by Mike Ashley
It was a touch upon my arm that awoke me. The lamp had been relit and my friend was bending over me, his long black shadow thrown upon the ceiling.
“Sorry to disturb you, Watson,” he whispered. “But duty calls.”
“What do you wish me to do?”
“Sit still and listen. Peperino is singing.”
It was a vigil that I shall long remember. Holmes had tilted the lampshade, so that the light fell on the opposite wall broken by the window and the great tiled stove with its hanging birdcage. The fog had thickened and the rays from the lamp, filtering through the window glass, lost themselves in luminous clouds that swirled and boiled against the panes.
My mind darkened by a premonition of evil, I would have found our surroundings melancholy enough without that eerie sound that was rising and falling from the canary cage. It was a kind of whistling beginning with a low throaty warble and slowly ascending to a single chord that rang through the room like the note of a great wineglass, a sound so mesmeric in its repetition that almost imperceptibly the present seemed to melt away and my imagination to reach out beyond those fog-bound windows into the dark lush depth of some exotic jungle.
I had lost all count of time, and it was only the stillness following the sudden cessation of the bird’s song that brought me back to reality. I glanced across the room and, in an instant, my heart gave one great throb and then seemed to stop beating altogether.
The lid of the stove was slowly rising.
My friends will agree that I am neither a nervous nor an impressionable man, but I must confess that, as I sat there gripping the sides of my chair and glaring at the dreadful thing that was gradually clambering into view, my limbs momentarily refused their functions.
The lid had tilted back an inch or more, and through the gap thus created a writhing mass of yellow stick-like objects was clawing and scrabbling for a hold. And then, in a flash, it was out and standing motionless upon the surface of the stove.
Though I have always viewed with horror the bird-eating tarantulas of South America, they shrank into insignificance when compared with the loathsome creature that faced us now across that lamplit room. It was bigger in its spread than a large dinner-plate, with a hard, smooth, yellow body surrounded by legs that, rising high above it, conveyed a fearful impression that the thing was crouching for its spring. It was absolutely hairless save for tufts of stiff bristles around the leg-joints, and above the glint of its great poison mandibles clusters of beady eyes shone in the light with a baleful red iridescence.
“Don’t move, Watson,” whispered Holmes, and there was a note of horror in his voice that I had never heard before.
The sound roused the creature for, in a single lightning bound, it sprang from the stove to the top of the birdcage and, reaching the wall, whizzed round the room and over the ceiling with a dreadful febrile swiftness that the eye could scarcely follow.
Holmes flung himself forward like a man possessed.
“Kill it! Smash it!” he yelled hoarsely, raining blow after blow with his golf-club at the blurred shape racing across the walls.
Dust from broken plaster choked the air, and a table crashed over as I flung myself to the ground when the great spider cleared the room in a single leap and turned at bay. Holmes bounded across me, swinging his club. “Keep where you are!” he shouted, and even as his voice rang through the room the thud . . . thud . . . thud of the blows was broken by a horrible squelching sound. For an instant the creature hung there, and then, slipping slowly down, it lay like a mess of smashed eggs with three thin bony legs still twitching and plucking at the floor.
“Thank God that it missed you when it sprang!” I gasped, scrambling to my feet.
He made no reply, and glancing up I caught a glimpse of his face reflected in a wall mirror. He looked pale and strained, and there was a curious rigidity in his expression.
“I am afraid it’s up to you, Watson,” he said quietly. “It has a mate.”
I spun round to be greeted by a spectacle that I shall remember for the rest of my days. Sherlock Holmes was standing perfectly still within two feet of the stove and on top of it, reared up on its back legs, its loathsome body shuddering for the spring, stood another monstrous spider.
I knew instinctively that any sudden movement would merely precipitate the creature’s leap and so, carefully drawing my revolver from my pocket, I fired point-blank.
Through the powder-smoke, I saw the thing shrink into itself and then, toppling slowly backward, it fell through the open lid of the stove. There was a rasping, slithering sound rapidly fading away into silence.
“It’s fallen down the pipe,” I cried, conscious that my hands were now shaking under a strong reaction. “Are you all right, Holmes?”
He looked at me and there was a singular light in his eye.
“Thanks to you, my dear fellow!” he said soberly. “If I had moved, then – but what is that?”
A door had slammed below and, in an instant later, we caught the swift patter of feet upon the gravel path.
“After him!” cried Holmes, springing for the door. “Your shot warned him that the game was up. He must not escape!”
But fate decreed otherwise. Though we rushed down the stairs and out into the fog, Theobold Wilson had too much start on us and the advantage of knowing the terrain. For a while, we followed the faint sound of his running footsteps down the empty lanes towards the river, but at length these died away in the distance.
“It is no good, Watson. We have lost our man,” panted Holmes. “This is where the official police may be of use. But listen! Surely that was a cry?”
“I thought I heard something.”
“Well, it is hopeless to look further in the fog. Let us return and comfort this poor girl with the assurance that her troubles are now at an end.”
