Part 19 (1/2)

”It is awkward being here.” I glanced around the bedchamber, struck by the recent presence of death, however naturally delivered.

The air held that sickroom tang of age and decay. I noted a cane leaning into a dark corner, the old man's nights.h.i.+rt and cap folded at the foot of the testered bed.

”Let me have a look at your list again,” Mr. Norton said.

The paper crackled as he unfolded it and Casanova edged nearer to absorb every snap.

”Tippecanoe and treasure, too,” Mr. Norton mused.

”Go soak your head in it,” the bird croaked. ”Go soak your head in it.”

”Tippecanoe,” I mused in turn, feeling obliged to contribute something to this expedition. ”Isn't that American?”

”Pertaining to an American political contest, I believe. A campaign slogan that became a popular song years ago, 'Tippecanoe and Tyler Too'. But the canoe is also an Indian boat of sorts, long and thin and made of birch-bark.”

”Tippecanoe and treasure, too. Nonsense then, just like Mr. Mutterworth.”

”Mutterworth. I wonder if he was so enamored of making puns upon his own name-”

”Well, he had enough muttering around him, with all those parrots-”

”And one master mutterer.” Mr. Norton extended an imprudent finger into Casanova's cage. The bird shuffled over to the bars, then clamped its iron-grey beak shut on it.

This time Mr. Norton flapped and squawked. ”Quite a grip.”

”I got la grippe,” the parrot shrieked back.

I went to the window and cast the cas.e.m.e.nt wide, needing some fresh air, fresh thought and something other to regard than the odious and flesh-eating Casanova.

A row of grotesque green faces grinned up at me-topiary bushes cut into inhuman expressions, all marching away in a double row toward the formal gardens that cl.u.s.tered around a manmade pond and an airy wooden gazebo in the shape of a parrot's cage.

”What a bizarre garden!” I noted. ”Those faces- 'neither beast nor human,'” I quoted from Poe, a favorite of mine. ”Ghouls.”

Mr. Norton was at my side in seconds, which I found most gratifying. Chivalry toward the weaker s.e.x is so lost to most modern men. However, it was not my possible peril that drew him, but my unG.o.dly discovery.

”Faces... yes. And neither beast nor human, but-bird, Penelope!” he cried in his wonder, forgetting more formal means of address. ”Not a... catwalk, but a birdwalk. You've found it!” At that he clapped me on the shoulder in a most familiar-if unthinking-manner. ”I was convinced the clue would be in the house. How did you come to think of the grounds, the garden?” he demanded.

How did I? Then I remembered Irene wondering where a half-demented old man might have hidden his greatest treasure and realized that I had duplicated her methods without knowing it. I had looked beyond the chamber that imprisoned him to the greater world and the fresh air. But I could hardly tell G.o.dfrey Norton that, since his own late father's case had inspired my actions in this one.

”There seemed little of interest in the house,” I said shortly but firmly.

Mr. Norton nodded and shook his head at the garden below us. Even as we watched, a pair of gardeners in baggy trousers with clay-stained knees advanced on the topiary bushes with hedge-clippers.

”Not a moment too soon,” Mr. Norton said. ”As the fair female parrots went, so shall the bushes. This is Casanova's late lamented harem, don't you see, Miss Huxleigh? And there, at the end, sits the cagey old bird himself.”

I reexamined the faces with their curved proboscises and leaves upraised like feathers. Mr. Norton was right. At the end of the avenue, in perfect proportion to the distant cagelike gazebo, perched the h.o.a.riest, s.h.a.ggiest shape of all-Casanova in green glory, one wing extended as he groomed his bedraggled chest feathers.

We hurried below and out to the gardens, Mr. Norton muttering from the list. ”'Cut the cackle; kill the grackle'... an aviary outdoors perhaps? 'Greenback'? The topiary bird backs? Bird bath?”

”The pond!” I exclaimed, stopping under a shower of clipped leaves. The gardeners on their ladders snipped away above me.

”Greenbacks! American money!” Mr. Norton responded.

We stared at each other in ecstatic agreement.

That is why, approximately half an hour later, the two gardeners drew from the pond waters, at Mr. Norton's direction, a birdcage wrapped in oilcloth.

From the bedchamber cas.e.m.e.nt I had neglected to close, a raucous voice hailed our discovery: ”Tippecanoe and treasure, too.”

When the cage's contents were examined on Miss Mutterworth's parlor table, they proved to be a large amount of American dollars, or greenbacks, a rare stamp and coin collection, several packets of stock in our nation's most solid companies and various other doc.u.ments of value. Miss Mutterworth fluttered and cooed as the treasure spread across the figured shawl that covered the table. Finally the cage was emptied. It was much rusted, although the oilcloth had preserved the papers, stamps and coins.

When it was empty, Mr. Norton on an impulse turned the cage upside down. ”Another clue,” he p.r.o.nounced, ”though I can't quite read it.”

I lifted my trusty pince-nez to my nose and squinted through the rust at the word engraved in the metal, the maker's name. ”Tyler.”

”Tippecanoe and Tyler's treasure, too!” Mr. Norton and I recited together.

From upstairs came a dim and awful echo.

Chapter Sixteen.

WORD FROM ABROAD.

Our past words often come to haunt us, but rarely do so in such naked ringing tones as those emitted by a parrot.

Miss Mutterworth, naturally, had no desire to add Casanova to the tally of wealth left by her late brother.

”You've always fancied a canary, my dear Miss Huxleigh,” Mr. Norton cajoled.

We were back in chambers with work to do and the parrot's cage hanging from a makes.h.i.+ft hook too near my shoulder for comfort. ”Casanova may possess unsuspected musical gifts.”

”I doubt it,” said I with a shudder, but the upshot was that the creature fell to me by default.

If I did not wish to hear its siren squawks while performing upon the typewriter at Mr. Norton's chambers, the lesser of two evils was to bring the bird home. At least the parrot had feathers and a voice, albeit rough, and-as it was p.r.o.ne to remind me from the amphitheater of the bay window, where I installed its cage, I had always ”fancied a ca-nar-y, fancied a ca-nar-y-awk!”

I confess I found it company of a sort; I would not wish the beast to fall into uncharitable hands. What Irene would think of my acquisition, I often wondered; likely she would teach it to smoke those little cigars of hers. Casanova was soon the least of my concerns, however.

In examining my diaries for the year 1886,1 find that no doc.u.ment can more tersely summarize the swift turns in Irene Adler's career abroad than her own remarkable letters informing me of the major events.

Thus I present her words unsullied, save that I have taken the liberty of repairing some lapses in spelling and punctuation. Irene Adler wrote as she spoke and lived: with flair and intelligence but not the tidiest of approaches. I have also interspersed annotations of my own, as needed.

Three pages of onion-skin parchment embellished in her distinctive green ink were needed to convey the drama of the first Great Event, dated twenty-first January, 1886: Mydarling Nell!