Read Online And Then There Was No One by Gilbert Adair - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gilbert Adair
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of phantom rodents with phosphorescent eyes, but I tell you something must be done or I shall go insane! Will you help me, Mr. Holmes?’
For a while Holmes reflectively rubbed his fingertips against his chin. He finally said, ‘Well, Dr. Gable, it is a most interesting and
outré
story that you have told us. And though, notwithstanding my versatility, I have never before been hired as a rat-catcher, yes, I shall indeed take your case. What say you, Watson, are you game?’
Having done everything I could to make my patient as comfortable as was humanly possible for one in so touch-and-go a condition, I answered that I would be very pleased to join Holmes on this oddest of missions.
‘Then how shall we proceed?’ he asked his new client.
‘I hardly dare impose upon you further,’ said Gable hesitantly, ‘but if it would not inconvenience you to accompany me to Aylesbury this very evening on the 8.15 from King’s Cross, Jerrold will be waiting to take us on to The Gables.’
‘Capital,’ said Holmes. ‘To Aylesbury it is.’ And Mrs. Hudson was immediately instructed to prepare our bags.
*
The journey itself was uneventful. With Holmes immersed in a volume of Petrarch while Gable and I chatted about India, a land with whose mysteries we were both intimatelyfamiliar, we arrived at Aylesbury just after ten o’clock. And even if the station forecourt had not been deserted, I believe I should have recognised Jerrold from Dr Gable’s description: he was indeed of robust build, his right arm still bandaged at the wrist and hanging more slackly than the other.
There was a dog-cart standing by and we at once set forth for The Gables.
Not three-quarters-of-an-hour had elapsed when, without any apparent prompting from Jerrold, the horse turned in at a pair of wrought-iron gates then imperturbably trotted up the driveway to the house. It was a starless night; but although most of The Gables’ turreted façade was obscured in the enveloping gloom, I imagined I could make out a pinprick of light, as if from a waving lantern, directly in front of us. And so proved to be the case for, to our astonishment, before we had quite reached the main entrance, a wild-eyed young woman clad in a tartan dressing-gown, her hair all dishevelled, dashed forward into our path.
‘Oh, Dr. Gable, Dr. Gable, thank God you’ve returned at last!’ cried this apparition, swinging her lantern crazily from side to side.
‘Why, Mary Jane,’ rejoined Gable, nonplussed by her greeting. ‘Calm yourself! What is the matter with you?’
‘’T’aint me, sir!’ she screeched. ‘’Tis Master James, sir!’
‘Master James?’ said Gable, and he turned ashen-grey. ‘What about Master James?’
‘Oh, he’s dead, sir! Killed, sir! Killed by the rat!’
Preceded by our guide, and by the lantern which swayed and pitched ungovernably in her trembling hand, we descended from the carriage and rushed inside the house. So hurried was our pace, and so dimly lighted the downstairs area, Holmes and I had next to no opportunity to note the style or disposition of its furnishings. For it was up two flights of a broad central staircase that Mary Jane led us, until we found ourselves in a dark top-floor corridor, at whose far end, assembled on the threshold of an open doorway, a tight little huddle of people were to be seen.
When we, in our turn, stood outside that open door, the spectacle we encountered was perhaps the most extraordinary that I have ever known, even in my long association with Sherlock Holmes.
The room itself was in the nature of an attic, stark and cell-like, higher than it was long, save where its ceiling sloped down to nearly the halfway mark of the wall furthest away from where we stood. It was very sparely equipped, its furniture consisting, for all in all, of a low, monkish cot, two cane chairs and a massive mahogany chest-of-drawers whose legs were curved and squat like those of a bull mastiff. Just above it, with perhaps a
For a while Holmes reflectively rubbed his fingertips against his chin. He finally said, ‘Well, Dr. Gable, it is a most interesting and
outré
story that you have told us. And though, notwithstanding my versatility, I have never before been hired as a rat-catcher, yes, I shall indeed take your case. What say you, Watson, are you game?’
Having done everything I could to make my patient as comfortable as was humanly possible for one in so touch-and-go a condition, I answered that I would be very pleased to join Holmes on this oddest of missions.
‘Then how shall we proceed?’ he asked his new client.
‘I hardly dare impose upon you further,’ said Gable hesitantly, ‘but if it would not inconvenience you to accompany me to Aylesbury this very evening on the 8.15 from King’s Cross, Jerrold will be waiting to take us on to The Gables.’
‘Capital,’ said Holmes. ‘To Aylesbury it is.’ And Mrs. Hudson was immediately instructed to prepare our bags.
*
The journey itself was uneventful. With Holmes immersed in a volume of Petrarch while Gable and I chatted about India, a land with whose mysteries we were both intimatelyfamiliar, we arrived at Aylesbury just after ten o’clock. And even if the station forecourt had not been deserted, I believe I should have recognised Jerrold from Dr Gable’s description: he was indeed of robust build, his right arm still bandaged at the wrist and hanging more slackly than the other.
There was a dog-cart standing by and we at once set forth for The Gables.
Not three-quarters-of-an-hour had elapsed when, without any apparent prompting from Jerrold, the horse turned in at a pair of wrought-iron gates then imperturbably trotted up the driveway to the house. It was a starless night; but although most of The Gables’ turreted façade was obscured in the enveloping gloom, I imagined I could make out a pinprick of light, as if from a waving lantern, directly in front of us. And so proved to be the case for, to our astonishment, before we had quite reached the main entrance, a wild-eyed young woman clad in a tartan dressing-gown, her hair all dishevelled, dashed forward into our path.
‘Oh, Dr. Gable, Dr. Gable, thank God you’ve returned at last!’ cried this apparition, swinging her lantern crazily from side to side.
‘Why, Mary Jane,’ rejoined Gable, nonplussed by her greeting. ‘Calm yourself! What is the matter with you?’
‘’T’aint me, sir!’ she screeched. ‘’Tis Master James, sir!’
‘Master James?’ said Gable, and he turned ashen-grey. ‘What about Master James?’
‘Oh, he’s dead, sir! Killed, sir! Killed by the rat!’
Preceded by our guide, and by the lantern which swayed and pitched ungovernably in her trembling hand, we descended from the carriage and rushed inside the house. So hurried was our pace, and so dimly lighted the downstairs area, Holmes and I had next to no opportunity to note the style or disposition of its furnishings. For it was up two flights of a broad central staircase that Mary Jane led us, until we found ourselves in a dark top-floor corridor, at whose far end, assembled on the threshold of an open doorway, a tight little huddle of people were to be seen.
When we, in our turn, stood outside that open door, the spectacle we encountered was perhaps the most extraordinary that I have ever known, even in my long association with Sherlock Holmes.
The room itself was in the nature of an attic, stark and cell-like, higher than it was long, save where its ceiling sloped down to nearly the halfway mark of the wall furthest away from where we stood. It was very sparely equipped, its furniture consisting, for all in all, of a low, monkish cot, two cane chairs and a massive mahogany chest-of-drawers whose legs were curved and squat like those of a bull mastiff. Just above it, with perhaps a
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