THE HOUSE WAS MOSTLY EMPTY. THE FIRST TWO ROOMS we passed had no furniture in them, and the third had only a small wardrobe and a simple bed—probably where our guide the khitmutgar slept. However, when we ascended the staircase to the first floor we suddenly found ourselves on a lavish carpet—thick and pleasant. Fine paintings lined the walls, although I noted they were of limited provenance. It was as if someone had told the owner of the house, “Look here, when it comes to world-class paintings, trust none but the Dutch, the Italians and the French, in that order.”
Not bad advice, when one comes to think of it.
As we ascended to the next floor, our surroundings became even more opulent, with marble busts and tapestries all about. At last, the khitmutgar stopped before a carved wooden door, swept it open, and motioned for us to enter.
The smell was even worse. And there—seated on an enormous pile of silk-brocade cushions on the far side of the room, was our host. I don’t think he was quite five feet tall. His skin was doughy white. He had a tall, bald head, strangely pointed at the top, but rounder and thicker at the bottom, like a misshapen gumdrop. His hands were in a constant state of motion, incessantly fidgeting with whatever came within their reach. Chiefly they toyed with the mouthpiece of a hookah-like contraption that rested just beside him, venting a foul, thick smoke. As we entered he was making a long, quiet “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, mew, mew” sound. A few moments in his company was enough to suggest that this was the result of physical deformity. It seemed he could not exhale without making some sound, and was therefore forced to choose between speaking or simply emitting random noises. There was a brief moment where I imagined trying to sleep in the same room as him, and was stricken by a sudden revulsion.
As we entered, Holmes said, in a tactful whisper, “Well… there’s no way that’s human.”
“Nope,” I agreed.
Drawing a deep, excited breath, our host exclaimed, “Eww, Miss Morstan! The estimable Mary Morstan! It is an honor, madam. I am Thaddeus Sholto, your servant. Forever your servant. Ah. Mew.”
“He says his name is Thaddeus,” Holmes whispered. “Got to be a demon.”
“No, Holmes. Thaddeus is a human name.”
“What? Can’t be!”
Mary Morstan was staring at our host with open expectation and strained patience. It was clear she was waiting—rather baitedly—either to be offered a seat, or a preposterously expensive pearl. Do you know, now that I put it to paper, I have become fairly certain: both. She wanted both.
Yet Thaddeus Sholto did neither. He turned to Holmes and me and said, “And your servant, too, I am sure. Yes. Mew. Do tell me, Miss Morstan, who are these stalwart fellows who have agreed to safeguard you?”
Mary gave an impatient sigh. “This is Mr. Warlock Holmes—he has a reputation for helping people out when things get weird. That’s Dr. Whatsisname. I can’t remember.”
“Dr. John Watson, at your service,” I told him, but it was clear Thaddeus Sholto didn’t care what my name was either. His eyes locked excitedly on my medical bag. I had grown in the habit of carrying it with me; if adventure should break out, it was a damned useful thing to have along.
Not least because there was a pistol in it.
“A doctor, eh?” he cried, much excited. “Have you your stethoscope? Might I ask you—would you have the kindness? I have great doubts as to my mitral valve, if you would be so very good. The aortic I may rely upon, but I should value your opinion upon the mitral. Hmm. Mew.”
With a nod, I drew the stethoscope from my case and stepped over to our host. Now, there are certain specialists for whom the subtle clicks in the lub-dub of the human heart paint a clear picture, but I was no such authority. Nevertheless, the habit of my profession drove me to pretend I was. Nearly half of general practice is pretending you know what you’re doing. The other half is referring your patient to somebody who actually might. Assuming an expression of competence, I leaned in and touched the bell of my stethoscope to Thaddeus Sholto’s chest.
Lub d-spweeeeeeeeeeeeee, krickik, fwub, fwub, fwub, kikkik… dub.
Eager to resume the business of the evening, I straightened and told him, “Sir, you have nothing to fear. I am sure…” Yet, as I still had some modicum of professional honor, the lie died upon my lips. “Actually, no. You might want to get that looked at. Tomorrow, if you’re smart.”
His eyes widened with the thousand innate fears of every hypochondriac and I gave him a curt nod to say that, yes, they were all correct. His mouth fell open in horror and a soft “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” sound began to escape. To quell this, he shoved the hookah’s mouthpiece between his lips and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, puffs of stinking smoke leaked out left and right.
