The next morning was unusual in that both Dr Watson and Mr Holmes were up very early. After the lethargic start to the previous day, Mr Holmes now appeared seized with exceptional energy. He was dressed long before his breakfast was served and passed the time before its arrival skimming at great pace through a very large bound volume entitled Minutes of the Honourable Society of Mechanicians. When I placed his tray before him, he immediately pounced on the boiled egg he spied there, proceeding to balance it on a large pile of books he had constructed in the centre of the breakfast table, only to knock it off with a touch of his fingernail so that the egg in question disappeared between two bulky tomes. Mrs Hudson, who happened to observe these activities for herself, smiled encouragingly and left him to it.
Dr Watson, on finding that his friend’s fierce concentration precluded all conversation, declared that he intended to take a stroll in Hyde Park. Pausing only to put on new socks and to change his necktie for a new and very colourful cravat, he was gone before the tea in the teapot was even cold. Mrs Hudson too seemed anxious to leave the house, for she rushed through the routine jobs of the morning with the most unusual haste. While I was still laying the fire in the gentlemen’s study, she popped up to tell me that she had business to conduct with Mr Rumbelow and that she would be gone all morning.
She must have seen some disappointment in my face at this news, for her expression softened and she offered me the prospect of something far more interesting than a visit to the solicitor’s offices.
‘If the gentlemen do not require us this afternoon, Flotsam, I rather think it is time we had another word with Perch, the toy-maker. Perhaps we could arrange to meet at his shop at five this afternoon?’
It was an invitation I accepted gladly, and one which piqued my curiosity. Peering out of the window as Mrs Hudson emerged into the street below me, I wondered where the old toy-maker fitted into our story. Would he be able to tell us the answer to the whole mystery? As I watched, Mrs Hudson made her way along the pavement below me, looking around her as she went as if enjoying the fragmentary sunshine. A hansom cab slowed beside her but she dismissed it with a shake of her head and continued on foot with all the vigour of a woman intent on a good walk. It was just as I was turning away from the window that I noticed her check suddenly. Across the road from her, another cab had slowed almost to a halt in order to manoeuvre around an unloading dray, and I watched astounded as Mrs Hudson darted across the road and swung herself with remarkable agility into the moving cab just as it was pulling away. In a few seconds more, it had turned a corner and had disappeared from sight.
Before I could ponder the meaning of this remarkable behaviour, my eye was caught by another familiar figure. Miss Peters, looking as fresh as a Michaelmas daisy, had entered Baker Street from the other direction and was making her way to our door. Her progress along the crowded pavements was easy to follow, for her advance was marked by the erratic behaviour of the many gentlemen who insisted in sweeping off their hats in a manner designed to capture her attention, but which mostly succeeded in hampering their fellow pedestrians. Totally oblivious of this, Miss Peters smiled sweetly and rather vaguely at the crowd in general and, on noticing me in the window, gave an exquisitely lovely smile and a wave of her hand. Without waiting to witness the impact of this on the young men in her path, I hastened downstairs to the front door and waited for her knock.
However, when after a longer interval than I had expected, her knock finally came, I found that a little of the serenity had gone from her face. She was holding a note in her hand and she looked puzzled.
‘Hello, Flottie,’ she began. ‘Do you know, the strangest thing just happened?’ She looked again at the note. ‘A small boy just gave me this. Just now, when I was about to ring the bell. “For the lady wot lives inside,” he said.’ Her voice fell naturally into a very fair impersonation of a Cockney urchin. ‘Then he just darted off. Oh, it is exciting here! Every time I come, something mysterious happens. Mrs Hudson’s always up to something, isn’t she? Living here must just be the most wonderful thing, Flottie. So much more interesting than tea parties with Lady Londonderry and waltzing with the Walters boy.’
She sighed deeply, as if the hardship of her life was almost beyond bearing.
‘Still,’ she continued, brightening again, ‘it’s not every girl that gets to deliver mysterious messages, is it? Come on, let’s see what it says!’
