The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes (10 page)

Holmes acquiesced reluctantly.

‘Very well, Watson. I am forced to bow to your professional judgement but at some point, and soon, she must be persuaded to tell us what she knows. And now, my dear fellow, before Lestrade arrives, take a final look at the desk and tell me if you have observed anything else which might be useful to the inquiry.’

I looked but could see nothing.

‘No, Holmes. Only book and papers.’

‘Well, well!’ said he in a tone of mild surprise but he would not explain what, if anything, I had failed to notice and, turning about, he crossed to the shelves to examine the titles of the books, a task which occupied him until the arrival of Inspector Lestrade, who was accompanied by several other police officers.

Lestrade listened in silence to Holmes’ account of what had happened from the time Señora Persano had arrived at Baker Street to Persano’s leap from the window but he seemed less interested in Holmes’ discovery of the piece of paper in the grate than in the matchbox containing the worm.

As I had done, he approached it cautiously, bending down to
peer at it and taking care, I noticed, to keep his hands clasped behind his back.

‘Extraordinary!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have never seen anything like it before. A species of adder, would you say, Mr Holmes? It has the markings of one. I shall have to get this examined by an expert. But there is no doubt in my mind that it caused Mr Persano’s sudden madness. It must have bitten him when he opened the box. Nasty-looking little thing, isn’t it? It is going to need careful handling.’

Holmes said nothing during this monologue, merely standing by and watching as Lestrade sent one of his constables downstairs to ask the cook for a tin box with a well-fitting lid, a pair of thick leather gloves and some fire-tongs.

It was only after these articles had been produced and Lestrade, wearing the gloves, had picked up the matchbox with the tongs and deposited it very slowly and carefully inside the tin while an attendant subordinate clapped on the lid, that Holmes ventured a remark.

‘Well done, Inspector!’ he exclaimed.

Lestrade looked round, beaming with satisfaction. He had not apparently noticed the ironic tone in Holmes’ voice nor the amused gleam in his eyes.

‘And now that the little fellow’s shut away,’ he announced, ‘I can make a start on the investigation.’

‘You intend on speaking to the servants?’ Holmes inquired.

‘Not for the moment, except for the girl who took in the parcel,’ Lestrade replied with an offhand air. ‘I shan’t waste much time on the others. In my opinion, no one in the household is involved. We already have the villain who is responsible safely under lock and key.’

Laughing at his own joke, he rapped with his fingers on the lid of the tin.

‘You have no objection if I question them?’

‘Ask all you want, Mr Holmes. I shall be busy up here until the police surgeon arrives and I can arrange to have Mr Persano’s body removed to the mortuary.’

However, as Holmes and I went to the door, Lestrade clearly had second thoughts for he suddenly asked, his sallow features
sharp with suspicion, ‘If any of them has anything useful to tell you, you will let me know, won’t you, Mr Holmes? With your permission, I shall call at Baker Street tomorrow evening to discuss the developments in the case.’

‘Of course, Inspector,’ Holmes said graciously.

There was no sign of the Mexican manservant when we went downstairs to the hall, only the cook and the servant-girl whom we found in the kitchen, discussing with a horrified but excited animation the events of the evening, with the back door to the garden where Persano’s body was still lying firmly closed and the blind drawn down over the window.

Holmes spoke first to the cook.

Once we had succeeded in comprehending her thick brogue, we learned little from her except for the fact that her name was Mrs O’Hara and that she did not live in but had been engaged as a cook-general on a daily basis from the time when Mr Persano had rented the house furnished two months earlier. She saw little of Mr Persano himself who spent most of the day upstairs in his study and rarely went out. The Señora, whom she referred to as Mrs Persano, was in charge of the household and gave the orders although how the two of them managed to communicate, the one with only a limited knowledge of English, the other with an almost impenetrable Irish accent, was a mystery in itself.

The servant-girl, Polly Atkins, was a quick, alert little Cockney. As she lived in, she was able to tell us a little more about the occupants of the house and Isadora Persano’s daily routine. She confirmed the cook’s statement that Persano rarely left the house and, in the short time he had lived there, had received no visitors and hardly any letters.

