Nicholas Meyer (8 page)

Finally, on our promising to pay his way in the business, he at last assented, reminding us fervently what explanations we must make to Headmaster Price-Jones so that his position at the Roylott School should not be forfeit by absence.

Our bargain concluded, I went to the window and, standing carefully behind the curtain, peered down and into the street. Holmes was nowhere in sight. Signifying as much to his brother, the two of us left as we had come and returned to our cab.

On our journey back I again resisted the temptation to question Mycroft about the Holmes family's past. The temptation was even stronger than it had been to discover their secret; it was evident to me the professor had yielded to Mycroft's outrageous request because of some hold the latter had over him, a hold so powerful there was no need to even mention it. The argument, I realized in retrospect, had been conducted more for my benefit than theirs, the outcome apparently assured from the outset.

Yet resist the temptation I did, and this was not so difficult as it sounds, for I fell asleep on my side of the hansom and did not awaken until the vehicle had stopped before my door and Mycroft nudged me gently into consciousness. Quietly we said good night.

"It's all up to Sherlock now," said he.

"I wonder if we've not made it too hard for him." It was hard to keep from yawning.

Within the cab, Mycroft chuckled.

"I think not. From what you've said, his mind is the same instrument it ever was; only its emphases have been perverted. Moriarty is his man and he'll find the way to him, I think we need not concern ourselves about that. The rest is up to your doctor friend. Good night, Watson." With this, he jabbed his stick lightly on the ceiling and the hansom rattled away into the low crepuscular fog.

I must somehow have made my way to bed, but the next thing I recall is my wife standing over me and anxiously examining my face.

"Are you well, dearest?" She placed a solicitous hand on my brow as though wondering if I were feverish. I answered that I was tired but otherwise quite hale, and sat up.

"What's this?" I cried in surprise, seeing a covered tray behind her, sitting on a chair by the door.

"Breakfast in bed? I tell you I am—"

"Premonition tells me you just have time to eat it," said she unhappily, placing the tray before me.

I was about to ask her what she meant when I saw the yellow envelope lying beside the sugar.

Glancing uncertainly at my wife, who encouraged me with a brave face, I seized the envelope and opened it.

CAN YOUR PRACTICE SPARE YOU FOR A FEW

DAYS? (it ran) THE GAME IS AFOOT AND YOUR

ASSISTANCE WOULD PROVE INVALUABLE. BRING

TOBY TO ONE ONE FOUR MUNRO ROAD

HAMMERSMITH. TAKE PRECAUTIONS. HOLMES

Toby!

I looked up at my wife.

"It has begun," she said quietly.

"Yes." I tried to keep the thrill from my voice. The chase was on, and what would be the outcome of it time alone would tell.

I raced through my breakfast and dressing, all thought of weariness gone as my wife hurriedly packed a bag. Being married to an old army man and the daughter of another had made her a prompt and

efficient packer. By the time I was ready to leave, so was my bag, except that when she was not looking I slipped my old service revolver into it. This was what Holmes had meant by TAKE PRECAUTIONS, and, though I knew I should not need it, it would be unwise to let him discover I had ignored his instructions—and equally unwise to reveal to my wife that I had followed them. I kissed her before departing, and reminded her to speak to Cullingworth about my patients.

Next I was ordered to fetch Toby and meet Holmes at the professor's home, and this I set out to do.

The street was invisible. Fog, which had gathered at my ankles some hours before, now settled still about me, much higher than my head. It was no great matter to determine its density. It was

inpenetrable. All about me was a wall of sulphurous yellow smoke, stinging to the eye and noxious to the lungs. London, in a matter of hours, had been transformed into a creepy dream-world where sound replaced sight.

From different quarters my ears were assailed by horses' hoofs striking upon the cobbled street and by street vendors' cries as they hawked their wares before invisible buildings. Somewhere in the gloom an organ grinder cranked out a sinister arrangement of "Poor Little Buttercup" to add to the eerieness.

Here and there, as I edged towards the corner, using my stick to feel the way, and seeing people only the moment before it became necessary to sidestep them, I was dimly able to perceive bright glowing spots in the otherwise uniform haze of yellow. It might have taken a stranger some moments to divine that these were the street-lamps, allowed to burn in the daylight for all the good they did. I, of course, knew them at once.

