‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Holmes replied. ‘This horse has pulled a heavy load a long way but I’m well looked after.’
He gave me a questing glance.
‘And your medical practice?’
‘As absorbing as ever.’
‘Ah yes,’ he responded, his grey eyes twinkling. ‘I always liked that about you. You blush when you lie.’
‘Unlike you,’ I reposted.
I realised how pleased I was to see my old friend again.
‘I note you still smoke the Arcadia mixture of your bachelor days!’ he observed. ‘There’s no mistaking that fluffy ash upon your coat.’
‘Is it true we are to visit the Zoological Gardens?’ I asked.
‘It is.’
‘The Stork & Ostrich House?’
‘The very spot,’ he assented, grinning at my perplexed look.
‘I should ask after your bees,’ I resumed. ‘How are the blighters?’
‘The past winter’s ceaseless wind and rain kept them - and me - penned indoors longer than usual,’ came the reply.
He stopped to light a cigarette in his familiar nonchalant manner and resumed, ‘...then one day, a sudden warmth brought out the blossom of the cherry plum. A gap in the rain - and there they were, above the hive, like a puff of smoke.’
I walked him towards a Double Brougham, listening politely to this unusually poetic disquisition. I could scarcely wait to impart my own vastly more exciting news but my comrade went on updating me with life on the Sussex Downs, even how he would label the jars of honey pilfered from the unwilling beasts.
By the time he finished, the cab had carried us almost to the top of Portland Place. Eagerly I told Holmes of my intention to remove myself from a world of fashionable ailments in which my principal advice to well-to-do women was to throw away their swan bill corsets. I would soon be on the High Seas - the Bay of Biscay, the Mediterranean Sea, in convoy through the Suez Canal and the Great and Small Bitter Lakes to the Indian Ocean, steaming southwards to one of the hottest and most humid places in the world. While the cab clattered on its final stretch to Regent’s Park I passed the Pretorius letter to Holmes.
He read the pages carefully without a change of expression.
‘Well, Watson,’ he remarked with no trace of a smile, ‘you wish to replace civilized days at the Gatwick Races and the Junior United Services Club with swamps and deadly scourges? I imagine a clearing in the Congo is one of the most absolutely infernal places of residence for a pair of solitary white men. Nevertheless, my dear friend, if you are intent on going, you must impress the natives. I shall insist that Thomas Cook - at my expense - supply you with at least a score of mules, half a dozen reception tents, kitchens and water-carriers.’
This was followed by a further silence. I prompted, ‘And your visit to the Zoological gardens?’
I was handed a letter on the headed notepaper of the Zoological Society dated the prior week. It began, ‘Dear Mr. Holmes, I beg you to forgive the temerity in writing to you without first a formal introduction. I do so à titre privé as Secretary of the Gardens of the Zoological Society, at the request of a member of the Society who wishes to meet you on a certain matter. He plans to publish a work of ornithology on seasonal visitors’ birdsong - the cuckoo, meadow pipits, spotted flycatcher, redstart, turtle dove and so on. He proposes to enquire into the movements of a rara avis reported on the South Downs. If you can be persuaded to return to London for an hour or two may I suggest a meeting at the Stork & Ostrich House here at the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park this coming Friday, at 2pm? A member of my staff will await you at the North Entrance at the quarter to. We would be greatly honoured if you would accept.’
The letter ended, ‘I am, with great truth and respect, sir, Your Excellency’s most obedient, humble servant, Peter Chalmers Mitchell FRS DSc LLD.’
I passed the letter back, saying ‘Well, Holmes, in all our years at Baker Street I don’t believe I heard you comment on the various squawks and screeches of our avian friends except the once, in Devon, to speculate whether the mallard quacks in regional dialects. Since you entered the life of a hermit you know how often I’ve tried to get you away from your bee-boxes and the solitude of the Downs for a day or two.’
Jokingly I added, ‘What of the interruption to your next opus, The Meadow-flower in Mesolithic Honey Cultures?’
His reply was patient but veering to the condescension of old.
‘Come, come, my dear chap, naturally I accepted. I accepted at once. Did you ever come across anything as ludicrous? Ornithological spies have infiltrated my few acres and heard birdsong scarcely known to mankind, like coming across a Mayan temple on the South Downs or a new element for the Periodic Table. It’s entirely preposterous. I suggest it’s a case which may prove to have something in it or may prove to have nothing, but which at the very least presents outré features as dear to you as they are to me.’
The prospect of an investigation had energised Holmes.
He continued, ‘Consider the words “Shall we say this coming Friday at 2pm?”. Note how he sets a time without offering an alternative.’
‘Setting a time to meet hardly seems outré,’ I retorted. ‘Not offering an alternative choice says what?’
‘That this bird chappie must have serious obligations which he can break for only a short while. The nameless member of the Zoological Society must be a man of consequence, of especial consequence, tied in some unknown way to the Capital. Why else invite me to meet in Regent’s Park - why not meet on my own territory, in the South Downs? Take cognizance of the hour. He suggests 2pm. If we are to be entertained by bird-song, why the afternoon? That’s the very time of day when birds do not sing. The warmer air fails to carry the sound as far or as loud as cooler morning air.’
Holmes turned his familiar deep-set eyes on me.
‘And why the Stork & Ostrich House - are such creatures famed for their contralto singing voices? My curiosity has been piqued. I want to know what lies behind this request.’
‘My dear Holmes,’ I protested. ‘I see you still can’t take anything in this world at face value! Does everything have to come under the scrutiny of a jaundiced eye and a ten-power magnifying glass? This request may be exactly what it says. After all, Sussex faces out on a vast Continent, and birds...’
An impatient wave stopped me in full flight.
‘Watson, old fellow, it may not turn out to have the excitement of the case of the Bulgarian Codex but something is afoot. I ask you, why does the writer of this letter point us to the Zoo’s North Entrance? Look at this!’
He thrust a square of paper at me headed ‘Visitors’ Plan of the Zoological Society’s Gardens’.
‘What of it, Holmes?’ I queried. ‘What am I to look at?’
‘Visitors are urged to follow the dotted line. Where do the dots commence?’
‘At the Main Entrance,’ I replied, perplexed. ‘Where else would they start?’
‘Exactly so!’ Holmes exclaimed triumphantly. ‘It says “Passengers should be dropped from their carriages at the Main Entrance”. I am invited to meet at the North Entrance, even though it’s much further from the Stork & Ostrich House.’