Nicholas Meyer (9 page)

I continued to stare in horror as this apparition drew still nearer and concluded his song. The silence hung in the air between us.

"Alms? Alms for the blind?" he intoned abruptly, and swept his hat off, holding it crown downwards before me. I fumbled in my pocket for change.

"Why didn't you answer when I called out?" I demanded of him somewhat irritably, for I was now ashamed of the impulse to which I had almost yielded, to get to my bag on the floor of the cab and fetch the revolver. I was the more irritated, perceiving how foolish such an action would have been; this blind singer held no terror for me and surely harbored no malice, either.

"I didn't like to stop the song," he answered, as if that were obvious. His accent was faintly Irish."When I stop the song they doesn't pay me," he explained, and shook the hat slightly before me. I dropped a few pennies into it. "Thank-ee, sir."

"But good heavens, man, how can you ply your trade in this situation?"

"Sitcheyation, sir? What sitcheyation's that?"

"Why, this blasted fog!" I retorted with energy. "You can't see your hand before your—" I stopped, suddenly remembering. The minstrel only let out a breath in exclamation.

"Oh, is
that
what's doin' it? I wondered why it was all so strange today. I don' believe I've took in a shillin' all mornin'. Fog, is it? Must be a regular corker if I haven't 'ad a shillin' on account of it. Well!"

He sighed again and appeared to look about him, a ghastly exercise in view of his deficiency.

"Do you need any help?" I enquired.

"No, no—bless you, sir, for offerin', but I don't. Why, it's all the same to me, in't? All the same to me.

Thank-ee, gov'nor." And with this he scooped out the money I had placed in his hat and deposited it in his pocket. I bade him farewell and he shuffled off, using his stick before him to feel his path—no different from any ordinary man in the midst of this cursed fog—except that he was singing again, his voice dying away as he disappeared from view and was swallowed up by folds of smoke.

I looked round again and shouted once more:
"Holmes!"

"No need to shout, Watson. I'm right here," said a familiar voice at my elbow. I jerked round and found myself nose to nose with the blind singer.

*6*—Toby Surpasses Himself

"Holmes!"

He laughed, tore off the false hair, and peeled away the equally false eyebrows and warts on the singer's chin. Next he removed the dark-tinted spectacles, and in place of the minstrel's dead eyes, I was treated to the sight of Holmes's twinkling ones, alight with silent mirth.

"Forgive me, my dear fellow. You know I can never resist a touch of the dramatic and the setting was so perfect that I succumbed to temptation."

It took some moments to reassure the terrified cabbie, whom the entire episode had reduced to near insensibility, but Holmes succeeded at last in calming him.

"But why the disguise?" I pursued, as he bent down to pet the dog, who, now close enough to sniff him, was happily wagging its tail and licking the paint from his cheeks. He looked up at me sharply.

"He has bolted, Watson."

"Bolted? Who has bolted?"

"The professor." Holmes spoke with an exasperated air as he stood up. "That is his house behind you in the fog. I was keeping watch on the residence myself, last night (usually I have paid Wiggins* to do it), and all was normal until midnight. It was raw and damp, and I went to the public house down the road for some brandy to warm my insides. While I was gone, two men came to see him. What they said I have no way of knowing, but I don't doubt that they were spies in his pay, come to tell him of my nets closing upon him. When I returned they had gone, and all was as I had left it. Then, this morning at eleven, I received a wire from Wiggins. Sometime between the time I left and he assumed my place, the professor departed. How or where we have yet to discover. I came here as you saw me lest his friends should lie in ambush."

* Wiggins. An enterprising street Arab, who, for a time, directed the movements of Sherlock Holmes's

"unofficial detective force" of gutter urchins, "the Baker Street Regulars."

I listened, trying to maintain an impassive expression and to ask the appropriate questions.

"Two men, you say?"

"Yes. One was tall and quite heavy—fourteen stone, at least—this damp ground is very effective for registering impressions. He wore large boots with a curved toe and square heel, worn towards the instep on each foot. Men that large and heavy often stand with their toes out, which accounts for this phenomenon. He was decisive, and, I should judge, the leader of the two."