“It’s no surprise, really. No surprise. I have always been a great sufferer. Mew-hew. Perhaps we had best hurry to repair Miss Morstan’s fortunes, before my internal infirmities overcome me and I perish.”
“Yes,” said Mary, somewhat coolly. “Let’s do that.”
“We must go and confront Brother Bartholomew, I fear,” said Thaddeus, with a shake of his pendulous head. “He suffers from our family failing. He is greedy. Mew. Oh. Greedy. From the day Father gained the Agra treasure—even before Brother Bartholomew and I were born—he always said half of it must go to Arthur Morstan. Yet, he and Mother—and now Brother Bartholomew too—were never able to give up so much as a single jewel. Eew. Terrible of them…”
“And is that your brother, Bartholomew, up there?” I asked, directing everybody’s attention to the family portrait that hung above Thaddeus Sholto’s nest of cushions. The painting portrayed a graying military man, dressed in a major’s uniform with two medals pinned to his chest. Upon his lap sat two smiling boys. Two revolting, white, doughy, smiling, shapeless, hideously mutated boys. As there was no difference in their shape or size, I deemed Thaddeus and Bartholomew must be twins. Either that or the artist had been an inexcusably lazy sort of fellow. Upon the major’s shoulder rested the claw-like hand of his wife, who must once have stood behind him in the picture. Once, I say, for the canvas was torn away, leaving a gaping hole. Little clue remained of her, save that the amount of space allotted was rather large and the hand had a greenish-white tint.
“All of us, yes, mew,” Thaddeus confirmed. “How happy we were! Yes, those were better times. Better times. That is Bartholomew, on the left. Or… I think it is. Maybe it’s me. Little difference, really. That is my father, John Sholto, whom I think you must have heard of, Miss Morstan. And… well… Mother used to be there. Sadly, we have no picture left of her. Eww, oh… just before his end, Father went a bit funny about her likeness and destroyed them all. She didn’t seem to mind.”
“How sad,” said Holmes, supportively.
“Why would your father do that?” I asked.
“Who can say?” said Thaddeus, with a shrug. “Theirs was a peculiar courtship. Hew. I suppose I can speak of it, as it bears upon the business of the day. My father and Miss Morstan’s father worked together to find a large cache of jewels—the Agra treasure, it was called. It was my father who went to claim it, but when he got to the hiding place he found it guarded by my mother. She refused to surrender it unless he agreed to marry her. Isn’t that strange? Ha. Mew. A funny way to meet. But they were happy enough most of the time, you know. When we were growing up… mew. Yes.”
As he spoke, Holmes leaned towards me and said, in a guarded undertone, “You know, Watson, it may just be your deduction thing rubbing off on me, but… do you suppose what we are hearing is the tale of an unguarded treasure, discovered by a wayward greed demon?”
“An interesting theory, Holmes.”
“As an outsider, she would need to anchor herself to an object capable of inspiring immense avarice in the mortal heart, or she probably could not sustain her existence here.”
“Especially because—” as subtly as I could, I cocked a finger at Thaddeus’s reeking hookah-like contrivance “—in her native world, I suspect she may have been a methane-breather.”
“Brilliant! Yes! Then one day John Sholto shows up and says he’s taking her treasure. Now, she’s probably got no real way of stopping him, being as weak as she is. Believe me, no greed demon would willingly part with its hoard.”
“But she must have had enough leverage to ensure that part of the deal was that he’d marry her. Which is fairly clever, as it still gives her some claim to the treasure. Of course, the marriage would not be valid unless consummated…”
“Eww,” Holmes noted. “But it must have been, at least once, because: twins.”
“And they all lived happily ever after, until Arthur Morstan reappeared and… I don’t know… what do you think happened?”
Fortunately, Thaddeus was entering exactly that part of the story.
“…but, of course, Mummy had always known that Arthur Morstan would come one day to claim his portion of the treasure. Ah-hew. She did not care for the idea, I assure you. Mew. Yes. And finally, he did come. Father greeted him as a friend and showed him the treasure, but that’s where it all turned sour, you see.”
“They murdered him,” said Mary coldly, but more matter-of-factly than I might have imagined. It seemed she had accepted the fact of her father’s death long ago and the fresh injury was not that they had taken his life, but that they had withheld his legacy.
Not to Thaddeus. He seemed utterly horrified by the idea. “No, no, mew!” he cried. “They would never! Arthur Morstan had a weak heart—everybody knows it.”
“Did you know it?” I asked Mary.
