Disquiet at Albany (8 page)

In ordinary circumstances, I should not have cared less for the sculpture of the archer and his bow for I had passed it hundreds of times in a cab or omnibus, but presently it was about to become marked as positively sepulchral!

We rushed outside just in time to witness a hansom pull out from beside the kerb, heading off in the direction of the Café Royale, the rows of fashionable arcades and Regency façades due east of the Circus. Suddenly, smoke began to billow out of the cab window and we heard a piercing, agonising howl, even above the clamour of omnibus and dray traffic.

‘He is alight!’ exclaimed our Oriental companion with minimal emotion, tall and noble, wearing his silk dragon robes and pill-box hat. ‘Magnesium burns with an intense white flame. The metal strips inside the lining of his overcoat shall be activated, the ferromagnetic alloy set off by an acid concentrate released from the glass ampoule I deliberately smashed in his pocket. Next will come searing heat capable of melting human flesh. Need I say more, gentlemen?’

I recall a vivid, immense white flash, the force of the explosion overturning the cab, sending it careering across the road, mounting the kerb, before smashing into the fountain. The cab man and poor old nag I can report fatally injured. Neither man nor beast stood a chance.

Even as the wreckage burnt, worse was to follow, for Ethby Sands – or what he had become – was not dead, either from the smash or from magnesium melting his flesh like butter. Something inhuman, unrecognisable as a person, emerged from the rent and twisted remains of the burning coachwork. A sub-human torch clutching its fiery face, hair and clothes alight, struggling to gain purchase and climb up the statue of Eros, the archer and his bow at its pinnacle. It was not to be, for the fire had gained such hold that the heap of immolated rags lost its footing before the cremated remains fluttered down onto the pavement, collapsed in a blackened, charred husk.

I was aware of the urgent noise of clanging bells, for a fire-brigade pump was approaching from what I assumed was the direction of St James. Police whistles were much to the fore also, as crowds flocked along Piccadilly to find out what had happened. Carriage traffic had ground to a standstill. Joining other shocked pedestrians in the vicinity, we gathered round the statue of Eros, but none could get close to the burning carriage because of the intense heat. Bracing ourselves, we moved as close as safety would allow, beaten back by the flames licking hungrily at the base of the statue, showers of ash, sparks and trailing smoke rising into the air. The iron ring surrounding the spokes of one of the cab’s wheels was still spinning, emanating a red glow, so hot had it become.

While Holmes and I were assessing the situation, an impudent fellow shrouded in a cloak and wearing a low-brimmed hat surged forward out of the ensuing commotion and tapped Christopher Chymes on the shoulder.

‘Such a pity about old Garson, burnt to a crisp like that. My old valet rather enjoyed dressing up in my mohair overcoat and wearing those ridiculous “joke shop” claws. He was a good mimic, you see, could imitate my voice and created a lasting impression – first-rate performance to be proud of, duping you all into believing it was I, Ethby Sands, who had barged into the Criterion restaurant. I shall explain everything at a time and place of my own choosing. I shall expect you gentlemen at Albany at four o’clock precisely. I promise to be contrite and apologetic regarding my recent unwarranted behaviour. Oh, and Doctor Wu Xing, on the last occasion we met I regret to say your so-called acupuncture treatment failed to induce the desired effect, placing me in a catatonic trance. In fact, I was feigning sleep, aware throughout, I saw and heard everything. Good day, gentlemen.’

20

Albany Revisited

We were in a grim and pensive mood when, on that chilly late afternoon of a cold and dank November day, we entered Albany’s front entrance and were shown upstairs to Sands’s exclusive set by a liveried porter who had been previously advised of our impending visit.

Welcoming us, Sands, wearing polished red loafers, tartan stockings, an exclusive green tweed suit and a gold fob watch-chain in his waistcoat, was charm itself, politely taking our hats, coats and walking sticks, and ushering us into the sitting room with its glass display cases full of stuffed red birds of paradise.

There, above the mantelpiece, was the same giltframed portrait in oils I had seen the last time I was here. Ethby Sands, M.P., painted at the House of Commons. By his careworn expression, heavy jowls, pouches beneath the eyes, grey hair and grizzled side-whiskers, and the wrinkled folds of skin about his scrawny neck, I should have placed his age in the portrait at pushing on eight and fifty, and yet here he was unsettlingly in the flesh, stood over by the Chinese Chippendale chair, looking at most twenty-one years old. I confess it was hard to fathom we were in the presence of a monster who had already cold-bloodedly killed three people, two of them in Norfolk, and who by usage of a controversial serum was enabled to stay young and active, staving off the effects of ageing and ultimately his own death from a wasting disease.

