To say the room fell silent would be a considerable understatement. For a full five seconds there seemed to reign not a silence but an absence of sound like a vacuum that drew from everyone all power of speech. Then abruptly the vacuum broke and sound came rushing back.
‘I say!’ exclaimed Watson, knocking over his drink with a strangled flourish.
‘Extraordinary!’ rasped Holmes, rising from his chair abruptly and sending over a small incidental table.
‘Blimey!’ I squeaked, back in the linen room, dropping the candlestick and bringing down a pile of assorted silverware with a reverberating crash.
And Mrs Hudson, putting the finishing touches to the small candelabra, murmured, ‘Well, well!’ very softly with the air of a scientist whose experiment has produced a result both satisfactory and slightly unexpected.
The uproar allowed Mr Moran to sink back in his chair while Dr Watson refilled his glass with brandy and shrub and retrieved the table. Mr Holmes remained standing, tapping his pipe hard against the mantelpiece as if in agitation. Outside, Mrs Hudson was helping me to retrieve the scattered silver.
Dr Watson, aided by a healthy swig, was the first regain a degree of coherence.
‘Really, sir! I don’t know what you’re about, trying to scare us out of our wits! I’ve never heard such ridiculous nonsense!’
‘Dr Watson, my intention is the opposite. Confronted at every turn with facts that seem to permit no natural explanation, I turn to you in the hope that you may find reason and logic where increasingly I can only detect a supernatural hand.’
‘Let us, as you say, concentrate on the facts of the case,’ rejoined Mr Holmes, frowning at his pipe. I was aware of Mrs Hudson tutting very softly by my side.
‘Was there a surgeon resident in Port Mary who could examine the body?’
‘Alas not, Mr Holmes. I was forced to conduct the examination myself and it was clear, although I’m not a medical man, that the poor fellow had been blinded in the most horrible manner. But by what means, I cannot guess.’
‘This man Cartwright, was he well known to you? Is it safe to believe his tale?’
‘I knew him slightly, more by repute than otherwise. But he had been a familiar figure in those parts for some years. He was liked by the other Europeans in those islands and seemed a regular fellow.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘I couldn’t tell you, Mr Holmes. It was the nature of his work to spend most of his life in the jungle. He could be anywhere in the Orient.’
‘And was he quite clear there were no tracks other than his own leading to the body?’
‘Perfectly clear. I’d heard of Cartwright off and on for a few years at that point and knew him to be a tough type. Yet I swear he was badly spooked by what he’d found. I never saw him look so rattled. I questioned him carefully about tracks near the body but he is adamant there were none.’
‘What about disease? Might there have been some natural cause of this sudden affliction?’
‘I have since consulted experts in the field and they can suggest no such cause.’
‘Very well. That is helpful for now. What happened next?’
‘My colleagues took it hard. Where before we had felt isolated now we felt afraid. But it was an insidious, nagging fear, a terror of the unknown, made worse when a persistent, clammy mist descended upon us from the jungle. With it came the nightmares. The night after Postgate’s death I awoke with the sense of a terrible weight pressing upon my chest, and when I opened my eyes I swear for an instant I saw a pair of yellow eyes – animal eyes – staring back at me. This dream was repeated many times in the nights that followed. And then the killings began.
‘The first was a native hunter, one who sometimes traded with us and so had been made an outcast by his tribe. The circumstances of his death were identical to those of Postgate’s, his wounds the same in every respect. And we had plenty of opportunities to make comparisons, for the very next day another hunter who had traded with us was found dead with the same appalling scars. The fourth victim was a white man, an eccentric settler who had gone native years before and lived alone in the jungle. He would occasionally appear in Port Mary with the skins of creatures he had trapped which he exchanged for as much gin as he could carry. Judging by the state of him, he had been dead at least two weeks when he was found.
