Death on a Pale Horse (42 page)

The conclusion of that night's drama may be briefly described. As any reader of the press will know, the wreck of the
Comtesse de Flandre
was very nearly saved, perhaps in the belief that Plon Plon's baubles were on board. The breaking away of the bows, let alone the sound of gunshots from amidships, had been enough to frighten off Moran's two or three underlings who had brought the little boat alongside the stern. The captain of the
Princesse Henriette
, seeing that the remains of the other ship continued to float and hearing what sounded like a distress maroon, ordered two of his boats to carry across a pair of ropes so that he might take the wreck in tow. Holmes and I, with Major Putney-Wilson, took passage back to the anchored steamer in the first of these lifeboats.

It was still dark when the
Princess Henriette
's paddles began to churn. With her salvage prize in tow, she resumed her crossing to Ostend at half speed. The refugees from the
Comtesse de Flandre
were accommodated and fed, Napoleon-Jerome and his companions being consoled in the captain's quarters. Holmes and I were waited upon by the chief steward in a cabin of our own.

As for the strange adventure of Major Putney-Wilson, he had at first kept his promise to board the RMS
Himalaya
for Bombay. He then broke that promise at Lisbon and travelled to Oporto, where his children were cared for by his brother, the wine-shipper. Yet to see his children was surely forgivable. Someone, whom he would never name, then sent him two clues in a note such as I had received at my club. That benefactor also placed information for him relating to Colonel Rawdon Moran's activities in the Belgian arms trade. I looked hard at Sherlock Holmes and, I believe, detected a certain sheepishness in him as Putney-Wilson revealed all this.

My friend would only say that in the course of his own Belgian preparations, he had tried to account for every member of the
Comtesse de Flandre
's crew at new moon. In taking on casual labour a week or two earlier, the Compagnie Belgique had engaged a hand for the stoke-hold. This humblest of the humble in the ship's company went by the name of Samuel Dordona.

Why had Holmes said nothing to me of Putney-Wilson, even as we studied the mysterious stoker who was not a stoker? Holmes looked at me as though I should have known better than to ask.

“My dear Watson! You had met Samuel Dordona, on two occasions. I confess I was a little concerned that Putney-Wilson might not pass muster last night. Therefore I said nothing to you but encouraged him to act his little part for your benefit. If he could deceive you, he could deceive all those who mattered. You never doubted him, not even when I pointed out that he was not the stoker he pretended to be. That was excellent! His part was all important, for he was to shadow those who shadowed us. I naturally entrusted him with the Laroux. If we could not account for Moran with your Webley, it was better that the pistolet should come upon him unawares rather than be taken from us in defeat. With such a man as Putney-Wilson behind us, I imagine we were never truly in danger.”

“It felt very much like danger to me, Holmes! The only shot in our locker was the cartridge Moran returned to you in my Webley.”

“A scoundrel like Moran gives his victims no chance. Logic therefore dictated that this must be a harmless Boxer blank, carefully separated in his pocket from the others. I still have the cartridge case. You may inspect it if you choose.”

“You knew it was a blank?”

“What else? It came too easily from his pocket. Such a man would never allow me a chance to kill him! Far better to use that cartridge to summon our friends.”

“But why play such a trick? He might have shot us out of hand and had done with it!”

“If you ever try, Watson, you will find that one man with a pistol cannot easily shoot two men at close range before one of them gets hold of him. On this occasion, in the fog, he might not hit his target at a longer range. Moran hoped that I would fire the blank at him, believing the round was live. While we waited for him to fall, he would shoot me and turn the gun on you, as you still waited to see him collapse.”

“That was all?”

“By no means. Far more important was the act of firing into the air and calling out to Major Putney-Wilson—whom Moran had occasion to remember. You saw how the act and the name threw him off his balance for that vital second or two. Because I did not fire at him when I had the chance, he knew that whoever I called out to behind him must have a gun. He could not ignore the risk. He was, I like to think, a little bewildered. By instinct he half-turned, and by instinct he hesitated when he saw a figure coming through the mist behind him while two more remained in front of him. That gave me my chance. Not for nothing was Putney-Wilson a comrade of the Special Investigation Branch. He has lain very low in all this, but I am proud to have served—albeit irregularly—with such a man.”

