The Case of the River Monkey Taxidermist

(Originally published in Comets and Criminals #2, 2012.)

“You were not at your father’s funeral.”

“An elementary observation, monsieur,” said Miss Holmes. “Did you come all the way from London to tell me that?”

We sat in the workshop of her Paris apartment. The sunlit room smelled of machine oil and gunpowder. Miss Holmes was a few years younger than I, in her mid-twenties. She had green eyes, and hair somewhere between blonde and brown.

“As your maid surely informed you,” I announced, “I am Maxwell Booth, trustee for Mr. Holmes’ estate.”

“I stopped accepting funds from my father years ago, Monsieur Booth.”

“Just as well. He left you no money in his will.”

She raised an eyebrow at that.

“Instead, he left you these files. They are prospective cases, ones he was unable to solve before his death.”

I could tell by her expression that she was intrigued, but what she said was, “Do you know how my father referred to me?”

I shook my head.

“He said I was his only serious miscalculation.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Must I explain to you the details of the female ovulation cycle, monsieur?”

I felt my face turn red.

She extended a hand. “Let me see the files.”

I untied the box at my feet and handed it to her.

She set it on the workbench and took out the top folder. As she studied the papers in the folder, she began humming softly, like a clockwork music box.

After a few minutes, she asked, “Have you looked at these files?”

I confessed that I had. “Only so I might know the context, should you have questions.”

“Do you know this Baron Strathmore, whom the British Museum has accused of fraud?”

“Only by his name and fortune, Miss Holmes.”

“And these preserved river monkeys he refers to, which breathe by means of gills...”

“Are held by the Museum. Doubtless it would have allowed Mr. Holmes to examine them. But you are...”

“Only a woman,” she sniffed.

I nodded, relieved. “I shall be happy to convey the files to a London investigator I know.”

She looked at me sharply. “You’ll do no such thing.” She cast her attention back to the papers and resumed humming. “The baron’s taxidermist is here in Paris. I shall begin there.”

I cleared my throat. “Many of your father’s cases involved a criminal element. I’m certain he didn’t intend–-”

Without looking up, she said, “You may accompany me if you wish, monsieur.”

That had actually been the furthest thing from my mind. But once invited, there was no way I could honorably refuse.

#

The taxidermist’s small shop was on Rue Saint-Yves. The windows displayed numerous preserved animals, all extremely lifelike. We entered, and Miss Holmes greeted the taxidermist in French, a language I speak poorly. As they spoke, I surveyed the shop. There were skinning knives and bottles of chemicals. The preserved creatures were of all sizes and species--even a glass cabinet of butterflies--but no animal matched the description in the case folder.

Miss Holmes’ discussion with the taxidermist did not begin well. His manner seemed uncooperative, even surly. But once she opened her purse, that changed. He spoke cordially to her a few more minutes, then she bid him adieu.

After we left the shop, I asked if she had learned anything.

“A great many things, monsieur. For example, one of the creatures on display was a thylacine.”

“A what?”

“A Tasmanian wolf, though it is a marsupial, not a true wolf. They are nearly extinct, like the dodo. Yet his specimen appears to be authentic, not a sideshow hoax.”

“That doesn’t prove the river monkeys are not a hoax.”

“No. So I arranged to procure one.”

“What? Surely the cost is beyond your means.”

“Oui. But I led him to believe that you, as Baron Strathmore’s solicitor, wished to purchase another specimen. Your agreed price is the French equivalent of five hundred pounds.”

“Five hundred pounds!” The blood drained from my face.

“I placed a small deposit as a demonstration of trust. He promised to meet with a hunter tonight who can supply the creature.”

I stared at her.

“I discovered something else as well,” she said, producing what appeared to be a petite brass bracelet with a locket. The locket was inlaid with a finely detailed geometric pattern. The inlays were different colored metals, but the bracelet was smeared with rusty stains.

“You purchased jewelry from a taxidermist? The band is far too small for you.”