‘This just can’t continue,’ said Doctor Wu, ever noble and calm in a crisis, this in the face of a dangerously volatile patient who could at any time change into a violent, rabid animal. ‘Come to my Mayfair clinic. I can offer you renewed detoxification. We can at least stabilise your condition and prevent further unfortunate mishaps occurring. Surely you have had your fill of revenge. Philip Troy, for instance?’ His eyes twinkled with perception.

‘My physician speaks both eloquently and wisely,’ remarked Ethby Sands, lighting an Egyptian cigarette. ‘Gentlemen, help yourselves to whisky and splash, we shall toast my imminent demise. I shall myself abstain from alcohol.’

‘You mean. . . ?’

‘I mean
our
imminent demise, Mr Holmes, for you and your compatriots here are about to join me in a final, wondrous climax to my life and work. Regard if you will the Japanned upright piano over in the bay, on which I composed a popular hymn, still in vogue after all these years. Thirty million copies of sheet music sold and still counting. After Dr Wu Xing and his medical team had departed Albany for Mayfair, and with my valet Garson still out late on his night off visiting one of his lady friends in the vicinity of Soho, I conceived of a means of destruction even more spellbinding and futuristic than Doctor Wu’s lethal winter overcoat, which I am sure we all applaud for its ingenuity.

‘I myself have created this morning a lethal piano, and here’s how it works. You will each of you in turn step forward and play a white or black note of your choosing on the keyboard. We, gentlemen, are about to embark upon a game of “musical Russian roulette”, because one of the notes on my little piano, when struck, will accordingly blow us all to kingdom come and destroy Albany forever, together with my other esteemed residents who share this most prestigious of London addresses. My piano keys are basically linked to several bundles of dynamite. I shall not give too much away, lest our sleuth-hound Mr Holmes using that damn clever brain of his outwits its workings. I think you’ll agree I’ve not been idle. If you fail to come forward and take your turn I shall shoot you point-blank, blow each of your brains out with this pair of sophisticated silver repeater pistols I purchased from Naysmith of St James earlier. Are we all clear?’

‘Perfectly so,’ remarked Holmes ‘May I smoke?’

‘Of course, I shall allow a ten-minute interval before we begin – enough time I’m sure to concentrate your minds and prepare for your imminent demise – just as I had to do when I was languishing in my wheeled chair when those Harley Street doctors had given me but a fortnight to live. Alas, I must report one day the serum Doctor Wu developed in Norfolk will become depleted and I shall feel all the effects of accelerating old age and bodily collapse and sickness, which I am loath to endure, the wasting disease returning with a vengeance. No shaman or potion will be able to protect me from that, I can assure you. Why, Chymes, you will be first to play a note on my piano. I see you’re trembling already. This only increases my enjoyment of the proceedings.’

‘One moment if I may, Sands. Might I clear up a few points?’ Holmes asked, puffing on his pipe.

‘Of course, Mr Holmes. I should be glad to answer any questions you may have. But only eight and a half minutes remain, so be brief.’

‘What part did your valet Garson play in all this?’

‘Why, Mr Holmes, let us hear your own deductions, your brilliant mind must have surely formed its own conclusions by now.’

‘Very well – my personal view is that it was he who was ideally situated to administer the alkaloid poison. By what means is unclear, whether with your meals or night-time drink, I’m not sure. Be that as it may, Chymes and Troy, both of whom wished to speed up your death so they would avoid lengthy and expensive litigation and the adverse publicity caused should you have gone to law over their blatantly plagiarising your original ideas for the musical, wished to recruit your valet and let him in on their dastardly scheme.’

