1954-03-09 — Page 4

SEAGULLS NEVER FORGET

By CHAPMAN PINCHER

TEAR the sunny stretch of

Nach where you will soon be

cropping your

deck-chair the

gulls which are so much part of The seaside soeno Are already gathering to nest.

they are mast Inkhful marriage wed unul death

mates.

Gulls

This year yu will be able to watch them with more knowledgeable eyes, for Dr parts them. As so often happens Niko Tinbergen, a scientist in human ite the female takes who has spent 20 years the initia.ive in proposing. studying herring gulls, has just published a revealing report about their intimate 1:fe.

The gull, in spite of its cock-sure appearance, turns ht to be I ne of the stupidest birds.

It cannot recognise its own mottled eggs, and will on dummy sit contentedly wooden eggs painted bright blue or yellow. If given the chance it prefers to sit on a giant dummy egg so big that it can hardly keep its balance on it.

Dummy egg

R TINBERGEN'S

The

THE CHINA - MAIL, TUESDAY, Į MARCH : 9,, 1954.

Concluding the ADVENTURE of

WHAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR

• Colla: Foreythe, the young.companion of Lady Mayo, tells Sherlock Holmes about the strange behaviour of a Me Charles Handon whom they met in- Switzerland. Mr Hendon (with whom she has fallen" In love) appeared to hate clocks; he had smashed two and hidden five others. After receiving a mysterious letter Hendon suddenly left Switzerland but later turned up in England to stay at Lady Mayo's home in the country. Miss Forsythe consults Holmes again and with Dr Watson they go by train to the country.

At Groxton Station they are met by Lady Maya in an open landau. As they drive to Lady Mayo's house, Holmes asks a question in which he refues to "the death that may overtake our

young friend tonight......

T

IIE hoof-beats rang on the icy road. "I think Mr Sherlock Holmes," said she quietly, "that you and I understand each other."

"I am sure of it, Lady Mayo. autumn not answered my question."

One of their habits, discovered by Tinbergen, would not appeal

wives, however, a most

every birds separate and spend the winter apart,

llow they manage to come again in the carly together

the mysteries spring is one of

Somehow they nel yet solved.

and find

at Bea, each other return together to the old neigh- bourhood to set up

family home again.

0

"Have no fear, Mr Holmes. He is safe now."

"You are certain?”

"I tell you he is quite safe! The park at Groxton Low Hali La patrolled, Tho housu is guarded. They cannot attack This incans that the gulf hashim, I have an

answer for everything!" exceptional memory for a bird. 11 recognises its mate again, probably by volce as well as by looks, after many inonths.

the female

Whether my own outburst was caused by the smart clip of tho jandau, the rushing

wind post

maddening

The father takes his turn at incubating the eggs, often push-

of the nest in or the ing his zeal. He may be cramped | the problem itself, to this day and hungry but will never leave I cannot say. the nest until his wife returns

to relieve lum.

If one of the eggs is broken ingenious the sitting parent calmly cuts it, breeding the experiments have shown while lovingly that a gull will attempt to hatch remaining two.

DR

A dummy cak of almost any

shape so long as the edges are

not too sharp. It even tries hord comfortable position to find a

on it square exg.

If a gull's eggs are taken from Its nest and placed in full view, only a foot away, the bird will nest, making sli on the empty no effort to retrieve them.

QHOULD

Its trick

for

But you have

the

SEVENT CLOCKS

THE NEW EXPLOITS

OF

SHERLOCK HOLMES

by ADRIAN CONAN DOYLE

and

JOHN DICKSON CARR

Fire, Watson,

shouted

a gallop and plunged away. In the confusion, as we were all thrown together, rose Lady Mayo's angry voice.

"Mr Holmes, have you taken leave of your sensea?"

"You shall see whether I have, Miss Farrylho Did you ever actually hear the Grand Duke address tils man 08 Trepley?**

"Incl" faltered Celin Forsythe, shocked to alertness, ""As I informed you, Char--oh, heaven help met-the Grand Duke called" him 'Trop.' I as- sumed"

But

"Exactly! You assumed, his true name is Tropoff. From your first description I know him to be a liar and a traitor." The hedgerown flashed past; blt and harness jingled; flew with the wind,

fire!

