Disclaimer: I own nix commendable.

Thank you very much to MeGoobie for all your help! And to Susicar, VHunter07 and Werewolf Master for reviewing. Thank y'all!

Chapter Five: Lifting The Curtain.

The sunny weather broke the next day; clouds hung in the sky like dirty, grey hankerchiefs filled with tears of rain. Rat and Wiggins were busy hanging around shop doors, trying to earn a penny or two, so I ran alone to Baker Street. I had timed my arrival well; Mr Holmes and Dr Watson were just setting out in a cab. I squeezed in with them.

"You've solved it?" I demanded. "How?"

Watson crossed his arms and sat back with the expression of one who had asked the very same question. Mr. Holmes leaned forward, and resting his elbows on his knees, said, "'Solved' is too strong a word. I know how Mr. Stone was murdered, but not why. Hopefully, the people we are going to see will clear this matter up. The most important thing in a case like this is to be able to reason backwards and to use the process of elimination. I kept my mind clear of any theories before I collected all data possible and so was not led astray by any false scents, as the police are all too fond of doing."

"Yes, but how did you solve it and where are we going now?" I impatiently interrupted.

Mr. Holmes lifted his eyebrows and Dr. Watson raised his hand to cover a grin. I belatedly realized how I had sounded and began to say, "Sorry, sir, I didn't..."

"No, no, don't apologize! I recieved the results of the... of the check the police made on Mr. Stone's body."

I nodded and he continued. "There were traces of an unidentifiable poison in Mr Stone's blood. Having coupled this information with the news of Mr. Stone's visits to tropical countries, I immediately had the idea of a foreign poison. I do not know what caused the mutilation of his eyes, but I do not think it was through the same poison that killed him. Mr.
Daniel Lane's statement - that the sandals found in Stone's room were from Africa - showed that the poison must have come from Africa. That was why I wanted to find out about any Africans in the area and, later, about any foreign poisons. In my guise as a miner, I was able to find out that there have been a steady stream of African poisons coming into that shop you saw me in, Kit. I obtained the address and that is where we are going. Such poisons like that are rare and, as one of the poisons sold to the shop corresponds exactly with the one that killed Mr. Stone, there can be no doubt that these people must at least know something about the murder."

I nodded again and sat in silence for the remainder of the journey, only asking once, "Do we need the police? To do the actual arresting?"

"Lestrade and a few constables will be waiting for us," Watson said.

- - - -

The place in question was in a very squalid, closed-off part of Soho. The ruined houses, decorated with smashed windows and loose tiles, were far away from the hustle and bustle of the street business. When I stood still and listened carefully, I could faintly hear the cries of the people hawking their wares: "Fresh daffies, fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh from the country!", "Who'll buy any taters, any taters and carrots, taters and carrots? Mushrooms, nice white mushrooms!", "Come up and hear the tale of the shipwrecked sailor!", "And who wants a ribbon? Ribbons, ribbons, ribbons, who wants a ribbon? You there, a nice young lady like you wants a ribbon for her bonnet! Come buy my ribbons, pretty ribbons..."

"Mr. Holmes?" Lestrade and two policemen emerged from the shadows of a nearby shed. "Are you sure this is the place?"

"Quite sure, Lestrade. If you don't want to get your feet dirty, I suggest you wait in the cab."

The man's weaselly features twitched in annoyance and embarresment, but he remained silent and followed Holmes into the house. He noticed me only when we were standing in the dilapidated and empty front room. "Here, boy, what are you doing here? Run along! This is a police matter."

"I'm stayin'!" I declared, pugnaciously crossing my arms. Holmes, halfway up the rickety and creaky stairs, barely paused. "Kit has seen this case through from the beginning and is eager to see its end. The child is another eager amatuer in my wake."

