Warlock Holmes--The Sign of Nine Page 30

  “No,” said the native, icily. “That is something different. Tonga is… Well, let us say you find a gourd. A nice one, perfect and round and you are very pleased with it. You put it somewhere for safekeeping, but forget where. You are upset you cannot find it. Then you see a neighbor with a perfect round gourd and you are angry that he has found your secret hiding spot. So, you beat him to death with a rock, pick up the gourd and head back to your hut. On the way, you walk past your favorite napping tree and catch sight of your gourd. That is Tonga.”

  “And… what? You want me to stop that sort of thing from happening?” Small asked.

  “No. On this island, there is a spirit. He is like a person, but different. Very small, and made of hard material. We try to avoid him because he is… how would you English say…? Ah! Just the worst. He is very much the embodiment of the idea of Tonga. Last night he came into one of our huts where we kept the bottles of the whiskey we had traded from the English. He drank them all and now he is very sick. Maybe he will die. Maybe he will wake up. We do not know. But we know this much: if he wakes up he is going to kill and kill and kill for no reason. So… um… do you think you could find a way for him not to?”

  “Huh…” said Small. “Sounds interesting. Bring ’im in.”

  With a blur and a fuzz, we were watching Jonathan Small betray the natives by nursing Tonga back to health. Of course I’d only seen him by moonlight before, as he fired his fingers at Holmes and me (and notably, at Hopkins), but it was unmistakably him. His skin was of a hard, bark-like material and his feet displayed the strange backward toe-claw that had made its mark in the secret attic at Pondicherry Lodge.

  He was more than just hung over; he was positively poisoned—our terrestrial brews being utterly alien to his other-dimensional physiology. Yet over the next few days, Small dutifully brought him water and yams. He covered the little fellow up when he shivered and uncovered him when he sweated. Since the little blighter spoke only in utterly nonsensical clicks and rattles, their conversation was somewhat one-sided. Small bitterly recounted his misadventures with the Sikhs, the treasure, and the officers who had betrayed them.

  And strangely, I think that’s what saved Tonga. He leaned in with such interest whenever Small spoke of what he wanted to do to those that had let him down, that I got the distinct feeling that what was really keeping the little fellow going was that he was hearing the story of a group of individuals who needed to have some Tonga practiced on them.

  Sure enough, by noon on the fourth day the queer little man was gone. Younger Small seemed saddened by it—as if the prospect of facing life alone on the island without his little vengeance-friend was particularly burdensome. If so, he did not have to bear it long. Two nights later there came a click, click, click at the door to Small’s hut. Small swung it open to find Tonga standing just outside.

  “Oh, hello. What do you want?”

  The little man made no answer, just turned and trudged away over the sandy soil. Jonathan Small watched him for a moment, brow furrowed, then followed. Over the sand they went, across the moonlit camp, past the stockade where Small’s three Indian “brothers” still languished. He spared them nary a glance as he passed, but left them to their fate. As Tonga and Small neared the shore, Small saw two skeletons lying in pools of rancid liquid; one was wearing the remnants of simple robes, the other a soldier’s uniform.

  “Your doing?” Small asked his tiny companion.

  Tonga beamed back at him for a moment, then pointed down the beach. An angular shape jutted out into the water. Small gasped and started running. Sure enough, it was one of the natives’ canoes. Next to it lay one of the natives. He was nothing but bones and disgusting juice, but the ornate beaded headband that drooped down over the skull left no doubt as to whose canoe we were looking at.

  Small turned back to Tonga and said, “So, you got that chief fellow back for tryin’ to get me to kill you, eh?”

  Tonga put his thorny hands on his hips and gave a proud nod.

  “Good on you!”

  The canoe was well stocked with yams, coconuts, and gourds filled with drinking water: all that was needed. Yet, if it seemed Jonathan Small’s journey to freedom was about to commence, there was one more errand left.

  A little farther down the beach lay a man—a Pashtun, by his dress. He was propped up against the base of one of the palms that grew nearest to the sea, snoring gently. When he saw the man, Young Small’s face hardened into a mask of rage.

  “Oh dear,” I said. “Any man would have done the same, I suppose?”

