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Authors: N. M. Scott
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referred to the hymn.’
‘So Christopher’s father Lonsdale forms a link. It was the famous orchestra conductor who advised Ethby Sands, and you could say was partly responsible for the tune’s success,’ asked Holmes.
‘Lonsdale, through his music contacts, championed the song. He was very generous in his praise of the hymn and must have helped its path considerably,’ replied Doctor Wu.
‘And the son Christopher, who himself resides at Albany, using his father’s apartment, wanted Ethby Sands dead. He and Philip Troy presumably stole the idea for the show
The Giant Rats of Sumatra
.’
‘Listen,’ sighed Wu, ‘that plain and simple hymn dwarfed any of the achievements of Christopher Chymes and Philip Troy. A modest reputation they had as a songwriting team, certainly. They’d played as a duo at the Ritz and small venues, showcasing their material. But neither had hit the big money and they wanted in on celebrity and fame. However, neither Chyme nor Troy had a core idea, something to get theatre producers and impresarios knocking at their door. One evening they had a bachelor’s supper with Ethby Sands at his upstairs set. He was of course at the time an M.P. for Norwich and busy with affairs of constituency and Parliament. There was even talk that one day he might become a cabinet minister. Anyhow, they all got drunk and he got up and played them a tune on the ‘old Joanna’ and (foolishly he admits this) somewhat tight from too much wine and champagne confided to them his gay and romping tour de force, a light opera set on a paradise island in Indonesia – the island of Sumatra – but his biggest and most brilliant flash of inspiration was the inclusion of a chorus of giant cuddly rats.’
‘And this is where Alfred Russell Wallace comes in,’ said I, understanding at last.
‘Charles Darwin had been offered an animal hide wrapped around some old bones, purportedly belonging to a now extinct species of Sumatran tree-rat – an enormous rodent. For some reason he decided to sell the items, once the property of the naturalist and explorer Alfred Wallace, who had recently returned to England after a lengthy sojourn in the tropics. A London museum was the first choice but in the end it was Ethby Sands who purchased these extraordinary items for one hundred guineas. He kept them displayed in a glass cabinet for years – a curiosity – a conversation piece. Sometimes people would glance at the mummified skin and bone and comment on it. But when Ethby Sands came to be gravely ill, near death, and all the specialists in Harley Street had given up on him, he remembered its curious and spectacular provenance.’
‘I must be frank with you Doctor Wu, I have already interviewed Alfred Wallace who was, along with his family, down from Cornwall to see the play. At the Royal Geographical Society I have seen the rat with my own eyes, drawn on a sixteenth-century Portuguese map – a caricature of a giant rat, disturbingly and horribly portrayed by the illustrator. I can only draw the following conclusion. Somehow you and your team of microscopic chemists, who are specialised practitioners of Chinese alternative medicine, have managed to duplicate the Indonesian shaman’s anti-ageing formula, based on grinding down the bone of this long extinct creature to form a compound of fine power to which you add further ingredients.
‘At a time when Mr Sands had virtually given up all hope, as a last resort he decided to visit your radical clinic in Mayfair, and you and your team were able to somehow keep his wasting illness at bay and make him a young man again. But what you had not taken into account was the addictive nature of the serum and the fact that it produced terrible side-effects, the rat’s genes gradually infecting and eventually taking over his physical self, making him volatile, unbelievably aggressive and a predatory killing machine. Face it Doctor Wu Xing, you and your team have created a monster,
‘So Christopher’s father Lonsdale forms a link. It was the famous orchestra conductor who advised Ethby Sands, and you could say was partly responsible for the tune’s success,’ asked Holmes.
‘Lonsdale, through his music contacts, championed the song. He was very generous in his praise of the hymn and must have helped its path considerably,’ replied Doctor Wu.
‘And the son Christopher, who himself resides at Albany, using his father’s apartment, wanted Ethby Sands dead. He and Philip Troy presumably stole the idea for the show
The Giant Rats of Sumatra
.’
‘Listen,’ sighed Wu, ‘that plain and simple hymn dwarfed any of the achievements of Christopher Chymes and Philip Troy. A modest reputation they had as a songwriting team, certainly. They’d played as a duo at the Ritz and small venues, showcasing their material. But neither had hit the big money and they wanted in on celebrity and fame. However, neither Chyme nor Troy had a core idea, something to get theatre producers and impresarios knocking at their door. One evening they had a bachelor’s supper with Ethby Sands at his upstairs set. He was of course at the time an M.P. for Norwich and busy with affairs of constituency and Parliament. There was even talk that one day he might become a cabinet minister. Anyhow, they all got drunk and he got up and played them a tune on the ‘old Joanna’ and (foolishly he admits this) somewhat tight from too much wine and champagne confided to them his gay and romping tour de force, a light opera set on a paradise island in Indonesia – the island of Sumatra – but his biggest and most brilliant flash of inspiration was the inclusion of a chorus of giant cuddly rats.’
‘And this is where Alfred Russell Wallace comes in,’ said I, understanding at last.
‘Charles Darwin had been offered an animal hide wrapped around some old bones, purportedly belonging to a now extinct species of Sumatran tree-rat – an enormous rodent. For some reason he decided to sell the items, once the property of the naturalist and explorer Alfred Wallace, who had recently returned to England after a lengthy sojourn in the tropics. A London museum was the first choice but in the end it was Ethby Sands who purchased these extraordinary items for one hundred guineas. He kept them displayed in a glass cabinet for years – a curiosity – a conversation piece. Sometimes people would glance at the mummified skin and bone and comment on it. But when Ethby Sands came to be gravely ill, near death, and all the specialists in Harley Street had given up on him, he remembered its curious and spectacular provenance.’
‘I must be frank with you Doctor Wu, I have already interviewed Alfred Wallace who was, along with his family, down from Cornwall to see the play. At the Royal Geographical Society I have seen the rat with my own eyes, drawn on a sixteenth-century Portuguese map – a caricature of a giant rat, disturbingly and horribly portrayed by the illustrator. I can only draw the following conclusion. Somehow you and your team of microscopic chemists, who are specialised practitioners of Chinese alternative medicine, have managed to duplicate the Indonesian shaman’s anti-ageing formula, based on grinding down the bone of this long extinct creature to form a compound of fine power to which you add further ingredients.
‘At a time when Mr Sands had virtually given up all hope, as a last resort he decided to visit your radical clinic in Mayfair, and you and your team were able to somehow keep his wasting illness at bay and make him a young man again. But what you had not taken into account was the addictive nature of the serum and the fact that it produced terrible side-effects, the rat’s genes gradually infecting and eventually taking over his physical self, making him volatile, unbelievably aggressive and a predatory killing machine. Face it Doctor Wu Xing, you and your team have created a monster,
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