‘Except for a small parcel which I understand was delivered this evening,’ said Holmes. ‘Who took it in?’

‘I did, sir,’ she replied promptly. ‘It came about ’alf past seven, brought by a young lad.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Well, he was just an h’ordinary boy, sir. I didn’t take no particular notice. ’E said the parcel was h’urgent and ’ad to be ’anded to Mr Persano straight away.’

‘What did you do with it?’

‘I give it to Juan to take upstairs. I’d ’ad strict h’orders not to disturb Mr Persano while he was writin’ so, as me and Cook was busy in the kitchen, I reckoned Juan could do somethin’ to earn ’is keep. ‘E’s Mr Persano’s manservant; not that ’e does much except wait at table and clean the silver.’

‘Where would I find this Juan?’

‘In the boot-cupboard, under the stairs.’

‘The boot-cupboard?’

‘’E allus ’ides in there when ’e’s upset. But you won’t get nothin’ out of ’im,’ she added, as Holmes made for the door. ‘’E’s a proper ’eathen; don’t speak a word of h’English.’

This proved only too true when, having located the boot-cupboard and found Juan closeted inside it, Holmes hauled him out into the light of the hall.

He was a small, dark-skinned youth with the broad and slightly flattened features of an Indian peasant and might have been any age from twelve to twenty for he had the old-young look I had observed before in the faces of London street-urchins who have grown wise beyond their years in the ways of the world.

He exuded fear. We could smell it on him – that feral odour which a terror-struck wild animal gives off when it is captured, and he clutched wildly at a gold crucifix about his neck as Holmes dragged him forward by the sleeve.

But we could get no response from him except for a dumb shaking of his head, even when Holmes tried him with a few words in Spanish.

Eventually, realising the task was hopeless, Holmes released his grasp and the youth bolted up the stairs.

‘Let him go,’ Holmes said, as I prepared to start after him. ‘We shall have to question him again tomorrow in Señora Persano’s presence. She will be able to act as interpreter.’ He seemed suddenly weary for he passed a hand over his eyes before continuing, ‘There is nothing else we can do here for the time being. Let us find a cab and return to Baker Street.’

Outside in the street, we hailed a hansom and, as it drew up outside his door, Holmes said, ‘Keep the cab, Watson. I should
prefer you not to come in with me. I am in no mood for company and besides there is some research I must undertake which will engage all my attention. But should you be free tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock, my dear fellow, I shall be delighted to see you.’

As he climbed out of the cab, he added in a musing tone, half to himself, ‘I wonder if Mrs Hudson has such a thing as a garden spade?’

Although I could understand his desire to be alone so soon after the death of his friend, I was nevertheless a little hurt by this dismissal and also intrigued by Holmes’ parting remark. What possible use could he have for a garden spade?

It was a question which absorbed me on the homeward journey and one which I was convinced I had answered by applying Holmes’ own deductive processes when, at two o’clock the following afternoon, I again presented myself at 221B Baker Street where I was admitted by Mrs Hudson.

‘Were you able to supply Mr Holmes with a spade?’ I asked, eager to put my theory to the test.

‘Indeed I was, Dr Watson, although goodness knows what he wanted it for. He was out with a lantern turning over my flower-borders until gone midnight.’

Although I thought I could guess what lay behind Holmes’ nocturnal activities, I was still not prepared for what he had to show me.

‘I hear you were out last night digging for bait,’ I remarked in a jocular fashion as I entered the sitting-room. ‘Were you successful?’

‘If by bait you mean the worm which was used to hook Persano,’ said he, ‘my efforts were rewarded. Come and look at this, Watson.’

Lying on the table was a saucer and in the saucer, stretched out at full length, was the remarkable worm which I had last seen curled up in the matchbox on Persano’s desk, marked with the same line of fine black dots along its back and the chevron pattern on its head.

‘Where on earth did you get it from, Holmes?’ I asked,
assuming that he had acquired it from Lestrade by some nefarious means.

‘Not
on
earth, Watson,’ he corrected me with a smile. ‘
In
earth. It was one of several that I dug up last night from Mrs Hudson’s back garden.’