It must be understood that these terrible and lethal fogs were a routine occurrence in the London where I spent my younger days. Yet even for that age, the fog through which I walked on that particular day was of extravagant dimensions.

When at last I found a cab, progress was painfully slow towards number three Pinchin Lane, Lambeth.

I peered out of the window into the jaundiced void and occasionally made out some key landmark which assured me we were yet headed in the right direction. Hanover Square, Grosvenor Square, Whitehall, Westminster, and finally Westminster Bridge were shrouded stages along the way to that uninviting alley where dwelt Mr. Sherman, the naturalist, whose remarkable dog, Toby, had so often assisted Holmes in the course of his investigations.

If Toby had possessed a pedigree one would have called him a bloodhound. So far from his being a bloodhound, however, it was impossible to determine—even by Mr. Sherman, whom I had sounded

once on the subject—just what Toby was. Mr. Sherman hazarded a guess of half spaniel, half lurcher, but I was not convinced. His brown and white colouring, his lopping ears, and his awkward waddle were enough to confuse me utterly regarding his antecedents.

Moreover, at some stage of his life a disease had carried off a quantity of his hair. His resultant appearance was unprepossessing to a degree. Still, Toby was a friendly and affectionate animal, and had no cause to feel inferior to the rest of the world's canines, no matter how well born. His nose was his pedigree. So far as I can determine, he never had a rival where his olfactory sense was involved.

Readers may recall Toby's remarkable powers from my account of them in "The Sign of the Four," in which he was materially responsible for the discovery of the notorious Jonathan Small and his Horrible Companion. He traced them half-way across London with only a bit of creosote on the bare feet of the latter to guide him. True, he once brought us to an unexpected dead-end at a creosote barrel, but that was only because the fugitives' path had intersected that of the barrel. The dog cannot be blamed for confusing two identical scents. In fact, when Holmes and I led Toby to retrace his steps, he

acknowledged the error and started forth in the correct direction with the result I have elsewhere described.

In my wildest flights of fancy I could never have guessed to what heights of genius Toby would shortly rise.

At length, from the sounds of animals squawking and crying within I knew we had arrived and I told the driver to wait. This he was not loath to do. Travel under these conditions was hazardous as well as frightening.

Stepping down, I looked about for the rows of dismal houses I knew fronted both sides of the lane, but they were not there. Only the grunts and cries of Sherman's collection led me to his door.

I knocked loudly and called out besides, for the sounds within were raucous in the extreme, as though the menagerie itself was disturbed by the awful blanket of soot and mist that deprived them of the familiar sun. But it occurred to me that they were not very often likely to be silent, and I wondered what effect this constant cacophony produced in their owner.

I had met Sherman several times when Holmes's business had brought me round for Toby. Though he had threatened me on the first occasion with a viper, that was done before he realized I was a friend of Holmes's. Upon learning that I was, he had thrown open the door and made me welcome ever since. He explained his initial hostility by informing me that he was always being "guyed at" by the children in the vicinity. It was now more than a year since I had visited him last. On that previous occasion Holmes wished to employ Toby in order to trace an orangoutan through the sewers of Marseilles. It was a case which, though I omitted to set down, was not devoid of what he deprecatingly referred to as "features of interest." As I recall, at its conclusion the Polish government recognized his services on their behalf by presenting him with the Order of St. Stanislaus, second class. (It is a frustrating pity that Watson did not set down the case. As it is, the Polish government's reward to Holmes for tracking an orangoutan through the sewers of Marseilles must join the number of tantalizing references the doctor makes to other cases he never saw fit to chronicle. We may infer—from the reward mentioned—that the case was brought to a successful conclusion; but how successful? If Holmes had succeeded entirely, might not the Polish government have awarded him the Order
first
class?)

After continual pounding and hallooing, the door at length was opened.

"All right now, you little—" The squinting eyes of the naturalist made out my form over the rims of his spectacles. "Why, Dr. Watson! I beg your pardon, I'm sure! Come in, come in. I thought it was those rapscallions playing one of their jokes in this damned fog. How ever did you find the way? Come in!"

