Holmes eyed his
friend warily. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I
will tell you the story. It was told to me by a very close friend, whom I shall
call Gideon.’ Holmes leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in thought
before he began.
‘Gideon had been brought up in
Sumatra, where his father was a missionary.
However, the eldest son, Gideon’s brother, David, died of Dengue fever,
as later did his mother and a younger sister. Another child died in a fire and
eventually the father went mad with grief.
Gideon was the only member of the family left. He returned to England to
study medicine in London, which is where I met him. He put his life in Sumatra
behind him and, in fact, never mentioned it for many years.’
‘But surely he must have talked
about his childhood? Or where he grew up?’ Watson asked. ‘Didn’t you ask?’
‘My dear Watson, Gideon simply
clammed up if anyone asked him. We knew he’d lived abroad, but not exactly
where.’ He paused, taking a sip of the fine whisky Watson had provided and
savoured the taste, then continued, ‘Gideon had a special interest in tropical
diseases, not surprising considering his background. One day he met a
scientist, William, for want of a better pseudonym, who had a similar interest.
William was a very wealthy man who was determined to find a cure for Dengue
fever, he said, and persuaded Gideon to return to the Sumatra with him. There,
Gideon found a laboratory equipped with all the latest developments. He found medical advances you cannot possibly
imagine. There was only one problem. The scientist needed secrecy for his
work.’
‘I should have thought the Sumatrans would have been grateful for his
work?’
‘As we would expect, of course, but William was working with rats and the
Sumatrans were superstitious. To ensure
the safety of his work, the laboratory was housed in the hold of a ship,
anchored just outside the port of Belawan.’
‘The Matilda Brigg!’
‘Exactly, my dear Watson. Gideon
was always a bit sea sick, but he controlled it and immersed himself in his
work. It appears that Sumatran rats can
carry Dengue fever but do not appear to suffer from its effects
themselves. But instead of just looking
for a vaccine, William was taking genes from rats and injecting them into chimp
embryos in an attempt to breed fever resistant animals.’
‘Holmes, that’s what they call … genetic engineering.’
Holmes paused while he lit his pipe, tamping down the tobacco until he
was satisfied, before looking up at his friend. ‘Yes, indeed, Watson, Gideon
too was perturbed at first. But he had
an inquiring mind and became fascinated with the possibilities. Besides, he had an assistant for his work.’
‘Ah, competition from a younger man, eh?’
‘Competition, definitely, but the person in question was William’s
daughter. Alicia, as I shall call her,
was a beautiful girl. Dark hair, bright, dark eyes and a daring inquisitiveness
that Gideon felt he had to match. She
knew her father’s work well and had often helped with experiments. She seemed
to have a particular rapport with the rats.
I should say these were not ordinary rats, but the giant rat of Sumatra
which is almost twice as big as our own rat.’
Watson shuddered and Holmes laughed.
‘Yes, most people seem to react that way with rats, though I believe they
are very intelligent creatures. Alicia devised mazes, which they learned to
negotiate remarkably quickly and passed the knowledge on to their
offspring. One rat, Kim, she called him,
seemed especially responsive. Alicia was
very fond of Kim and trained it as you would a puppy. It seemed to guard her,
keeping snakes, mice, cats, even dogs at bay.’
‘And it attacked your friend?’
‘Not then. But he was wary of
it. As was bound to happen, he fell in
love with Alicia and, surprisingly, she fell in love with him.’
‘Why surprisingly, Holmes? There
was nothing wrong with him, was there?’
‘Not at all. He was an admirable
man, but he was considerably older than Alicia and he worried that she had seen
so little of the world and of other men.
But she insisted she wanted no one else, her father agreed to the match
and the pair were married in William’s country house in the hills above Medan. Life
was idyllic for Gideon. He had his work,
which, once he had settled his qualms about the ethics of it, he found
fascinating. He had a beautiful wife who
was capable of sharing his work in all its aspects.’
‘But what was she like, Holmes?
Did he tell you that?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve said she was inquisitive. She was into everything. Everything
that happened on board the ship, in the laboratory, on the island, she had to
know about. She loved people, loved
talking to them, finding out about their lives and seemed to be involved with
half the families on the island. Where Gideon’s father, as missionary, had
visited families, Alicia had the ability to become part of the family. She had
a mischievous sense of humour but everyone loved her.’
‘Hm, and so she found someone else? A younger man?’
‘Not so, Watson. She and Gideon
were very happy together. Their only
sadness was that they seemed unable to have a child. All Alicia’s gentle love began to be directed
to the animals, and Gideon would often catch her cradling the young chimps or
even her pet rat, as if it were a baby.
In fact, the girl kept Kim with her so much that Gideon eventually
insisted that it had to be shut out of their rooms. That was the first time they argued.’
‘I think I should have got rid of it much earlier. Not keen on my wife’s
cat in the house, let alone upstairs.’
‘Gideon felt the same, but I think it was jealousy rather than hygiene that worried him. The rat used to sit on Alicia’s lap and glare at Gideon with evil little eyes and bare its teeth at him. Then, so he told me, it would run up Alicia’s arm, sit on her shoulder and snuggle up against her cheek, all the while watching Gideon, as if to say, ‘Look, she loves me more than you.’ No wonder he began to be both angry and afraid. William eventually decided to intervene, insisted that Alicia stay with him at their country house for a rest and banished the rat back to the laboratory, where it continuously flung itself against the bars of its cage in frustration and became more and more vicious, until one day it attacked the young man who was feeding it, snapping off his little finger and inflicting numerous wounds along his arms and face. The rat escaped, leapt over the side of the ship and disappeared. Everyone assumed it had died.
Part 2 coming Monday 5th December