‘By now my colleagues and I were seriously unnerved. No-one would trade with us after that, and our business ground quickly to a halt. The next victim was an old man who lived alone in a ramshackle hut near Port Mary. He was an outcast from the tribe, surviving on scraps and hand-outs. Postgate sometimes gave him liquor. On the night he died, there was no part of Port Mary where you did not hear his screams.’
Outside, the cold was beginning to press against the shuttered windows. Inside, in the warm half-light, Mrs Hudson paused in her polishing and placed a hand quietly on my shoulder, where it stayed when Mr Moran continued his tale.
‘The final straw came one evening, just before sunset, when the high priest called a gathering of the elders to ratify the curse he had pronounced. They gathered in the small area of open ground in front of our offices. By now we were living as if besieged and my companions were nearing nervous collapse. I believe the situation could still have been saved by a show of courage and determination, but that night, in front of us all, illuminated by the blaze of the setting sun, the priest performed the calling down of the spirits’ curse. It is a ceremony that the European might mock, but I was there, Mr Holmes, and as I listened to its low chant grow louder under our windows I could feel within it the gravity and weight of a death sentence. At its climax, a dagger is soaked in the blood of animals and the spirits are called down to inhabit that knife. The knife is then delivered to the person or persons accursed, and from that point forward the spirit enoki will not rest until he has claimed that man’s soul as his own. That night, still reeking with warm blood, the knife was delivered to our door.’
Mr Holmes continued to stand rigid against the mantelpiece, his thin angular body catching shadows from the fire. Dr Watson fidgeted uncomfortably as if he, like me, had suddenly remembered the silver dagger of the previous evening, now glinting red in the firelight on a table next to his brandy glass. Mrs Hudson’s hand on my shoulder gave an extra squeeze.
‘It was too much for my companions,’ Moran continued. ‘The following morning they planned their departure. I tried desperately to change their minds. What remained of our investment would be irrevocably lost if we quit the island and I begged them not to invite ruin in this way. But their nerve had gone and their fear was too great. I confess we quarrelled, Mr Holmes. In fact my efforts to dissuade them took such a toll on my health that when the day set for our departure arrived I was too ill to travel, laid low by a crippling fever. Fearing for their own lives if they lingered, my companions left me in the hands of Penge, my loyal attendant, and set sail for London. So virulent was my fever, it seemed unlikely I would survive it, but survive I did, and as soon as I regained some semblance of consciousness, Penge made arrangements for me to be moved to a small sailing boat. Before I was properly aware of my surroundings we had been smuggled out of that fateful island and were bound for Singapore.
‘As I recuperated, I realised that events in Sumatra had left me a ruined man. The small amount of stock the Company held outside the island was just sufficient to cover our debts, but none of our initial capital remained. Relations with my father had been too deeply affected by my perceived defiance for me to hope for help from that quarter. I resolved to return to London where Neale and Carruthers, my erstwhile partners, had retreated to attempt the salvage of their fortunes. However, on the very eve of my departure, I was disturbed by a visit from a Chinaman newly arrived in Singapore. He was a so-called medicine man who travelled the islands gathering herbs to sell to his countrymen. He had been in Port Mary when I was there and knew of the shaman’s curse. He informed me that we were not forgotten by the priest and his acolytes. Indeed, guessing our destination, a second dagger had been cursed and was to be put aboard the Matilda Briggs, the regular London packet ship that served the islands. An acolyte of the priest’s was charged with delivering the dagger. And once delivered, nothing could stop the spirits achieving their purpose.’
The speaker’s eyes sought out those of the great detective.
‘Mr Holmes, when I wrote to you last night, I sent you a knife. Last Tuesday I passed the night in a boarding house on the docks. When I awoke the following morning, that same knife lay by my bedside. Two days earlier, five days after my own arrival, the Matilda Briggs had docked at Gravesend.’
