Chronicles of the Lost Years (The Sherlock Holmes Series) (30 page)

Moran recovered swiftly from the distraction, but not quite swiftly enough to beat Holmes’ matchless speed and reflexes. The gun fell to the floor and they came together.

The competition was over very quickly. Moran was in poor condition after his restricted years in prison and Holmes, in addition to long years of experience and honed skills, was motivated by a powerful incentive.

As Moran’s fingers closed about his throat, Holmes brought from beneath his Indian’s costume a gold curved-bladed knife, which he plunged with one powerful stroke into Moran’s sternum, burying the blade to the hilt.

As soon as Moran crumpled to the deck, Holmes bent and placed a foot on the man’s chest beside the knife hilt and extracted it with one sharp tug. Then, with the bloody instrument poised to strike again if needed, he meticulously checked that all signs of life were gone, that Moran was indeed dead.

The callousness of the task painted for me the picture Elizabeth had once, in vain, tried to convey; the dangerous and ruthless savage that lay beneath their shell of civility, dormant until needed and called upon through threat of danger, or pain. Now I understood just how deep and fundamental that change had been.

Holmes moved rapidly across to the splintered tea-chest.

“Hurry Watson. Quickly now, all speed. We’ve got to get this lid off. Hurry man!”

He was applying the blade of the knife to the nail heads as he spoke and trying to prize off the lid. Bewildered, I hurried to obey. The lid had been loosely secured beneath four bent nails and between us we forced the nails aside and pried the lid up, splitting it into two in the process.

Holmes lifted the fragments and threw them across the decking. He looked down into the chest with a face that seemed feverish and for a moment I thought he might faint. He grasped the edge of the crate. “He’d already moved her!” he whispered hoarsely.

I stared down into the empty crate and studied the telltale blood stain on the coarse grain of the wood. The eddying undercurrents swirled back to pick me up and enlighten me. Holmes had thought Elizabeth was in the crate. The bloodstain told that she had indeed been a prisoner inside for a while, but no longer. Moran had moved her elsewhere.

Holmes had not known that.

I recalled his pallor when Moran had fired upon the chest and his remorseless words of doom that had followed the second shot. He had indeed suffered pain enough to awaken the savage.

The ship listed slightly. Holmes cross to the door and turned the key, locking it. There was a further, minor explosion out on the deck and the boat listed a little further, with a creak of strained beams. There were many cries and hoarse, panicked shouting, in foreign tongues.

“She could be somewhere in here,” Holmes said, looking about. He spotted the doors of a wardrobe and crossed to tug at the handles. He dug out his metal probes.

“Or anywhere else on the ship,” I pointed out.

“I have been watching this door since Moran came aboard. No one has left the cabin except him and the crewman who wheeled the chest in.” He began delicately picking the lock.

My attention was distracted by another insidious occurrence. My feet were wet. I looked down at them, alarmed.

“Holmes!”

He spared barely a glance at me.

“Holmes! There is water leaking in.”

“It is not leaking, Watson,” he replied.

“Not? Then what is this water doing here?”

He selected another probe. “Rising, I would assume. I suggest you stand on the other side of the cabin.”

I struggled up the tilting deck to the other side of the cabin, as he had suggested. “Holmes, it is getting higher.” It was across at least a quarter of the floor. “Where is it coming from, if the ship isn’t taking on water?”

Holmes lifted his head, his expression exasperated. “It is not leaking, Watson, because I did not make a mistake with those charges. The ship is sinking.” The ship gave another deep groan, adding its own emphasis to his forecast of doom.

I stared at him.

“You had better get out while you can, Watson,” he told me, turning back to the locks. “I will search the rest of the cabin.”

I was quite frozen to the spot. Nothing could have induced me to leave Holmes behind, even though I had no way of assisting. Nothing, that was, until Holmes spoke to me quietly;

“Go. There is no point in all of us dying together.”

•ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï•

The ship sank beneath the surface as I was making my way from the cabin and I was sucked down into the water with it. I am a confident swimmer, so I allowed myself to be pulled deeper until I was free to strike for the surface.

I came up and looked around. The now racing tide had pulled me well out into the river. My coat and boots were weighing me down, so I swam slowly through the flotsam toward the dock. There appeared to be a large number of men on the dock, some wet, some dry, and there were still a few in the water, being helped up by those already ashore. It appeared the majority of people who were on board had made it safely onto land.

The police had arrived. There were a handful of bobbies taking down details in their notebooks and as I hauled myself up the pier, Lestrade crossed the dock to kneel and lend me a hand.

“Was Holmes aboard when she blew?” Lestrade asked me, lifting his voice above the babble behind him.

“Yes. How did you guess?”

“I got a telephone call from him this morning. He gave me the details about Moran, the hostel and this ship.”

I turned and scanned the lapping wavelets. Nothing. My beating heart was rapidly counting seconds ticking away—each second an eternity. The water remained undisturbed by human presence.

“Where is he?” Lestrade hissed, vocalizing my own worry.

Flotsam had been rising to the surface continually but now no more new rubbish appeared. The water became still.

“Damn it, where is he?” Lestrade muttered again.

It was too long.

I stripped off that repulsive coat and bent to remove my boots.

“Watson?” Lestrade asked.

“I am going back down there. He could be in trouble.” I stopped, needing my breath to work on the water-swollen boots. They finally came off.

Lestrade had turned away and whistled piercingly. He waved his arms and five men, three of them uniformed bobbies, ran toward him. They were barely within hailing distance when he began to dispense crisp orders in a decisive manner not at all like his usual laconic self. Then he touched my shoulder.