Lestrade opened his mouth to protest only to find that the rest of us were streaming past him and up the stairs behind Holmes; he reluctantly shut it and followed suit. The upstairs had an odd smell and the dirt and dust were thicker here than below. The bare boards creaked beneath my feet and the walls echoed with the sound of the policemen's boots. There was a door halfway off its hinges at the end of the long passage. As Holmes approached it, it moved slightly, and a face peered out. It stared at us before vanishing back into the room with a frightened squeak. I could hear a voice saying something in an odd language and I pressed close behind Watson's jacket as he entered the room with Holmes and the police in the rear.

The strange smell was stronger inside the room. A large pot was simmering over the fireplace; numerous pots and clay jars lay on the floor and on the stained table in the centre of the room. An old man and an old woman were sitting at the table and, skulking underneath it, was a boy of about my own age who peered at us with the same frightened expression that I had first seen.

As I took a further step into the room, Mr. Holmes put a restraing hand on my shoulder and said, in a low and warning voice, "Be careful. I don't know whether or not they understand English."

"But..." I had thought it was only the dim light in the room, but, now, I saw that their skin was really that dark. "They're black! Dark-skinned!"

"Even I noticed that," Lestrade muttered. The old woman had risen and demanded something in a language that I had never heard before; by the looks on the others' faces, they had not either. She was dressed in a piece of dark material that she tucked under her armpits; she also wore masses of ornaments in her ears. The man was in a long, once-white garment that was rather like a night dress; the boy was clad only in a filthy rag around his waist. The boy was pitifully thin; his ribs and the knobs of his spine stuck out like door handles. He had huge festering sores, dirty, weeping, and some as big as my hand, around his mouth and ankles. The whites of his eyes shone in the gloomy room and he looked from the policemen's uniforms to Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, seeming to sense that they were not with Lestrade and his men. Finally, he looked at me. Upon meeting his eyes, I was struck by how sad and old they were. The eyes were too big for his thin face and seemed to say that their owner had travelled further than I could possibly imagine. I acknowledged that sad and calm gaze and felt that I had been mistaken. This boy was far older than I was.

Lestrade stepped forward and asked, "Are you the party responsible for the murder of Mr. James Stone?"

The old woman snapped something and the man kicked the boy out from under the table. He came out on his hands and knees, and, blinking, said in a soft and husky voice, "I speak a little English. I can tell you what you want to know, I, who am called Dudu, and Kitu by these my grandparents, Majimbe and Mazengo."

"It will be used against you," Lestrade automatically said and, for a moment, I hated him. The boy smiled and the expression was so pathetic that I bit my lip. "It does not matter. My grandparents knew what would follow when they went to Bwana Stone's rooms, but they are too old to care what will happen to them and they do not care what happens to me." He shifted back on his haunches and began. "I am Daudi, from the village of Mbuli in the place you call Tanganyika. My father and mother are both dead, but I was raised by the Wachristo, the Christian missionaries who came to our village and taught us their ways. Before they came, we worshipped our ancestors and went to the Wuganaga for miti when we had sickness. We listened for the voices of our doctors and beat the drums and wore charms around our necks and feared the evil spirits that lived in all things bad and ill. But the Wachristo said that charms were things of no value and, to go by the words of the Muganga, the witch doctor, was a way of small wisdom. My grandfather, Mazengo, had great anger at this, for was he not the Muganga of our village? Did not he make much money by selling his miti to the tribe? But Mbuli, our chief, listened to the words of Bwana Stone and he listened no longer to the words of Mazengo; instead, he drank the medicine of the bwana and followed the ways of God." I could not tell whether he found this good or bad; his face remained impassive as he talked. Considering his treatment at his grandparents' hands, however, I could not imagine that he viewed them with immense affection.

