The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes (34 page)

“. . . La Dona is quite keen to visit Jersey,” said Carter.

Directly he said “Jersey,” Holmes and I jerked open the curtains and stepped out between them, revolvers in hand.

We had misjudged our foes' reflexes. Recognising us instantly, Celeste Flores pounced, pantherlike, from her seat, ignoring my weapon, and sank her teeth deep into my wrist. In the same instant, Osbert launched himself, rugby fashion, into Nick Carter where he sat, carrying man and chair over backwards onto the floor with a smash. Momentum built, the white slaver charged at Holmes, swinging his cane and striking his gun hand. The revolver fell to the floor.

I had only the barest sense of these actions. In my pain and rage, I struck Celeste a smart blow on the top of her head with my revolver; but her hat, a thing of wire and stiff felt, absorbed most of it, though the impact forced her to release my wrist from her jaws and drove her to her knees.

Osbert neither slowed nor stopped. Shouldering Holmes aside in the same movement with the swinging of the cane, he raced across the balcony, leapt onto the railing, and dropped from sight.

Holmes and I darted to the railing. Down on the street, a buzzing crowd had begun to form round a broken thing lying on the cobblestones like a shattered doll.

We have spent many an hour reliving that moment: Whether the villain intended suicide or hoped to attain the neighbouring rooftop—a good twenty feet away—remains a point of contention. As a practising Christian, I lean towards the former motive, in expiation for Osbert's sins in this life by way of damnation in the next.

Such was not an issue upon the instant. We spun to assist Carter; but were too late.

When Celeste fell to her knees, Holmes's fallen revolver was within her reach. Now she stood with her back to the door to the corridor, closing us all inside firing range.

I retained my weapon, but it was at my side. As I raised it, she fired a shot that screamed past my head.

“Let go of it!” she shrieked. “
Gauchos
taught me to shoot straight!”

My finger tightened on the trigger.

Holmes grasped my wrist, paralysing the tendon. “No, Watson! You may strike an artery, and then we shall never know what became of Jane Chilton.”

For a full ten seconds I retained my pressure upon the trigger. Finally I nodded, an almost infinitesimal movement of my head. He released his grip. I let the weapon fall.

Celeste Flores laughed shrilly, a peal of pure madness. It choked off when she reached behind her and discovered the door was locked. She motioned toward Carter. “The key! Throw it!”

The canny American detective took the key from his waistcoat and threw it low; but Lady Judas had the instincts of a cat. She dipped a knee, caught it with her free hand, and fumbled it into the keyhole awkwardly. At length the tumblers turned.

“
Puercos!
” she spat. “It would have made no difference if you killed me. You may find me eventually, but not in time. The Chilton wench will be dead in an hour!”

We stood, arms away from our sides, and watched her open the door behind her and step one foot backwards into the corridor.

Abruptly, something in the shape of a grappling hook closed round the wrist of her gun arm and jerked it downwards. A bullet pierced the Persian rug at her feet and buried itself in the floor.

Carter stooped swiftly, grasped the rug, and jerked it from under her, throwing her onto her back. Her revolver went flying, to be caught by Carter one-handed. Only when we both had her pinned down in our crossfire did I feel it safe to regard our rescuer. Mary Watson stood in the doorway, resting the crook of her parasol at shoulder arms.

“However did you find us?” I asked her.

We had been joined by a constable, there to enquire after Osbert's fatal leap and the subsequent gunfire. Upon confirming our identities and hearing Holmes's rapid explanation, he had manacled Celeste Flores to the arm of a chair, where she sat seething between Holmes and Carter, both men now armed; the American with his blunt, wicked-looking fowling piece. Having underestimated her once, they were leaving nothing to chance.

“I won't be put off by secrecy,” my wife replied. “I went round to Baker Street and spoke to Mrs. Hudson. She is a woman, and we are bound by our gender. She told me you were here. The clerk at the desk gave me the number of the suite. I heard the first shot from the stairwell, but reached the door only as Gloriana was backing out.”