There followed over the course of the evening a great number of questions from both Mr Holmes and Dr Watson. They rapidly established that the second dagger was, as far as Moran could say, identical to the first, that no-one in the boarding house, least of all Moran or the watchful Penge, had been able to account for its mysterious delivery. That very day Moran had consulted with his former partners and the three had resolved to seek the assistance of Sherlock Holmes. His companions, Carruthers and Neale, had taken the precaution of changing their lodgings but were both happy to wait on Mr Holmes at any time should he feel it necessary. Dr Watson took a note of their addresses.
To my great surprise, Mrs Hudson showed very little interest in any of these questions, choosing instead to return to the kitchen to prepare the breakfast things for the next day while sending me about my round of bedtime tasks. It was late in the evening when I heard Mr Holmes bring the interview to a close with a promise to make enquiries on Mr Moran’s behalf.
‘I need hardly say that the solution of a mystery with its roots so many miles away is not to be attempted with any guarantee of success. But what steps Dr Watson and I can take shall most certainly be taken.’
I heard Mr Moran reply that he would be collecting messages from the offices of the Rangoon & Occident Shipping Line should Mr Holmes wish to communicate with him, and then the bell was rung and I was summoned to show Mr Moran to the door. It was not until he had reached the street that something surprising occurred. Mrs Hudson, moving down the corridor with surprising alacrity, called Mr Moran back.
‘Begging your pardon, sir, Mr Holmes has asked me to put to you a question he forgot to ask earlier. He wishes to know . . .’ and here Mrs Hudson paused, apparently out of breath but just possibly so she could position herself better to see his face in the lamplight. ‘He wishes to know if you shall continue to keep your rooms in New Buildings for many more days?’
The effect of the question on Mr Moran was extraordinary. He began to reply, hesitated, began once more and again came to a halt. Even in the pale light from the street I could see a flush rise to his cheeks. Finally he mastered himself.
‘I can see Mr Holmes is an even more remarkable man than I had been led to believe. Yes, you may tell him that I shall remain in New Buildings until further notice if he should wish to contact me there. He is clearly already aware of the address.’
And with that he turned on his heel and made his way into the night, the ring of his boots on the cobbles marking his progress long after the night had enveloped him.
Mrs Hudson chuckled to herself.
‘Come on, Flottie. It’s bed for you and me.’
And I went quietly, deciding to keep my questions for another day. But my hearing is sharp and I could have sworn on the Bible that the bell had not been rung a second time; that Mrs Hudson had not been called to the study; that in following us to the door she had most certainly come directly from her own kitchen.
The rain that had set in during the night continued off and on for a further three days. Even the broadest streets turned slowly to mud and, by the Thursday, pedestrians, horses, carriages, even the pigeons, had begun to take on in their lower parts the same drab grey covering that is the true colour and texture of London. Or as Dr Watson put it, after three days of rain you might begin to believe that the mud and filth of every inhabited part of the Empire had emptied itself into our crowded streets.
The morning after Mr Moran’s visit was another of great activity. Mr Holmes had been called to an incident in Paddington and Dr Watson accompanied him, so for a few hours at least the contemplation of Mr Moran’s plight was laid aside. Mrs Hudson, however, was displaying the energy of a desert dervish, commissioning errands, summoning representatives of tradesmen from all over London, dispatching messages and turning the rooms in Baker Street into an oasis of warm welcome amid those splattered streets. At one point, returning from the post office where Mrs Hudson had sent me with a bag full of letters, I discovered her in the kitchen surrounded by a dozen scruffy boys between the ages of eight and fourteen among whom I instantly recognised Scraggs and seven or eight others who were regular suppliers of provisions to Mrs Hudson’s previous establishment. One had just finished speaking and Mrs Hudson was nodding thoughtfully in his direction.
‘Thank you, Mills. Remember, say nothing to Wiggins. He seems to be going to the bad.’
She looked up when she heard me at the door. ‘Now here’s Flottie,’ she continued warmly, ‘so you’d better all go about your business sharpish and not get under her feet. Some of you seem to imagine that the presence of a pretty girl is an excuse for malingering up here when there’s work to be done.’