“They were nightmare creatures, Holmes,” I exclaimed, as we retraced our steps towards the house, “and of some unknown species.”
“I think not, Watson,” said he. “It was the Galeodes spider, the horror of the Cuban forests. It is perhaps fortunate for the rest of the world that it is found nowhere else. The creature is nocturnal in its habits and, unless my memory belies me, it possesses the power to actually break the spine of smaller creatures with a single blow of its mandibles. You will recall that Miss Janet mentioned that the rats had vanished since her uncle’s return. Doubtless Wilson brought the brutes back with him,” he went on, “and then conceived the idea of training certain of his canaries to imitate the song of some Cuban night-bird upon which the Galeodes fed. The marks on the ceiling were caused, of course, by the soot adhering to the spiders’ legs after they had scrambled up the flues. It is fortunate, perhaps, for the consulting detective that the duster of the average housemaid seldom strays beyond the height of a mantelpiece.
“Indeed, I can discover no excuse for my lamentable slowness in solving this case, for the facts were before me from the first and the whole affair was elementary in its construction.
“And yet, to give Theobold Wilson his dues, one must recognize his almost diabolical cleverness. Once these horrors were installed in the stove in the cellar, what more simple than to arrange two ordinary flues communicating with the bedrooms above. By hanging the cages over the stoves, the flues would themselves act as a magnifier to the bird’s song and guided by their predatory instinct the creatures would invariably ascend whichever pipe led to it. Having devised some means of luring them back again to their nest, they represented a comparatively safe way of getting rid of those who stood between himself and the property.”
“Then its bite is deadly?” I interposed.
“To a person in weak health, probably so. But there lies the devilish cunning of the scheme, Watson. It was the sight of the thing rather than its bite, poisonous though it may be, on which he relied to kill his victim. Can you imagine the effect upon an elderly woman, and later upon her son, both suffering from insomnia and heart disease, when in the midst of a bir
d’s seemingly innocent song this appalling spectacle arose from the top of the stove? We have sampled it ourselves, though we are healthy men. It killed them as surely as a bullet through their hearts.”
“There is one thing I cannot understand, Holmes. Why did he appeal to Scotland Yard?”
“Because he is a man of iron nerve. His niece was instinctively frightened and, finding that she was adamant in her intention of leaving, he planned to kill her at once and by the same method.
“Once done, who should dare to point the finger of suspicion at Master Theobold? Had he not appealed to Scotland Yard, and even invoked the aid of Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself to satisfy one and all? The girl had died of a heart attack like the others, and her uncle would have been the reciprocant of general condolences.
“Remember the padlocked cover of the stove in the cellar and admire the cold nerve that offered to fetch the key. It was bluff, of course, for he would have discovered that he had ‘lost’ it. Had we persisted and forced that lock, I prefer not to think of what we would have found clinging around our collars.”
Theobold Wilson was never heard of again. But it is perhaps suggestive that, some two days later, a man’s body was fished out of the Thames. The corpse was mutilated beyond recognition, probably by a ship’s propeller, and the police searched his pockets in vain for means of identification. They contained nothing, however, save for a small notebook filled with jottings on the brooding period of the Fringilla Canaria.
“It is the wise man who keeps bees,” remarked Sherlock Holmes when he read the report. “You know where you are with them and at least they do not attempt to represent themselves as something that they are not.”
From “Black Peter” (THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES).
“In the memorable year ’95, a curious and incongruous succession of cases had engaged his attention ranging from . . . the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca down to the arrest of Wilson the notorious canary-trainer,* which removed a plague-spot from the East End of London.”
* In the wilson case, Holmes did not actually arrest Wilson, as Wilson was drowned. This was a typical Watson error in his hurried reference to the case.
FIVE RINGS IN RENO
R. L. Stevens
Stevens is one of the pen names of the prolific Edward D. Hoch whom we have already encountered in this anthology. I could think of no better way to close this volume than to include a story in which Conan Doyle himself features as a detective. For that reason I made the one exception to my rule of stories being set in the nineteenth century or earlier. The following is set in 1910, and brings our historical detectives into the modern era.
In his excellent biography, The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, John Dickson Carr tells us that Doyle was invited to act as referee for the heavyweight championship fight between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries in Reno, Nevada, on July 4, 1910. Doyle tentatively accepted, with great pleasure, but changed his mind a week later and sent his regrets.
Now what if Doyle had gone to Reno . . .?
Arthur Conan Doyle stepped off the train at the Reno depot looking a bit bewildered. After traveling across an ocean and a continent to reach the small city near the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, he had at least expected someone would be there to meet him and take his bags.
“Sir Arthur!” a voice called suddenly, and he turned to see a slim blond young man striding toward him. “Didn’t expect the train to be on time. They never are!”
“These are my bags,” Doyle said, indicating two well-traveled Gladstones. “You would be Mr. Summons?”
“Charlie Summons, at your service, Sir Arthur.”
“The title I value most is that of ‘Doctor,’ if you don’t mind.”
“Oh – certainly, Dr. Doyle! This way, please.”
“Somehow I expected Reno would be larger.”
