Sherlock Holmes and the Giant Rat of Sumatra (14 page)

‘I have just the man for the job and he shall be on his way to
Russell Square from the minute that I arrive back at the Yard,’ Lestrade confirmed. ‘I shall wait at my desk for your call.’

‘Scotland Yard, cabby, and do not spare the horse!’ he called out as he rapped sharply upon the roof of the cab.

Holmes and I sprinted up the stairs to spare Mrs Hudson even one more moment of anxiety.

W
hen we reached our room we found Wiggins perched rather uncomfortably on the edge of a wooden chair while our vigilant landlady stood sternly and watchfully over him. She was unaware that, despite their appearance, the ‘Irregulars’ lived by a certain code that would preclude them from stealing from someone like Holmes, who would always treat them with the utmost respect.

It was impossible to say who was the more relieved by the sight of our sudden arrival, Wiggins or the landlady. It was easier to gauge who was the most vocal in expressing it.

‘I do not know, Mr Holmes, but as if some of your clients are not curious enough, for you to invite boys like this to my house is the last straw! I have not taken my eyes off of the wretch for one second.’ Mrs Hudson shook her head despairingly as she tut-tutted repeatedly.

‘Thank you for your concern, Mrs Hudson, but I can assure you that everything is quite safe in the hands of young Wiggins here,’ Holmes cheerily explained.

‘Oh yes, indeed sir, quite safe I can assure you.’ The young fellow jumped up from his chair and displayed that his grimy hands were quite empty.

‘Well, I do not know.’ Mrs Hudson was still complaining even while Holmes was gently ushering her out of the room.

‘Goodbye, Mrs Hudson!’ He smiled as he closed the door behind her.

The tall scarecrow of a lad who stood before us repeatedly pulled his unwashed, unruly hair away from a face that was stained and roughened by the soot and filth that pervaded the streets on which he lived. He was not alone, of course, for the saddest indictment of our times is the copious number of his like who eke out the barest existence upon the darkened streets where the majority of London’s inhabitants never dare to walk.

Wiggins and the other Irregulars were fortunate indeed in having earned the trust and the respect of one such as Sherlock Holmes. On more than one occasion Holmes had employed their knowledge of the streets and their ability to penetrate the very underbelly of London without detection or suspicion, to help bring a criminal to justice. They had never let him down and each success had always brought to them the handsome reward that Holmes had promised them.

Small wonder then that Wiggins now stood to attention in front of Holmes as he eagerly awaited his latest set of instructions.

‘Mighty glad to get your latest summons, we are, Mr ’Olmes. Me and the lads are ready for whatever you want to throw our way,’ Wiggins offered eagerly.

‘How does a florin a man sound to you and double that to whoever is fortunate enough to land the fish.’

‘Cor blimey, Mr ’Olmes, that sounds right ’andsome to me. What we got to do for that, swim the bloomin’ Channel?’ Wiggins asked. As he rubbed his hands together in anticipation, his threadbare mittens shed some soiled decaying wool on to our floor.

‘Nothing as daunting as that, I can assure you, although it will involve you scouring the docklands once again. The Canary
Wharf area, to be more precise. Have you heard of the steam clipper the
Matilda Briggs
?’

‘’Course I ’ave. She’s the bloomin’ ship where all the crew went missin’, ain’t she?’

‘Well, not quite all, but she also had a stowaway on board who should prove to be far easier to find than the rest. You will be looking for a man fully six feet five inches in height with a strong, upright bearing. He was last seen wearing a pair of straw oriental sandals and a long crimson – or dark red – robe and mask.’

‘I know what crimson means, Mr ’Olmes. Just ’cause I don’t speak the same as you don’t mean I don’t know nothin’.’ Wiggins appeared to be genuinely hurt by Holmes’s assumption.

‘Wiggins, I sincerely apologize to you. Now, do you think that you and your men will be able to find such a man for me?’

‘If we can’t then ‘e don’t exist, Mr ’Olmes.’ Wiggins emphatically replied and Holmes and I could not repress a smile at his self-confidence.