  “Well look here,” present-day Small protested, as his younger self began to stalk, silently, down the beach, “that man were a vile Pathan who never missed an opportunity to have a kick at me. Made me life miserable whenever he could. And besides, what if he were to wake up, eh? What if he should see me heading out to sea?”

  Lestrade paused with his pencil just above a page of his notebook and mused, “Hmmm. It’s been a while. What number is this?”

  But Grogsson grunted, “Quiet! Torg want to see.”

  The man must have been one of the garrison, for he had a rifle beside him and a long knife tucked through his belt. Small had no weapon at all and it was clear from the way he was looking about that he wanted one. Finding none, he stopped just a few paces from his sleeping victim and began fiddling about with something on his right leg.

  “Oh no,” I said, breathlessly. “You aren’t going to…”

  “Yep,” said Holmes. “He is.”

  By the light of the moon, we could see the asymmetrical form of Jonathan Small raise his false leg up over his head and battle-hop the last few paces to his foe. The sound must have woken the poor fellow up, for we saw him jerk in surprise just an instant before Small brought the heavy prosthetic down and cracked his skull.

  Then he cracked it a second time.

  And a third.

  And six or seven more after that.

  Holmes shook his head and tutted, “Unnecessary, Small.”

  Grogsson jabbed a finger towards the murder scene and said, “Look! What he do now?”

  Small was hunched over the body. He withdrew the long knife from his victim’s belt, then bent over the man’s legs, hacking and sawing away. Present-day Small colored and said, “Well, you see, Tonga had done a fine job with the yams and water, but… nothing with any protein, really…”

  “You’re going to cut that man up and take him along to eat him?” I cried.

  “I just took the leg muscles,” Small protested, but as his previous self wandered back past us, whistling a jaunty little tune, a small item tucked into his belt made a liar of him.

  “Cor blimey,” said present-day Small, scratching at his head. “Now, why’d I take his face?”

  “For use as a clever disguise, one assumes?” I said.

  He snapped his fingers. “That was it! It’s funny what we remember and what we forget, eh?”

  “Now look here, Small,” I said, in my sternest tone, “I just want to make my position clear, right now. Whatever Scotland Yard chooses to do with you for all these crimes, you bloody deserve it.”

  He gave me an ungenerous look.

  As Young Small approached the stolen canoe, Tonga applauded his recent performance and beamed with joy. If he had hoped he’d chosen the right human companion—the man who most embodied the spirit of Tonga-ism—he now knew he could not have picked a finer.

  Holmes gave a little sigh and wondered, “So that’s it, eh? You sailed back to London?”

  “What, in that?” Small scoffed, pointing at the little canoe. “We’d never have made it. Especially as I weren’t much of a navigator. The only thing I knew of it was I’d heard to follow the sun.”

  “The sun?” I said. “The sun that rises in the east and sets in the west and would just have you blithering back and forth until you ran out of food and water?”

  “That sounds about right,” Small admitted. “Ten days we tossed about, with nary a sight
of land. At last we was picked up by a boat of Malay pilgrims, heading for Jeddah. But we still had no money, so it was some time before I could get us to Egypt. From there to Italy, then Germany, then France, and finally home.”

  “Oh yes, let’s,” said Holmes.

  Blur. Fuzz.

  We were standing outside one of the lower-story windows of Pondicherry Lodge, looking in over Young Small’s shoulders at the aged figure of John Sholto, who had called his children to his side, to hear his dying words.

  “Oh, look!” said Holmes. “There’s Thaddeus. Hello, Thaddeus! By Jove, I’d nearly forgotten about him. I suppose we’d better finish up and get him out of police custody, before he perishes of air inhalation.”

  We could not hear what Sholto was saying to his children, but we did see the fateful moment when he looked to the window and beheld the face of the man he’d betrayed. The glass could not block the volume of his final scream of horror. We saw his children follow his gaze and swoon in sudden fright. Egad, they were so doughy and frail, it was hard to imagine a more natural action for them. Jonathan Small scrabbled at the window, desperate to find a way in, to kill his foe. Yet, fate would cheat him. Even as we watched, the face of John Sholto began to stiffen.