It was an extraordinary story, but I knew Holmes was right in one thing, for I had seen it myself. Whatever advantage Moran thought he might have over us was swept away by that inexplicable shot fired overhead. It was beyond his comprehension. In other circumstances he might perhaps have out-fought Sherlock Holmes. His downfall was that in no circumstances could he out-think him.

With that, my friend stretched himself out on the cabin settee, which his legs overlapped a little. He folded his hands and fell sound asleep. I sat and thought of all that had happened. A drama that extended to the scorching plains of Zululand and the banks of the Blood River, to Hyderabad and the Transvaal, to the dangerous underworlds of espionage, the murder of Captain Joshua Sellon, the dogged loyalty of Sergeant Albert Gibbons of the Royal Marines, and the devious policies of the Great Powers of Europe, was coming to its conclusion. As for that international criminal brotherhood which Holmes had identified—or imagined—its members had certainly lost a battle, if not a war.

Two miles off the harbour pier of Ostend, a tug came out to take the tow from us. Again I heard the rattle of a heavy chain and the splash of the
Princesse Henriette
's anchor. It took an interminable time to complete the transfer of the wreck as a dim morning broke—if morning ever breaks in such weather and in such a place. We were still in our cabin, sitting over breakfast as though this might have been Baker Street, when there was a commotion on the upper deck. I went up and saw the rails of the ship lined with spectators.

Across the dull surface of the water, still a mile or two off-shore, the remainder of the
Comtesse de Flandre
was subsiding gradually into the depths. It did not capsize or turn turtle or any such exciting thing as we had been promised the night before. It sank slowly and evenly into deep water, taking with it, among other things, the mortal remains and secrets of Colonel Rawdon Moran. His grave was never to be disturbed, for the depth was too great and no one ever thought the contents of the wreck worth raising. Of Plon Plon's baubles, no more was said. A plain crate marked as containing surplus stock of the Army Temperance Society Tracts came safely to the Senior Chaplain at Aldershot Garrison.

12

O
ur return to England was delayed by an inquiry at Ostend into the loss of the
Comtesse de Flandre
, held on the instructions of the Belgian government. Holmes and I found ourselves back at the Hotel de la Plage.

At the risk of seeming chauvinistic, such an inquiry would never have passed muster in London. It opened on Tuesday, four days after the collision, and following a single day of evidence it closed on Thursday. Its guiding principle seemed to be that the less said, the better. Sherlock Holmes always maintained that the authorities had a very good idea of the nature of the drama that had taken place, but were determined the world should never know it. This tribunal announced that the “valet” Theodore Cabell had died of exposure. The poor young man's funeral was over and done with even before the inquiry began. A final search of the ship was undertaken before the last lifeboat pulled away. It revealed the body of an unidentified man in the overcoat of an army officer, “horribly mutilated” but of whom no more was heard.

How had the collision happened? The captain of the
Princesse Henriette
swore that a trawler, moving at speed aslant the sea lane, had cut across his bow in darkness and fog without sounding its horn or displaying a light. It had forced him into the path of the
Comtesse de Flandre
. Another witness believed the guilty vessel was a French customs launch heading for Dunkirk. As for the moment of the collision, the two steamers had hit one another at a combined speed of some ten knots. The distance at which they saw each other was determined to be no more than sixty yards, according to the ships' officers. The time between sighting and impact was put at little more than ten or twelve seconds, giving no hope of avoiding disaster. The mischief with the port riding-light of the
Comtesse de Flandre
was known only to Holmes and me. Because no port riding-light was showing, the larger ship had been directed into the hull of the smaller one rather than down its far side, which might have carried it clear.

Two pieces of evidence embarrassed the inquiry and were quickly dealt with. An innocent witness had seen a fishing smack pick up three men and their baggage from the stricken wreck. It did not transfer them to the
Princesse Henriette
but sailed away. The witness was not invited to enlarge upon this.

A further witness attributed his survival to a large parcel-post basket, which was floating in the water by the
Comtesse de Flandre
's paddle-box. It bore him up until he could be pulled to safety in one of the lifeboats. But a postal basket from the mailroom could not be floating in the water unless the steel grille of that mailroom had been unlocked by the fleeing guards and left open.