‘That is not all, however. For the price of a new pair of mittens for each of you, I need to discover when he intends to depart and his proposed means of doing so. Do not forget that he will be returning to the Far East, so that might help you in finding the ship. Now remember, Wiggins, you are not to take any unnecessary risks. Be as discreet as ever and keep yourselves safe at all times.’

‘Don’t worry ’bout us, Mr ’Olmes we’ll be as safe as ’ouses and we’ll find your man in next to no time!’

‘Excellent! Now, call your friends upstairs and I will ask Mrs Hudson to bring us all some nice hot muffins.’ Holmes rubbed his hands together expectantly, then added, ‘Do not forget, new mittens, Wiggins, not a noggin of gin!’

‘No mistake, Mr ’Olmes. It’s going to be a hard winter, they reckon.’

It fell to me to try to persuade Mrs Hudson to supply muffins
for six and once she had relented, Wiggins and the other Irregulars departed with warm full bellies and the promise of riches and mittens should they pull off another job for Sherlock Holmes. We could hear their loud chattering until they had fully reached the Marylebone Road!

Once order had been restored Holmes and I pulled our chairs up to the fire and lit our pipes.

‘I sincerely hope that you have not given the Irregulars too much to chew upon, this time,’ I ventured.

‘I would certainly rather entrust this task to Wiggins and his boys than to Lestrade and his men. Besides, their safety lies in the fact that Tilat will not be looking for them, nor will he be surprised if he sees them,’ Holmes replied.

‘Whilst that is undoubtedly true, it is also accurate to say that Tilat has already proved himself to be a most dangerous man and they are, after all, only boys,’ I reminded him.

‘Watson, you are forgetting that Tilat only killed in self-defence and that his only motive for being here in the first place is to retrieve his sacred beladau. I am certain that if we can successfully maintain Daniel Collier’s safety it will not be too long before Tilat will have to show his hand. Once he does, of course, he will show himself to the Irregulars and we shall have him!’

As usual I could not fault any of Holmes’s reasoning and we both sank into a relaxed silence. After a light supper followed by a cognac and cigar, I could sense that Holmes was falling into one of his more reflective moods and that he could not be drawn into a conversation upon any subject, not even upon the matter at hand. I decided to withdraw to my room with a good book and the remainder of my drink.

After about an hour or so I could feel my tired eyes gradually closing. So I put down my book and decided to look in on Holmes before retiring for the night. I was not surprised to find that he had now abandoned his cigar to the ashtray and that his cognac
remained untouched. I was not surprised to see that he was now seated in his meditation posture and that he obviously had every intention of remaining there for the entire night.

However I was most disturbed to see that on this occasion his meditation was proving to be a most unsettling experience for him. He was sweating profusely, his lips were discoloured by dehydration and he seemed to be unable to remain still. He also appeared to be talking to himself under his breath. He repeated the same phrase over and over again, almost as if he were recounting a perverse form of mantra.

‘I cannot penetrate the veil, I cannot penetrate the veil!’ The longer this repetition continued the louder and more violent it appeared to become. Indeed, it was all that I could do to refrain from doing the unthinkable. To break in upon Holmes’s meditation was something that I would not ordinarily consider doing, even for an instant, but it was rapidly becoming the safest, perhaps the only option, especially under these circumstances.

I found myself gripping Holmes, firmly by his shoulders, shaking him back and forth repeatedly, in the hope that I might rouse him from his strange trance. In this I was only partially successful at first. Holmes reacted by flailing his arms around wildly and violently in an incoherent attempt to break my grip upon him. But I would not be put off, and after a short while his arms’ frantic movements began to slow down and he opened his red and bleary eyes.

I was shocked to observe that at first, he did not appear to recognize me; he just stared blankly ahead of him into an ineffable space. However once he did become aware of my presence he appeared to be horrified by his own behaviour.

‘Oh, my dear fellow, I must offer to you a thousand apologies for this sorry show of mine. I should tell you, however, that I am now certain that Tilat will not depart until he has found Daniel
Collier and retrieved the beladau from him, although with no violent intent.’

‘Well I am certainly relieved to hear that,’ I confirmed. ‘However I am more concerned about your health. How do you feel now, after such a harrowing experience?’

Holmes smiled at my enquiry as he helped himself to the cigarette that I now offered to him. As he put a flame to it I could not fail to notice a slight hand tremor that caused him to miss the tip.