‘Several? I don’t understand. Is there a sudden plague of these creatures? If so, should we not inform the police or someone in authority? They are venomous, are they not?’

Holmes burst out laughing and, although I was a little annoyed to be the source of his amusement, I was nevertheless gratified that he had recovered his good spirits after his low state of mind the previous evening.

‘Take my word for it, my dear fellow, it is perfectly harmless!’

‘But the markings …’

‘Indian ink,’ Holmes explained and, taking me by the arm, led me over to the table where he conducted his scientific experiments and where I saw several more dishes laid out in a row, each containing a worm with similar markings although on all of these the lines of dots were not nearly so distinct.

‘My first attempts,’ Holmes continued. ‘I tried various substances as you can see from the bottles and jars: ordinary black ink, boot polish applied with the point of a pin – a singular failure, that particular one; the polish rubbed off too easily. Dye and paint were too liquid; so, too, was stove blacking. If you ever wish to draw a pattern on an earthworm, Watson, allow me to recommend Indian ink, applied with a fine-nibbed mapping-pen.’

‘So Persano wasn’t bitten by the worm?’

‘No; although that was what we were meant to believe,’ Holmes replied, his eyes once more assuming their sombre, brooding expression.

‘Then how was he sent mad if it wasn’t by some kind of poison?’

‘That is what I propose asking Señora Persano this afternoon. I also intend to discover what was in the glass which had been placed on Isadora Persano’s desk at some time yesterday evening.’

‘What glass, Holmes? I saw no glass.’

‘The object does not have to be present in order to convince one of its physical existence. It is not necessary for the bank manager to be confronted by the actual burglar for him to know his premises had been broken into. The blown safe is evidence enough. It was so in this case. Although the glass had been removed, it had left behind a ring which had marked the polished surface of the desk. As the stain was still damp, I deduced that the glass had been removed not long before our arrival and Isadora Persano’s death. As the cook had no reason to go up to the study and the servant-girl was positively ordered not to do so, the only persons who could have taken the glass upstairs and then removed it were either Juan Alberdi or Señora Persano. I propose to find out which of the two it was. Come, Watson. The Señora should have recovered sufficiently to offer some explanation, if not the whole truth.’

Señora Persano had indeed recovered to the extent that she was no longer confined to bed but was lying on a sofa in the drawing-room, to which Polly Atkins, the little maid-of-all-work, conducted us.

It was one of the strangest rooms I have ever entered. Although it was furnished with the conventional items that are usually supplied with a rented house in the way of armchairs, occasional tables and whatnots, every surface was covered with an extraordinary collection of South American
objets
d’art
which Persano must have brought back with him from his travels. There were woven rugs, painted pottery, carved figurines, all brightly coloured, and, weirdest of all, a whole wall filled with masks of gods and goddesses, saints and demons, some grotesquely grinning, others grimacing in pain or terror.

It was not a room in which one could feel at ease, especially as the blinds were drawn against the bright afternoon sunshine, and I was surprised that Señora Persano had chosen such a setting in which to convalesce although no doubt these bizarre objects were familiar to her.

She lay in the semi-darkness, covered with a silk shawl which was embroidered with exotic birds and flowers, looking very pale and languid, her black hair loose about her shoulders.

We approached the sofa and, drawing out two upright chairs,
sat down at her side, I taking care to place my own seat so that it had its back to the masks.

I still have my notes and from these, I have drawn up a summary of the conversation between Holmes and the Señora. It was conducted at times in Spanish, Holmes translating for my benefit, but largely in English, heavily fractured on the Señora’s part and frequently interrupted by tears, sighs and impassioned lamentations in her own language.

However, little by little we were able to put together her story.

She had met Isadora Persano in Argentina the previous year when he had been travelling through South and Central America gathering material for a book he proposed writing on the subcontinent as well as for a series of newspaper articles, commissioned by the Washington
Gazette.

They had fallen in love and, when he moved on to Chile, Brazil, Ecuador and finally to Mexico, she had accompanied him.

There was no mention of a marriage ceremony and I noticed that Holmes was careful not to query this point.