I hesitated. ‘But if it’s for Mrs Hudson, don’t you think… ?’
‘Oh, nonsense, Flottie! He didn’t say it was for her, did he? It might just as easily be for you! Oh!’
The exclamation coincided with her tearing open the note, and as it dangled open in her hand I saw at once why she had gasped. The message was not handwritten at all. Instead it consisted of one sentence, made up of different letters clipped from newspapers. The effect was dramatic, and it shocked us both into silence. I had never seen anything like it.
sTop yoUr SnOopiNg oR face tHe consEqueNcEs
‘Oh, Flottie, whatever does it mean?’ Miss Peters asked breathlessly.
‘It’s a warning,’ I replied, my eyes narrowing. ‘For Mrs Hudson. Someone doesn’t like what she’s doing.’
Miss Peters took a deep breath and began to shake her head, but her smile was one of sheer bliss. ‘Goodness, Flotsam! You must tell me everything. What on earth is Mrs H up to now?’
In the end, Mrs Peters insisted on spending most of the day with me. Having digested the meaning of the strange note, her spirits rebounded to their earlier heights with remarkable alacrity, and her plan for ensuring that my own spirits followed hers was simplicity itself.
‘We are going back to Bloomsbury to have luncheon with Rupert. Then we are going to Verity’s to look at their new hats. If there’s a safer place in the world than Verity’s, I can’t imagine what it must be like! And wait until you see the hats just in from Paris, Flottie. They are so unutterably beautiful; I almost want to weep just at the thought of them. And after Verity’s, we’ll take tea at the Ritz and eat absolutely as much as we can, and then, if we can fit it in, we’ll go to Bertorelli’s for chocolate. That ought to be enough to calm us down, I think. Except, of course, that the waiters at Bertorelli’s are all so fantastically handsome that I defy any lady under the age of eighty ever to be calm there.’
I explained to her that I was engaged to meet Mrs Hudson at five o’clock. Miss Peters suggested accompanying me, but the image of Mrs Hudson questioning Mr Perch with Miss Peters in tow seemed so utterly far-fetched that I insisted I should slip away alone. Nevertheless, Miss Peters proved such excellent company that as we walked back towards Bloomsbury, I already felt my good humour returning.
It also turned out that Miss Peters had news about the theft of the Malabar Rose. Rupert Spencer, it seemed, had been made responsible for talking to London’s community of butterfly experts with a view to finding out more about the specimen found in the Satin Room.
‘And he’s been so boring about it, Flottie. Really! Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies, all day long. How can a man as handsome as Rupert be interested in something so dull? And it’s not as if he sees the beauty in them, at least not that he ever lets on. To him they’re just creepy crawlies with wings, you know. But that’s the trouble – he loves creepy crawlies. He really must marry me, you know, just so I can save him from himself. Otherwise he’ll just become one of those tedious, dusty old men with butterfly collections. And I know exactly what they are like because I’ve been forced to take tea with them all week. He calls them lepidopterists, which as far as I can see must be the Latin for dusty old men. There was one of them who was being so crushingly dull that in the end I said to him in my grandest manner, “Really, sir, do you not think you should have some interest in your life other than insects?”But instead of him shrivelling up in shame, he just laughed as if I’d deliberately told a very funny joke. And then it turned out that he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Well, really! I’m not sure I’m happy that the nation’s finances are in the hands of a man who spends his money on moths. If I ever did get a vote, Flottie, which would probably be a terribly bad thing for the country, I’d be sure not to cast it in favour of any party that includes lepidopterists.’
I felt a smile of my own beginning to form, but I suppressed it hurriedly. ‘Tell me,’ I asked instead, ‘what has Mr Spencer found out from all these men?’