"And the other?" I tried to keep from swallowing conspicuously.

"Ah, the other," Holmes sighed ruminatively and looked about at the stillness. "There are features of interest about him. He was somewhat shorter and not nearly so heavy as his companion; less than six feet, I would say, and he walked with a slight limp, not unlike yours, Watson, in his left leg. He lagged behind on one occasion and had to be called forward by the other when he approached the house. This is to be inferred from the fact that only his toe prints are visible as he went in that direction. He was running to catch up, the increased length of his stride tells me, and not being stealthy, for such a manoeuvre had not occurred to his companion. They came forward to the house, met with the

professor, and took their leave. I could tell you more about them except this wretched fog has precluded my seeing the total picture of their activities. Fortunately I took precautions so that I may lay my hands on them, should that be necessary. As you know, however, it is not my habit to go after the small fish while the big ones are at large.
Mind the vanilla extract
!" he yelled suddenly, and pulled me backward from the two paces or so I had taken in the direction of the house. "You might have fallen in," he gasped, holding on to me to regain his balance. Now I was certain he was completely mad, beyond help.

"Vanilla extract?" I spoke as calmly as I could.

"Don't worry, my dear fellow, I have not lost my wits," he chuckled, releasing the lapels of my ulster. "I said I had taken precautions which would enable me to trace any or all of these men. Pay off the cab and I will explain."

Feeling very ill at ease, I stumbled back towards the cab, took my bag from its recesses, and settled with the driver. He seemed relieved to go, no doubt having judged the dangers of the fog slight compared to the hazards of life in Munro Road. The cab creaked slowly into oblivion and I returned to where my companion stood waiting. Taking me by the arm and holding Toby's lead, Holmes guided us towards the house, which, though still invisible, I was now able to sense in the nearby vicinity.

"Look down here and breathe deeply," he instructed. I squatted down and inhaled as directed, and almost at once my nostrils were assailed by the saccharine odor of vanilla extract.

"What in the world—?" I began.

"It's better than creosote, if one can arrange it," he responded, allowing Toby to smell it as well, "for it isn't sticky, which might warn the wearer that something was adhering to the soles of his boots. Its other advantage is its uniqueness. It is powerful and long-lasting, and I very much doubt that Toby will be confused by anything remotely similar—unless, of course, the trail leads us through a kitchen. Go on, smell it, boy, smell it!" he encouraged the dog, which dutifully sniffed at the large puddle of the stuff next to the kerb.

"I poured this here before I left last night," Holmes went on, continuing to remove the trappings of his disguise. "They all trod in it—Moriarty, his two accomplices, and the wheel of the cab that took him away some hours ago."

I thanked my stars that I had put on a different pair of boots this morning, and rose to my feet. "And now?"

"And now Toby will follow the wheel of the cab. At some point he will exhibit uncertainty and we will look for the trail to continue on foot. Are you ready?"

"Are we not too late?"

"I think not. The fog that delayed your arrival no doubt interfered with his escape as well. Come on, boy!"

He jerked Toby slightly away from the puddle of vanilla extract and we were off. The scent was evidently a powerful one. Disregarding the visual handicap imposed on us by the fog, the dog went at a sharp pace, barely allowing himself to be held in check while Holmes retrieved his own satchel, a red carpet-bag, from the shrubbery on the opposite side of the road. For the most part we travelled in silence, doing our best to keep up with the animal, whose sharp tugs on the lead and enthusiastic yelps gave us to understand that not even the noxious fumes of sulphur in the air were affecting his powers.

Holmes appeared calm and collected, very much in possession of his faculties, and I was forced to wonder if I had not made some incredible error. Perhaps Moriarty
had
duped Mycroft as well as myself, and was in fact the centre of terrible evil. I put the thought out of my mind as one I could not afford at this time, and limped along as best I could in the wake of Holmes and the dog. This kind of weather was especially painful to my wound, and as a rule I did not walk in it. At one point I took out my pipe, but Holmes held up a warning hand.