Holmes

stated that the Nihilists, an attractive young lady whom ears in her throat. "Too perfectly!" Item our

band that

of I urge to leave off weeping and dangeroua she whispered. nature of

anarchists who would crush dry her tears." This young man," I ex- Imperial Russia to nothingness, claimed,

then, of were suspected of plotting Grand against the life of the exalted station?"

Duke

The Alexel af Odessa,

"Forgive the bluntness of an old campaigner," cried 1, "who anything. has no answer But at least take pity on the poor young lady beside you! Who is Mr Charles Hendon?

Why does

clocks? he smash For what reason should his fe be in danger?"

not,

"ON the Grand Duke Alexei, you per contrary, my ceive. Now Lady Mayo's nick- dear fellow. name for My Charles Hendon

Y

o u ་

shrewdness

falls.

never

Ho is of

very exalted station In-

was"

"Alce" cried 1.

been

been,

In

"You Holmes,

may recall,“

We

pursued

Our pistols rang out together

Our pistols rang out together. I saw Trepoff's pale face jerk round towards us, and then in

the same instant the whole chimney-stack rose straight up into the air in a solid pillar of whito

Are. The roof heavoit

beneath my feet, and I was

dimly conscious of rolling over and over along the leads, while shards and splinters of broken brickwork whizzed overhead ́or clanged against the metal domo of the cupola,

Holmes rose unsteadily to his foot "Are you hurt, Watson?" he gasped.

д "Only

consum replied,

ttino winded," I

"But it was fortunate

a

"the man's

on our faces. mate hypocrisy when his master we were thrown I simashed the first clock? It was Otherwise—" gestured to- wards the slashed land scarred a heavy look of embarrassment

He stacks that rose about us. was it not? and shame,

Mr think would

have you

We had advanced only a few How Charles Hendon insane. came you to know of the other yards through a mist of gritty dust when we came upon the Avo clocks, which were purely

r man whom we were seeking. Because Treport imaginary?

"He must answer now to greater Tribunal," said Holmes, at the dreadful looking down object sprawled on the leads, "Our shots made him hesitate for that fatal second, and he took the full blast of the bomb My friend chimney turned away. "Come, Watson, he added, and his voice was Faster! bitter with self-reproach. "We have been both too slow to save our client, and too late to him through the

Holmes looked exasperated. "At least I could say," replied he, "that the balance of prob-

that direction. ability lay Surely it was obvious from the beginning that one in the posl- tion of Lady Mayo would never have entered so casually into told you. To hide a clock or a allway carriage conversation ilve bomb in a cupboard would the with a young man unless they really have been madness, if in have "It might

Duke Alexcl the Grand in Miss Forsythe's fact observed had metgest coincidence,"

bul illuminating had ever done so." "Tut. Watson," sald Holmes, deed. Now name for me the Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. unwitting

when WC reflect phrase, old friends," " shore with a mussel, and break with a touch of tartness. "You one Imperial Court in Europe "However.

I protested. "But, Holmes," staggered yourself

recall Imperial Court-úpon recent history, we

"I underestimate:1 your "Since Tropoff is his personal the hard shell by dropping it on

enumerating the points in which 93. Welson,

that in an earlier attempt on

Mr Sherlock Holmes," the rocks, do not be misled Into Mr Charles Hendon, as you put at which the speaking of Eng

servant- the life of the late Tsar of all Lady inyo who had been pat- thinking the guli 15 being it, is confoundedly un-English." ish has all but superseded fis

the Russias who was blown to own native language."

"Fuster, coachman! pieces in '81, by the explosioning Celta's hand spoke harshly.

I knew Alexei when he Yes Watson?" sion "Yes, of a dynamite bomb--the tick- ing of the bomb was drowned was a little boy in a sailor-sult

at St. Petersburg." beneath the playing of a piano. Watson, pre Dynamite bombs,

you bec a gull this suinter By up from the

When one of the eggs rolls out clever,

a few inches the bird will get

balancing

feet.

on

behaving

by blind

hy me

I!

"Well? And why does that

"I cannot think. I do not know."

happens to

it back, but with dificulty, by instinet, and its trick works assist us?"