He was holding a monkey in his arms and I was obliged to step over what I knew to be a toothless badger. The zoo suddenly fell silent as though I had cast a spell upon them. Except for the subdued cooing of a pair of grey pigeons seated together on a shelf and the squeal of a pig somewhere in a back room, the naturalist's abode was plunged into abrupt silence. In the stillness I could hear the Thames lapping at the pilings of the house. Outside the window the cry of gulls could faintly be distinguished as they swirled about aimlessly in the gloom.

Sherman gently swept a one-eyed old tom off a ladder-backed rocker and offered the chair to me.

Though I had no intention of remaining long, I sat down. Something about the man suggested a longing for human companionship, and it made me loath to dash in and out, though I knew that any delay here, coupled with the difficulties of the journey yet to be made to Hammersmith, could very well affect Toby's ability to perform at his best.

"You'll be wanting Toby, then, Doctor?" he enquired, unhooking the monkey's affectionate arm from about his neck and setting the creature down on top of a covered bird-cage. "Just a minute, then, and I'll fetch him. You've no time for a cup of tea?" he added with a rising inflection.

"I'm afraid not."

"No, I thought not." He sighed and went out through the side door to the kennels. A barking and yipping from that direction told me that his dogs were glad to see him. I discerned Toby's yelp in the midst of the din.

Sherman returned almost instantly with the animal, leaving the others howling dismally, his presence no doubt having evoked in them a similar desire to be loosed from their cages. Toby knew me and rushed forth, straining at his lead and wagging his stringy tail with ferocious energy and good will. I responded by presenting him with a lump of sugar, brought for the purpose—a regular feature of our reunions. As usual, I offered to pay Sherman in advance, and, in accordance with his own way of doing things—at least where Sherlock Holmes was concerned—he refused.

"You keep him long as you need him," he insisted as he escorted me to the door, pushing a chicken aside on the way. "We'll settle it up later. Good-bye, Toby! Here's a good doggy! Give my best to Mr.

Sherlock!" he called out to me as I, with Toby in tow, stumbled towards the cab.

I called back that I would, and hailed the cabbie, who, by shouting, informed me where I had left him.

Following his voice, we found the cab and climbed in. I gave the address Holmes had quoted in his telegram (and which I had visited myself the night before), and we hesitantly plunged into the round of blind traffic that was feeling its way through London.

We rediscovered Westminster Bridge, got over it—narrowly avoiding a collision with a Watney's wagon—and then headed due west towards Hammersmith. The only recognizable point along our way was Gloucester Road Station.

Turning at length into deserted Munro Road, we made for the faint glow of the sole lamp on the street, and there stopped.

"We're 'ere!" the driver announced, with as much relief as surprise in his tone, and I got out to scan the vicinity for any sign of Holmes. The place was deadly still, and my voice, when I called out his name, echoed strangely against the impenetrable mist.

I stood for a moment, perplexed, and was on the point of making my way to the professor's house—

which I knew lay somewhere behind me—when I distinguished a tap-tap-tap on the pavement,

somewhere to my right.

"Hullo?"

There was no answer, only the same not-quite-rhythmic tapping of a stick on the pavement. Toby reacted as I did to the sound, and let forth a little whine of unease.

The tap-tap-tapping came on.

"Hullo!" I repeated insistently. "Who is that?"

"Maxwellton braes are bonnie!"
a high-pitched tenor suddenly sang out of the mist,
"Where early fa's
the dew, And it's there that Annie Laurie gie'd me her promise true—and airly fathers lie—but fur
bonnie Annie Laurie, I'd lay me doun and die!"

I stood motionless, transfixed, as the singer and the song came on, the hairs rising on the hackles of my neck at the sheer horror of it—a lonely, fogbound London street, for all practical purposes lost to time and mind—and the piping treble of the mysterious singer ignoring my attempts to communicate.

Slowly, with shuffling gait, he drew into view, aureoled by the street lamp—a ragged minstrel with shabby, open leather waistcoat, older leather breeches, and boots held together by their laces. His white hair grew sparsely on the sides of his face, and on his head he wore a leather cap with its shovel peak turned round, all of which proclaimed to me his former association with the coal industry. I say former, for over his eyes he wore the dark-tinted spectacles of the blind.