Shivers for Christmas (25 page)

‘Well, I have no connection with any other people who have been making inquiries,’ said Holmes carelessly. ‘If you won’t tell us the bet is off, that is all. But I’m always ready to back my opinion on a matter of fowls, and I have a fiver on it that the bird I ate is country bred.’

‘Well, then, you’ve lost your fiver, for it’s town bred,’ snapped the salesman.

‘It’s nothing of the kind.’

‘I say it is.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘D’you think you know more about fowls than I, who have handled them ever since I was a nipper? I tell you, all those birds that went to the Alpha were town bred.’

‘You’ll never persuade me to believe that.’

‘Will you bet, then?’

‘It’s merely taking your money, for I know that I am right. But I’ll have a sovereign on with you, just to teach you not to be obstinate.’

The salesman chuckled grimly. ‘Bring me the books, Bill,’ said he.

The small boy brought round a small thin volume and a great greasy-backed one, laying them out together beneath the hanging lamp.

‘Now then, Mr Cocksure,’ said the salesman, ‘I thought that I was out of geese, but before I finish you’ll find that there is still one left in my shop. You see this little book?’

‘Well?’

‘That’s the list of the folk from whom I buy. D’you see? Well, then, here on this page are the country folk, and the numbers after their names are where their accounts are in the big ledger. Now, then! You see this other page in red ink? Well, that is a list of my town suppliers. Now, look at that third name. Just read it out to me.’

‘Mrs Oakshott, 117, Brixton Road—249,’ read Holmes.

‘Quite so. Now turn that up in the ledger.’

Holmes turned to the page indicated. ‘Here you are, “Mrs Oakshott, 117 Brixton Road, egg and poultry supplier.”’

‘Now, then, what’s the last entry?’

‘“December 22nd. Twenty-four geese at 7
s
6
d
.”’

‘Quite so. There you are. And underneath?’

‘“Sold to Mr Windigate of the Alpha, at 12s.”’

‘What have you to say now?’

Sherlock Holmes looked deeply chagrined. He drew a sovereign from his pocket and threw it down upon the slab, turning away with the air of a man whose disgust is too deep for words. A few yards off he stopped under a lamppost and laughed in the hearty, noiseless fashion which was peculiar to him.

‘When you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the “Pink ’un” protruding out of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet,’ said he. ‘I daresay that if I had put £100 down in front of him, that man would not have given me such complete information as was drawn from him by the idea that he was doing me on a wager. Well, Watson, we are, I fancy, nearing the end of our quest, and the only point which remains to be determined is whether we should go on to this Mrs Oakshott tonight, or whether we should reserve it for tomorrow. It is clear from what that surly fellow said that there are others besides ourselves who are anxious about the matter, and I should—’

His remarks were suddenly cut short by a loud hubbub which broke out from the stall which we had just left. Turning round we saw a little rat-faced fellow standing in the centre of the circle of yellow light which was thrown by the swinging lamp, while Breckinridge, the salesman, framed in the door of his stall, was shaking his fists fiercely at the cringing figure.

‘I’ve had enough of you and your geese,’ he shouted. ‘I wish you were all at the devil together. If you come pestering me any more with your silly talk I’ll set the dog at you. You bring Mrs Oakshott here and I’ll answer her, but what have you to do with it? Did I buy the geese off you?’

‘No; but one of them was mine all the same,’ whined the little man.

‘Well, then, ask Mrs Oakshott for it.’

‘She told me to ask you.’

‘Well, you can ask the King of Proosia, for all I care. I’ve had enough of it. Get out of this!’ He rushed fiercely forward, and the inquirer flitted away into the darkness.

‘Ha! this may save us a visit to Brixton Road,’ whispered Holmes. ‘Come with me, and we will see what is to be made of this fellow.’ Striding through the scattered knots of people who lounged round the flaring stalls, my companion speedily overtook the little man and touched him upon the shoulder. He sprang round, and I could see in the gaslight that every vestige of colour had been driven from his face.

