Chronicles of the Lost Years (The Sherlock Holmes Series) (28 page)

She looked up at me as I entered. “Good morning, Dr. Watson. You have risen earlier than we expected you to.”

“I was woken by the chill,” I replied. “Who is ‘we’?”

Elizabeth gestured me to sit in one of a pair of chairs on either side of a work table and placed the cup she had poured in front of me. “My brother and I.”

Her answer told me whose house this was and also jogged my memory, for I recalled Holmes saying he had been using Wiggins’ house as a base of operations.

“Mr. Holmes has left, then?”

She nodded and sipped her tea. “Hours ago. I think he probably left shortly after bringing you here.”

I studied the girl, feeling somewhat confused as to how much I should discuss Holmes’ affairs with her. It was evident she was aware of much of the peripheral details and her oddly adult bearing and speech bespoke highly developed reasoning skills in one so young.

“Did Holmes tell you where he was going?” I asked, circumnavigating the problem.

“To find out about the
Andhra
,” Elizabeth replied.

Considering that Holmes had left me here in the early hours of the morning, I thought Elizabeth’s explanation was unlikely to be Holmes’ only mission. I watched her pour another cup of tea, her movements graceful and controlled.

“Forgive my curiosity, Elizabeth, but how is it that your diction is so flawless, when your brother…when his is….”

“Deplorable?” Elizabeth supplied. She smiled. “Henry is lazy. Miss Elizabeth taught him as much as I, but he only exerts himself when it is necessary.”

“Elizabeth corrected your accent?”

Elizabeth nodded. “It is probably easier for me, because I was so much younger than Henry and he’d already learnt how to drop initials. But he is much better at reading and writing and arithmetic than I. Miss Elizabeth told me that was because he is older and can grasp more, and I will improve as I grow older, too.”

This was a revelation of a part of Elizabeth’s life completely unsuspected by me, and I was intrigued by the new glimpses into her character it gave me.

“Did Miss Elizabeth visit you regularly?”

Elizabeth nodded. “As often as she could, whenever she wasn’t working with Mr. Holmes. She was virtually a governess to us both, especially after Mother died.” She pushed the tea cup towards me. “Could you take that to Henry? He is on the roof. You can reach it by going back along the corridor of the room you slept in and climbing the next flight of steps. The landing at the top leads directly to the roof.”

I took the cup of tea and followed Elizabeth’s directions and in short order found myself on the flat pitch roof of the house.

As I stepped carefully across the roof, juggling the hot tea, Wiggins’ voice reached me. “Doctor Watson. You’re just in time to relieve me.”

“Relieve you?” I asked, as I rounded the corner.

Wiggins sat upon the metal case of a roof vent, made comfortable with the addition of a thin cushion, his legs stretched out in front of him.

In his hands was an extended brass telescope—a powerful instrument by the size of its lenses, I judged. At that moment it rested along his legs, but it was obvious he had been using it to gaze upon the available view.

I turned to look at the view myself.

Spread beneath us, reaching over to the river and expanding up and down its length, was a squalid, crowded urban cesspit. Roofs coated with moss and dirt from the streets presented themselves to my gaze, huddled together in shared misery, concealing the narrow streets that wove between them and concealing, too, the pitiful humanity that lived, worked and died down there.

And perched at the river’s edge was the equally dismal dockyards of Surrey and the Isle of Dogs.

“I grew up down there,” Wiggins said off-handedly. Then he must have recognized some expression on my face, for he laughed heartily. “Yes, Doctor, you are right in thinking that the work I did for Mr. Holmes was possibly the only ‘onest money I ever earned.” He stood. “Life ‘as an ‘abit of changing ‘orses on you, which is why it is your turn on the lookout. I’ve got to go to work. Is that my Jenny Lea?”

We swapped items and as Wiggins sipped his tea, I examined the telescope. It was a beautiful instrument.