“I didn’t purchase it. I spied a box of these on a workbench and took one when he turned his gaze for a moment.”

“You stole it?”

Her eyes met mine, unflinching.

For a moment, my jaw hung open in consternation. “Have you no morals, no sense of honor? Civilized society is based upon property rights, upon the sanctity of financial contracts. To reject that is to... to...” I stopped, at a loss for words.

“May I continue describing what I learned, mon capitaliste?”

I nodded dumbly.

“What I observed about the bracelets was that each was stained with blood.” She indicated the reddish-brown marks on the one she held. “Yet each was stained in a similar way: Not as if spattered with blood by some accident upon the taxidermist’s workbench, but as if each bracelet was removed from an arm covered in blood. Or an arm that was being skinned.” She pointed to the thickness of the rusty sediment around the ring.

It took me a moment to grasp the implication, such was my skepticism. “Surely you don’t think the river monkeys he skinned and mounted for Baron Strathmore were wearing bracelets!”

“Oui. Hence my urgency to obtain one.”

“Even if I accept your mad theory, how will you know for certain? Do you propose to hide within a cabinet and observe him while he works?”

“That will not be necessary. I plan to follow him tonight when he meets with the hunter. I shall obtain the proof I need from the hunter.”

#

We had prepared to follow him by steam-powered carriage, but the taxidermist emerged from his shop with a sausage-shaped dog on a leash. It soon became evident he planned on walking, so I paid our driver and we set off on foot over the cobblestones.

The taxidermist had a long stride, and though his hound had short legs, it was energetic. Miss Holmes and I followed at a distance, striving not to lose sight of him in the twilight.

“An interesting choice of animal,” said Miss Holmes. “It is a dachshund, or badger hound. I have revised my theory of what will transpire this evening.”

I asked her to elaborate, but she did not.

Approaching the river, the taxidermist turned a corner. When we reached that point and rounded the building, there was no sign of our quarry.

“He could have entered any building,” I said, discouraged.

Miss Holmes was humming thoughtfully. “If my theory is correct, he has descended into the Paris catacombs. The entrance is nearby.”

“The tombs?”

She nodded. “Further, I believe he has taken a passage toward the Seine.”

The way her mind worked, finding clues and conclusions where I saw nothing, was mystifying. And her failure to explain, quite annoying.

She led the way toward a set of stone steps descending into darkness.

“This is unwise beyond measure,” I said. “We shall be blind down there.”

At that, she produced a small pumped-oil lantern, of the type used by night watchmen.

She pumped the mechanism and held it out to me. “I did not bring matches, for I smelled tobacco on you at our first meeting.”

I lit the oil mist within the glass cover, then we descended beneath the street, down a narrow spiral of stone. At the bottom, she bent and examined the dirt on the floor. She pointed and whispered, “The tracks of the hound.”

She gave me the lantern, and we walked through the stone tunnel, the shadows cast by our light dancing on the stone walls. The only sounds were our breathing and footsteps.

We passed through chambers filled with bones and skulls, and at each intersection Miss Holmes chose the path, sometimes confirming it by checking for tracks. She seemed to have a flawless sense of direction, like a migrating swallow. We went farther into the catacombs, passing rusted gates left ajar. I became more and more uneasy, but she displayed no anxiety whatsoever. Perhaps, I thought, this is what comes of having an absent father: one becomes fearless.

Finally, she put a hand on my arm. “Stay,” she whispered. She took the lantern from me and released the pressure valve.

In the dark I saw what she must have seen: A ghostly flicker emanating from the upcoming turn in the tunnel.

I peered cautiously around the turn. It was the entrance to another tomb chamber. At the end, the taxidermist sat on a pile of stones, facing the far wall. His hound was nowhere in sight.

Miss Holmes and I stole silently into the chamber, finding concealment between a tombstone and a tall stack of bones.