‘You are correct. Garson chose to betray me,’ admitted Ethby Sands indignantly. ‘He was impatient, you see. Like them, he wanted me out of the way, but for a different reason. With me dead he would benefit financially from a generous settlement in my will. I suppose you, Chymes, and your partner in crime Philip Troy, paid him handsomely for his trouble. But of course your scheme was doomed from the moment I decided to embrace alternative medicine and, as a last resort, visit the Mayfair clinic of Dr Wu Xing. It was he who, during my course of detoxification, informed me that apart from the wasting disease, my blood contained traces of a powerful alkaloid. But Garson paid for his duplicity in the end. The fool knew nothing about the lethal overcoat and loved dressing up and impressing people. I bet him a substantial sum that he would not be able to impersonate me and penetrate the luncheon at the Criterion. Of course, I was doublecrossing him, for I was well aware of Doctor Wu’s intention to eliminate me at the earliest opportunity.’

‘What was your valet’s view of the controversial serum?’

‘Naturally, Garson witnessed for himself the miraculous transformation brought about by the serum developed by Doctor Wu and his team of microscopic chemists in the privacy of Norfolk, the undisputed fact that after a course of injections, I, a middle-aged man, had become young again after spending virtually a year as a crotchety old invalid, and was able one morning to simply get up from my wheeled chair and walk out of the door. Why, instantly he rejected Chymes’s and Troy’s plan to kill me and must have decided I was worth more to him alive than dead. Now I was in good health, more like my old self, our companionship flourished. But, as you now know I never forgave his duplicity – never.

‘Dear me, we only have a couple of minutes remaining. A glass of lemon bitters, if you please Doctor Wu. I am all of a sudden grown weary of this conversation.’

‘Allow me,’ said Holmes, stepping behind me and pouring from a carafe.

‘Drink it all down, Sands,’ said the Oriental physician kindly, giving his patient a confident stare. ‘Your blood sugars must be low. The lemon bitters will refresh you, the quinine perk you up a bit.’

‘Yes, a tonic is all I require,’ he agreed, taking the glass from Holmes and draining it before placing it upon the sideboard. ‘Doctor Wu Xing,’ said he with a sudden rush of passion, ‘I owe you so much. Despite everything that has happened I shall always value our friendship, our doctor-patient relationship has endured. Please allow me to extend my...’

‘What the!’ The Chinaman looked on in astonishment as Ethby Sands quite unexpectedly was seized by an apoplectic fit, pitching forward, his eyes bulging out of his head, before landing plump at our feet, quite dead. Sprawled on the luxurious Turkey rug he lay perfectly still, very much the corpse, aptly surrounded by glass-fronted cabinets containing his stuffed collection. His beloved Japanned upright piano mercifully remained untested, the lid firmly closed upon the keys by Christopher Chymes. At last we could breathe a sigh of relief. The exclusive Albany would not be obliterated in a frightful explosion and, thank heavens, neither would its inhabitants. Chymes was unable to bear the sight of the body, mortified by its presence, so we adjourned to the master bedroom and shut the door firmly behind us.

‘Cyanide is a remarkably swift-acting poison,’ my illustrious colleague remarked, striking a match to his ever-present pipe. ‘While Doctor Watson obscured me from view, I was able to empty a pharmacy bottle into the carafe. One always prefers to come to these types of meetings prepared. We had better inform Lew Shadwell, the porter downstairs, to put out an urgent request for an undertaker. We shall of course require a death certificate, which Watson thoughtfully brought along in his wallet. Doctor Wu, you will please act as witness to the signature.’

‘I should be honoured,’ he exclaimed, addressing my friend with a majestic bow, for the first time his thin, cruel lips breaking into the faintest smile. ‘Although as a man of science, a practising physician, I should much prefer...’

‘To retain his body for further analysis and research into your nefarious anti-ageing serum? I’m afraid, Doctor Wu, that would be out of the question. Might I further enquire about a compostable lightweight coffin, a wickerwork shell casually observed in the billiard room at Foxbury Hall at the end of October? Placed on top of the billiard table, I believe it was.’

‘I normally use these for conveying difficult patients who I first, by means of acupuncture, induce into a state of deep rest and when subdued place in the shell. We can generally move a patient from A to B like this very effectively. Once more, my Mayfair clinic’s superior advances in patient care come to the fore, Mr Holmes.’

‘So this is presumably how Mr Sands was removed from Foxbury Hall and travelled down to London?’

‘Exactly. He remained very composed, lying comfortably in the guard’s van for the duration.’

The conversation was suddenly interrupted by a very worried Christopher Chymes tapping Holmes on the shoulder.