The boys filed out, nudging each other and grinning, while I looked as reproachfully at Mrs Hudson as I dared. She watched the last one depart with a look that was only superficially stern.
‘They are good boys, each of them, Flottie, and it’s a proper scandal that in this whole city of do-gooders there’s nothing done to set them on their way to a decent calling that would get the best out of them. Still, they see and hear everything that goes on in this city, for there’s no house however grand that doesn’t open its doors to the butcher’s boy and the grocer’s lad and the young man from the chandler’s. They’re like a web of knowledge, they are. Keep in with them and you never need pay a penny more than you need for anything from lettuces to lamp oil. Now, Flottie, let’s get to work and never mind my teasing.’
And with that the whirlwind of activity continued, keeping me far too busy to ask questions about the gathering I’d interrupted or about the series of messages delivered directly to Mrs Hudson in the course of the afternoon.
The evening post brought more letters, one for Mr Holmes and two for Mrs Hudson, and what with reading them, planning supper, folding the laundry and setting me on another round of dusting and polishing, there was no rest for her or for me until five o’clock, when we’d lighted the fires and closed out the blustering night. This was my favourite time of day and we pulled our chairs to the hearth with a rich sense of self-indulgence. As a reward for the work completed, which I honestly believe would have taken two days in another household, Mrs Hudson treated me to a piece of candied peel from a box sent by Mr Rumbelow with the previous day’s sherry. Mrs Hudson was clearly in an excellent humour under her stern exterior and she held her glass up to the light with the air of a satisfied woman.
‘Once the work’s done we can move on to the important things, eh? Look at that, Flottie. This is one of the finest sherries. Not at the height of fashion just at the moment but magnificent nonetheless. Remember that light straw colour. One day, when you’re mixing in far better company than mine, it will help to know these things.’ And I nibbled my peel meekly and felt flushed at being included in such remote, adult knowledge.
After a short, contented silence, Mrs Hudson turned to the subject that had been on my mind all day, regardless of the tempest of activity that had engulfed me.
‘So, Flottie, what’s your feeling about Mr Moran’s strange tale?’
‘Ma’am, I don’t know what to make of it. This morning, with rain dripping down my neck, it seemed hard to believe in men being tracked down in London by a strange foreign curse. But last night, when he was talking, I could almost feel that dagger was watching us all, waiting for its moment. Do you think it could be poisoned?’
‘I have a feeling there was something dangerous present here last night, Flottie, but I don’t think it was that knife. However, Dr Watson will be able to show you how to test for poison on something like that. You should learn from those two gentlemen, Flottie. If we’re to stay in this house it’s no good being scared of all those chemicals and equipment. Besides, the doctor needs an occupation. It’s a year since he came back from Afghanistan and trotting around after Mr Holmes all day is no sort of a way for a man to pass his life.’
However, Mrs Hudson’s schemes to further my education were of far less interest to me than the matter in hand.
‘Wasn’t it amazing how Mr Holmes was able to know so much about him from his letter, ma’am?’
‘It is and it isn’t, Flottie. It certainly seems as if Mr Holmes got a good deal right but somehow I just wonder . . . For instance, Mr Moran went to a lot of trouble to show how afraid he was of this strange threat that hangs over him. Afraid for his life, he said. Both of our gentlemen agreed his note was dashed off hurriedly in a mixture of fear and fever. He was supposedly in too great a haste to write in a straight line across the page or find a decent pot of ink.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ I could only concur with Mr Holmes and Dr Watson. Everything from his handwriting to his nervous manner seemed to suggest a fear approaching desperation on the part of Mr Moran.
‘Let’s have another look at that letter, Flottie. I took the liberty of tidying it away when it became clear Mr Holmes had no further use for it. You’ll find it in the drawer in the dresser, next to the mousetraps.’
I scurried to retrieve it and Mrs Hudson spread it open under the lamp so it was visible to us both.
‘Now is there anything on that page that you didn’t notice before, perhaps because it was too dark to make out?’
