PINNACLE BOOKS NEW YORK (33 page)

He
passed the improvisation to Holmes. "Here it
be,
sir, fer you're the torchbearer 'round 'ere."

With
Holmes in the lead, we cautiously worked
our
way into the mine, and I viewed the aged
timber
supports with some trepidation, I'll tell you.
We
did not have far to go. At the head of the side
tunnel
was a wagon, looking incongruous in this
setting.
Within, neatly stacked, were wooden boxes nailed shut. At a signal
from Holmes, Tiny had one
out of the
wagon and on the floor of the tunnel. The
sleuth
held his torch high to illuminate the scene as
the
giant's eyes swiveled to the detective for further
orders.
Evidently, he received them in a glance, for
one
huge hand seized the top of the box, tearing the
wooden
cover off with a casual movement.

Within
was metal, reflecting the torchlight,
though
it lacked the luster of the whitish-yellow
substance
I had seen when viewing the golden
tablet
during our Egyptian adventure.

"What's
this, some hardware shipment?"

"Isn't
it the gold?" I exclaimed.

"Naught
but brass, Watson."

Blast
the man
, I thought with a surge of
irrita
tion. Whereas I was
astonished, Holmes gave no
evidence of
any surprise at all.

"We've
seen what we need to," he said. "Now I want this place
sealed up again before Constable
Sindelar
and his people arrive."

As
we hastened from the depths of the abandoned
tin
mine, Holmes passed a cautionary remark to us
all.
"We've not even been within the mine, mind
you.
Nor are we interested in it. We
have just been guarding three dead bodies until the authorities
arrive."

We
were outside now, and Bertie glanced at the
sleuth
questioningly. "I been wonderin' what the
hearse
be fer."

"Sober
reminders of the prowess of the fastest
gun
in Baker Street."

I
sighed in exasperation. Holmes picked strange
moments
for his clumsy witticisms, but he did
seem
to enjoy a private joke a bit more than most.
Personally,
I felt his reference to the corpses was
black
humor indeed.

Our
departure for London was not inconve
nienced
in any way. The local constable was obvi
ously
awed by the presence of the master man-
hunter
and accepted Holmes' version of the incident without question.
He did state that he would
forward a
written report to Inspector Hopkins at
the
Yard, and I sensed that he was relieved to be
able
to place the matter in the hands of others.

We
rode in the last car of the late afternoon train
and
were its only occupants, so no rural inhabit
ants
were panic-stricken by the presence of Tiny. I
did
note that the conductor, having performed his
official
duties, shunned our car like a plague. Tiny
promptly
fell asleep, his head on his brother's
shoulder.
Considering the way he had thrown rock
out
of the mine and then back in it, some rest
seemed
justified. Out of deference to the slumber
ing
giant, I did not plague Holmes with questions,
which
was a good thing since I do believe the sleuth
seized
the opportunity for forty winks himself.

Back
in the comfortable and welcome confines of
Baker
Street it was another matter, for now I would
not
be denied. However, the number of my queries
had
been reduced, having thought on the matter to
the
best of my ability.

"Look
here, Holmes," I said as I placed a whiskey
and
soda on the candle table by his chair. "I
understand
now that the gold shipment on the
B &
N was bogus . . ."

"Something
I should have deduced from the
start,"
said my friend, and there was a bitter tone to his voice.

"I'll
not swallow that, for you are always chiding
yourself
for not immediately seeing through the
most
intricate schemes."

"If
I do, I am wrong," was his surprising re
sponse.
"To be misled by cunning is no crime. But
when
a misdeed involves a glaring error and I do
not
seize upon it, that is another matter."

Holmes'
conviction did not dent my assurance
this
time.
"Hananish sent four hundred
thousand pounds
in gold to the Bank of
England before the false
shipment. Why
that sum, by the way?"

"Because
that's all there was. Hananish and
Trelawney
agreed to contribute one hundred thou
sand
pounds to the consortium, which they never
did
because their reserve fund was elsewhere. The
four
hundred thousand was from the other banks of
the
combine."

"Neat,
that. The conspirators had no financial
involvement
at all."

"Hananish
told us there was no risk involved. I'll
wager
he had a silent chuckle in the telling."

"I
take it the metal was delivered to Hananish by
the
west coast banks and sent from there to
London."