‘Well, Flottie, it turns out that the butterfly they found in the Satin Room really was the kind called Malabar Rose, which is just too peculiar, isn’t it? I keep telling Rupert that the Great Salmanazar must have waved his wand and done it by magic, but he doesn’t seem to find that in the least bit funny. Anyway, it seems that what really happened is that, a few weeks before, someone bought a dozen specimens of Malabar Rose butterflies from a man in Newbury. Or was it Newmarket? Or Newark? Somewhere, anyway. The man doing the selling, wherever he was, had a lot that were just chrysal-thingies, and he sent them by post before they hatched.’
‘And where did he send them?’ I asked, hoping that Miss Peters’s sense of geography might not have collapsed altogether.
‘Oh, to an address in London somewhere. Can you imagine getting a pack of creepy, wriggling things pushed through your door like that? Yuck!’
‘And can you remember whereabouts in London?’ I persisted as patiently as I could, wondering if it would be bad manners to shake her.
‘Oh, I don’t think so. You know how bad I am at remembering things. Now, let’s see…’
‘Not to the Great Salmanazar, I suppose?’
‘Don’t be silly, Flottie. I’d have remembered that.’
‘Might it have been an address in Ealing?’
‘Ealing? I don’t think so. I keep thinking ‘Billingsgate’, but it can’t have been that. Why would someone send butterflies to Billingsgate? And besides, I think there was some connection to toys…’
‘Toys? It wasn’t sent to someone called Perch in Kimber Street, was it?
‘That’s it, Flottie! Perch! I knew it was something to do with fish.’ Miss Peters glowed prettily at her own cleverness and smiled randomly at a young man passing on a bicycle, who reacted by wobbling with surprise and almost colliding with an omnibus.
On arriving at the house in Bloomsbury Square, we found Rupert Spencer at home and able to confirm for himself the story that Miss Peters had sketched out. Although nobody seemed to know how the butterfly had been introduced into the Satin Rooms, it seemed certain that it must have passed through the hands of the toy-maker Perch. Mr Spencer had called on Perch that morning but had found no one at home. But, he declared firmly, he had given the name to Lestrade and he was pretty sure that Mr Perch was going to have a few questions to answer.
When, in turn, I told him about how the toy-maker had already crossed Mrs Hudson’s path, Mr Spencer nodded thoughtfully, his brown eyes pensive and resting on my own.
‘So she’s onto something, is she? I thought she must be.’ He smiled again then, his eyes crinkling at the edges, and faced with the honest warmth of that look I almost told him of Mrs Hudson’s plan to call upon Perch that very evening. But fearing that she might not welcome a crowd of companions, I kept silent, and watched Mr Spencer help Miss Peters to another slice of ham, and thought how nice he was.
But at a quarter to five that evening, as I made my way on foot through the dimly lit streets that led to Perch’s shop, I rather wished I had made a different decision. I had forgotten how quiet those streets were, how inimical to strangers. The winter night comes on very quickly in London when you are a little nervous or a little lonely, and that night, to my surprise, I found I was both. I hadn’t set out like that. I’d said my farewells to Miss Peters full of excitement at the thought of joining Mrs Hudson. But with every step I took away from the lights of Islington’s Upper Street, I found my confidence diminishing. The streets were very quiet just there, devoid of any of the commercial bustle I knew from central London, and by half past four they were empty but for occasional pedestrians, straggling their way homeward through a freshly-fallen layer of snow. The houses turned blind eyes to the street, their faces set in fixed and haughty frowns. And yet, as I passed them, there grew in me a sense of being watched, and I found myself shrinking deeper into my collar and keeping to the shadows. I would have given a great deal then to have had Rupert Spencer striding along beside me.
At the corner of Kimber Street, I paused and let myself sink for a moment into the snow-wrapped silence. I’d hoped to meet Mrs Hudson before this, as she made her way here, but when I turned to look behind me I could make out nothing but the shadows and the pale pools of gaslight on the snow. I gathered my collar close to my neck and continued rather hastily along the row of shuttered shops to where the toyshop stood.
