The Empty Birdcage Read online

  “The equivalent of two grains of rice,” Mycroft declared, and Sherlock smiled.

  “So it would fit on the tip of a dart. Or on a thorn.”

  “In order to keep it poisonous,” Mycroft explained, “the killer had to procure its native food, and keep it in a highly humid climate.”

  “London can do for the second,” Sherlock said, smiling.

  “The little beast also emits a whistle when alarmed, which is what your Mrs. Jurgins no doubt heard.”

  Sherlock nodded. “The killer must have had it somewhere upon his person. It got away, and the cat pursued it.”

  Mycroft sat for a moment, dumbfounded. “Here is a man who walks about with a crow, a frog, and a blowgun, and no one notices?”

  “Ah, so you are at last willing to accept my blowgun theory!” Sherlock exclaimed.

  “I had never heard of one that could shoot so far. But it seems the Chocó Emberá Indians of Colombia use blowgun darts to hunt game, and can strike with a great deal of accuracy up to one hundred yards.”

  Sherlock’s smile grew wider. Mycroft slipped on a pair of opera gloves, opened up the carriage-clock box, and took out the little frog. He had read how native hunters prepared their darts. In one method, they impaled the frog onto a plank of wood and then held it near a flame. As its skin blistered from the heat, bubbles would fill with poison. The hunters would then touch the tips of their darts to the toxic bubbles to take down their quarry.

  “None of its marks match that,” Sherlock said, eyeing their little subject.

  “No. But in another method, a wild frog is captured and then confined inside a hollow cane. When poison is needed, the hunter passes a bamboo tooth, called a siurukida, into the frog’s mouth, down its gullet, and out one leg. Unsurprisingly, the poor frog becomes distressed and begins to sweat out its frothy poison… though it does survive the indignity. One ‘withdrawal’ can kill up to ten grown men, as I said, and retain its potency for a full year.”

  “That would also account for those two identical scars on its left hind leg,” Sherlock declared. “And a hollow cane? That could also work as a blowpipe, could it not? Constructed properly?”

  Mycroft nodded. “In Vienna, I spied a fine walking stick, one that the owner seemed quite anxious to use upon Douglas. Ivory horsehead handle, with a pneumatic gun hidden inside—”

  “Well, there we are, then!” Sherlock replied. “In the same way, a hollow walking stick could mask a blowpipe capable of shooting a great distance. Perhaps a separate compartment for the frog? And of course no one would question why a man would be walking about with a cane!”

  Mycroft stared out of the window. It was a fine day: still gray, but mild as a kitten, and not yet noon. Summer would be arriving soon. And here they were, speaking of murder and death, and if that weren’t enough, riding towards it, to meet it face to face. The entire venture seemed to energize Sherlock, as much as it enervated him.

  “What if the crow never attacked the parakeet?” he heard Sherlock say, in one of endless speculations. “What if it had just plucked the thorn from Penny Montgomery’s neck, was flying with it in its beak, and pierced the caged bird by accident? Would that not account for the small drops of blood, and its sudden demise?”

  “I suppose.”

  Mycroft stared down at the list of twelve names that he had copied from the ledgers, though he knew them by heart. Cantwell Squire, the only investor who had also become a victim. Jenna Squire, his niece, who was said to love her uncle, and therefore most likely suffered at his passing. George Jury, Will Jury’s great-uncle and godfather. The Swinton family, whose fourteen-year-old boy was taken from them. Angela Rider, who lost her brother Phillip, the chaplain. William Greyson, who lost his elderly father George. Percy Butcher’s uncle, Samuel Butcher, who lived abroad, and who had no heirs but Percy. Roland Sykes, who lost his young daughter Abigail. Harold Navarro Rogers, who lost his beloved Aunt Penny. Lady Anne, who lost her daughter Elise. And Rupert Jurgins, who lost his namesake nephew.

  And then of course there was Dorothea Greer, whose loved one might still be saved.

  “I believe,” Sherlock was saying, “that the ‘Alalā crow was able to extract all the thorns but two: Elise Wickham’s, which I recovered, and Abigail Sykes’s. With the latter, the mother never left her side, and the crow had no opportunity to pull it out. Then Abigail spun round and broke the table, thus masking the means of her demise. Do you believe that is how it played out?”

  “We may never know,” Mycroft said softly.

  “It does seem quite a bit of luck for the killer,” Sherlock murmured.

  “Yes, it does. But then, I suppose that, every once in a while, fortune smiles even upon murderers.”

  44

  Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

  Sunday, 25 May 1873, 7 a.m.

  IT WAS TOO EARLY FOR THE TRAIN THAT LED TO TOWN, and he had already walked for so many miles that he could barely count them. She was to be his final one, number twelve. And perhaps the thought of ending her, and then ending it, was making him careless; or perhaps he had imbibed too much of his own success and was now drunk with it. Whatever the reason, he had never accepted a lift before, had never revealed himself to a stranger. And, after said stranger brought him near her cottage, what then?