"The dog has the fog to contend with already," he advised. "Let us not add to his obstacles."

I nodded and we went on, winding through streets we could not see, and dodging traffic, for we were obliged to use the centre of the road as the cab had done before us.

At one point we passed the Gloucester Road Station on our left, and I heard clearly train whistles hooting in the mists, like blind sows trying to find their litters. Still the dog pulled us on, with no apparent lapse of energy.

"I may write a monograph on it," Holmes said, referring to the vanilla extract. "Its properties for this kind of work are ideal, as you can see. Our guide does not hesitate at all. Even through mud and water he knows his way." (Holmes had in fact already written a monograph, "On the Tracing of Footsteps," a pioneer work on the subject and the first to advocate the use of plaster of Paris in taking impressions.

He was the author of several privately printed articles on similar topics as well as his masterful essay

"On the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus," said by experts to be the last word on the subject.) I mumbled something or other in agreement and breathed again an inward sigh of relief that I had changed my footwear, else the sweet substance had led that exemplary canine to me before we had travelled two yards. The game would have been up before it had started.

As it was, I was hard-pressed to maintain the cur's pace. I could not see where we were, and the sounds of the city blurred in my ears as they succeeded one another with bewildering rapidity. My leg had begun to throb in earnest and I was on the point of saying so when Holmes stopped short and plucked me by the coat.

"What is it?" said I, gasping for breath.

"Listen."

I obeyed, trying to hear above the reverberations of my own heart. There were horses, the creakings of harness and tackle, the cries of cabbies, and the whistles of trains again.

"Victoria," Holmes said quietly.

It was indeed the great railway terminus, as we could now perceive.

"Precisely what I foresaw," Holmes murmured next to me. "You have your bag with you? That is fortunate."

Did I detect a sarcastic inflection in his tone?

"Your wire said 'a few days,' " I reminded him.

He gave no sign of having heard, but plunged forward behind Toby, who was making a straight line for the cab stands. He sniffed in the ground next to where several of them stood idle, the horses' mouths covered with feedbags, and then suddenly made as if to dash away from the station.

"No, no," Holmes told him gently but firmly. "We are through with the cab, Toby. Show us where its passenger went."

With this, he led the animal around to the other side of the cabs and there, after a moment of hesitation, the animal's confusion was resolved. With a fresh yelp, he darted off towards the terminus itself.

Inside the crowded station—the more crowded because of the delays occasioned by the inclement weather—Toby dived through knots of stranded and irritated passengers, sometimes spilling over a portmanteau that lay in his path, till he arrived at the platform of the Continental Express. There he stopped dead before the empty tracks as Gloucester stopped at the edge of his cliff. The vanilla extract ended here. I looked at Holmes, who smiled and shot up his brows.

"So," said he, quietly.

"What now?" I enquired.

"Let us find out how long it has been since the Express has gone and how long it will be before it goes again."

"And the dog?"

"Oh, we wilt take him with us. I do not think we have exhausted his usefulness quite yet."

"Of course Toby is not the only method by which I might have traced Professor Moriarty," Holmes said, later, as our train emerged from the fog some twenty miles outside London on its way to Dover.

"There were at least three alternatives, any one of which would have served my turn. Without vanilla extract," he added, smiling.

The clean air brought a lift to my spirits as well as to my congested lungs. Southeast of London the day was yet cloudy and rainy, but at least one could see, and the fact that I had Holmes well and truly on his way made up for any discomforts.

My companion fell into a kind of uneasy doze and awoke thirty minutes later with a start, peering at me strangely. He stood up suddenly, holding on to the overhead luggage racks for support.

"Excuse me for a moment, my dear fellow," he said in strained tones, and with another awkward glance he pulled down his red carpet-bag. He had, in the interval before our train departed from Victoria, used the facilities there to remove the last vestiges of his disguise and replace them with his normal attire, carried in the bag. I knew, therefore, where he was about to go, what he was about to do, and why he was about to do it. I choked back any remonstrance, however. This, after all, was why I was taking him to Austria. Yes, taking him, though he knew it not.