She leaned toward me, so close that I felt her lips upon my ear, and whispered, “He has dispatched his badger hound into the blocked tunnel.”

I saw now that the wall he sat before was a bricked-off extension of the catacombs, with only a small opening at the bottom. The taxidermist’s leash led through that hole. On the stone floor beside his lantern lay a large oilcloth bag and a club. By Miss Holmes’ satisfied expression, I suspected she knew exactly what would transpire this evening.

We watched and waited. The taxidermist’s head nodded and he began to snore. Over the next hour or two, as my legs cramped, I fervently wished I were in my comfortable flat in London.

My attention must have strayed, for the next I knew, the taxidermist was awake, one foot braced against the wall. He gripped the leash with both hands, and I noticed for the first time that his end of the leash was a cylindrical metal box. The box made clicking sounds, and with each click, his arms jerked slightly.

“What...?” I whispered.

Miss Holmes pressed her lips to my ear. “It is a clockwork leash, to pull back his hound.”

“I have–-” Miss Holmes pulled my head closer to her, so that I whispered through her lavender-scented hair. “I have never seen such a thing. What a marvelous innovation.”

“It is hardly new,” she whispered back. “Think of Archimedes’ drawings, or the windlass, or how the Trojan Horse was winched into Troy.”

“Surely not with a clockwork leash!” I hissed.

Perhaps too loudly, for the clicking of the taxidermist's leash ceased abruptly, and he turned. Miss Holmes and I ducked behind the pile of bones. We huddled like church mice in the darkness. I heard the pounding of my heart, the whisper of my breathing. I remembered the taxidermist’s club. If I must battle, I had only brittle bones from which to choose my weapon.

Then I heard the growl of the badger hound, and the clicking resumed. There was more growling, a scrabbling of claws on stone, and a fish-like slapping. The taxidermist gave a soft grunt, and I peered around the bones just in time to see him bring his club down upon a wet, furry creature like a seal, but with a simian head and long arms. The club landed with a thud, and the creature gave a painful whistle. He brought down the club once more, and the creature lay still. Beside me, I heard a faint sob from Miss Holmes, but before me, there was only the panting of the hound. Its eyes glowed in the light of the lantern, and the man patted its head. Muttering something in French, he pulled his oilcloth bag around the corpse. Then he shouldered the bag, picked up his lantern, and he and his hound exited the chamber.

Miss Holmes had regained her composure, for I heard her slow and measured breathing. We waited behind the bones for a long time. I felt claustrophobic in the darkness. I thought of how the taxidermist’s club had taken the life of the river monkey, and considered how easily the same might happen to us.

At last, Miss Holmes pumped the oil lantern and asked me to light it. Then she took it and peered into the hole where the river monkey had emerged.

“What do you see?” I whispered.

She was humming softly. “I hear water on a shore, but there is not enough light.” She examined the wet floor where the struggle had occurred. “Seven,” she said.

“What?”

“Here where the river monkey’s webbed hand or foot left a wet mark on the stone. Seven fingers or toes.”

“Perhaps a double print?”

She shrugged, and again I wondered at the significance of a clue.

#

The next morning, we visited the taxidermist’s shop, to ask if his hunter had revealed plans for the expedition. Our hope was to spy the river monkey corpse.

The meeting was short. I saw no sign of the corpse, and after only a few minutes there was an exchange of francs, and Miss Holmes turned to leave.

Outside I asked, “What did you learn?”

“The hunter says the expedition will be more costly than foreseen.”

“But there is no hunter! There is only a badger hound!”

“Indeed. But he doubled his price.”

“A thousand pounds?”

“I told him that was more than I could pledge on Baron Strathmore’s behalf.”

I recalled the money exchanged. “Did you get your deposit back?”

She sighed. “Oui, mon capitaliste.”

“But we have no hope of seeing the river monkey.”

“Not so. I believe our prompt arrival at his shop convinced him of the baron’s eagerness. His greed was evident.”

“Have you a plan?”