  Killing him hardly seemed sportsmanlike.

  Then again, he had weathered seven long years of planning, of research, of study; countless hours of practice, burning through all of the money that they had foisted upon him after the death of his son, as if anything could make up for such a loss as that. And then, for some of them to take what they had been given, that blood money, and invest it in another hazardous venture, another hell-on-earth for people who had no choice in the matter… Would they never learn?

  Probably not. Which was why he would have to teach them.

  “Mighty fine cane you’ve got there!”

  His driver was the sort of a man who made one dizzy just to look at him, the sort made out of spare parts: low forehead, large nose, small eyes, fleshy mouth, thin cheeks, prominent jaw, bulbous neck. The man wished to engage in conversation, he could tell; but the crow was stirring in her box; he could feel her shuddering. And though she knew not to make a fuss, occasionally she disobeyed. Most of the time it made no difference, for they were alone, or on a noisy train, or among a crowd where her low, strange caw would not be noticed. But here, sitting upon a cart next to this stranger? What if he asked about her? What if he grew suspicious? Then he would be forced to kill him. What else could he do?

  But nothing happened. He was let off at the intersection of two streets that lay at right angles to each other, and he went on his way with a wave.

  Just as well. Save the killing for one who deserves it.

  This last one, Gwyneth Greer.

  Her modest, Tudor-style cottage sat on the northern side of the Thames estuary, trees on the sides and the back, the sort of house that had been passed down from one generation to the next with few alterations. She was a thirty-year-old spinster and recluse, from what he had learned. A younger version of Penny Montgomery. He would barely need to track her. If she chanced to look out of her window, all she would see would be a man of middle years, walking along the gravelly sand at low tide, leaning upon a rather fancy cane and carrying a box that most likely held his lunch. If all went well, his form would be the last image imprinted upon her brain, and she on his.

  He spied her through the gauzy curtains of the sitting room. He marked her as a nervous type, a pacer and a biter of fingernails. She had on a simple gray dress, her yellow hair pinned up in an equally simple bun. He thought that she would wait until later in the morning, when it grew warmer, and he would thus be forced to wait with her; but no. Gwyneth Greer opened the windows, no doubt believing that the crisp air would do her good, pulled back the curtains, and then sat beside one opened window and picked up a book.

  She could not have made it more convenient if she had asked him where to sit.

&nb
sp; He opened the copper latch on the lunch box. The bird flew out and up into the nearest tree, on the lookout for his signal.

  He pulled the note from his pocket and set it aside. The bird had misbehaved and pecked through two other copies before he could persuade her to make her slashes small and clean, the way he wanted. Well, she was growing older, and fussier. Thinking she knew best.

  He unscrewed the cane and pulled out the blowgun, with its perfect aperture. Such a beautiful instrument. Then he opened his tobacco pouch, carefully extracted the piece of barkcloth that held the splinter and dropped it into the aperture.

  He placed the larger end of the blowgun into his mouth; wrapped his lips around, rather than inside, it, as he had been taught so long ago; and puffed out his cheeks. For the hunt had less to do with power than with concentrated propulsion. A quarter of a second was all it took—less than the time it took to say Poof!—and it was over.

  But instead of shooting, he hesitated, let his cheeks go slack. He closed his eyes for a moment. He was so weary. He would never have permitted himself to do such a thing with his first, with Rosalie White. But that one was an artist, and she had brought out the artist in him.

  “Whereas you feel like work,” he said under his breath.

  “Then why do it?”

  The voice was so close that it startled him. He hastily took his shot, but it was wild; he missed his mark. He turned to see a man but barely a man, more a boy with the loose, gangly limbs of a scarecrow, and the shrewd, inquisitive face of an eagle.

  He turned away, determined to ignore the strange young man, to walk unhurriedly but definitively in the opposite direction, when there stood a Chinaman, a grinning moon! He pivoted again, only to find another, a blond one this time, looking like the Angel Gabriel in a bespoke suit!

  “Three against one; hardly fair, is it?” he opined.

  They drew towards him slowly, carefully, as if concerned that he might explode all at once, like a colliery. He could tell that they knew who he was: or, at least, that they knew what he had done.

  No, it could not end like this, not so close to the finish line! Or perhaps, yes. After all, it was time.

  He raised up the blowgun. The Chinaman lunged for it but it made no difference, for she had seen the signal, and she had obeyed. He had not noticed where the splinter landed, but she had. It had embedded itself in the curtains. She swooped over and pulled it out then came flying at them, her fierce yellow eyes staring them down in turn, ready for battle.

  As they ducked away from her, he held out his shoulder as a perch.

  “What I did, I did for my son!” he declared.