“There’s no sign of any new ships, but that don’t surprise me none,” Wiggins continued. “Any ships under wind power would wait for the tide to ‘elp ‘em up-river.”

I lifted the telescope and looked out toward the river. It leapt close under the power of the lenses and I examined the clear details of a handful of docked vessels. None were the
Andhra
, of course.

“You sound as if you know where Holmes is,” I commented, lowering the telescope.

“Gone to find out about the ship, of course.”

“At four o’clock in the morning?”

“Mr. ‘olmes keeps ‘is own council. I just do as ‘e asks. It’s little enough. ‘e vouched for me when I applied for this position, you see.”

“And Miss Elizabeth gave you elocution lessons and taught you to read and write.”

“And my arithmetic,” Wiggins replied, unabashed. “Before that I could steal and spend two bob, but I didn’t ‘ave a clue ‘ow to add them together.” He took another sip of his tea and then spoke with perfect diction, his vowels an eerie echo of Elizabeth’s mellow tones. “Now I have a chance to do something with my life because I conform to the stereotype of a successful businessman. Only this way will I ever beat them at their own game.”

I looked him up and down. He was dressed in a city business suit and when using his “proper” voice, he did indeed look like a typical young clerk with good prospects. His plans had the hallmarks of Elizabeth’s original mind and mischievous sense of humor.

“Why did she do it?” I thought, unaware that I had spoken aloud until Wiggins answered, frowning.

“I don’t know. I occasionally wonder why she bothers at all. Sometimes, when we were being lazy or stubborn, Miss Elizabeth would get so hopping mad at us and lecture us about missed opportunities and the freedom to choose what we wanted to do….”

“Ah….” I breathed, for the answer had perhaps just registered its presence to me. Elizabeth had given a similar explanation to me, not all that long ago.

Wiggins shrugged. “Mostly, I think she likes us. And I know she liked my mother immensely. After she died, Miss Elizabeth more or less adopted little Elizabeth. She intervened with the child welfare officers, I know, although she never told me that, and arranged for us two to stay here together.”

“Yours sister is named for Miss Elizabeth, yes?”

“Yes.”

“You have known Elizabeth that long?”

“Mr. Holmes brought Elizabeth here after they had returned from the continent, and she stayed with us while he sorted out Moran.” Wiggins drained his cup. “I must dash. I’m supposed to start early today. See y’, Guv.” He grinned cheerfully and strode off across the roof, carrying his teacup, moving back to the roof access door.

I appropriated the cushion Wiggins had left behind and settled down with the expectation of a long, uneventful vigil. I was pleased to have some solitude with which to puzzle over all I had learnt since arising.

I basked under the pleasant early morning sunshine, and occasionally scanned the distant docks and incoming ships with the telescope, while I carried out my long-ingrained habit of noting down the facts and events that had occurred since my leaving Baker Street.

Young Elizabeth appeared an hour or so later, with some sandwiches for my breakfast.

Wiggins had surmised that the
Andhra
would wait for the tide, so I relaxed and enjoyed the peacefulness, aware that Holmes’ reappearance would signal the end of inactivity.

So I was much startled and perturbed when my sweeping examination of the docks revealed a small, old-fashioned sail ship making slow progress upriver, aided by a tug and favorable winds against the almost-slack tide. It was nearly noon and the summer sun was dazzling against the water. I had difficulty in making out the name. It wasn’t until she was tying up at the docks and lowering sail, which conveniently shaded the bows long enough for me to pick out the lettering, that I could confirm that she was, indeed, the
Andhra
we had been expecting.

Andhra’s Pride
was battered and a fast ship despite her wind-powered limitations. She was also a ship very much in a hurry, for almost immediately the ropes were secured, men scurried over her, beginning the unloading process.

That haste put me in a quandary. Holmes had not returned and Wiggins was away. What was I to do?