It clumsily its only the mussel benk. If hon not the wit to fall on something hard by ac- "Because the so-called 'Charles

with its webbed vident. scoop it back

Hendon is assuredly not Eng-

"Then endeavour to femem- Gulls will just as often drop |lish."

ber what you do know. Shortly The herring gulls saving the mussel uselessly into soci

before

Forsythe Miss "Not English?" Dr Tinbergen once

called said grace, by our standards, is that said,

upon us, I read aloud watched one drop the same Forsythe, stretching out her certain hems from the daily shellish into shallow water 39 hand. "But he speaks English press which at the Ume seemed

The breath times without ever breaking I. | perfectly!"

dled tediously

One unimportant.

The

Herring (Cotĺime, 185.).

Cull's

World

Cella

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"Where your husband, I dis- of two kinds. One, iron-sheathed covered, was First Secretary at

British and fairly light, may be ignited the

Embassy. in thrown. Odessa I learned another fact short fuse and The

other kind, also of iron, of great interest.” is exploded by means of A mechanism whose clockwork loud ticking alone betrays its presence."

"Eh? What was that?"

"The name of the Nihilists' chior agent, a daring, mad and Crack went the coachman's fanatical spirit who has been whip, and the hedgerows very close to the Grand Duke seemed to unreel as in a dream. for some time." Holmes and I sat with

our

"Impossible" "Yet true."

backs to the driver vis-a-vis with the moon-whitened faces of Lady Mayo and Cella Forsythe.

"Holmes, all this is becoming as clear as crystal! That is why the young man cannot bear the Bight of a clock?"

"No, Watson, No! The sound of a clock!"

"The sound?"

FOR a moment Lady Mayo pat looking at him, her counten- once far less atony while the

"Thank you, I have seen the letter, I have also seen the Imperial Russian Arms on the

"Precisely. When I attempted to tell you as much, your native Impatience cut me short at the first letter. On the two occasions when he destroyed a clock in publio bear in mind that in neither case could he actually seni." see the clock. In one instance, as Miss Forsythe informed us,

or

up

thé

must have avenge "Surely Trepoff had a hundred opportunities to machinery of human justice." kill his master, by knife

this without polson, perhaps,

of spectacular bomb?"

addition

✡

addition,

"This spectacular as you call it, is the revolu

They tionaries stock-In-trade. will not act without it. Their victim must be blown up in one fiery crash of ruin else the world may not notice their power.”

them or

"But the letter to Sir Charles Warren?" cried Lady Mayo.

SUDDENLY his expression al- tored and he clutched my

arm.

Jove, A

By Watson! single chimney

lacks saved our alves!" he cried.. What was the word the woman used? Hooded! That was it, hooded! Quickly; there's not a moment to lose!"

בנל!

We raced through the trap- door, and down the stairways to the main landing. At the "Doubticas It was dropped end, through a haze of acrid the nearest street-drain. smoke, we could discern the Hal I think that must be Grox- ruins of a splintered door, An ton Low Hall just ahead.”

down

group

instant inter we had rushed into

tho

The ensuing events of that the bedroom of the Grand Duke. carriage bump- night are somewhat confused in Holmes groaned aloud at ed over a rut and veered.

my mind. I recall a long, low- scene which met our eyes, built Jacobean house, of mailow

What was once a stately fire- "Attend to me, Mr Holmes. red brick with mullioned win place now yawned in a great My own dear Alec has already dows and flat roof, which Jagged hele beneath the rem written to the police, In the seemed to rush at us up a manta of a harvy stone hood. person of Sir Charles Warren, gravel drive. Carriage- rugs The fire from the grate had been the Commissioner."

flew wide. Lady Mayo thorough- blasted into the room, and the ly roused, called sharp in- air was foul with the stench of structions to a

of the carpet smouldering under its nervous servants.

powder of red-hot ashes. Holmas darted forward through the Then Holmes and I were smoke, and a moment later I saw hurrying after Miss Forsythe him stoop behind the wreckage up a series of staircases, from of a plano.

pf hall to a set way in the

"Quick, Watson!" ho cried, fox may escape the narrow steps which were little "There is life in thm yet! This only that significant ticking, he hounds none the less."

more than a ladder to the roof. is where I can do nothing and struck before he had time to

At the foot of these, Holmes you can do everything." take thought. His purpose, of

"It is not only a question of paused for a moment to lay his

minute, Mr Augers

Mies Forsythe's course, was to smash the clock-guards! At this

Holmes, poor Alec site in an old and draw the fangs of what he thick-walled room, with its door believed to be a bomb."

