The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

'Yes. He suffered from sleeplessness. But how—'

'Tut, the pile of the carpet on the right of the arm-­chair is thick with traces of candle-wax. But hullo! What have we here?'

Holmes had halted near the window and was staring intently at the upper wall. Then, mounting the sill, he stretched out an arm and, touching the plaster lightly here arid there, sniffed at his finger-tips. There was a puzzled frown on his face as he clambered down and commenced to circle slowly around the room, his eyes fixed upon the ceiling.

'Most singular,' he muttered.

'Is anything wrong, Mr. Holmes?' faltered Miss Wil­son.

'I am merely interested to account for these odd whorls and lines across the upper wall and plaster.'

'It must be those dratted cockroaches dragging the dust all over the place,' exclaimed Wilson apologetically. 'I've told you before, Janet, that you would be better employed in supervising the servants' work. But what now, Mr. Holmes?'

My friend, who had crossed to the side door and glanced within, now closed it again and strolled across to the window.

'My visit has been a useless one,' said he, 'and, as I see that the fog is rising, I fear that we must take our leave. These are, I suppose, your famous canaries?' he added, pointing to the cages above the stove.

'A mere sample. But come this way.'

Wilson led us along the passage and threw open a door.

'There!' said he.

Obviously it was his own bedroom and yet unlike any bedroom that I had entered in all my professional career. From floor to ceiling it was festooned with scores of cages and the little golden-coated singers within filled the air with their sweet warbling and trilling.

'Daylight or lamplight, it's all the same to them. Here, Carrie, Carrie!' he whistled a few liquid notes which I seemed to recognize. The bird took them up into a lovely cadence of song.

'A sky-lark!' I cried.

'Precisely. As I said before, the Fringilla if properly trained are the supreme imitators.'

'I confess that I do not recognize that song,' I re­marked, as one of the birds broke into a low rising, whistle ending in a curious tremolo.

Mr. Wilson threw a towel over the cage. 'It is the song of the tropic night-bird,' he said shortly, 'and, as I have the foolish pride to prefer my birds to sing the songs of the day while it is day, we will punish Peperino by putting him in darkness.'

'I am surprised that you prefer an open fireplace here to a stove,' observed Holmes. 'There must be a considerable draught.'

'I have not noticed one. Dear me, the fog is indeed increasing. I am afraid, Mr. Holmes, that you have a bad journey before you.'

'Then we must be on our way.'

As we descended the stairs and paused in the hall while Theobold Wilson fetched our hats, Sherlock Holmes leaned over towards our young companion.

'I would remind you, Miss Wilson, of what I said earlier about a woman's intuition,' he said quietly. 'There are occasions when the truth can be sensed more easily than it can be seen. Good-night.'

A moment later, we were feeling our way down the garden path to where the lights of our waiting four- wheeler shone dimly through the rising fog.

My companion was sunk in thought as we rumbled westward through the mean streets whose squalor was the more aggressive under the garish light of the gas-lamps that flared and whistled outside the numerous public houses. The night promised to be a bad one and already, through the yellow vapour thickening and writhing above the pavements, the occasional wayfarer was nothing more than a vague hurrying shadow.

'I could have wished, my dear fellow,' I remarked, 'that you had been spared the need uselessly to waste your energies which are already sufficiently depleted.'

'Well, well, Watson. I fancied that the affairs of the Wilson family would prove no concern of ours. And yet—' he sank back, absorbed for a moment in his own thoughts, '—and yet, it is wrong, wrong, all wrong!' I heard him mutter under his breath.

'I observed nothing of a sinister nature.'

'Nor I. But every danger bell in my head is jangling its warning. Why a fireplace, Watson, why a fireplace? I take it that you noticed that the pipe from the cellar connected with the stoves in the other bedrooms?'

'In one bedroom.'

'No. There was the same arrangement in the adjoining room where the mother died.'

'I see nothing in this save an old-fashioned system of heating flues.'

'And what of the marks on the ceiling?'

'You mean the whorls of dust.'

'I mean the whorls of soot.'

'Soot! Surely you are mistaken, Holmes.'

'I touched them, smelt them, examined them. They were speckles and lines of wood-soot.'

'Well, there is probably some perfectly natural ex­planation.'

For a time, we sat in silence. Our cab had reached the beginnings of the City and I was gazing out of the window, my fingers drumming idly on the half-lowered pane, which was already befogged with moisture, when my thoughts were recalled by a sharp ejaculation from my companion. He was staring fixedly over my shoulder.

'The glass,' he muttered.

Over the clouded surface there now lay an intricate tracery of whorls and lines where my finger had wandered aimlessly.

Holmes clapped his hand to his brow and, throwing open the other window, he shouted an order to the cabby. The vehicle turned in its tracks and, with the driver lashing at his horse, we clattered away into the thickening gloom.

'Ah, Watson, Watson, true it is that none are so blind as those who will not see!' quoted Holmes bitterly, sinking back into his corner. 'All the facts were there, star­ing me in the face, and yet logic failed to respond.'

'What facts?'

'There are nine. Four alone should have sufficed. Here is a man from Cuba, who not only trains canaries in a singular manner but knows the call of tropical night-birds and keeps a fireplace in his bedroom. There is devilry here, Watson. Stop, cabby, stop!'

We were passing a junction of two busy thoroughfares, with the golden balls of a pawnshop glimmering above a street-lamp. Holmes sprang out. But after a few minutes, he was back again and we recommenced our journey.

'It is fortunate that we are still in the City,' he chuckled, 'for I fancy that the East End pawnshops are unlikely to run to golf-clubs.'

'Good heavens—!' I began, only to lapse into silence while I stared down at the heavy niblick which he had thrust into my hand. The first shadows of some vague and monstrous horror seemed to rise up and creep over my mind.

'We are too early,' exclaimed Holmes, consulting his watch. 'A sandwich and a glass of whisky at the first public house will not come amiss.'

The clock on St. Nicholas Church was striking ten when we found ourselves once again in that evil-smelling garden. Through the mist, the dark gloom of the house was broken by a single feeble light in an upper window. 'It is Miss Wilson's room,' said Holmes. 'Let us hope that this handful of gravel will rouse her without alarming the household.'

An instant later, there came the sound of an opening window.

'Who is there?' demanded a tremulous voice.

'It is Sherlock Holmes,' my friend called back softly. 'I must speak with you at once, Miss Wilson. Is there a side door?'

'There is one in the wall to your left. But what has happened?'

'Pray descend immediately. Not a word to your uncle.'