No one, it seemed, had noticed the stoker who was not a stoker. However, Captain Legrand of the
Comtesse de Flandre
gave evidence that the helmsman at the wheel before the collision was not a regular member of the crew. The usual helmsman had asked a friend to go in his place as it was the regular helmsman's night out. Captain Legrand agreed to the substitution. The newcomer, said to be an experienced seaman, took his turn at the wheel from time to time during the crossing. He was thought to be one of those crew members missing after the collision and it was proposed to hold an inquest on him, albeit without a body.

The inquiry was concluded, though not without mumblings as to questions left unasked. Its commissioners replied that it had made a very exhaustive investigation of the circumstances under which the disaster took place. The commission promised that the results would be put into the form of a judicial report and forwarded to the state maritime authorities in Brussels.

At the first opportunity, Holmes and I took our leave of this charade and made our crossing to Dover. As we passed the Ruytingen light-ship, graced by a faint sun through morning mist, a small fleet of fishing smacks was still gathering items of baggage and wreckage that floated in the calm water. We heard that the second lifeboat from the
Comtesse de Flandre
had been sighted, but it was a floating wreck and had never been used.

Our arrival in London was something less than a Roman triumph. Sir Mycroft Holmes gave us a wide berth.

“Until we are of use to him again,” said Sherlock Holmes laconically.

It was Inspector Lestrade who made us welcome, to the extent that he called upon us soon afterwards. He was persuaded by my friend that stolen property might be found in the apartments of Colonel Rawdon Moran, whose unaccountable disappearance from the London
demi-monde
had begun to be noticed.

“Conduit Street, I believe,” said Lestrade, anxious not to be outdone.

Holmes drew the pipe from his lips. “Regent's Circus,” he said coolly, “private rooms behind the Bagatelle Club. A gentleman of his stamp generally boasts more than one address.”

Small wonder that he did! Late on the following evening, a four-wheeled growler set us down at the colonnades of Regent's Circus, in company with Lestrade and two other Scotland Yard officers, Sergeant Tregaron and Constable Blount, in regulation tweeds. These plain-clothes men pushed ahead through the crowd of loungers of both sexes who occupy the arcades after dark. A bright gasolier burnt in the fanlight above the door of the house ahead of us—the so-called Bagatelle Club. Our two officers stood back and waited for the clatter of the chain to allow an exit to several flashily dressed men, sporting a profusion of cheap “Birmingham” jewellery. Then the plain-clothes men pushed past the keeper of the door, allowing him no time to raise the alarm, and led us up the stairs to the brightness and babble of the floor above.

The houses in the four quadrants of Regent Circus are habitually home to the Seven Deadly Sins with all their friends and relations. This one boasted a gaming “hell” in which smartly dressed “bonnets” were employed by the management to entice the hopeful punters into play by their own apparent good fortune. The long room was brilliantly lit. To one side stood a buffet covered with wines and liquors. In the middle was the
rouge et noir
table. On each side sat a croupier, with a rake in his hand and a green shade over his eyes. Before him was an ornamental tin box containing the bank, with piles of counters or markers on either side.

As to Colonel Moran's apartment, the presiding genius of this casino could not have been more grateful—and helpful—on being told by Lestrade that the present interest of the police was not in the gaming parlour. A door which separated the apartments from the noise of the gamblers was sufficiently padded to impose a complete silence. The master of the premises almost fell over himself, as the saying is, to unlock Colonel Moran's rooms with his pass-key and put up the gas inside.

The large and rather vulgarly furnished drawing-room was just what I would have expected of Rawdon Moran. Windows and alcoves were draped with red velvet curtains, their lengths drawn back in heavy swags by gold-tasselled cord. Crystal pendants hung at every light. Each alcove contained a painting or statuette. One canvas typified them all. It was Giacomo Grosso's
Last Reunion
, which had created a small stir when exhibited at the Venice Biennale. An elderly man lay on his deathbed at the point of expiring, phantoms of his five mistresses from varying periods of his life standing naked round him. The focus of the collection, with the main window behind it, was a marble of Diana on a pedestal, a young female savage exhausted by the hunt, resting on a palm trunk whose upper branches shed mirrored light to illuminate her unclothed charms.