I looked at the letter and its now familiar scarlet ink. It seemed exactly as I had remembered it.
‘What about there at the bottom of the page, Flottie?’
Peering more closely I made out a small circular discolouration near the edge of the writing paper.
‘It looks like a grease stain, ma’am.’
‘Just what I thought, Flottie. But what kind of grease? There are thousands of possibilities and I’m sure Mr Holmes could list a host of ones I’ve never thought of. But you don’t spend over 50 years working in kitchens without learning a thing or two about grease. Come, Flottie, let’s try a little experiment. Fetch me one of those cheap tallow candles that we found under the stove, a drop of the frying oil and half a pound of best butter from the pantry.’
Despite her frown, there was a confidence in her manner that gave me a little thrill of anticipation and I hurried to fetch the objects she requested with a little hop of excitement. When they were assembled in front of her, Mrs Hudson leaned intently over the sheet of paper that lay like bright in the arc of lamplight. First of all she lit the candle, a very cheap yellow object made from a dubious combination of unattributable carcasses, all boiled down together. It’s pungent smell made me wrinkle my nose as it infiltrated the shadows of the polished kitchen.
‘Now look,’ she whispered and tilted the candle gently until a small drop splashed on to the piece of paper an inch away from the original mark.
‘Now while that dries in, let’s try this,’ and with a steady hand Mrs Hudson lowered the lip of the oil jug, allowing a second drop to fall onto the paper beneath.
‘Now, Flottie, take a look at them and let’s see what we’ve got.’
I lowered my head very close to the paper. The candle fat had left a dark mark of a yellow-grey colour. The oil had soaked in deeper, leaving a stain in a slightly darker shade of grey.
‘I don’t think it’s either of those,’ I said at last. ‘The original mark is much lighter than these two, almost colourless really. These look a lot dirtier. I’m sure if the mark had been made by either of these we would have noticed it straight away, even by lamplight.’
‘All right. Let’s try one more then.’ And Mrs Hudson, still frowning slightly, took a sliver of butter on the end of a knife and held it over the candle flame. When the edges of the butter began to liquefy she moved the knife to the notepaper and tilted it until a small drip of butter had landed next to the other three stains.
I waited till it had dried into the paper before I spoke, but when I did there was already awe in my voice.
‘It’s the same! See how it’s left the same mark! They’re both slightly darker at the centre and almost invisible at the edge. It was a butter stain on Mr Moran’s note!’
I paused for a moment, then continued, my voice suddenly less excited.
‘But what does that tell us?’
‘Look at the two butter stains again, Flottie. There is a slight difference, isn’t there?’
It was true. I had been concentrating only on the colour of the original stain so I had noticed without comment the small brown mark left at its centre. Now I studied that mark even more closely until Mrs Hudson, to my enormous surprise, produced a magnifying glass from the front of her apron.
‘Well, Mr Holmes leaves them all over the place, child. I’m sure he won’t begrudge us the use of one for a few hours. Now use this to look and tell me what you think.’
Now my view was transformed and I could see the brown spot I had been peering at was not a stain but a tiny rough-edged object pressed into the paper’s surface. It looked very familiar.
‘It’s a crumb,’ I ventured, slightly disappointed that my first attempt at scientific observation had ended on such an unremarkable note.
‘A very small toast crumb was what I thought,’ confirmed Mrs Hudson, nodding approvingly. ‘Now, Flottie, how could such a stain have come there?’
‘I suppose it just dropped on, ma’am. If a small piece of toast fell onto the paper and was shaken off very quickly it may have left just such a trace behind. If the writer was working by lamplight or candlelight he wouldn’t particularly notice it. And if a crumb stuck to the grease, it was probably pressed down into the paper when he folded the sheet and sealed it.’
‘Flottie, you will go every bit as far as I ever imagined.’ Mrs Hudson put her arm around my shoulders and rewarded me with a squeeze of approval. ‘Now let us imagine the scene as conjured up by Mr Holmes, the scene Mr Moran would have us see.