“We shall return here tonight, to examine his rubbish.”

“His rubbish?”

“A taxidermist uses the skin and a few other portions of the original animal. The remainder, including the skeleton, is discarded. It is more practical to stuff and mount the skin.”

“Then we shall have proof for the baron!” I confess to relief that the strain of this adventure would soon be over.

“The taxidermist said one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“He stated that if Baron Strathmore would double again the price, he might obtain a far more interesting specimen.”

#

We returned after dark and found a rubbish bin in the alley. It did not contain a corpse.

“If we could only get inside his shop for a few minutes...” I ventured.

“Do they teach lock-picking at Oxford? Regrettably, they do not at the Sorbonne.”

She was not jesting. I wondered how she knew I was an Oxford man, then recalled I’d worn an Oxford tie at our first encounter. “Have you a new plan?”

“Of course. It is time to examine the scene of the crime.”

“But we were there! And hunting is no crime.”

“We were not where his hound was. And as to a crime, the victim wore a bracelet.”

We proceeded toward the river, passing the entrance to the catacombs and following a street all the way to the Seine. There we descended a path down to the riverfront. The moon was new, but Miss Holmes had had the foresight to bring her oil lantern, which I lit.

I didn’t see how we could possibly determine where the bricked-up tunnel emerged, but her sense of direction was unerring.

The tunnel had collapsed at its exit. The stonework was in ruins, and mud and vegetation engulfed it. I took the lantern and clambered through the mud and stones, searching without success for an entrance. I peered through crevices large enough for a badger hound, and tried to lift stones free, but mud and gravity had cemented them in place.

When I returned to Miss Holmes, she was examining a print in the mud.

“Seven toes,” she observed. “But the size...”

Indeed, if the other had been a river monkey, this was the print of a river gorilla.

“Then his was only an infant of the species.”

“Oui.” Her face wore a sad expression.

We stood and regarded the river. I saw ducks, but nothing larger. In the middle of the Seine lay a low island, covered with bushes and tall grasses.

“Most peculiar,” said Miss Holmes.

“What?”

“Why are there no trees on the island?”

A dog barked to the northwest, where we had taken the path down from the street.

“I recognize that bark,” she whispered. “It is the badger hound.”

She turned off the lantern, and we concealed ourselves behind the tunnel ruins.

The taxidermist and his hound descended to the river, where a rowboat was tied up. I heard a rattle of chains: The boat must have been locked to a post. He lifted his hound aboard the boat and, by moonlight, I noticed he also had with him a shovel. He began rowing toward the island. His hound barked at ducks.

“He carries his bag,” observed Miss Holmes, “and it is not empty this time.”

I followed her logic. “The corpse!”

She nodded. “He will bury it on the island. We must follow and see where.”

I looked along the shore. “There are no more boats nearby.”

“We do not require a boat.” She began removing her shoes.

“What are you doing?”

“Once he is on the island, we may swim across unseen.”

“Are you mad? Think of the scandal if someone spots us!”

“Then I shall swim alone.” She tried to hand me her shoes.

I pushed them away. “Your father would not permit this.”

“My father would already be in the water!” She dropped her shoes and began to unfasten her dress.

“Stay here,” I ordered, alarmed. “I shall swim to the island.”

“And what am I to do?”

I unlaced my shoes. “You may guard my clothing.”

She looked along the riverbank. There was no one in sight. “From whom?”

I handed her my shoes and hat and unbuttoned my jacket.

She sighed, then turned away from me, watching the taxidermist row toward the island. “Hurry.”

I stripped off my vest, undid my tie, and began unbuttoning my shirt.

The taxidermist’s boat slid onto the muddy shore of the island. The short-legged hound struggled out, and the taxidermist followed with his bag and shovel. He made his way through the bushes to the island’s interior.

I handed Miss Holmes my shirt and trousers and waded into the water, which was much colder than the early summer air. Mud squished between my toes. Water lapped against my drawers.