Charlie Summons turned with a trace of apology. “Well, it’s not London, Sir – Dr. Doyle – but we like to think of ourselves as the biggest little city in the west. And this fight is really goin’ to put us on the map!”
“It’s certainly a lengthy journey by train,” Doyle remarked. “I’ve written occasionally about the American west, but this is my first personal view of it. When I visited the States in ’94 I never came further west than Chicago and Milwaukee.”
“I read what you wrote about the Mormons of Utah in A Study in Scarlet. Could have sworn you’d actually been there!”
Doyle smiled at the compliment. “I read a great deal about your country before coming here.”
They had reached the street outside the depot, and Summons was loading the bags into the back seat of an elegant black motorcar with polished brass trim. “This is a 1908 Packard,” Summons explained. “You don’t see many cars out west yet, but we have a few of ’em available for special visitors like yourself.”
“It is quite a handsome vehicle,” Doyle conceded, climbing up into the passenger’s seat. “I suppose the motorcar is the coming thing in London too, though I do hate to see them replacing the hansom cabs.”
Charlie Summons cranked the engine and then jumped in as the car coughed into life. “Times are changing, Dr. Doyle. Last month a biplane took off from a street in Washington right next to the White House.”
“I’ll remain on the ground, thank you,” Doyle said with a smile.
“We’ve got you a fine room at the Reno Hotel. Everyone important is staying there. There’s another writer too – Jack London. He’s covering the fight for the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Herald.”
Doyle’s face lit up. “I’ll be interested in meeting Jack London. Some people have detected minor evidences of us in each other’s stories. When I toured America last time I met Rudyard Kipling in Vermont and we became good friends.”
Summons pulled the car up in front of the hotel. “Oh, oh! There’s Monica Malone – that means trouble!”
Doyle found himself mildly amused by the man. “And what trouble might such a comely young woman offer?”
“She read how you helped solve that mystery in England a few years back, and she imagines you’re Sherlock Holmes himself. She’ll be wanting your help.”
“Holmes! Is that name going to haunt me here too?”
But he climbed down from the car and went to meet the young lady. “Dr. Conan Doyle?” she asked. “I must speak with you on a most urgent matter.”
“Nothing is so urgent right now as the fight that will take place in two days. I am not here in my capacity as an author – or as a doctor – but as a referee.” Though he was 51 years old and only recently married to his charming second wife, Doyle still had an eye for a beautiful woman. Miss Malone’s cameo face reminded him of a girl he had known long ago, during his university days.
“I realize I’m intruding on your time,” she said apologetically, “but if you could only listen to my story – ”
“My dear young lady, I have only just arrived in your city. I have important meetings with the principals in this prizefight, and you understand I must attend to that business first. But should you chance to be in the neighborhood early this evening, I will try to find time to speak with you.”
“That’s most kind,” she said.
Then, before Doyle could say more, he was whisked away by Charlie Summons. “We’re running a bit late, Dr. Doyle. They’re waiting for us.”
Summons settled him into a front room with windows overlooking South Virginia Street. The hotel was crowded with guests, and even in the halls Doyle was aware of money changing hands. Obviously the fight was attracting a great deal of betting interest.
After a half hour in which Doyle unpacked and washed up, Summons escorted him to a first-floor meeting room where a number of men were awaiting him. Doyle’s first impression was that the sporting classes were much the same in America as in England. Colonel Raff Grayson, who seemed to be one of the fight’s promoters, could easily have acted a role in Doyle’s prizefighting drama, The House of Temperley, which was playing at Lon
don’s Adelphi Theatre.
“So good of you to make the journey, Dr. Doyle,” he said, rising to shake hands. “The problems of selecting a referee acceptable to both sides in this fight has been immense. The color question – black versus white – has raised needless tensions on all sides. Frankly, you were the only person acceptable to both managers.”
Doyle bowed slightly. “I consider that a sincere compliment, especially since I know so little of American boxing.”
“The rules are much the same as in your British sport,” Colonel Grayson assured him. “The Marquis of Queensberry is well known here. But our main problem was finding a referee whom both sides trusted. As you know, Jeffries has come out of retirement to win back his heavyweight title from this black man, Jack Johnson. Feelings are running high, and there is even talk of race riots in some American cities.”
“All seems peaceful here,” Doyle observed.
“Don’t be deceived. A man was knifed to death near the depot two nights ago – a reporter out here to cover the fight. His killer has not yet been found.”
“I know enough about the American west,” Doyle said, “to realize that the price of human life is not high out here. A wrong word spoken during a poker game, I understand, can lead to a stabbing or shooting.”
Grayson exchanged glances with the other men, whom he had not yet introduced. “Come, Dr. Doyle, we feel ourselves far more civilized than that! The west of 1910 is far removed from the west of 1890.”
“Perhaps,” Doyle admitted. “Even passing through New York I read of a recent diamond robbery and killing. Crime is certainly not confined to the western states.”
“In any event, precautions have been taken for Monday’s fight. As one of the promoters I can assure you the crowd will be under complete control.”