‘It’s night. Mr Moran has returned to his humble lodging. He’s out of breath because he has gone through the streets quickly, afraid of what he’ll find there. The dagger is burning a hole in the coat pocket where he thrust it after showing it to his friends, two gentlemen so perturbed by what he tells them that they leave their dwellings that very night and go into hiding with what belongings they can carry. Moran has been tasked with finding help and on his return he grabs a sheet of cheap note paper and the first pot of ink he can find. He scribbles a rough note, running sentences together in his fear and haste, oblivious of his sprawling hand. The note is dispatched that very moment in the hands of his faithful servant, who is ordered not to rest until he has tracked down the famous Sherlock Holmes . . .
‘Well, Flottie, how does that look to us now? Can we imagine the panic-stricken Mr Moran scribbling feverishly at his desk with one hand while with the other he helps himself to a cheerful afternoon tea? Flottie, does a man fearing for his life eat generously-buttered toast? I have to say I find the idea highly unlikely.’
I stared at her with my mouth rudely open, for every word she said seemed to resound with good sense. I had so believed in the desperation that lay behind Mr Moran’s note that it was impossible to reconcile the image I had formed in my mind – an image that Mrs Hudson had described in uncanny detail – with the image of Moran settled comfortably in a leather chair, feeding himself toast as he penned his letter.
‘But, Mrs Hudson, if Mr Moran was only pretending to be afraid when he wrote his note . . .’
‘Exactly, child. We will do well to treat everything he tells us with a large pinch of Cheshire salt.’
And with half a wink and a joyous nudge from the point of her elbow she ambled back to the pantry for another glass of sherry.
However, if Mrs Hudson’s revelations had convinced me that Moran’s tale was not entirely to be trusted, events the following morning left me floundering in renewed uncertainty. Shortly after breakfast the bell rang and both Mrs Hudson and I were called to the study where we found Mr Holmes and Dr Watson examining an item that had arrived in that morning’s post.
‘Ah, Mrs Hudson!’ exclaimed Mr Holmes in great good humour. ‘We have received a communication that has some relevance to events here the other night. Since you and young Flottie were both involved from the outset, I thought you may be interested in seeing how the case develops. The workings of great minds will always inspire, even if they cannot always be understood – a piece of wisdom that I’m sure Dr Watson will readily endorse. Eh, Watson?’
‘What was that, Holmes?’ asked Watson, peering up from the letter he had been examining with the most desperate determination.
‘Nothing at all, dear fellow,’ said Holmes, smiling affectionately before turning again to Mrs Hudson and me.
‘Watson tells me that you are already aware of the salient points of Moran’s tale and you will not be surprised to learn that my task for today is to verify as many details as possible of that queer narrative. Mrs Hudson, as a woman of excellent good sense you will understand that I can have no truck with the suggestion that these individuals met their deaths by supernatural means. A perfectly natural explanation will exist, and when we have discovered it we will be in a far better position to take measures guaranteeing the safety of Moran and his associates. I do not doubt that great villainy is at work here, but villainy in a human form, perpetrated by someone who will prove as eager to avoid contact with Dr Watson’s heavy stick as any other villain.
‘The task of interviewing Neale and Carruthers I have assigned to Dr Watson here, while I myself shall concentrate on some of the other details in Moran’s account. But before we set out, let us share with you another development,’ and at that Mr Holmes took the new letter from Watson’s grasp and offered it to Mrs Hudson with a flourish.
It was short and succinct.
