Son of Holmes

“Slightly.”

“Good, that’ll be easy, then. I’ll see them this afternoon after I get back.” So saying, I turned and left, hearing him calling for Charles to bring more beer.

I’d left the car parked at the telegraph office, so I walked back to it in the still brisk morning, trying again to piece together all I’d seen and heard, and once again coming up with a blank.

Since I’d never been to Paul’s house, I had a little trouble getting to it and was totally unprepared for what greeted me. It was set back on a small trail, nearly a kilometer from any real road, and looked like something from a fairy tale. It was tiny and seemed to be perfectly square, no more than ten meters on a side, though it did have two stories. I’d needed to ask directions before I arrived from some children who were playing nearby. All of them knew the place and seemed surprised that I didn’t. The roof was sharp-sloping, of the kind you see more often in Switzerland, though it was shingled with the familiar red tile. The house itself was white.

I parked to one side of the trail, walked to the small door, and knocked.

“Entrez! Un moment.” Paul’s voice came from upstairs. “Qui est la?”

“It’s Jules,” I answered, sitting down. “No hurry.”

The first thing I noticed about the inside was the cats. There were seven different kinds of felines lounging over the sparse furniture. I’d never supposed that Paul was so fond of cats; he’d never mentioned them, as cat lovers are generally wont to do. I, personally, did not particularly like them. The other outstanding feature of the room was the plants. There were potted plants in every window and suspended from the ceiling. “Well,” I said to myself, “after all, he is a poet.”

As though on cue, Paul came down the stairs.

“Jules, good to see you. What brings you around?” We shook hands. His was rather clammy. He was wearing American blue denims and a shirt he called his chemise de l’Ouest, a white affair with sloping pockets and mother-of-pearl buttons. “I’m just making some lunch. Will you have some?”

“Just coffee would be fine, thanks.”

He walked back to another room, which appeared to be no bigger than a closet. He called me in.

“You’ve never been here before, right? Right. Well, it surely won’t do to have you leave without the grand tour. This room here’s the kitchen.”

Compared to my own kitchen, it didn’t seem even minimally adequate for cooking. There were a pair of burners set on a drain and two or three shelves with a very few condiments lying in disarray upon them. The coffeepot was black with carbon, and looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned, ever. There was no sink. He went outdoors to a pump for the water. On the walls were faded posters of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show and one of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus (The Greatest Show on Earth). He dumped several measures of coffee into the water and set the whole thing on a burner to boil. I wondered what Lupa would have had to say about the operation.

“Don’t worry about the grounds, Jules. There’s a filter inside the spout.”

Not clearly reassured, I waited, making small talk until the water was boiling. He poured us two cups, took himself a bit of cheese, and we went back into the sitting room. As soon as he was settled, two cats came and sat on his lap, and as we talked, he broke off bits of the cheese and fed them.

“Now,” he said again, “what brings you round here?”

“I said I’d get back to you about Wednesday night. You think you’ll be able to make it? We’d like to have it at La Couro

“Why’d you pick that place?”

“Monsieur Lupa offered it.” I shrugged.

“He’s coming again, is he?”

“Yes. He said we could use his kitchen, which is large and private. I’ve already sent over lots of beer. He seems anxious to meet us all under better conditions, and I’ve talked to him once or twice since… since Wednesday.”

“Why’s he so anxious to get together with us again?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t really say that. I just got the impression.”

“Hmm…” He drank the coffee, which wasn’t, finally, as bitter as I’d expected. “Seems a mite strange. But then…”

“He is, as you say, a mite strange. But then, I’ve never been here before, and I find it quite, er, unorthodox. I’ve never really trusted men who liked cats, if you’ll pardon me for saying so. And I find it fu

He smiled. “Well, do you trust me less now?”

“It’s really not a question of trust or mistrust. I simply find it odd that your fondness for cats doesn’t somehow show. Cats seem more of a woman’s pet, and you’re certainly not what I’d call effeminate.”

“Shucks, no.” He laughed out loud now, nudging the cats playfully behind their heads. “Well, now you know I like cats, but that doesn’t show any more than if I smoked hashish or wore buffalo skin underwear, which, by the way, I don’t.”

I sipped at my coffee. “Well, yes, but…”

“No. You just can’t tell. Take all this stuff about Marcel. Now, I’m sorry and all to see him dead, and I’m sorry for you because you were his friend, but how much did we know about him? Hell, I didn’t even know where he lived. What if, for example-and don’t get mad-he was having an affair with Tania, and you found out and killed him. Or if he had recently gambled everything on some adventure, and lost, and for that reason killed himself. No way to know. Or if he was a spy of some kind, like some of the others said, and the whole thing had nothing at all to do with him personally, though I myself don’t credit that one much. He just didn’t seem the cloak-and-dagger type. ’Course, there I go again doing what I’m yappin’ at you about. He didn’t seem the cloak-and-dagger type, and I don’t seem the cat-lover type, though I am, isn’t that right, Esau?” This last was addressed to the large black tom seated sedately on his lap. “When you come down to it, and be honest, would I strike you as a poet?”

“I must admit… no. Though more so here in your house than elsewhere.”

“Because here I’m more eccentric?”

“I suppose, yes.”

“But that’s just another cliché, you see. The eccentric, sensitive poet. I lived just this way for years before I wrote my first poem. Cats, plants, and all. You want some more coffee?” I shook my head no, but he got up and walked to the kitchen for some of his own. He yelled from there. “Gotta brew up some more. It’ll be a minute.”

I saw Paul walking outside toward the pump. At the same time, one of the small kittens jumped from a chair and scampered to the foot of the narrow staircase. When I moved to see it more clearly, it bolted up the stairs, then turned to look back at me. Alarmed at the height it had attained, it began whining piteously, and I got up intending to hold it until Paul’s return.

But I must have spooked it again, because it turned and disappeared up into a room at the top of the stairs. In all i

Forgetting the cat and feeling guilty, I nevertheless crossed to the desk and silently opened the top center drawer. It was filled with well-nibbled pencils, yellowing bits of paper with fading snatches of writing barely visible-in short, exactly what should have been there. Glancing at the books in front of me, I found the titles entirely commensurate with my expectations. Possibly he had a hollow book up there, but suddenly that struck me as highly unlikely. The room just didn’t feel like a hiding place, and I was begi