  “Oh yes, I’d forgotten about this bit,” said Holmes. “What did you say it was, Watson? Heart attack?”

  “I did, but… but see how he clutches down low there, on his right side?” I pursed my lips and watched in professional incredulity a moment, before deciding, “You know, I may actually owe you an apology, Holmes. I think what we might be seeing is the first known liver attack.”

  “Well done, Major Sholto!” Holmes cheered. “Always a pioneer!”

  “I don’t understand,” I mumbled. “What could…? Perhaps… No… Ah! Perhaps a burst aneurysm of the hepatic artery? Is that what I’m looking at?”

  However, I must admit that my academic curiosity proved to be somewhat… well… academic. An instant later, Young Small tore open the window and rushed to his fallen foe. By God, how he raged when he saw that vengeance had been stolen from him. How he cursed fate and any divine entities that might have a hand therein. He went to the desk, swept up a pen, wrote “THE SIGN OF NINE” on a piece of paper, and flung it violently at Major Sholto’s corpse.

  Well… in as much as one can violently fling paper. It just sort of fluttered at him. It would have been an impotent gesture at the best of times, but the fact that its recipient was already dead just lent it that special je ne sais quoi. Grogsson barked out a great laugh. Present-day Small rounded on him and for just a moment I thought he was about to punch Torg Grogsson. Which—now that I come to put it to paper—would have been a right and fitting end for someone who had displayed so very little self-control all the long years of his life. Instead, he stood fuming while the younger version of himself helplessly searched the room for any clue as to where his lost treasure might reside.

  Clearly he found none, for a quick series of blur-fuzzes showed him sneaking in by night to dig futile holes in the grounds and indeed, the walls, of Pondicherry Lodge. Sometimes he would lift a window latch and roam the corridors by night, peeking here and probing there. Sometimes he would gaze malevolently down at the sleeping form of Bartholomew Sholto, his face a mask of rage. Yet his efforts came to naught.

  Until, finally, we were standing outside the drawing-room window of an early evening. Within stood Bartholomew Sholto, excitedly slurping at a hookah much like his brother’s. Between hyperventilative puffs, he was loudly exclaiming to his butler and McMurdo how he’d found the treasure. He didn’t have it yet, but he was sure he’d guessed it right! Why else was the house four feet taller than it needed to be? Why else was there a rusted old pulley at the corner of the roof? The butler and bodyguard seemed unconvinced. Apparently they’d heard such wild theories before, and seen them come to naught. Yet Bartholomew Sholto’s excitement was mirrored in one other set of eyes. Outside the drawing-room window—opened just a crack—huddled the figure of Jonathan Small. He looked as if he was only just keeping himself from crying out in triumph.

  One blur and fuzz later, we found ourselves standing beside the drooping figure of Bartholomew Sholto as the life waned from him. Looking up through the hole in his ceiling to the secret attic above, we could just see Jonathan Small entering through the roof. Little Tonga was grasping at his friend’s sleeve and pointing happily down towards Bartholomew.

  “Hang on,” I said. “We’ve skipped an important bit. Mr. Small, did you direct Tonga to kill that man?”

  Lestrade raised his notebook expectantly, but present-day Small shook his head. “Nah. Probably would have if I’d thought about it, but Bartholomew had never done Tonga wrong, so…”

  “Ah yes,” I said. “Tonga.”

  “Yep. Tonga just Tonga-ed him. Right in the neck.”

  “And thus, I think, our story is complete,” I reflected.

  With a final buzz and blur, we found ourselves once more in the sitting room of 221B Baker Street. Our bodies were in the same position as we’d left them. Grogsson, shocked by the sudden change in position, dropped me on my rear. Holmes let go of Lestrade’s hand, withdrew his finger from Jonathan Small’s ear, and dropped into a low bow.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this has been A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens and Warlock Holmes! Thank you for attending this evening’s performance!”

  14

  IT DID NOT TAKE JONATHAN SMALL LONG TO REALIZE HOW badly he had erred. “Erm… they’re going to hang me, aren’t they?” he said.

  “Oh absolutely,” said Lestrade. “The British criminal justice system has been greatly relaxed over the last few decades. Nevertheless, the number and severity of your crimes demands nothing less. Then again, if it is any consolation—” Lestrade gave a wide, fang-y smile “—any justice system would have done the same.”

