Sherlock Holmes: The American Years (36 page)

Escape seemed impossible. The wine cellar was dug well into
the mountainside, in what must originally have been a cave. The ceiling soared well above the light of the two miserable candles we were allowed. Three heavy doors lay between us and the rest of the monastery; I had listened to the bolts clang in each of them as I was escorted into the cellar, then pushed inside. I had turned, demanding bedding and our coats, but the lieutenant just grinned at me and slammed the door in my face. His footsteps diminished, punctuated by the bolts slamming home in the other two doors.

The shelves were cobwebbed, dirty, and bare. It seemed that this room had not been used in a very long time, and I wondered how General Pulgón had known about it. I felt a tiny draft. Eduardo followed it, sheltering a candle behind his palm, and came back to report that the cavern ended in a smooth, inward-leaning wall with a tiny, inaccessible opening at the very top, through which came the wisp of air. Other than that and the locked doors, there were no openings in the room. I sighed and sank down to sit beside the English boy, who opened his eyes a little.

“I am sorry I have put you in this horrible position,” he whispered.

I shrugged. “I am, to be truthful, more sorry about missing Sr. Beethoven’s symphony.”

He closed his eyes again. “What will happen to us?”

“Oh, I suspect that General Pulgón would like to shoot us all, but apparently I have frightened him a little by talking about my son-in-law’s lofty connection to President Juárez. He will need to come up with an alternative plan, but he is not a very smart man so it will take him some time.”

The boy was silent for a little, then said, “But the abbot, he is a smart man, is he not?”

I sighed. “I think so, yes. I wish I knew where his heart lies in all this. Men of God have not always behaved well.”

“This monastery was larger,” he said. “There are so many empty rooms. Even the infirmary—the monk told me we were in the small room that used to be the apothecary’s drying room.”

“Yes?”

“Someone, at some time, made the monastery smaller. Recently, I think. The apothecary’s dried herbs still hang in the corners.”

“Ah.” I looked at him, his features almost indistinguishable in the dim light. “And what do you conclude from this?”

“That perhaps the abbot is still angry at the taking of the monastery lands, señora. Was it President Juárez who ordered the taking?”

“I do not know. The relationship between the church and the government has been very changeable over the years. It could have been anyone.”

“And so we cannot rely on the abbot to be friendly.” He shivered a little. I covered him with my shawl, despite his protests.

“And your own people?” I said.

“How can they know where I am? And if they do come here, the general could simply tell them that we came and went again. Who will contradict him?” He curled in on himself.

The cold increased. We huddled together, I and the boy and my family of servants, not talking. I had pinched out one of the candles, to make our light last longer. I thought about what I had said to the young man: It was true that Pulgón would not shoot me, but that did not mean that my life was safe. What story would he tell about the death of Teobaldo’s dear mother-in-law? There
are so, so many ways for someone to die, especially here in the tall, cold mountains, where the air is thin and warmth is only a distant memory. I shook myself away from these gloomy thoughts and instead remembered the long, hot days on my hacienda, the song of the cicadas under the rhythmic pulse of the looms, the way the copper shone in the hands of my skilled workmen, the sound of children reciting lessons. I did not want to die, but if I did at least I was happy with my legacy. I did not imagine that Pulgón could say the same. Heriberto licked his lips. I sympathized: We were all hungry and thirsty, despite the abbot’s earlier hospitality.

Bolts banged and hinges screamed as the door opened. Light streamed in from bright lanterns. Two monks entered, one holding two lanterns and the second a large, steaming pot. The scent of mulled wine filled the room; I could not keep my mouth dry. The monk placed the pot on the floor and laid a ladle in it, the second monk put one of the lanterns beside it, and they both retreated, still in silence, locking the door behind them.

“Well,” Eduardo said, “at least we will not die of cold for a little longer.”