‘Who are you, then? What do you want?’ he asked in a quavering voice.

‘You will excuse me,’ said Holmes blandly, ‘but I could not help overhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now. I think that I could be of assistance to you.’

‘You? Who are you? How could you know anything of the matter?’

‘My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don’t know.’

‘But you can know nothing of this?’

‘Excuse me, I know everything of it. You are endeavouring to trace some geese which were sold by Mrs Oakshott, of Brixton Road, to a salesman named Breckinridge, by him in turn to Mr Windigate, of the Alpha, and by him to his club, of which Mr Henry Baker is a member.’

‘Oh, sir, you are the very man whom I have longed to meet,’ cried the little fellow with outstretched hands and quivering fingers. ‘I can hardly explain to you how interested I am in this matter.’

Sherlock Holmes hailed a four-wheeler which was passing. ‘In that case we had better discuss it in a cosy room rather than in this windswept market-place,’ said he. ‘But pray tell me, before we go farther, who it is that I have the pleasure of assisting.’

The man hesitated for an instant. ‘My name is John Robinson,’ he answered with a sidelong glance.

‘No, no; the real name,’ said Holmes sweetly. ‘It is always awkward doing business with an alias.’

A flush sprang to the white cheeks of the stranger. ‘Well, then,’ said he, ‘my real name is James Ryder.’

‘Precisely so. Head attendant at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Pray step into the cab, and I shall soon be able to tell you everything which you would wish to know.’

The little man stood glancing from one to the other of us with half-frightened, half-hopeful eyes, as one who is not sure whether he is on the verge of a windfall or of a catastrophe. Then he stepped into the cab, and in half an hour we were back in the sitting-room at Baker Street. Nothing had been said during our drive, but the high, thin breathing of our new companion, and the claspings and unclaspings of his hands, spoke of the nervous tension within him.

‘Here we are!’ said Holmes cheerily as we filed into the room. ‘The fire looks very seasonable in this weather. You look cold, Mr Ryder. Pray take the basket-chair. I will just put on my slippers before we settle this little matter of yours. Now, then! You want to know what became of those geese?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Or rather, I fancy, of that goose. It was one bird, I imagine, in which you were interested—white, with a black bar across the tail.’

Ryder quivered with emotion. ‘Oh, sir,’ he cried, ‘can you tell me where it went to?’

‘It came here.’

‘Here?’

‘Yes, and a most remarkable bird it proved. I don’t wonder that you should take an interest in it. It laid an egg after it was dead—the bonniest, brightest little blue egg that ever was seen. I have it here in my museum.’

Our visitor staggered to his feet and clutched the mantelpiece with his right hand. Holmes unlocked his strongbox and held up the blue carbuncle, which shone out like a star, with a cold, brilliant, many-pointed radiance. Ryder stood glaring with a drawn face, uncertain whether to claim or to disown it.

‘The game’s up, Ryder,’ said Holmes quietly. ‘Hold up, man, or you’ll be into the fire! Give him an arm back into his chair, Watson. He’s not got blood enough to go in for felony with impunity. Give him a dash of brandy. So! Now he looks a little more human. What a shrimp it is, to be sure!’

For a moment he had staggered and nearly fallen, but the brandy brought a tinge of colour into his cheeks, and he sat staring with frightened eyes at his accuser.

‘I have almost every link in my hands, and all the proofs which I could possibly need, so there is little which you need tell me. Still, that little may as well be cleared up to make the case complete. You had heard, Ryder, of this blue stone of the Countess of Morcar’s?’

‘It was Catherine Cusack who told me of it,’ said he in a crackling voice.

‘I see—her ladyship’s waiting-maid. Well, the temptation of sudden wealth so easily acquired was too much for you, as it has been for better men before you; but you were not very scrupulous in the means you used. It seems to me, Ryder, that there is the making of a very pretty villain in you. You knew that this man, Horner, the plumber, had been concerned in some such matter before, and that suspicion would rest the more readily upon him. What did you do, then? You made some small job in my lady’s room—you and your confederate Cusack—and you managed that he should be the man sent for. Then, when he had left, you rifled the jewel case, raised the alarm, and had this unfortunate man arrested. You then—’

Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my companion’s knees. ‘For God’s sake, have mercy!’ he shrieked. ‘Think of my father! of my mother! It would break their hearts. I never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I’ll swear it on a Bible. Oh, don’t bring it into court! For Christ’s sake, don’t!’

