PINNACLE BOOKS NEW YORK (9 page)

"'Twould
not suffice. It was a special train that
was
attacked and it ran on a schedule created for it.
Normal
procedure had little to do with the bullion carrier."

He
had me there and I thought furiously. "Isn't a
key
problem the means by which the thieves got on the train? A lot of
thought had gone into preventing
just
that from happening."

"Considering
that our problem involves a train, I
will
resist the impulse to say that you are on the
right
track, old fellow."

Encouraged,
a thought came to me. "Let us
assume
that the riflemen guards were not part and
parcel
of the plot."

"I'll
accept that."

"Then
once the freight achieved running speed, it
would
seem more than difficult to get aboard."

"Agreed."

"Then
the thieves rode with it from the start."

"Not
an unwieldy theory at all. Really, Watson,
you
have developed the ratiocinating mind through
our
long association."

This
being rare praise indeed from Holmes, I plunged ahead. "Is there
not an expression com
mon in America,
'riding the rods'?"

"Relates
to traveling hobos."

"Quite.
Could not the two men you picture have
been
hidden under the boxcar before the engine assumed motion?"

"A
possibility. How they would manage to crawl
from
their place of concealment and gain the roof
eludes
me, but the inventiveness of the homo
sapiens
is limitless."

"The
only other thought that comes to mind is that the thieves hid
themselves within the boxcar, but that idea is self-defeating as they
would have
been unable to get out of the
securely locked
carrier."

"Your
first thought is the one that will bear investigation, good fellow."

At
this point Mrs. Hudson made her presence
known.
It was time for dinner. This was the day of a
most
important social gathering, the meeting of the
Marylebone
Sewing Circle. While the event did not
warrant
a squib in the
Evening Chronicle
,
it was dear to our landlady's heart.
To make amends for
her absence from the
premises, Mrs. Hudson fairly outdid herself. We were served
consomm
é
Marie Stuart
and
filets
de sole Carlton
. Then we had thick
mutton chops, their ends curled around a
broiled
kidney and affixed with a
toothpick. This led my
mind to the
subject of claret and I brought forth a bottle of Château
Lafitte '68, which I had been
saving. By
the time we dealt with a toothsome
souffl
é
aux p
ê
ches
à
1'Orientale
, the evening, in my
mind, was a merry occasion indeed.

Following
our repast, it was my thought to
peruse
an article in the latest
Lancet
,
but I soon found myself nodding over
the medical journal.
With apologies to
Holmes, I soon made my way to
bed and
promptly fell into a deep sleep. On this night, with a
nod no doubt to the Château
Lafitte,
bottled on the estate, I had no
dreams of great trains hurtling through the night to their doom.
The
next thing I knew there was a shaking of my shoulder. As my eyes
reluctantly blinked open, I
beheld
Sherlock Holmes leaning over my bed with
a
half smile on his lips. It was a new day.

"Come,
old chap, if you would be part of the opening act of this drama we
have become entangled in."

Despite
a delightful lassitude, the coldness of the
room
and the floorboards, and the reticence of
protesting
bones to assume motion, I mumbled
something
to my intimate friend and made haste to
perform
my morning ablutions and struggle into clothes. In our sitting room,
the smell of Holmes'
pipe was
everywhere. I gave it scant heed as I
eagerly
seized the cup of coffee he poured from the
great
silver urn and then applied myself to that
mainstay
of the empire, a stout English breakfast. The sleuth might have been
up all night for all I
knew, though I
noted no clues as to the presence of
others.
As I wolfed kippers and eggs, he was going
over
a sheaf of papers that had the appearance of a
business
report.

When
I poured myself a second cup of coffee and
ignited
a morning cigarette, Holmes tossed the
document
on the desk surface and joined me.

"My
brother is a most meticulous man," he commented, "and
despite his bulk, fast-moving. I
cabled
him last night for a report on recent transac
tions
on the gold market, and early this morning a
complete
dossier came to our doorstep. I some
times
wonder when he sleeps."

"A
thought that has bothered me at times rela
tive
to you," I replied, downing the last of my
repast.

"The
normal human requires sleep to oil the mechanism and food to fuel it,
old friend," stated Holmes. "A thinking machine does not
operate in
that fashion."

Holmes
often declared that he was a walking
brain,
since thinking was his sole reason for being, and I humored him by
pretending acceptance. The
fact that he
was a superb fencer and the finest
amateur
boxer I had ever seen prompted me to
adopt
a different view, though I was the first to
agree
that he wasn't normal.