‘I shall soon be well, old fellow, I can assure you. Do not concern yourself, for not every experience of meditation is a calming or an enlightening one.’

‘Are you able to discuss the veil, which seemed to disturb you so much?’’ I asked somewhat tentatively.

‘There is really very little to discuss, for the reference was purely metaphoric. So much is now clear to me and yet there is one small cloud that simply will not be dispersed. However I am certain that its meaning will prove to be of very little significance and that our first concern is to be prepared once we receive word from Wiggins and his gang, or perhaps from Russell Square.’ Holmes’s last sentence tailed off into a long deep yawn and I was pleasantly surprised to see how willing he was to retire to his room for the night. I needed very little persuasion to follow suit.

When I came down for breakfast on the following morning, I was more than a little taken aback when I realized that Holmes had yet to emerge from his room. Under normal circumstances this would not have seemed to be too unusual, for Holmes was wont to keep most bohemian hours whenever he was not gainfully employed.

On this occasion, however, he was not only fully occupied, but this most taxing of cases was now close to its potentially exhilarating climax. To find him still beneath his covers in view of the current state of affairs was totally unheard of and I raised this
point once he had eventually joined me at the breakfast table. His uncharacteristic behaviour continued as he made short work of a delicious plateful of devilled kidneys and eggs.

‘You should not be too astonished, Doctor, for this is my first full meal for over seventy-two hours and I have barely slept a wink for two whole days! Nevertheless, it is true to say that last night’s mysterious experience has undoubtedly taken its toll, even upon a resilient constitution such as mine,’ Holmes explained between mouthfuls. ‘I presume that there has been no word from Wiggins or from Russell Square?’ Holmes added somewhat futilely, knowing full well that had there been we would not be wasting our time around a meal table, and so I answered him.

‘Well, I suppose that my expectations were somewhat premature,’ Holmes commented with surprising nonchalance as he lit his first cigarette of the day.

There was little doubt in my mind that a lot more had occurred to Holmes on the previous night than he was now willing to divulge to me, and I had to take it on faith that whatever it had been was not pertinent to the conclusion of the case.

Leaving Holmes to his own devices, I set out for the morning papers. On my way to Simon’s stand I could not help but shift my gaze towards the corner with the Marylebone Road, on which I had seen the caped stranger for the second time. On this occasion the thoroughfare was teaming with traffic of every description. Businessmen on their way to the Metropolitan railway station, resplendent in their shiny tall hats and overcoats, barrow boys threading their way through the bustle and young maids running errands for their mistresses. However, there was not one tall stranger in his cape to be seen!

One glance at the headlines was enough to alter the tempo of my gait and I collided with at least two of these passers-by as I careered back to our rooms to show them to Holmes.

Holmes snatched the paper from me with an alarming display of impatience and he held out its sheets to the limit of his outstretched arms. The article, which was placed at the top of page two of the Telegraph, was not a particularly long one and did not include even one detail of Holmes’s analysis.

‘Ha! Scotland Yard’s finest, indeed!’ Holmes exclaimed, and he was barely able to disguise his ridicule. ‘Well, this is indeed a sorry indictment of the current state of our capital’s constabulary, I must say.’

‘Is that all you have to say about it?’ I asked. ‘Does it not concern you at all that your name is not mentioned even once?’

‘Watson, I can assure you that those lamentably romantic yarns of which you are so misguidedly proud have provided me with significantly more fame than I could possibly know what to do with.’

‘Holmes, that is both undignified and unjust of you!’ I protested. ‘After all, I feel that my writing has always done you full justice.’

‘That is as maybe, but what of the logic and the pure rational reasoning behind my investigations? In your efforts to please your ignorant public with unnecessary prose and hyperbole you have clouded the real issues. What might once have been informative scientific exercises in the processes of deduction have been blown up into a series of ham-fisted pot-boilers! You have surely wasted a unique opportunity,’ Holmes declared ruefully and not without a little asperity.

‘I shall excuse your boorish behaviour on the grounds that you have grown impatient and irritable while you await news from Wiggins and his gang,’ I replied. ‘However I shall not just sit here and allow myself to be unreasonably maligned. I am going out for a walk!’