46 Old Jewry
Nov 19th
Re: Evil Spirits
Sir,
Our client Mr James Winterton of Winterton Shipping, London, owner of the Matilda Briggs and other vessels, has made some inquiry from us concerning evil spirits. The aforementioned vessel being recently returned from Borneo and Sumatra, Mr Winterton has received a visit from one Mr Norman, passenger on said vessel’s latest voyage. Mr Norman has alleged said vessel is possessed with an unnatural presence that, he claims, repeatedly harassed him, on one occasion pitching a small leather Bible into the sea. He exhorted our client to take measures before the vessel makes its next voyage. Mr Winterton, having interviewed the captain, a Spaniard, and the crew, mainly Lascars, has discovered that they support this tale. As our firm specialises almost entirely upon the assessment of nautical equipment the matter hardly comes within our purview, and we have therefore decided to enquire of you if there is any specialist in this field that might be recommended to our client.
We are, Sir, Faithfully yours,
LAUNCESTON, PHELPS AND FINCH
When she had finished reading, Mrs Hudson looked up thoughtfully.
‘I should say, sir, that this is an extremely interesting document.’
‘And so Dr Watson found it too, Mrs H. I admit it has a certain sensational interest, though I personally do not place a great deal of store by it. I’m sure we shall find that this is the result of suggestible individuals and a superstitious crew, made aware before their departure of fanciful rumours circulating about their cargo, then cooped together for long periods at sea. It is, I feel, of more interest to the psychologist than the criminologist. We can dismiss it as no more than an intriguing diversion from our primary business.’
If I had expected Mrs Hudson to bridle against such casual dismissal of her opinion, I had again miscalculated. When on the gentlemen’s departure we returned to the kitchen her expression was almost jocular as she began to change into her outdoor clothes.
‘Bless us, that Mr Holmes is quite a one. How he got this far without us, Flottie, is something I’ll never know.’
‘But, Mrs Hudson, ma’am, doesn’t that letter suggest that there is something in Mr Moran’s tale after all?’
‘Of course, Flottie. I’m convinced there is something in his tale. Our investigations last night were decidedly useful but we mustn’t confuse ourselves. If you feel you’re losing touch with what’s what, there’s another telegram you’d better have a look at. It’s in the dresser drawer, at the back, under the tongue-press.’
By now Mrs Hudson was ready to go out but she waited until I had found the telegram.
‘It’s from Lord Ponsonby at the Colonial Office. I was once able to help his lordship solve a little problem concerning his daughter’s second coachman. I sent him a note yesterday morning and he was good enough to investigate and reply the same afternoon.’
The telegram seemed to leave no room for doubt.
CAN CONFIRM TWENTY THREE UNEXPLAINED DEATHS PORT MARY OFF SUMATRA MARCH APRIL STOP TWO EUROPEAN ONE CHINESE OTHERS NATIVE STOP ALL MALE STOP INVESTIGATION BY DUTCH AGENT JUNE STOP DEATHS MOST HORRIBLE STOP CAUSE UNKNOWN STOP AGENT BAFFLED STOP COMPLETE MYSTERY STOP FOND REGARDS
PONSONBY
‘You see, Flottie, we do have a mystery on our hands after all,’ commented Mrs Hudson, raising an eyebrow in a parting wave before slipping out for her afternoon off.
It was later that afternoon that I discovered the problem posed by Mr Moran was not the only one for me to consider. I passed the afternoon working on the gentlemen’s rooms, reflecting happily that in doing so I was in a small way assisting one of the eminent men of our times. Time passed quickly and though it was no later than four o’clock it was already growing dark when I made my way back to the kitchen. As soon as I entered I knew there was something wrong. There was something foreign there, something chill that did not belong. The lamp had not been lit and there was a presence in the air that made my whole being cold.
‘Who’s there?’ My voice trembled.
‘Hello, Flotsam,’ came a voice I remembered from the days I was trying to forget. ‘I was passing so I thought I should drop in.’
‘Mr Fogarty,’ I whispered, almost to myself.
‘Indeed,’ he replied, moving out of the shadows so I could see his face and its fixed, mocking smile. ‘I can’t stay, Flotsam, but I’d like to ask you to come round and visit me soon. You see,’ and he passed the tip of his finger very slowly down the line of his jaw, ‘I believe I have found your brother.’