Troubled, I climbed back down to the lower level of the house, searching for Elizabeth. The kitchen and all the public rooms I peered into were empty. I stood in the hall and listened with straining ears for noise of another occupant. The house was silent about me.

I tried calling, but it produced nothing.

Aware that no time must be lost in alerting Holmes, yet sensible to the need for stealth and observation, I frankly dithered—torn by my conflicting duties. Holmes had impressed upon me often enough my affinity for choosing the wrong course of action. Conscious of my procrastination, however, I forced myself to consider the priorities and make a decision.

Hastily I tore out a page from my notebook and scribbled a somewhat cryptic note that I hoped would be decipherable only to Holmes or young Elizabeth, informing them that
Andhra’s Pride
had docked, and that I was going to the docks to observe from a closer post and in that way be close enough to take appropriate action should the circumstances dictate it.

It was the best I thought I could do. No doubt Holmes would disagree, but for the moment I had to work alone. I dropped the note onto the work table in the kitchen, and left the house, closing and latching the door behind me.

•ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï•

Closer inspection proved that the
Andhra’s
captain was indeed a man in a hurry. Activity in the vicinity of the wharf was frantic.

I found a station from which to observe, behind the inevitable pile of discarded, broken packing crates and debris that seems to litter all docks more or less permanently. During my journey down to the riverside, it appeared nothing more remarkable than cargo unloading had occurred.

The captain was overseeing the work himself. He stood upon the observation deck and encouraged the workers to better speed with curses, jeers, and sarcasm. He had the dark skin of a coastal Indian, although his clothing was quite westernized and he wore no turban. He was speaking, I guessed, an Indian dialect, for most of the dock workers were ethnic Indians themselves, to judge by the number of turbans and sweat-soaked cotton trousers and shirts. Occasionally the captain interspersed his curses with English variants for the benefit of the handful of non-Indian navvies.

The cargo being unloaded appeared to be mostly tea. The unmistakable tea chests were being manhandled without benefit of crane or tackle, which was already in use barely twenty yards away, where the new cargo sat. It was an untidy mountain of rough pine boxes of an odd assortment of sizes and dimensions. There were no commercial markings that I could discern through my two inch wide view of the activities. The block and tackle was being used to unload what was possibly the last wagon load of the cargo, two or three large and seemingly heavy crates.

The captain was using his own crew exclusively to handle the new cargo, for none of the local workers were allowed near it. I saw two fellows with initiative turned back when they approached with offers of help. It seemed an inefficient use of resources to me, especially if the Captain was as pressed for time as he appeared to be. With the help of the dock workers they could have the new cargo loaded in half the time.

Nearly two hours later, an officer—probably the Captains’ second, if the number of strips on his sleeve was a truthful guide—arrived. He was a tall fellow, but thin as a rake, white and weedy. He was accompanied by another of the infinite number of tea chests, this one perched on a trolley being pushed by one of the crew. I judged the chest was the second officer’s version of a sea chest, for I saw no other sign of baggage.

He was greeted with a hail from the captain, who hurried down onto the deck to greet the officer as he reached the top of the gangplank. They shook hands, speaking quietly, while the tea chest was bumped up on board, when the captain gave directions to the crewman, who disappeared below with it.

Both turned to view the cargo handling. Progress was apparently not to the second officer’s satisfaction either, for a scowl rapidly settled on his features, under the shadow of his peaked cap. He discussed it with the Captain.

Shortly the captain gave a shouted command and several of the senior crew members working on the new cargo rounded up a number of the dock workers—who had just begun to slow their pace as the last of the tea chests were unloaded—and took them over to the new cargo.

In a short time, the eclectic pile of crates began to disappear up the plank and into the ship.

I had very vague and general ideas about cargo handling gleaned from my short time travelling whilst in the army, but I had a feeling that the speed at which this ship had been unloaded and shortly would be fully loaded again was nothing short of miraculous. The dock workers must have been recruited with the promise of very generous bonuses to extract such efficient work from them.