She gave me a grim shake of her head to say it was news to her.
“Well, Father said everybody did,” Thaddeus retorted, “and I well believe him, for as soon as they showed Captain Morstan the treasure, it gave out on him! Or…” Thaddeus paused and sucked uncertainly at his vile hookah. “Or perhaps he just fainted, we shall never know. The treasure, you see, was kept in a large iron box. Mew. As your unfortunate father fell, Miss Morstan, his head hit the corner.”
“That’ll make a dent,” Holmes noted.
“Oh indeed—ah-hew!—a terrible wound,” Thaddeus agreed. “My parents were horrified. They tried to stand him up, but he collapsed once more. Sadly, as he fell, his head hit the c—”
“—corner of the iron box, yes,” I finished.
“Just so, just so! My parents tried to stand him up at least a dozen times more, but each time—”
“Yes, yes. Corner of the box.”
“Until there was practically nothing left of the man’s head, just a shapeless pulp. Oh, mew, it was the worst luck! Just unbelievably bad luck!”
“Funny that you should choose the word ‘unbelievable’,” I said, “as I was just reflecting on what a very difficult time your parents were likely to have in convincing a judge that luck was the culprit.”
“Hm. Mew. Yes. We had an old Indian butler named Lal Chowdar who thought so too,” said Thaddeus. “Or at least so my parents tell me. It’s odd that Brother Bartholomew and I don’t remember him, for we were well into our teens at the time, but my parents both insisted he was real.”
“And what did this entirely non-fictional servant have to say about the matter?” I queried.
“Well apparently, he burst in on them and said, ‘I heard you kill the guest, sahibs!’ Of course they protested that they had done no such thing.”
“Of course.”
“But he would not believe them, impertinent fellow!”
“Oh, the cheek of him!”
“And my parents began to realize that if even their trusted servant—”
“Whom you do not remember…”
“Ah-hew, yes. If even he did not believe them, how could they prove their innocence to a judge?”
“How indeed?” I agreed.
“Luckily, Lal Chowdar said he knew a way to dispose of the body where nobody would ever find it.”
“Always a useful thing for a butler to know.”
“It was. Mew-hew. My parents trusted him with the sad task. And so—though they were deeply aggrieved and ashamed—at least they were safe.”
“And then the loyal Lal Chowdar died, or disappeared somehow, leaving your parents’ innocence perfectly intact.”
“I am told he moved to Chicago,” said Thaddeus. “Which seems right. Father always said that anybody who knew where to hide a body would eventually wind up in Chicago.”
“Fairly salient point, actually,” Holmes reflected.
“Now, Thaddeus, I have to ask,” I said, “did your father ever give any indication of how he and one of his old army buddies should have happened to come into possession of a mysterious foreign treasure?”
“Oh, no, no, no! Mew! No, I hardly dare to think of what Mother would have done if he ever spoke of such things. She always had trouble giving anything away, did Mother, even information. Hew. No. I always thought it might have something to do with Agra, in India, since it was called the Agra treasure and I know he spent some time stationed nearby. Yet he was chiefly in the Andaman Islands. Oh, and however he got it, I know it was somehow tied to his irrational fear of one-legged men and the number nine.”
My eyebrows rose. “Did he ever happen to mention the phrase ‘the sign of nine’?”
“Oh, yes. Frequently. If anybody ever mentioned the number nine, he always made them draw the figure, just to prove they could. Ah-hew. He always said if anyone ever wrote ‘the sign of nine’ instead of the digit, he would kill them where they stood. He hated the number. Why, when the local dairy delivered our milk—Brother Bartholomew and I were raised almost solely on milk, so delicate were our constitutions—he used to make sure the first two bottles were emptied at the same time. The crate held ten bottles you see, and he could not bear there being nine full ones.”
“Peculiar,” I noted.
“Hew. Yes. But not nearly so inconvenient as his feelings towards one-legged men. He once fired his pistol at a one-legged tradesman, in public.”
I raised a finger and interjected, “This tradesman, what did he look like?”
“Oh, I don’t know… poor? Hopeless?”
“Light-skinned or dark, Mr. Sholto?”
“Fairly light, I suppose. Average for an Englishman. Oh, but mew-eww, it cost us a fortune to hush it up. Mother was furious.”
“More furious than she was at the death of Captain Morstan?” I hazarded.