He reached for the ladle just as the Inglés cried out, lurched to his feet, and staggered toward the pot. Thinking that he meant to thrust his face into it, or at least his hands, I leaped up and reached for him but he drew back one long leg and kicked the pot hard. It tumbled end over end, emptying itself on the dry dirt. Within seconds not a drop of the hot wine remained.

“You stupid fool,” Heriberto said, raising his fist, but the boy collapsed.

I knelt beside him, cursing in English. He coughed from the bottom of his lungs and grabbed my hand.

“Bunions,” he said in English, and fainted.

What sort of incredible nonsense was this? The boy had obviously gone mad, stark mad, from the fever or the ill treatment or both. I shook my head and we stretched him out again, and I covered him with my shawl. At least he had not destroyed the lantern. It gave off a small amount of heat and we held our hands out to it, pretending that it was warm. Then Eduardo prodded his son and nodded toward the bare shelves, and in a moment Heriberto was breaking the dry planks over his knee and piling up the fuel for a fire. Eduardo shaved kindling with the knife he kept hidden near his skin. He piled the kindling and lit it from the lantern. The flame hesitated, then caught. We sighed and smiled at each other, and held out our hands.

Bunions. Whatever had the boy meant? I puzzled over it for a while, then gestured for Maria to pass the pot to me. I put my face into it and sniffed it, and touched the bottom where a drop of the wine remained. My tongue went numb where I touched the wine to it. I scrubbed it out of my mouth with my sleeve. Maria, seeing me, raised her eyebrows.

“I think this wine was poisoned,” I said. “Eduardo, can you smell anything? Your nose is younger than mine.”

Eduardo smelled it and raised his eyebrows. “It is possible, Doña Ana,” he said. “But how would he know that?”

“He is in league with them,” Heriberto said.

I thought for a moment, and smiled. “No. Just before he became unconscious, he said
juanetes
, ‘bunions’ in English. Who has bunions? People who keep their feet inside cheap boots. Do monks have boots? No, they do not, and so they have no bunions. And because that monk did, our young friend understood that he was not, in fact,
a monk, but one of General Pulgón’s soldiers. Pulgón has no reason to give us wine or any helpful thing. And therefore—”

“The wine was poisoned,” Maria said. She looked at the young Inglés with respect. “He has saved our lives.”

We all gazed at the boy thoughtfully.

“So what else does he know?” Eduardo said.

“Wake him up and make him talk,” Heriberto said with relish.

I thought about that for a moment. The boy was still sick, but lying in this place would not make him any better. I patted his cheek. The beaky nose wrinkled and he turned his head away. I patted him again, with more force.

“Hit him a good one, Doña,” Heriberto said.

“Don’t be foolish, that will just knock him out even more.”

“Well, do
something
,” Eduardo said, so I boxed the boy’s ear. He came awake, howling.

“The wine was poisoned?” I said to him.

“Of course,” he retorted, and closed his eyes again.

“No sleep,” I said firmly. “Listen,
joven
, what else do you know? Can we escape? What else can you notice, besides the condition of feet?” I helped him sit closer to the fire. “Twice you have noticed things, small things, that have been greatly important. With God’s grace, perhaps you will notice another small thing again.”

After a moment he nodded, then tipped his head back and closed his eyes. Heriberto urged violence in a whisper and I hissed at him to be quiet.

The boy’s nose quivered. After a moment it quivered again. We held our breaths. He opened his eyes and looked at us, then gestured toward Heriberto.

“Tell him to pick up that board,” he said, nodding toward the
fire. One of the broken boards poked out of the fire, its other end smoldering. “And him, tell him to help me up.”

I translated. In a moment the Englishman was on his feet. The three of them made a circuit of the walls, keeping about a meter back from them, and all the time the Inglés kept his eyes not on the wall, but on the smoldering board.

“Stop,” he said abruptly. He stared at the board for a long minute. So did I, but saw nothing remarkable. Heriberto held the cold end. The other end glowed while tendrils of smoke trailed toward the wall.