"Meanwhile," she continued,

repeat that the park

it was hidden inside a screen patrolled, the house guarded a broad and carpeted oak stair-

other It

of

greenery; in the was behind a curtain. Hearing "Yet a

The

orm.

on

THERE was metallic click

double-locked on the inside. "You will stay here," he said

windows are so closely quietly. "But surely." I protested,

So much red that none could "those blows of a stick might as stretch a hand inside, well have ignited and exploded chimneypiece is

artcient hooded, yet with so marrow an aperture that no man could AGAIN Holmes cilmb down; and a fire burns his there. How could an enemy

attack him?"

a bomb?".

shrugged

shoulders.

"Had I been

Д

real bomb,

"How?" muttered Holmes. who can telly biting his lip and tapping hly against angers on his knee. "It is true * he may be safe for one night, an iron casing, since I think the

Yet,

at

matter doubt-

But it was touch and go. For the remainder of the night the young duke hovered between life and death in the old wain- seoted bedroom to which we had carried him. Yet, as the sun rose above the trees in the park, I noted with satisfaction that the

as he put his coma induced by shock was A natural hand into his already passing into pocket, and for sloop. the first time

I knew

Holmes armed too.

that Was

"Como, Watson," sald he.

I followed bim up the narrow steps while he softly lifted the Lady Mayo made a slight trap-door to the roof, ful.. In either ovent, we deal gesture of triumph. with a very courageous gentle- haunted And hounded, man who rushed and struck blindly

"Not a sound, on your life!" "No precaution has been he whispered. "Fire If- neglected," said she, oven the catch sight of him."

fa safeguarded. Alec's It is not unnatural that the roof

"But how are death manservant, Trepley, after de- memory of his father's

Alvering the fatter in London klm?" and the knowledgo that the with

commendable

quicknes same organisation was on his returned

by an carier

wo to

"His wounds are superficial," I said. "But the shock alone could have proved fatal. Now that he is asleep the will live, and I have no doubt that the pre- sence of Mise Cella Forsythe will speed his recovery,”

"Should you record the facta of this little case," remarked Holmes a fow minutes later as you we strolled across the dew-

Laden grass of the deer park, all glittering and sparkling in the find fresh beauty of the dawn, "then. you must have the honesty, to The cold air again blow in lay the credit where it is due."

"But does not the credit lie horse at the village.

At this forward across the flat roof with you?" moment ho is on the root of the All about us were

cut- Hail, faithaully guarding his tall ghostly stacks and clusters No, Watson. That the master.".

of

smoke-blackened pota, come was successful is owing great leaders entirely to the fact that our The effect of this speech was cupola shining like silver under ancestors understood the art of extraordinary, Sherlock Holmes the moon. At the far

and

building. The strength of a leopod to his feet in the carringo, where the roof-tree of an old fireplace-hood | 200-3 his, cape rising In grotesque gable rose against the sky,

own trail, should tend toward than yours, and borrowed 4 our faces. Wo cropt cautiously,

hasty' action."

"And then?"

Yot Sherlock Holmes mained uneasy, I noticed that he glanced round more than onca at the lonely sweep of the grey rolling countryside,

Branding

chimentys.

bend

a saved that young' menggold black silhouette as he clutched dark shape seemed to crough from being blown off his

• "Well!*** wald · ho." "Having, at the box-rail for balance. above a single moon-washed shoulders. It is fortunate for the

.

determined so much in my first interview... with. Min Forsythe, On the roof?" hoochood. It seemed clear that the forged On - Use -2008,7”. letter war balt to draw

Grand Dulce to Odess, urging

chimney.

Grand Duke Alwood of Russia, and for the reputation Log Mär A sulphur-maten narod blue, Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, then burned with a clear yellow that in the days of the good glow, We heard the hissing of King James the hoursholder an Ignited fuses something nover failed to allow for the

Predilections down the chimney. violent Two” to clattered Clod's sake whip Holmes ran forward, twisting": neighbour,"

AWO have, not and tuming through the mazot WORLD" "ÇOR

of stacks, and parapete towards

Then he turned round, salizing on him the pluric to face, the the shoulder of the coachman, impiccable men, But, I have

fold you, he must have mapette: shoute edja Therefore, he would goel up, the

Unto England) wild": 1, more. To aGrobeton': Low

that hunched figure now. faetfly

of his