Free Disquiet at Albany by N. M. Scott Page A

remains of the rodent were very ancient and unique to the evolutionary chain. And indeed the giant Sumatran tree-rat presented him with much to ponder. He remained in an intense fever of excitement for a day or two at least. However, after a visit to Down House by his friend, the Irish anthropologist and zoologist Sir Terence Maguire, an eminent member of the Royal Geographical Society to whom he presented the animal hide for appraisal, Charles changed his mind and, despite its provenance and associations with the spice islands of Indonesia, believed the rodent’s skin to have been cleverly manipulated, sewn together to form this large, terrifying beast. A fake in other words, a novelty, possibly used in magic ceremonies as a hex – a harbinger of ill luck.’
    ‘So it was dismissed.’
    ‘Forthwith, Doctor Watson. We contacted Alfred’s agent and suggested he might dispose of it for us – sell the item for say a hundred guineas to a museum and pass the proceeds on to Wallace, who had only recently returned to England from the tropics and was in need of money.’
    ‘Did the agent manage to make a sale?’ Holmes asked.
    ‘We were contacted shortly after and the agent informed us that the M.P. Ethby Sands had agreed to purchase the item together with the provenance and personal written account of the almost fatal illness from which Wallace made such a miraculous recovery. Ethby was well known to us because he was always helping Wallace out, funding his long absences from home by the welcome purchase of rare bird skins, birds of paradise which he would stuff and have mounted for display at Albany. I do not know what became of the old bones and animal hide after that, Mr Holmes.’

18
    Lunch at the Criterion
    The following morning Doctor Wu Xing visited our diggings with an urgent request. We were to meet Ethby Sands at noon for lunch at the Criterion restaurant, Mr Sands apparently anxious to allay any fears we might have that he was in fact a mutable rat or a raving madman, out of control and capable of committing murder.
    This ridiculous state of affairs caused the Chinese physician and my colleague to fear that an attempt on Christopher Chymes’s life may have been the real motivation for this lunchtime invitation.
    The composer, although busy with press interviews and putting some last-minute touches to the score of the sensational new musical that had taken the West End by storm, helped of course by the ensuing publicity in all the morning editions concerning the grisly murder of Philip Troy, that would ensure a long and profitable run both here and on Broadway, agreed to meet Holmes, myself and Doctor Wu at the Criterion, No. 224 Piccadilly, for this impromptu luncheon, the involvement of Mr Sands kept deliberately from him.
    When the composer arrived, flanked by Langton Lovell and Charles Lemon, bottles of Moet were instantly uncorked. We all settled down beneath the remarkable Byzantine-style gilded ceiling for a first-rate meal, our convivial conversation interrupted when a row broke out between Holmes and Christopher Chymes, for my colleague had decided there and then to confront the young composer over his ill usage of Ethby Sands, and plagiarism of certain of his ideas. Langton and Lemon loved a theatrical spat, and looked on with quiet amusement. My colleague gave no quarter.
    ‘Chymes, you are the worst blackguard I ever knew, defrauding poor old Ethby Sands out of royalties and, worse still, along with your collaborator Troy, seeking to deliberately steal all his ideas for your wretched musical entertainment which, as we now know, is wildly popular and assured of making a fortune at the box office.’
    ‘You mustn’t speak ill of the dead, Holmes. Troy is no more – murdered on the very eve of his triumph. I shan’t admit to anything.’
    ‘We must gain you time, Chymes. Your very life may depend upon it. You are, I am afraid, in imminent danger of extinction. Scotland Yard must be in on this, your