As I approached, I noticed that this time there was no glow of lights from the old man’s shop as there had been before. And then, peering into the gloom, I realised that two figures were standing in the shadows near its door. Before I had time to worry about who they were or what they wanted there, one of them moved a little into the light and I recognised Mrs Hudson’s formidable figure. Her companion, however, I didn’t recognise: an elderly woman, hunched and rather scrawny. She seemed to be engrossed by her own conversation.
‘Gone, I tell you. Into thin air. He was there last night when I passed by back from the Angel and Trumpet. Working on something at the back of the shop, he was. But this morning his door was open to the street and when I went in looking for him, he was gone. Gone! With all his tools still on his bench, like he’d been carried off by angels straight to heaven.’ This thought made her cackle, a thin, reedy attempt at laughter that ended in a cough. ‘Or the Other Place!’ she concluded. ‘Most likely to the Other Place! Heh! Heh!’
By now I had joined them and Mrs Hudson welcomed me with a nod.
‘Thank you, Mrs Griffiths,’ she said firmly, drawing the conversation to a close. ‘Since the place is unlocked, I think we’ll just have a little look around before we go.’
And quicker than the old woman could reply, Mrs Hudson seized my arm and thrust me through the door of Perch’s shop.
The sight that welcomed us was very different from the one that had greeted our first visit. Then the whole shop had glowed with light and there had been more movement than the eye could easily take in. Now there was darkness and shadow, but much worse than that was the stillness. It seemed intense, unnatural, as if an enchanter’s spell had been cast over the figures that surrounded us. The poodle in the window had slumped into immobility, the hoop above its head forgotten; the Spanish dancer had stopped dancing, as if in the grip of a grim paralysis; and even the jack-in-the-box had failed to return to its box and hung, distended and limp, where it had fallen.
‘So old Perch has gone, has he?’ Mrs Hudson murmured. ‘I wonder what’s become of him?’
But instead of replying, I told her as rapidly as I could what I had learned about Perch and the butterflies, and about the warning note thrust into Miss Peters’ hand.
‘I see,’ she mused as I brought my tale to an end. ‘I rather expected something of the sort. I have been taking care in my wanderings. But now, I think, we need to work out, if we can, what has happened to Perch. You take the front of the shop, Flottie, and I’ll take a look around the back.’
‘And what are we looking for, ma’am?’
She looked sombre for a moment. ‘Anything we can find, Flotsam. And let’s hope it’s nothing grisly.’
Perhaps it was those words that unsettled me, but as I began my investigation of the darkened shop, the unease that I had felt earlier began to grow. However hard I tried to be practical, I was unable to rid myself of a slight wariness and the feeling I was being watched. As I moved amongst them, the lifeless eyes of Perch’s mannequins seemed to follow me, and I began to fancy that each of them was somehow waiting for something to happen: waiting for me to discover something, or else to leave them to their silence. At one point I brushed against the half-sized figure of a soldier, only to cry out when his hand jerked instantly upwards into a crisp salute, as if caught sleeping on guard duty. However, his salute was never completed, for his energy waned with the action only half complete, and his hand sank slowly to his side, as though sleep had once again overcome him.
Startled by my cry, Mrs Hudson thrust her head out from behind the curtain that separated Perch’s workroom from the front of the shop.
‘Back here, Flottie,’ she beckoned. ‘There’s something you should see.’
In the back of the shop, safe from the eyes of the street, Mrs Hudson had felt able to light a candle, and by its light I could make out the outline of a crooked, cramped workshop, the benches covered with objects in a state of semi-construction. The item that had excited Mrs Hudson’s interest turned out to be a wooden crate which she had found pushed under one of Perch’s work benches. As she unpacked it, I saw that it contained a number of much smaller boxes in various stages of completion, some empty, some with complicated mechanisms fitted neatly into them. Folded amongst them, almost black in the dim light, were a number of lengths of thick, luxurious velvet.
Mrs Hudson placed one of the more complete boxes on the bench in front of her. As well as four square sides, this one had been fitted with a hinged top in the shape of a truncated pyramid. Mrs Hudson wrapped a part of the dark fabric around it.
‘Does this remind you of anything, Flottie?’
