Denis Smith - The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

We followed the inspector into the house and found Miss Montague in the drawing-room with a middle-aged woman, introduced to us as Mrs Loveday, a neighbour. In a few words, Holmes’s client described to us what had occurred.

‘Mrs Eardley arrived soon after I returned home,’ she began. ‘She seemed in an irritable mood, and declared that the house looked untidy and could do with a good dusting, which was not true. “There’s no point letting the house go to rack and ruin just because your uncle has died,” she said, and began brushing and dusting noisily. Shortly afterwards, Mrs Loveday called and, a little later, when she and I were talking in here, I heard Mrs Eardley open the dining-room door. I went out to speak to her. “That is the room in which Uncle died,” I said. “I wish the door to remain closed.” “Nonsense!” said she, and would not be contradicted, so I left her to do what she wished. For a few minutes, we heard her clattering about in there, then there came the most dreadful scream, like that of a soul in torment, followed by complete silence. We ran in there and found Mrs Eardley stone dead on the floor, laid out full length, as Captain Jex had been. I at once looked for that horrible box and saw that she had been doing something with it; for I had left it on the sideboard, firmly closed, and now it stood on the dining-table, with its lid flung back. I immediately sent for the doctor, and when he had examined Mrs Eardley’s body we carried it upstairs to the spare bedroom. I have not touched the box, Mr Holmes, and the dining-room door has remained firmly closed again since Mrs Eardley’s death.’

‘You have acted correctly, Miss Montague. Now, I hope, we can bring this unfortunate business to a close. Have you a cardboard box in the house, big enough, say, to contain the wooden box?’

‘I have a shoe-box, if that would suffice.’

‘That would be ideal. If you could also provide me with a ball of twine, a pair of scissors and a long-handled broom, I should be obliged.’

Holmes and Miss Montague left the room, but were back again in a couple of minutes, with the items Holmes had mentioned; then he, Athelney Jones and I opened the dining-room door and entered that fatal room. It was a square room of modest size, with a window which overlooked the back garden. In the centre of the room was a table, to the left a sideboard and, in an alcove by the fireplace, a large, heavy piece of furniture, consisting of a cupboard above and drawers below. Upon the table stood the carved box, the arrival of which at this ordinary suburban house had begun the series of mysterious and dreadful events.

‘I’m a busy man, Mr Holmes,’ said Jones in a self-important tone, ‘and I can’t afford to waste any more time on this business. So, unless you can show me in the next two minutes that there is something of a criminal nature involved in it, I shall be off, and leave you and Miss Montague to deal with her precious box!’

‘Very well,’ returned Holmes in an affable tone. ‘If you would stand over there with Dr Watson, I shall demonstrate the matter for you.’ He placed the items Miss Montague had given him on the table, then, taking the shoe-box, from which he had removed the lid, and the broom, which he held by the brush end, he crouched on the floor, in front of the large cupboard.

For a moment, he peered into the dark recess beneath the cupboard, then, with a sudden movement, thrust the handle of the broom into the darkness. Jones glanced at me with a frown on his face and it was clear that he thought that Holmes had taken leave of his senses. Next moment, his expression changed to one of horror, as, at a fearsome speed, there emerged from beneath the cupboard the most monstrous, repulsive spider I have ever seen in my life. It was at least the size of a man’s hand, its black, hairy legs as thick as a man’s fingers and it ran at a terrifying speed along by the broom handle towards Holmes’s hand. But, quick as it was, Holmes was quicker and he clapped the shoe-box over the top of it just before it reached him.

‘For the love of Heaven!’ cried Jones in a dry, cracked voice. ‘What in God’s name is that? ’

‘ Tarantula Nigra ,’ returned Holmes: ‘the black tarantula, the only one of the family whose bite is fatal to man – and a very striking specimen it is, too!’ He spoke in the detached tones of the enthusiastic naturalist, but there was a suppressed tension and excitement in his manner which told me that even Holmes was not entirely immune from the horror which the sudden appearance of that fearsome beast had provoked in my own breast. ‘Pass me the lid, Watson,’ he continued, ‘and let us see if we can slip it underneath the box.’ In a moment, he had done as he said, then, in one swift movement, had turned the box right-side up. ‘Hold the lid down, Watson, while I wrap the twine round it. Hold it down firmly, old man,’ he added quickly. ‘ Tarantula Nigra is quite capable of pushing the lid off!’

His warning came not an instant too soon, for even as I put my hand to the top of the box, I felt it lift against my touch. With a thrill of horror, I pressed down hard and in a minute Holmes had bound the box up securely with the twine. ‘We’d better give the creature some air,’ he remarked, as he poked half a dozen small holes in the top with the scissors. ‘We don’t want it to suffocate! Here you are, Jones!’ he continued, handing the box to the policeman. ‘Here is your evidence of criminality! This deadly spider was, with deliberate intent, sent to Furnival in that wooden box. Its sudden frightening appearance at his breakfast table undoubtedly brought about his death. Whether it also bit him, we cannot say until his body is examined afresh, but it certainly bit his sister, Mrs Eardley, for I took the opportunity of examining her wrist a moment ago and the mark is quite clear there.’

‘The doctor didn’t say anything about that,’ said Jones.

‘He didn’t know what he was looking for and the mark of the bite was under the cuff of her blouse.’

‘How did you know that you would find this horrible thing here?’ asked Jones. As he spoke, the spider evidently made some sudden movement inside the box, for he put it down hurriedly on the table, his face pale.

‘It seemed more than likely,’ returned Holmes. ‘Miss Montague had stated that the box her uncle received had been empty, but as she was not in the room at the moment he opened it, it was always possible that it had contained something able to move of its own volition, which had made itself scarce as she entered the room following her uncle’s cry of terror. If this were so, what could it be? The size of the box suggested a spider – although there were other possibilities – and this suggestion received some support from the fact that Furnival himself had spent over twenty years in the West Indies, where large spiders are not uncommon.

‘I asked Miss Montague if the parcel containing the box had appeared damaged when it arrived. As a conjecture, this was something of a long shot, I admit; but I was gratified to find that it was correct. The paper on the top of the parcel had been ripped when it arrived at the house. This confirmed the theory yet further: for it seemed to me likely that the sender of the parcel had deliberately ripped the paper, in a way which would appear like accidental damage, in order to ensure that air reached the parcel’s occupant during its transit through the post. The lid of the box itself, of course, was pierced in several places, as Miss Montague had mentioned and I had noted. Something else which was suggestive was that Miss Montague’s uncle had had all the climbing plants removed from the walls of the house; for it is a fact that one of the reasons that some people do not like such plants is because their stems provide an avenue for spiders to enter the house via the bedroom windows. Taking all these points together, it seemed very likely that Furnival was one of those who have a pathological dread of spiders and that someone, aware of this fact, had deliberately sent him a particularly terrifying specimen. Whether Mrs Eardley suffered from the same aversion to spiders as her brother, we cannot say. She was certainly bitten by the creature, as the police surgeon will doubtless confirm in due course, and may have died from that cause, as the venom of Tarantula Nigra is very potent and acts very quickly. In her case, it seems to have been her zeal to clean her brother’s house which led to her death. She must have been poking with a brush beneath that cupboard, much as I was, and the spider, considering itself to be under attack, would have sallied forth to repulse the attack, as you saw it do just now. Fortunately for me, I was expecting it; but Mrs Eardley was not.’