A Taste for Honey (27 page)

Authors: H. F. Heard

BOOK: A Taste for Honey

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“Yet even here,” he bent down and touched the springy limb which wheezed gently as it swung, “even here, I feel sure, there must be quite a considerable time before the weather-curing required for this extreme of dehydration could be attained. So this man met his end by shooting some months, perhaps half a year ago. Now, who is he? Well, he is someone that someone wanted to murder or at least to rob. I suspect what clothes he had, beyond this shirt and trousers, were taken and, after searching, burnt. You see, a search, a hasty one, was made. The trouser pockets have been pulled out, so as not to miss an inner pocket, and not put back.” Mr. Mycroft was kneeling close beside the shriveled cadaver. “Um,” he said, “hurried but not unthorough. That nip out of the shirt was to remove the sales tag, I suspect.”

“Well,” I put in at that point, “we can't find out anything more. Hadn't we better get back and notify a sheriff or someone?”

The whole thing was rather too gruesome for my liking, and the longer we hung over this really horrible twist of what had been a man, the more Mr. Mycroft seemed to become absorbed by it. He positively brooded over it like some huge bat. The situation had become positively eerie for me and I was just trying to raise my spirits by reflecting that, after all, a vampire could not have chosen a less productive victim than this sorry bundle of sinews and shriveled skin, when, looking down, I wasâwell, horrified and disgusted. For Mr. Mycroft had taken hold of the object. He had raised it so that his lean, hard, white face looked into its face, dun-colored and chapfallen. But that was not the shock. It was what he did with it as it lay on his knee. He had slipped his left hand round the back of its scrawny neck until I could see his long fingers squeezing its jaws. He was manipulating it like a hideous ventriloquist's dummy. And, sure enough, to my alarmed disgust, the mouth did open. I saw the withered tongue come forward as the muscles at its base were squeezed in the neck.

“What are you doing?” I cried.

He made no reply, so absorbed was he in his beastly task, whatever its purpose. For a moment my fear made me think he might have gone madâtoo much heat and exertion and, no doubt, shockâall that coolness was only cover and pretenseâand here was I alone in the desert with the corpse of a murdered man and a lunatic playing with it. I couldn't take my eyes off that terrible pair. But the next thing which the living did to the dead, reassured me. It was only my panic which had made me believe that he was trying to make the cadaver speak. No, he was examining not the play of the tongue but the line of the teeth. With relief, I felt sure he was looking for any dental work whereby, maybe, an identification could be made.

“But why not look at the finger marks?” I suggested, anxious to show myself that we were still the right side of sanity and, gruesome though our actual occupation was, it was really only part and parcel of a routine inspection any policeman would be expected to make.

“The skin has stretched away all its natural markings,” he said without turning round. “No, it's here we'll find a reference, if anywhere.”

Curiosity overcame my disgust. I bent over his shoulder and peered into the dead man's mouth, opened now just the way a strangled rat's will gape. No, there was no dental plate or bridgework or indeed anything but a few noncommittal fillings and a gap or two where a few of the middle teeth had been lost.

“Nothing to report,” I said, glad to have joined in the inspection and not to have winced. Now, at last, we could go.

But a last and worst shock was in store for me. Just as I thought we could leave this wretched shred of mortality under its rearranged pebbles, for some official to take or leave, I saw Mr. Mycroft, instead of putting it down, shift his hold. His left hand forced the mouth to open still wider until the horrid thing seemed laughing at us. Then quickly his right hand darted into the mouth. There was a sort of tussle which was one of the most nauseatingly ludicrous things I have ever seenâa ghastly sort of Punch and Judy actâas the thing wobbled and struggled and Mr. Mycroft wrestled and hung on. At last there was a tearing sound which really nearly made me sick. Mr. Mycroft let the corpse fall on the ground and slipped something into his pocket.

I was so upset that when he said, “That is all we can do now. Help me, while I cover this over again with the pebbles,” that I hastily joined in scattering shingle over the withered thing (the waving arm, I'm glad to say, Mr. Mycroft made rest by putting the body face down) and followed him dumbly as we turned back toward our base.

I think Mr. Mycroft knew I was shocked, but perhaps he was just indifferent to what I felt. Perhaps he was completely absorbed in his puzzle, treating that horrid object with the detachment I should treat such a word as
cadaverine
, for instance, if I knew that it was really a code-concealer. I should be quite indifferent to the fact that that word stands for one of the most terrible of stenches, and so I suppose Mr. Mycroft regarded what we had found as just so much evidential material. I was tired and really exhausted by the time we reached our base. He, with his easy reserve of energy, poured out cold coffee from the flask and offered me cigarettes though, I noticed, he did not smoke.

“Kerson won't be here for another couple of hours. I didn't expect we'd net such a fish in our first cast. It made going farther not worth while, at present.” He sat back and now was evidently enjoying the austere scenery with complete appreciation. There was nothing else to do and, with his usual power of attention, he did it.

At last, as the pools of blue shadow began to fill up the shallow fawn-colored cups of the lake-beds, we heard the motor's purr in the distance. Before night fell we were back in the cave camp.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Henry FitzGerald “Gerald” Heard (1889â1971) was an English philosopher, lecturer, and author. The BBC's first science commentator, he pioneered the study of the evolution of consciousness, which he explored in his definitive philosophical work
The Ascent of Humanity
(1929). A prolific writer, Heard was also the author of a number of fiction titles, including mysteries and dystopian novels. He is best known for his beloved Mycroft Holmes mystery series.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rights reverted to H. F. Heard

Cover design by Andrea Worthington

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3776-1

This edition published in 2016 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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