“I have a man here who’s good at underwater stuff, Watson. He’ll go.”

“Not fast enough,” I said shortly, standing up and moving toward the edge of the jetty.

“Let him go. You’re too tired—”

“Out of my way, Lestrade.”

“There he is!” The cry went up from further down the shore, from one of the policemen there. He was pointing down the river and we gazed out toward the middle of the flow where the man was directing us to look.

The distance was blurring my vision and to my eyes I could see only a small dark figure.

There was a splash as the underwater man dived in and began swimming strongly out toward the drifting figure. He reached it and slowly they began the return trip back. As they came closer I could see two distinct figures. Holmes, swimming alone, and the policeman, trailing.

Many willing hands reached down to help them up onto the dock.

Holmes hauled himself upright, water draining from him in rivulets, and faced us. “Your timing, Lestrade, as always, is immaculate.”

•ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï•

Lestrade found us twenty minutes later, in a sun-warmed corner of the warehouse they had opened temporarily to shelter the cumbersome investigation of the sinking of the
Andhra’s Pride
and the illicit cargo of guns and ammunition.

“I have to ask just a few questions,” Lestrade said apologetically. “The details we can sort out later.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “What do you want to know?”

“Moran. He is dead?”

In my mind I recalled my picture of Moran, staggering and clutching the gold knife handle with its green gems. Staggering and falling. “Undoubtedly,” I answered.

“How did he die?” Lestrade asked.

I hesitated for a fractional moment, thinking my answer through. Holmes had killed Moran but with ample reason, so if I replied truthfully, it would not harm my friend. However, the legal complications that would ensue could tie Holmes up in official bureaucracy for many weeks.

I waved a hand toward the Thames and looked Lestrade in the eye. “The ship sank,” I replied levelly, carefully avoiding Holmes’ gaze. It was not really an answer at all, but was as close as I could stretch the truth toward an answer.

Lestrade nodded. “And why did the ship sink?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said instantly and quite truthfully. “There was an explosion, and the ship began to take on water. Actually, it simply fell apart.”

“An explosion? The ship was sunk deliberately? Who by?”

I looked at Holmes, troubled. “I do not know that it was deliberate,” I said slowly. “If it had been deliberately sunk, then it must have been one of us, mustn’t it? Yet we were both in the cabin with Moran when the explosion occurred.” I didn’t voice the rest of my thoughts. I knew it was not I who had deliberately set charges to sink the ship and thereby kill several quite innocent men. Holmes had by far the strongest reasons for an act such as this. I recalled his statement about not making a mistake with the charges.

“The
Andhra
was carrying a heavy illicit load of munitions, including gunpowder and explosives,” Holmes said, burying his hands deep into the pockets of his borrowed overcoat. “They were using naked candles in the holds. It would only take a very small mistake for a tragedy of this sort to happen.”

Lestrade nodded again. I could see he was not entirely happy about the mystery, but he accepted Holmes’ hypothesis of what may have happened. He was called away, then.

“Holmes, what of Elizabeth?” I asked him.

•ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï•

 
“I looked in every corner or space in that cabin that could possibly hide a body. Elizabeth wasn’t there. Therefore I must infer that the tea chest came aboard empty. Moran was bluffing me and successfully, too.”

It was two days after the sinking of the
Andhra
. Those two days had been busy days, indeed. The police investigation had included a search of Sikmah’s hostel, which resulted in several arrests. Holmes and I both participated in these events.

Moran’s sister, Beatrice O’Connor, had been found and detained and I was witness to Holmes’ interview of her—an occasion I do not care to repeat. She had been abusive, hysterical and uncooperative.

Despite her circumlocutions, it became plain after weary hours of talk that hers had been the driving mind behind Moran’s revenge. Moran had, after ten years of continual persuasion, convinced his sister that she could be rid of him forever—relieved of her monthly duty visits and the disgrace to the family—if only she would help him escape and flee England.

Once her assistance was assured, he had given her the information necessary to revive the last remains of Moriarty’s network of criminals and Moran’s own circle of comrades, to call them in to help with her plans.

Finally, Moran had betrayed her, too. He had carefully hidden from her his plans for revenge. Elizabeth’s abduction was explained away as necessary and Moran had promised fervently she would be returned, unharmed, once he had left British waters.

Now we were back at Baker Street.

Lestrade, Gregson and Mycroft sat in the sitting room, considering Holmes’ words for a moment.

“We know she left the hostel,” Holmes continued, from his position by the hearth. “For the room Moran had occupied was quite empty when Watson and I searched it and your investigation and search this afternoon would have uncovered her if they had merely moved her to another room.”

Gregson spoke up. “My inspectors interviewed Sikmah thoroughly. He swears he doesn’t know where she is. I have to believe him.”

Holmes nodded. “He wanted Moran to move her out of his hostel. He was very anxious to disassociate himself from the abduction. I think we can believe him. He says Moran removed her early on Thursday evening, in the tea chest. My sentries confirmed that a tea chest left the hostel on the Thursday in the company of an Indian woman in native dress who left from the kitchen door.”

“Moran in disguise?” Lestrade hazarded.

“Undoubtedly. News of Watson’s disappearance panicked him completely. He assumed—correctly—that I was on to him and watching him, and took steps to escape undetected, almost as soon as the news filtered through.”

Mycroft tapped his cane head. “So we know she left the hostel in the chest. We also know she wasn’t brought aboard the ship. Moran’s sister swears in one breath that she is alive and in the next recants and states she is dead. She is of no help. We must find her ourselves.”