The boy looked down and gestured my men forward while he mumbled a little under his breath. Heriberto looked back at me and rolled his eyes. The English boy leaned forward against Eduardo’s arms and brushed his hand down the wall, clearing away dust and cobwebs.

“Here,” he said. “Door.”

We settled him near the fire again before we all scrubbed at the wall with our palms. A rectangular outline appeared against the stones, the shape of a small door but without handle or hinges.

Heriberto muttered a curse and his father cuffed him. “This is useless,” he said. “Perhaps you should hit him again.”

“No, wait.” Shadows danced over the stones, but soon my fingers touched what my eyes had barely seen—a tiny circular indentation that gave a little under my fingers. I pushed and a stone plug tilted and disappeared. I heard stone striking stone as it fell. I put my finger through the hole. It barely fit, but I felt something cold and flat, like a latch. My finger wasn’t long enough to move it.

“Eduardo, give me your knife,” I said. The blade was far too wide to fit into the hole, but I didn’t expect it to. I handed the
knife to Maria and turned my back to her. “Mari, cut a stay from my corset.”

“Doña Ana!” she said, scandalized.

“Quickly! They will not wait too long to make sure that their poison worked.”

The whalebone stay was soon free. I slid it through the hole, praying to the Virgin as I teased it under the latch. When I pushed down on the near end of the stay, it bent and the latch slipped off. I breathed deeply and tried again. The third time, the latch moved a little. I held my breath and let it inch up, and up, and up, before it fell abruptly back into place. I tried again and this time the Virgin heard my prayers. The latch quivered, then leaped up and swung away. I staggered back into Maria’s arms, dizzy from holding my breath.

“Push!” I said. Eduardo and his son put their backs into it, and the door scraped opened.

We didn’t wait for it to open all the way. We took up the Inglés and the candles, but left the lantern. “It will confuse them,” I said and we pushed the door closed behind us. I found the stone plug and fitted it back into the hole, then Eduardo replaced the latch and, for good measure, jammed it tight with a stone. We crept down the inky tunnel, our little candles almost useless against the dark.

I would have sworn on the soul of my sainted mother that at least twelve hours had passed since I was thrown into the wine cellar, but when we finally emerged it was into the cold, pale light of dawn. We found ourselves in a small pine woods. Three horses were tied up nearby, our two carriage horses and one other. Their saddlebags bulged. From one hung a scrap of black lace—my mantilla,
last seen in the hands of the abbot. I will never know how the abbot knew what might happen, or if he had the horses and supplies left in the hopes of a miracle, but it made no difference. Within five minutes we were mounted and headed down the mountain. Maria rode behind me, and Heriberto cradled the Inglés as though the boy was his own son.

A few days later, thanks to the kindness of Don Alejandro Hormigas del Santo, we were safely in his house in Puebla, on the road to Veracruz. Teobaldo had sent to ask him to expect us, and when we did not arrive he took to the road himself to find us, and find us he had. We must have been a pretty sight, tired and dirty, our clothes torn from the journey through the dark tunnel. When I recognized him I wept with delight. Don Alejandro had telegraphed to Veracruz, so that a few days after our arrival four men arrived in a closed carriage and were rushed into the house. My young Inglés’s health had improved, but when he saw the plumpest of the men he cried, “Mycroft!” and fell into the man’s arms.

He recovered in time to share a hurried meal, which was interrupted by our host. Don Alejandro came into the dining room, shaking his head.

“It is a great mystery,” he said. “Apparently General Tomás Pulgón pursued a spy to a monastery in the mountains, but the general has entirely disappeared! His men say that he and his lieutenant traced the spy to a wine cellar. The two brave men followed, but a week has passed and neither of them has been seen since.” Alejandro paused. “Doña Ana, do you know anything of this?”

I looked up from my plate. “Don Alejandro, I am an old grandmother and I do not concern myself with these political matters. I believe your guests are ready to leave.”