"Correct.
When the actual gold was safely tucked
away
in the Bank of England, Hananish sent the
spurious
boxes, suitably weighted, of course. Upon
arrival
in London, he had them transferred to the
B
& N Railroad and took out a policy for the listed
worth
of the shipment, five hundred thousand
pounds,
with Inter-Ocean. That's where he made his mistake."

"I
fail to see it."

"Then,
Watson, we were all fools together. Wasn't
it
suspicious that he didn't insure the shipment
from
Gloucester to London? There was just as
much
chance of a robbery during that trip as there
was
when the cargo went from London to Great
Yarmouth."

I
clasped my brow with my hands in anguish. "Of course."

"You
are now mimicking my actions of this
morning
and thinking the same thoughts." This
idea
served to dispel Holmes' dark mood. "But
come,
the future is where our thoughts must lie."

"Half
a mo'," I exclaimed. "The thieves took the
crated
brass from the boxcar and transferred it to
the
wagon. They maneuvered it into the mine and
left
it there."

"Blocking
the entrance after doing so."

"What
about the horses?"

"They
turned them loose, stripped of their
harness.
You don't know your Essex farmer. Two
unattended
horses roaming about would go
promptly
into a barn. If someone came to claim
them,
there would be the oft-used story of buying
them
from traveling gypsies."

I
threw up my hands in capitulation. Holmes had
all
the answers.
After dinner that evening,
it was Mrs. Hudson who announced the arrival of Claymore Frisbee, and
I wondered if the sleuth had dispatched Billy
on
another mysterious errand.

The
president of Inter-Ocean Trust was his ur
bane
self when he entered our chambers and took a
seat
by the hearth fire, but there were lines of worry
below
the prominent cheekbones of his face. He
was
a good judge of moods, however; and Holmes'
manner
seemed to relax him. Perhaps the tot of quite superior brandy I
secured for him helped.
After all, he
was our client.

"You
suggested that I might toddle over 'round
this
time," Frisbee said after the exchange of customary
pleasantries.

Holmes
admitted to this. "Relative to the trea
sure
train policy, you are
. . .
I believe the expres
sion is 'off the
hook.'"

Frisbee
produced a heartfelt sigh of relief and
allowed
me to secure another brandy for him.
"That's
welcome news, for it's a sizeable sum and
would
have put us under some strain, I'll admit.
Who
stole the gold?"

"Let
me tell you," responded Holmes.

And
he did in his precise manner, with no
extraneous
words or thoughts either. At several
points
during the recounting Frisbee was hard-pressed to contain himself;
and at the conclusion
he did rather
explode in amazement.

"You
mean the B & N people and Scotland Yard
have
been running around looking every which
way
for the gold, and it was never on the train at
all?"

"Comforting,
wouldn't you say, since it is safely
resting
in the Bank of England."

"You're
going to turn the matter over to Inspec
tor
Hopkins of the Yard?"

Holmes
shook his head. "I haven't forgotten how
they
let Moriarty and Colonel Moran slip through
their
fingers, to say nothing of Lightfoot."

Frisbee
registered puzzlement. "Lightfoot?"

"You
wouldn't know him, and it's unimportant, though he may be mixed up in
this. Only as a mercenary, however—a pawn."

"Albeit
a dangerous one," I remonstrated.

Holmes
waved this away. "There is some interest
at
Whitehall regarding this affair. I'm going to
tackle
Hananish tomorrow with the assistance of a
special
branch."

Holmes
said
a special branch.
Frisbee
thought he
meant
the
special branch,
just as my friend
had
intended him to.

"Well,
if you're going to ring down the curtain
yourself,
I'm happy about it." Claymore Frisbee
made
to reach for his checkbook, but a gesture from
the
sleuth forestalled him.

"Let
us settle accounts when we've written
finis
to this complex matter. There's a
few jumps still to
be taken."

"Regarding
the insurance?" queried Frisbee with
alarm.

"No,
no!" You can pocket the premium and consider the matter at an
end. But I've a wish to
bring Hananish
to heel. The grim reaper has dealt harshly with the ungodly, and
there's a few left to testify for the Crown against him. In addition,
I
cannot stand in court and swear that
the gold in the Bank of England came from the west coast banks,
for
I have no means of identifying the precious
metal.
However, I want to see Hananish show
where
it did come from, if not his fellow bankers."