He
did not seem disposed to divulge any results
of
the past evening, so I posed an obvious question.
"What
move do you plan now?"

"We
meet with that Ledger chap at the B & N
freight
yard in half an hour, Watson. The gold train is there, and possibly
we will find clues, to buttress
your
theory of robbers 'riding the rods'."

It
was an overcast day and a chill wind faced us as we hailed a hansom
and made for the freight
yards. The
vicinity we sought had the bleak, forlorn
look
exhibited by portions of London in the early morn. Holmes seemed to
know exactly where we
were to go. When
we alighted from our conveyance,
he set
off at a brisk pace that I struggled to match.
Richard
Ledger was awaiting our arrival beside the
office
of the freight dispatcher. His thin face had the
bronze
cast of one oft exposed to the sun and there
were
deep circles under his bright eyes, which were
a
peculiar shade of light blue. His manner toward
Holmes
was most deferential, but then he had
worked
for the Kimberly people and the diamond
syndicate
was not known to hire dullards.

"The
train is over here, Mr. Holmes," he said
after
suitable greetings. Assuming that Holmes'
prime
interest was in the carrier, he turned and
walked
through the maze of intersecting roadbeds,
and
we found ourselves beside an engine and two
boxcars
on a short section of rail that Ledger
referred
to as a hold track.

Claymore
Frisbee's description of the bullion carrier had been accurate, and I
noted nothing that
I had not expected to
see. While Holmes and Ledger
conversed
beside one boxcar, I walked around the
train,
intent on an investigation of my own. Atop the boxcar nearest the
engine was the specially constructed fortified position looking
rather like a
pillbox. It seemed small
for four riflemen, but I was
interested
in the line of sight afforded by the slots
in
the armor plating of its sides. It did not take long
to
establish that the marksmen could cover everything save for a
thirty-five-degree arc centered at
the
rear of the second boxcar. The rifle roost, for
want
of a better term, would have suggested the
turret
of the U.S. Navy's monitor-type vessel had it
been
round rather than square. I bent down to
survey
the undercarriage of the boxcars and found
myself
regarding Ledger and Holmes on the other
side
of the track.

"It
could have been done, Watson," said Holmes. Then he threw a
quick remark at Ledger. "A theory of my associate." The
sleuth's intense eyes returned
to me.
"They might have secured themselves by the
rear
wheels, though it would have been a perilous and most uncomfortable
journey. But what about their equipment? The smoke bombs, hammer and
cold chisel and small arms as well, in
case the plan
went awry?"

I
nodded in agreement with his words and
hastened
around the rear of the train to rejoin the
sleuth
and the security man. When I arrived on
their
side, Holmes had evidently explained my thought to Ledger.

"Impossible,
Mr. Holmes," Ledger was saying.
"Before
the gold shipment took off, I went over the
undercarriages
and the boxcar interiors myself.
The
train left here with no one aboard save the
engineer
and firemen and my guards." As Holmes
nodded
and I drew up by the two, Ledger con
tinued:
"The riflemen were all bonded and of good
reputation.
Two are formerly of the Lincolnshire
Regiment."

"I
know," said Holmes, and I later wondered at
this
remark. "We'd best have a look at the roofs, for
that's
where the mischief started."

Ledger
led us to the rear coupling between the two boxcars and we carefully
mounted an iron
ladder. On the top of
the second boxcar, which had
held the
gold, Holmes went to his knees to survey
the
roof with his ever-present pocket glass. I noted
that
he paid special attention to the right aft
section
above the sliding door in the car's side. I
began
to pose a question, but he shrugged and then
his
long legs took him forward on the roof to the
edge
and he leaped from there to the first boxcar
with
Ledger agilely following. I contented myself
with
climbing down the ladder we had mounted
and
up the matching one to the top of the adjacent
car.
A more dignified approach and more fitting for
an
overweight middle-aged general practitioner. I
had
no desire to secure the services of a fellow
physician
for treatment of a break or contusions.

Close
to, the gun emplacement revealed nothing
that
I had not noted from a distance and Holmes seemed to be paying it
scant attention. He was inspecting the top of the boxcar and gestured
for Ledger to join him on the forward end nearest the
engine.

He
had risen and was pointing toward a streak of
white
paint running across the boxcar roof.
"Was
this marking in some way connected with
your
security measures?" he asked.