"But Mazengo and Majimbe said, 'Wacho! ' and refused to listen to their chief. They wore charms around their necks and listened to the laughter of mbisi and made miti with the teeth of chewi and the fat of simba. They remained mushenzishenzi and left our village, hiding nearby in the jungle. But, when Bwana Stone left for the country of the Europeans, they waited and watched and planned with cunning. And when Mbuli died, they came back to the village and made much medicine for the people there. They said that their way of worshipping their ancestors and walking the paths of Shaitani was the right way and we had been foolish to leave the old ways. The people of the village listened and another man, an Indian with much money, paid my grandfather to make medicine for him with great strength. My grandfather grew strong in the eyes of the people and he thought of the glory that had once been his, glory that the Bwana Stone had taken away. The Indian man saw this and told my grandfather that if he would make much medicine for him to sell to other tribes; then, he would give him money to travel to this land to find Bwana Stone and take revenge upon him."

The boy, Daudi, paused to take a breath and the old woman spat something at him. He replied wearily and she snarled, "Nyamale twi, kitu!"

"It took a long time," Daudi said, "but my grandparents came here. They took me with them, for, do I not have young legs and young eyes and ears? Would I not be swanu swanu in a big city like this? Also, I knew a little English and they knew none." He did not smile, but there was a glimmer of pride in his dark eyes at having mastered this skill that his grandparents did not have.

"So, we came and found Bwana Stone. We went to his rooms one night and my grandfather threw the sandals, so that the spirits which Bwana Stone had denied would decide his fate. Then my grandmother made miti and put it in the bwana's eyes so that he would know the sort of miti that the Wuganga used. She chewed up bark and herbs and spat it into his eyes so they grew red and sore and, finally, on the next day, they burst. We stayed with him so that my grandparents could see his death. He died from the miti that they made him drink and it made his death slow and painful, for his stomach jumped exceedingly. It is a strong miti and will kill an askari and give a child a great ipu inside. We stayed until Bwana Stone died; then, we left. My grandparents sold their miti to make money and waited to be found, for they knew they would be. Then we heard you come and they stayed here among their medicine." He swept a weak arm about to indicate the pots and jars. "Like the dog's tail."

I listened to Daudi's story with a kind of detatched horror and now looked at Mr. Holmes. His face showed only interest in the details of the case. Before my anger against him could fully raise its head, however, his eyes rested on Daudi,and an expression of pity and disgust flitted over his face. This sign of feeling reassured me. I listened cooly as Lestrade said, "Well, we have all that down. Jenkins, Baines..." He jerked his head at the two old Africans and the policemen moved to secure them.

"But, what about Daudi? He's sick," I said to no one in particular as the policemen led the Africans out of the room and down the stairs.

"Oh, the boy. Yes, he'll be taken to a doctor soon as possible. Come on, you." Lestrade crooked a finger at Daudi and the boy got up and followed Lestrade down the stairs. We heard them get into the cab by the soft, emphatic curses of the cabby and the rattle of the wheels; Watson said unecessarily, "They've taken our cab."

"Brilliant, Watson," Holmes absently remarked. His mind was still on the case. "Revenge and pride. So simple and, yet, they give rise to such consequences. Such hate and misery..."

"Human nature and human life." I remembered last night."'There are more things in heaven and earth...' Perhaps Shakespeare knew what he was talking about, after all."

"But, of course, he did!" Mr Holmes shook-off his thoughtful mood as completely as he had put it on. "Shakespeare had such an understanding of the human mind; it is quite extraordinary. You really must read his plays, Kit."

"Yes, maybe." I thought of Daudi, of his wasted, pathetic face, and of his ancient, knowing eyes. I repeated, "Yes, maybe one day I will."

- - -

FINIS

Glossary:

Dudu: Insect, or any type of parasite.

Kitu: Thing.

Wachristo: Christians.

Muganga: Witchdoctor. Wuganga is plural form.

Miti: Medicine.

Bwana: Master.

Wacho!: Rot, rubbish!

Mbisi: Hyena.

Chewi: Leopard.

Simba: Lion.

Mushenzishenzi: Very, very heathen.

Shaitani: The Devil.

Nyamale twi!: Shut up!

Askari: Soldier.

Ipu: Abcess.

A/N: There! Finito! Hope you liked this story, and look out for the third one coming soon! Well, coming some time, anyway.

Return