“Stay out of his sight,” she whispered. “He may mistake you for a river monkey.”

“Do I so resemble one?”

“Start swimming!” she hissed. “Or I shall join you!”

I stroked, and promptly spat out water that had fouled my lips. The Seine was as filthy as the Thames. The moon’s reflection off the ripples was the color of snow. Sounds of Paris filtered over the river. I hoped they were louder than my breathing and muffled splashing. The current was taking me downriver, so I angled upstream. I tried not to think of a river gorilla in the water beneath me, and immediately could think of nothing else.

On reaching the island, I wriggled into the reeds, where I lay shivering in the mud. I could see the taxidermist beginning to dig. The grass nearby him waved in the moonlight as his hound sniffed for ducks. He dug for a long time, tossing shovelfuls of dirt into the bushes. Then there was a clank of metal on metal. I heard his exclamation of surprise, then a repeat of the clank. He crouched down, disappearing from view. I heard him muttering to himself, and understood not a word. Metal scraped.

Abruptly a geyser of water propelled the taxidermist from the hole. He staggered and grabbed a bush, his hound barking furiously all the while.

Then the man screamed. Something dragged him down into the pit, in spite of his grip on the bush. The hound’s barks changed to yips of fright. I could see neither man nor hound, but the tops of the grass danced.

A subterranean force rocked the island, sending waves cascading across the Seine. The island crumbled, sliding apart and sinking. Waves swept away bushes and grass. The taxidermist’s empty boat rode past me and I lunged for it, but missed. By the moonlight, I caught a glimpse of the badger hound, dog-paddling desperately as its clockwork leash pulled it backwards into a muddy whirlpool.

Treading water, I feared the same fate. A minute later, the hound and the island were gone, leaving only floating vegetation. The night became quiet, and I heard the sounds of Paris again.

Then, as I bobbed in the cold water, a behemoth the size of the Dover ferry surfaced from the site of the island, surrounded by bubbles. Its metal skin was punctuated with portholes that glowed with a faint green light. Through the nearest, I saw a river gorilla swim past within the vessel. He paused at the glass, and I watched his chest expand, layers of feathery gills fanning in and out. The creature’s large eyes fixed upon mine.

I backstroked toward the Paris riverbank with all my strength. The monkey vessel burst free of the water with a blast of steam. Jets of flame appeared beneath it, making a deafening roar as it lifted itself up into the sky.

I feared the worst. A vessel like that must have guns like a British dreadnought. But it continued to climb, faster and faster, until suddenly it disappeared in a flash of light. Many seconds later, thunder shook the sky.

My eyes were still fixed on the sky when something struck my head. Cursing, I turned in the water to see Miss Holmes in the rowboat.

She shipped the oars and gripped both gunwales so I might clamber aboard without overturning her. “You should have let me swim,” she said crossly.

“Wha– what are you doing on the river?” I stammered after I struggled aboard. I saw that her lovely dress was muddy and soaked to above her knees.

“Waves pushed the taxidermist’s boat near shore, so I waded out to capture it. But by then I was too late to participate.”

“But there were dangers! You might have drowned like the taxidermist!”

“Are you certain he is drowned? A race so advanced might build a cage with air, as we build aquarium tanks for fish.”

“But why did they take him? And where?”

“The sack he carried answers why. They came to study us, never dreaming we would prefer them stuffed. And as to where, I surmise the river monkeys came from Venus, whose seas reflect the sun’s light like a mirror.”

I considered this. “The British Museum won’t believe that any more than they believed Baron Strathmore.”

“I reasoned as much. But I spied the taxidermist’s oilcloth bag barely afloat upon the river.”

I saw it now in the boat’s bow. The sack was tied securely, which had kept the water out. “The river monkey corpse!”

“Oui.”

“Your father would have been proud.”

She shrugged. “Next time, I shall not be left behind at the conclusion.”

“Next time?”

“Why, the next case folder, of course.”