‘Get back into your chair!’ said Holmes sternly. ‘It is very well to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing.’

‘I will fly, Mr Holmes. I will leave the country, sir. Then the charge against him will break down.’

‘Hum! We will talk about that. And now let us hear a true account of the next act. How came the stone into the goose, and how came the goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for there lies your only hope of safety.’

Ryder passed his tongue over his parched lips. ‘I will tell you it just as it happened, sir,’ said he. ‘When Horner had been arrested, it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get away with the stone at once, for I did not know at what moment the police might not take it into their heads to search me and my room. There was no place about the hotel where it would be safe. I went out, as if on some commission, and I made for my sister’s house. She had married a man named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton Road, where she fattened fowls for the market. All the way there every man I met seemed to me to be a policeman or a detective; and, for all that it was a cold night, the sweat was pouring down my face before I came to the Brixton Road. My sister asked me what was the matter, and why I was so pale; but I told her that I had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel. Then I went into the back yard and smoked a pipe, and wondered what it would be best to do.

‘I had a friend once called Maudsley, who went to the bad, and has just been serving his time in Pentonville. One day he had met me, and fell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they could get rid of what they stole. I knew that he would be true to me, for I knew one or two things about him; so I made up my mind to go right on to Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my confidence. He would show me how to turn the stone into money. But how to get to him in safety? I thought of the agonies I had gone through in coming from the hotel. I might at any moment be seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my waistcoat pocket. I was leaning against the wall at the time and looking at the geese which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly an idea came into my head which showed me how I could beat the best detective that ever lived.

‘My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the pick of her geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she was always as good as her word. I would take my goose now, and in it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds—a fine big one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and, prying its bill open, I thrust the stone down its throat as far as my finger could reach. The bird gave a gulp, and I felt the stone pass along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature flapped and struggled, and out came my sister to know what was the matter. As I turned to speak to her the brute broke loose and fluttered off among the others.

‘“Whatever were you doing with that bird, Jem?” says she.

‘“Well,” said I, “you said you’d give me one for Christmas, and I was feeling which was the fattest.”

‘“Oh,” says she, “we’ve set yours aside for you—Jem’s bird, we call it. It’s the big white one over yonder. There’s twenty-six of them, which makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen for the market.”

‘“Thank you, Maggie,” says I; “but if it is all the same to you, I’d rather have that one I was handling just now.”

‘“The other is a good three pounds heavier,” said she, “and we fattened it expressly for you.”

‘“Never mind. I’ll have the other, and I’ll take it now,” said I.

‘“Oh, just as you like,” said she, a little huffed. “Which is it you want, then?”

‘“That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the flock.”

‘“Oh, very well. Kill it and take it with you.”

‘Well, I did what she said, Mr Holmes, and I carried the bird all the way to Kilburn. I told my pal what I had done, for he was a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed until he choked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. My heart turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I knew that some terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird, rushed back to my sister’s, and hurried into the back yard. There was not a bird to be seen there.

‘“Where are they all, Maggie?” I cried.

‘“Gone to the dealer’s, Jem.”

‘“Which dealer’s?”

‘“Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.”

‘“But was there another with a barred tail?” I asked, “the same as the one I chose?”

‘“Yes, Jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and I could never tell them apart.”

‘Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my feet would carry me to this man Breckinridge; but he had sold the lot at once, and not one word would he tell me as to where they had gone. You heard him yourselves tonight. Well, he has always answered me like that. My sister thinks that I am going mad. Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now—and now I am myself a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character. God help me! God help me!’ He burst into convulsive sobbing, with his face buried in his hands.