“Oh infinitely more so! Mother never seemed to have much sympathy for him, though Father seemed quite broken up about it. But then, that’s no surprise. Hew. He never had many friends, you know, and he always spoke fondly of Arthur Morstan. From birth, I knew his friend—and his friend’s unfortunate daughter—must one day come for their share of our fortune. I would often reflect how unfair it was that this had not been done. I used to write about it, especially as I was composing verses. Um… hew… I could show you if you like.”
He shot a guilty sidelong glance at Mary. The shadow of a blush lit his pallid cheek and the truth of the situation hit me in a sudden wave of recognition.
Of course. He was in love with her.
Only by reputation, I suppose, but was that not enough? What must youth have been like for a half-demon, half-human hybrid, who wheezed and mewed with every breath and was forced never to roam far from his methane hookah? From the moment Holmes had mentioned his probable heritage, my doctor’s mind had begun to wonder whether—like many hybrid animals—Thaddeus Sholto might be infertile. Then again, the aesthete in me had put in a quick appearance to point out that—as a particularly hideous hybrid animal—he was unlikely ever to have the opportunity of finding out. It had not been difficult to imagine his family’s motives for not sharing the treasure. Yet why was Thaddeus so insistent that Mary must be given her due?
Because he’d been planning it since adolescence. On his darkest day, he must have had only one thought that brought him comfort: that somewhere out there, was a girl. An innocent, kind girl, suffering in poverty. Bound to him by the shared destiny of their fathers’ treasure. If he could only save her, could he not prove himself a worthy creature? Someone who did not deserve the crushing loneliness that had been his birthright?
For Christ’s sake, he had just volunteered to show Mary Morstan his poetry, which—could there be any doubt of it—must be absolutely packed with dreamy idealizations of her.
For the first time in our long history of adventuring together, I felt as Holmes often did. I did not care if murder had been done. I did not care if there were a greed demon running loose in London. I cared about our client. It was not Mary Morstan, though she’d brought us the case. It was Thaddeus Sholto. By God, I felt so terrible for Thaddeus Sholto. I needed to help him. But how?
As I pondered how to unravel the terrible net nature and chance had woven around the young de-man, I became conscious that Holmes was staring at me with the most quizzical expression on his face.
“Right! Erm… right…” I spluttered. “Where were we? Ah, yes! Mr. Sholto, it has been years since the events you describe. In all that time, there has been no direct contact between your family and Miss Morstan, only the extraordinary gifts she received by post. Am I right in assuming it was you who sent the pearls?”
Thaddeus colored even more deeply this time and gave me a grateful little smile, as if he were rather glad someone had brought the subject up.
“Mew, hew… well… I did no more than honor demands, you know. I used to harry Father on the subject, and he always admitted that Arthur Morstan’s orphan was entitled to his share. But he never let me act on it. The closest I ever got—ah hew!—was the one day he called me to his bedside. He was quite sick by that time. His liver, you know. Mew. And he showed me a golden goblet, set with pearls of extraordinary quality. There were tears in his eyes as he confided that he had resolved to send it to Miss Morstan a thousand times, and yet he could not bring himself to surrender it. He showed me where he had once pried out one of the pearls set in its base, thinking he might be able to part with just one of them. Yet he could not bring himself to do it. Hew. He wept and beat his chest and cursed his weakness. He knew I was the good son—ah-hew—and that I would have the strength to do what he could not. He forbade me to do it while he was alive, yet the instant his wicked heart ceased, he said, I must follow my conscience and make amends.”
“Which you have,” said Holmes, with a warm smile.
“Well, hew, partly,” Thaddeus replied. “Father didn’t make it easy. You see, he had always kept the main body of the treasure hidden, which was perfectly in keeping with his paranoia. Mew. Brother Bartholomew and I despaired that he was likely to go to his grave without telling us where it was. Yet one night he called us to his bedside. He said, ‘My dear boys, my time is come. I bequeath to you all I own. My two earthly responsibilities must now be yours as well. One of you must care for your mother. One must do what is right. I will trust you both to know which is which. Now, in order to do so, you must know where the Agra treasure is. You must bear the weight of it, the weight that has crushed my soul for so very long. Boys, I have placed it—’”
We were all leaning in to hear the story, Mary Morstan most of all. Thaddeus gave a shrug.
“Then—ah-hew—he died.”
Mary was across the room in a second, waving her finger in his face. “You’ve got to be bloody kidding me!”
“Madam! Hew!”
“Mid-sentence?” I asked. “He died mid-sentence?”