My heart gave a leap. ‘Of course, ma’am!’ It was as if the pieces fell into place with a huge and satisfying rush. ‘I understand it now, ma’am! I’m sure I do.’
Mrs Hudson chuckled to herself, a low, happy chuckle. ‘Evidence at last, Flotsam. Real, solid, tangible evidence. How careless of Perch to leave these things behind. I think our visit must have panicked him, for it seems he left in an almighty hurry. Now we just need to find where he’s gone.’
I returned to my search of the front of the shop, peering into dark corners and under furniture, not entirely sure what I was looking for. Although it had filled me with an uncommon sense of enlightenment, Mrs Hudson’s discovery had also added to my feelings of apprehension. The work benches abandoned in mid-task; the objects left behind that should have been destroyed; the stock of the shop unsold and untended: these things preyed on my mind. And while they did, each set of unseeing eyes followed me as I passed.
Determined to keep my imagination in check, I tried as hard as I could to thrust these thoughts from my head. After all, there was no reason why anything untoward should have befallen the old shopkeeper. There were a hundred and one reasons why he might have gone away, none of them in the least bit sinister. Why should I be thinking the worst? People didn’t just disappear…
It was at this point in my investigations that I came to the clockwork magician.
For a moment I thought of calling out to Mrs Hudson. His face was hideous, frozen in a mocking, inhuman grin. His eyes seemed to follow me. But I wouldn’t run away. I took a deep breath and waited patiently until I had regained my composure. One should investigate calmly, I told myself, or not at all.
The large crate that stood next to the mannequin was the size of a man, its door firmly closed. It was in this crate that Perch had placed his hat before it vanished. It was also, I realised, the most capacious, most practical, most obvious place to hide something in the entire shop. Especially if it was something large. Something the size of a man…
Once again I hesitated. The arm of the mechanical magician had come to rest reaching out towards the door, in such a way that I would have to touch the arm to reveal the contents of the crate. And confronted with this obstacle I found I had no great enthusiasm for touching that pale, waxen hand. In my head I heard Miss Peters’ voice, all wistful, saying, ‘It must be wonderful to have so much excitement, Flottie!’ and I sincerely wished that she were with me then, for I felt sure that she would have flung open the door without a second thought. Emboldened by this reflection, I reached out, shut my eyes, and tugged the door open . . .
‘So now we know what happened to Perch.’ Mrs Hudson’s voice sounded at my shoulder, uncommonly grave and sombre. I realised I still hadn’t opened my eyes. ‘He’s gone to a much warmer place, Flotsam,’ she continued, ‘and there’s little we can do about it now.’
‘You mean… ?’ I could hardly bear the promptings of my own imagination, and yet they still seemed better than opening my eyes.
‘Yes, Flotsam. Cape Town. I’ve heard the climate there is wonderful. And as good a place as any to hide a guilty conscience. I don’t suppose he’ll be needing those anymore.’
Blinking my eyes open, I saw that she was pointing into the crate, where, instead of the crumpled, bloodied corpse which I had fully convinced myself must be lying there, there was nothing but a pair of broken spectacles. Apart from those, the crate stood empty.
‘But…’ I stammered, ‘I thought…’
‘Yes, Flottie, I admit I was a little worried too. But look, I found this in the next room. It’s a typed note confirming a first class passage to South Africa on the Queen Sophia. She left Southampton at noon today. Whatever Perch’s role in all this, it would appear his employers are not ungenerous.’
‘But what’s to be done, Mrs Hudson? Is there nothing we can do to stop him?’
Mrs Hudson’s answer to that question was never clear, for as she began to speak, the silence of the shop was fractured by a terrible crash of glass, and the toyshop’s front window crumpled into fallen shards. Amid the fragments, a half-brick pitched onto the floor and rolled to a rest at our feet. Before either of us had time even to flinch, the brick was followed by a burning oil lantern, thrown so that it shattered against the wall beside us. From it, in a swathe of liquid beauty, flowed a great, golden arc of flame.