indeed?” Holmes said.
“An open and shut case. But I’d still like to know, if you have no objection, why Colonel Wraxford consulted you yesterday.”
“I fear I can tell you little,” Holmes responded. “The matter which he raised with me was quite outside my remit or yours, Inspector, and I was unable to help him.”
“He seemed much disturbed in his mind,” I added. “Are you sure that this is not a case of suicide?”
“See for yourself.” Beckoning us forward, Lestrade skirted a small table surrounded by three or four comfortably cushioned chairs, and stood beside the body of Colonel Wraxford.
Both as a soldier and a medical man I have seen horrors in my time, but little that chilled my blood as did the sight that lay before me. Wraxford lay on his back. His eyes bulged and his tongue protruded from an empurpled face. Vine tendrils were lashed around his throat and his fingers were hooked around them as if in his final spasms he had tried to tear himself free. Most macabre of all, the tendrils that had choked out the colonel’s life were still attached to the vine stem.
“What can you tell us, Watson?” Holmes asked.
I knelt beside the body and made a rapid examination. “Death evidently took place by strangulation,” I replied. “Rigor mortis is beginning to wear off, which suggests that the colonel died between twelve and fourteen hours ago.”
Lestrade pulled out his pocket-watch and consulted it. “Between eight and ten o’clock last night,” he said. He spun around. “Merton, when did you last see your master?”
For the first time I realised that another man was standing in the room in the shadow of t
he vine. He wore the dark coat and pin-striped trousers of a manservant; his face was pasty with shock and there was a look of terror in his eyes.
“At about nine o’clock sir,” he replied. “Colonel Wraxford keeps – kept early hours unless he went up to the roof star-gazing. And last night being cloudy – ”
“Yes, yes,” Lestrade interrupted testily. “Tell us what happened.”
“The colonel dined at eight, sir. After that I brought him a whisky and soda in here, and then he told me to lock up and go to bed. I never saw him again until I came down this morning…” Merton’s voice trailed off as he fixed a horrified gaze on his master’s body.
“All the doors and windows are still locked,” Lestrade informed us. “And there are no signs of entry from outside. Merton,” he went on, turning to the manservant again, “why did you kill your master? Did you expect to receive something from his will?”
The unfortunate servant looked as though he might faint from terror. “I didn’t kill him, sir!” he burst out. “I swear to God – ”
Holmes silenced him with a raised hand. “I take it there are no other servants living in?” he asked Lestrade.
“No, only Merton.”
Holmes gave a disdainful sniff. “Then it is a remarkably stupid murderer who commits a crime when he is the only possible suspect.”
“I’ve met my share of stupid murderers,” Lestrade retorted.
“Nevertheless, there may be more here than we can see at present. With your leave, Inspector, I should like to examine this conservatory more closely.”
Lestrade shrugged. “Please yourself, Mr Holmes.”
“Then kindly clear your people out of the way. Watson, you will stay, of course.”
When Lestrade and the constable had gone, taking the luckless Merton with them, Holmes whipped out his magnifying lens and, stooping over, gave the floor of the conservatory around the body a meticulous examination.
I glanced around and saw nothing unusual except for the vine, which I could have sworn had grown more luxuriant during our conversation. I am not an imaginative man, but I felt something evil about those swelling buds, and I could understand how watching their gradual development had worked on Colonel Wraxford’s nerves.