  “Another case brought to successful conclusion,” said Holmes. “Well, nearly… I suppose we must reclaim the black coin. I think Mahomet Singh was correct: it must be destroyed. Oh, and we’ve got to tell Mary she’s rich. Oh, and save Thaddeus from the police. Oh, and break the news about Hopkins. Oh, and clean the Hopkins-goo off Long Arm. Oh, and—”

  “Holmes, one thing at a time,” I urged.

  “Treasure first!” Grogsson insisted.

  “There is no key,” Lestrade complained. “I found no weapon and no key on Mr. Small’s person.”

  Small gave a defiant snort and said, “Bottom of the Thames! Take that!”

  I had to smile. A suspicion that had been growing in my mind began to mature into a certainty. You see, I had beheld the stunning grandeur of the Agra treasure in Mr. Small’s memory. I had seen the weight of that iron chest as Grogsson hauled it across town. This much my senses had presented me, but do you know what they hadn’t? A rattle. A shake. A single sound. An iron chest, filled with precious gems, being manhandled by Torg Grogsson, ought to make a little noise, oughtn’t it? When we’d first caught sight of Jonathan Small, he’d been partially hidden behind the boiler of the Aurora, performing some action we could not quite make out.

  I now suspected I knew. It was something about the pride he put into the words bottom of the Thames. A uniquely ungenerous thought came to me. I am to this day ashamed of it, but I have always endeavored to write the truth in these pages, even when it does not reflect well upon me.

  “I’m sure that feeble old latch cannot stop Grogsson,” I said. “But you know… shouldn’t Mary Morstan be present when we open it? She has a vested interest, after all.”

  Why did I want to look on Mary Morstan when her hopes crumbled? Distasteful as I found her, I had to admit she had done me no harm. To wish to be there to gloat at her misfortune was one of the meanest impulses I have ever had. Rather Tonga of me, really. But I didn’t care. By God, all I wanted in that moment was to see her face when that empty chest was opened.

  “Perhaps that would be for the best,” said Holmes, with just a hint of sadness in his tone. �
��Lestrade and I will conduct Mr. Small to Scotland Yard and report the resolution of this case. Since Grogsson has rather an unfortunate habit of always telling the truth, it might be a good idea if he were off on some other errand while we tell the official story. Torg, why don’t you take the treasure and accompany Watson to see Miss Morstan? Then you can join us at Scotland Yard.”

  “M’kay,” said Grogsson, who never needed much urging to stomp about London with a whacking great treasure on his back.

  Thus agreed, we rose to leave. As we walked to the door, Holmes held his hand out to me to shake, and said, “Watson, it has been a grand privilege to share these adventures with you. I shall miss you terribly.”

  “What? No, no, no, Holmes! Our adventures are not at an end!”

  “Well… they are.”

  “No! I do not consent to leave your company, and the bargain you struck on the day we met precludes you forcing my hand.”

  “As I said before, Watson, it has already been taken care of.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Holmes! We shall discuss this when I come back.”

  “That’s just the thing, Watson. You aren’t coming back. Not really. So… farewell, my friend.”

  As we stepped out into Baker Street I held the conviction that my good friend Warlock Holmes was barking mad.

  Which he was. But he was something else, besides.

  He was right.

  This is how it all played out.

  Jonathan Small escaped the gallows. It would seem that magic-induced dream sequences are not admissible in a British court. There were three recent deaths to explain, but Lestrade’s testimony exonerated Mr. Small on all counts. The death of Major John Sholto had been a medical accident, and even if Jonathan Small’s sudden appearance had played a part, it could hardly have been by design, and had hastened the victim’s passing by only a few moments. The death of Bartholomew Sholto had come at the hand of Tonga. Well… at the finger of Tonga. If we had been in possession of Tonga’s remains, the thing would have caused no end of uproar. But as these were missing, the story was plain: a small, brown-skinned individual Jonathan Small had picked up in the Andaman Islands had been firing poison darts every which way. In this age of empire and xenophobia, there was no difficulty convincing the judge of this.