  Then he stretched out his neck as if for a guillotine. She landed where he told her, flapping her wings as she did so. Then, with one clean move, she turned and pierced his jugular, and he fell.

  E P I L O G U E

  Sunday, 21 June, 1873

  My dear Mr. Holmes,

  I thought of writing to you for so long, it seems, though in truth it is little more than one month since I saw you last. As you may have already heard from other sources, I have been in Zhouzhuang for four days now. And, though Bingwen Shi and I were permitted to take our vows, and though my father and I made our pleas, it was denied. Then, because I had become his wife, they thought it best that I share in his agony and humiliation, and so I was made to witness his execution.

  I wish to burden you with none of it, for you did the very best that you could for us both. And if there is an angel anywhere upon this earth, I know where he resides. You gave me hope that I could save him. For this alone, were I not already indebted to you, I would be doubly so.

  Bingwen Shi is now beyond all suffering. My goal is to make proper arrangements for the care and maintenance of his remains and shrine, after which my father and I shall embark upon our return journey to London.

  I fear you will find me much altered, and not just by sorrow. I should have listened to your wise and caring advice. It seems my inoculation of several years back was not enough. After I boarded the ship, I developed smallpox. And though I am grateful that the disease finally released its hold upon me, it did not go quietly, leaving its imprints upon my cheeks and neck.

  Do not feel pity for me, Mr. Holmes. Now as a widow and a vessel that has been marred upon the potter’s wheel, I shall be allowed to pursue my vocation, at least so far as I am able.

  I send my deepest regards to you, my benefactor and friend.

  A.L.

  A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

  THE AUTHORS ARE DEEPLY GRATEFUL TO OUR MANAGER and friend Deborah Morales, forever willing to go to the mat for us—to be mensch, bulldog, or whatever the occasion calls for—so that we can have the privilege of working on the best projects while surrounded by the best people. Those best people here at Titan include our editor, the supremely talented Miranda Jewess, who has helped to raise our game with each subsequent book, and whose patience, good humor (or, as she would say, humour), and knowledge of Victorian soul food knows no bounds. The other talented and indefatigable members of the Titan team, who make our lives easier and smooth out the rough spots, are the ever-diligent Sam Matthews, Paul Gill, Laura Price, Chris McLane, Lydia Gittins, Polly Grice, Hannah Scudamore, and Katharine Carroll. And finally, a tip of our collective hat to George Sandison, who took over the helm, and did so with diligence, steadiness, and the utmost professionalism.

  K A R E E M A B D U L-J A B B A R

  AT 7’ 2” TALL, KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR IS A HUGE Holmesian in every way. An English and History graduate of UCLA, he first read the Doyle stories early in his basketball career, and adapted Holmes’s powers of observation to the game in order to gain an edge over his opponents. His first novel featuring Mycroft Holmes was published in 2015; it received multiple starred reviews and was lauded as a story that “rivals Conan Doyle himself ” by the New York Times and a “triumphant adult fiction debut” by Publishers Weekly. This was followed by Mycroft and Sherlock in 2018, in which Mycroft’s irrepressible younger brother played a starring role.

  Abdul-Jabbar played basketball for the Milwaukee Bucks (1969–1975) and the Los Angeles Lakers (1975–1989), scoring 38,387 points to become the National Basketball Association’s all-time leading scorer. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995. Since retiring, he has been an actor, producer, coach, and a New York Times best-selling author with writings focused on history. His previous books include Giant Steps, Kareem, Black Profiles in Courage, A Season on the Reservation, Brothers in Arms, On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, and the children’s books Streetball Crew: Sasquatch in the Paint, Stealing the Game, and What Color is My World?—which won the NAACP Award for “Best Children’s Book.” His most recent books are Coach Wooden & Me: Our 50 Year Friendship and Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On & Off the Court. In 2012 he was selected as a U.S. Cultural Ambassador by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. In 2016, former President Barack Obama awarded him The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USA’s highest civilian honor. Currently he is chairman of the Skyhook Foundation, and a regular contributing columnist for

  the Hollywood Reporter and the Guardian.

  A N N A W A T E R H O U S E

  A PROFESSIONAL SCREENWRITER AND SCRIPT consultant, Anna Waterhouse has worked alongside such legends as Robert Towne, Tom Cruise, and producer Paula Wagner. She has consulted for premium cable miniseries and basic cable series, and co-produced a feature-length documentary for HBO. She was supervising producer and co-writer (with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) of the critically acclaimed feature-length documentary On the Shoulders of Giants (Netflix and Showtime), which won Best Documentary NAACP Image award and two Telly awards. She is currently writing and co-producing a limited TV series alongside multiple-Oscar winners Robert Towne and Mike Medavoy. She has written several how-to screenwriting seminars for Writer’s Digest and has taught screenwriting at both Chapman University in Orange, California, and at the University of Southern California; a
nd is hard at work on her novel, Orphans.