“Very nearly. He was looking at me as he spoke, but suddenly his gaze shifted to just over my shoulder. His hand flew to his chest. His face stiffened into the most horrible visage of pain and fright and he shrieked, ‘The one-legged man!’ For an instant, I thought he was delusional, but when I turned to look—oh! Mew!—There in the window! Such a horrible face. Hairy and rough and sunburned and feral. Staring in at us with such anger and hunger. It was more than Brother Bartholomew and I could stand. We are great sufferers—did I mention that?—great sufferers. We fell down in one of our fraternal swoons. Eww. Mew. When we awoke, Father was dead. The room had been ransacked and a paper with ‘THE SIGN OF NINE’ written on it was left upon my father’s chest.”
“Hmm… Yes…” said Holmes, tapping his lips with scholarly gravity. “From what you say, it is possible the man entered the room and murdered your father while you and Bartholomew were unconscious. Still… I think natural causes are more likely. You see, though the human liver can fail at any time, such episodes are more common in moments of stress or great excitement.”
“That is the heart, Holmes.”
“The sight of his dreaded antagonist must have been too great a strain to bear. Your father suffered a sudden liver attack—”
“God damn it.”
“—and bore the secret to his grave. Tragic.”
“And more than a bit inconvenient,” Mary added, narrowing her eyes at our host.
If Thaddeus realized just how much blame lay beneath her words… well, I think he didn’t, for he failed to burst into tears. Instead, he simply agreed. “Oh! Mew! Dashed inconvenient. But Father had showed me where he’d hidden the pearl goblet, so I claimed it and announced my intention to send it to Miss Morstan. Mother was horrified to be separated from the treasure, and Bartholomew objected. He said to willingly send treasure away would be more than Mother could stand. She would die, he said. Hew! Preposterous! He did not want me to send so much as a single pearl. But, of course, I did.”
“And how did your mother take the news?” Holmes asked.
“She did die,” said Thaddeus, with a sad shake of his head. “Brother Bartholomew was furious with me. Ah-hew. But how could that be anything more than a coincidence? I have heard it is common for people to die soon after their spouse. Isn’t that true?”
Holmes and I shared a pained look. If Mrs. Sholto was indeed a greed demon, sustaining herself by a connection to a great treasure, it was entirely possible that Thaddeus’s unselfish act may have severed that connection and doomed her. Then again, neither Holmes nor I were overly eager to voice that particular theory.
“Sure,” said Holmes. “That sounds true.”
“For years we could not find that treasure. Ah-mew!” Thaddeus complained. “I was forced to support poor Miss Morstan using only a single pearl per year. Brother Bartholomew stayed in our ancestral home, Pondicherry Lodge, but I fled here to escape his fury, and to await the day the treasure was discovered. And now—mew, hew—at last, it has been!”
“Where’s my share?” said Mary Morstan.
“It is all with Brother Bartholomew. We must plan the best way to encourage him to surrender your half.”
“Oh, here’s my plan,” Mary growled. “We drive round there tonight and tell him to hand it over, right now!”
Thaddeus threw a hand to his chest. “Madam! Do you propose I rob my own brother?”
“Er… no,” I said, though I imagined that was exactly what she was proposing. “I think Miss Morstan is only suggesting that there is no benefit to delay. And would not a direct and honest approach be best?”
“But so forceful! Hew!” Thaddeus said. Yet then he tilted his bulbous little head to one side and added, “Still… Miss Morstan has a point. Conflict is not in my dear brother’s nature. He was never as—mew, mew, mew—as masterful as I.”
“Really?” I found myself asking, before I could choke it back.
He turned defiant eyes on me and sniffed, “Yes, really! Hew! You will see! Hew! Yes! I am now convinced: Miss Morstan is entirely correct. Why shy from the inevitable? We must be bold! We must drive there right now and make our case. Miss Morstan, can you accompany me?”
She made a face, as if this were the most foolish question she’d heard in some time, and said, “I suppose.”
“Very good! Now… mew… if your escorts feel the hour is too late, I would be happy to—”
“No, that’s all right,” said Holmes, brightly. “I want to see how it turns out. Right, Watson? Of course we’ll come.”
“Oh…” said Thaddeus, a moment’s disappointment playing across his doughy features. Yet, to credit the man, he recovered instantly. He reached for an ostentatious brass bell that lay beside his pile of cushions and gave it two clangorous shakes. “Khitmutgar! Khitmutgar! Bring my hat! We are off on an adventure!”