The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [112]
The gardener had appeared at the professor’s command, and doing as he was bade, held the madman in his own two powerful arms as Holmes and I bound the madman at the feet and wrists with the curtain cords.
There at our feet, writhing, spitting, straining at the chords, his face distorting into fantastical grimaces, lay a tiny man – almost a dwarf of a man – with fiery red hair.
Holmes straightened, mastering his respiration. “This is … Dr Columbine.”
“Yes …” Professor Hardcastle had not yet recovered from his shock. “Yes … And the man was concealed inside the chimney breast all the while?”
“Indeed he was, Sir, and listening to every conversation within the room. Now, please ask your gardener to summon the police. Oh, Professor, perhaps you would be so kind to allow Clarkson to change back into his own boots, those on his feet are pinching his toes terribly.”
Once the police had taken the madman, straitjacketed and cursing, away, Holmes lit a cigarette and explained: “We know the poor demented Dr Columbine was hell bent on exacting his revenge upon you, Professor. Sadistically, he felt the need to prolong the torture before doing away with your son. So he contrived to hide himself away inside your house, then appear to come and go almost as if he could assume a cloak of invisibility. Accordingly, he’d place such obvious clues as the meteorite and the thyme inside your son’s bedroom. You might imagine the madman lying within the chimney breast, laughing silently to himself as he listened to you and your wife’s anxious conversations concerning the invisible intruder in this room. He would feast on your fears with nothing less than a vampiric intensity.”
“But how the dickens did he climb into the chimney, and remain concealed there for so long? Why did he not starve or die of thirst?”
“Gaining access to the house itself is child’s play. The catches on the windows can be slipped with even a table knife. Once inside the house – ah! – that’s when the peculiar obsessive mind of the madman comes into play. He desired more than to cause physical harm to your family, he wanted to be here to savour every expression of your discomfort and fear. So he hit upon the plan of hiding himself away in that very chimney breast. Which is not as outlandish as it first appears. It is summer, no fires, therefore, are lit in the grate. The chimney itself is quite clean of soot, you Professor, having had the chimney swept in the late spring as is the practice of households throughout the land. And perhaps you, yourself, will have witnessed in the past the chimney sweep sending his lad up inside the chimney to ensure it is thoroughly swept. Indeed, there are footholds and handholds inside the chimney flue to assist the child’s climb.” Holmes sniffed. “Though the practice of sending children up inside chimneys was, I might add, a thoroughly inhumane affair. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that if the chimney is large enough for a child to enter via the fireplace, it is also large enough to accommodate the dwarfish body of Doctor Columbine. See?” Holmes crouching by the fireplace, pointed up inside the chimney flue. “Up there he made himself a pretty little nest. On the ledges within the chimney are his supplies – water bottle, bread, biscuit, dried fruit. You’ll notice he didn’t chose any aromatic foods, the odours of which might have aroused your suspicions, Professor.” Holmes, lifted a small cloth bag from the hearth which had tumbled down with the madman. “Ah, and inside here we find a pair of clean pumps that he’d don on leaving the chimney breast to enable him to move not only quietly around the house, but to do so without leaving any sooty footprints upon the carpets. Before ascending to his hiding place once more he will have removed these, then climbed barefoot into the chimney.” Holmes dropped the bag onto the hearth. “Gentlemen, you’ll notice, also, he was able to devise something akin to a hammock, rigged from lines and blankets, where he would curl himself up quite comfortably to eavesdrop on you and your good wife