“Intuition.” Holmes shook his head. “It is the X factor in every equation where a woman is involved. No man has cracked it as yet.”

“Call it what you will. When I recognised her voice, I knew what was to be done.”

Our captive sent her a look of raw hatred. She spat a torrent of Spanish too rapid for even Holmes and Carter to follow. They looked at each other and shrugged.

“Best not to know,” said the American. “Well, Miss Celeste-Gloriana-Paraiso-Estrella, what's this business about Jane Chilton having only an hour to live?”

The rage that had distended her features gave way to a smile of palpable evil.

“She will die gasping. Her last prayer will be for air, and you will be impotent to grant it.”

We pressed her for details, but she had fallen silent, and would not be drawn out by threats or pleas to her humanity or promises to speak to the magistrate upon her behalf. When it was clear to us all that we were wasting precious time, Holmes asked the constable to take her away. In seconds she was manacled to his wrist, instructed as to her rights under English law, and removed from our sight; but not before she turned her head at the door and closed her free hand round her throat in the unmistakable gesture of strangulation.

“My God!” said I, in a shuddering whisper. “Can it be she shares the same gender with the Blessed Virgin?”

Mary, the Blessed Virgin's namesake, was less naive. “Let us not forget Jezebel.”

“What do you make of it?” rapped Holmes.

“It seems clear to me,” I said. “Another accomplice has her in a sort of noose, with instructions to choke her to death if she and Osbert fail to return in the time allotted.”

Mary's hand stole to her throat.

Carter spoke up. “I can't agree. I've witnessed hangings. There's not much gasping at the end of a rope—no room in the trachea for it—just a desperate struggle followed by insensibility, and certainly no time for prayer.”

“Suffocation, then,” said Holmes.

“I'd bet a fiver on it.”

“What monsters!” I exclaimed. “They've buried her alive.”

Carter shook his head. “If she's got an hour of oxygen—on top of the time these mugs spent with us, not counting coming and going—the burial vault would be the size of this room. Criminals are lazy, by and large, or they'd work for their living. I've never met one who'd invest the time and labour digging a hole that size.”

Mary said, “If they came here by cab, the driver would know where he picked them up. Scotland Yard—”

“—is methodical, beyond doubt,” finished Holmes. “They might even locate the man by tomorrow morning.”

He and Carter exchanged a glance heavy with meaning. Both men nodded. They went for their hats.

“Come, Watsons,” Holmes barked. “There isn't time to lose.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Did you not hear what I just said?”

“Watson
s
?” Mary lifted her brows. “I am to accompany you?”

Carter traded the cumbersome shotgun for a revolver that fit his small sinewy hand. His smile glittered. “Well, sure. We need as many weapons as we can muster.”

He indicated the parasol she was still holding.

We took the Underground. As noon approached, the streets were clogged with hansoms, growlers, dray-wagons, and pedestrians, and at such times the relative discomfort of the subterranean railway is worth twice its price in terms of speed.

The detectives' expressions were tense. Holmes said, “We mustn't place too much faith in
Señorita
Flores's assessment. The experts themselves seldom agree on matters involving the human lung and cubic feet of air. Not everyone breathes at the same pace.”

“Or at his own, under pressure,” said Carter. “You don't draw it mild when you're shut up in a box.”

Mary's hand gripped mine tightly enough to stop circulation.

The train stopped with maddening regularity, jettisoning and acquiring passengers at station after station. I felt almost like a victim of abduction myself, not knowing our destination and wondering if each name called out by the conductor was our terminus. I expected the detectives to spring to their feet every time we slowed to a halt; but they kept their seats, perched on the edges like cats poised to pounce. Observing their pale, drawn faces, I deemed it inadvisable to ask.

When at last they shot upright, Mary and I exchanged a glance. Instinctively, we knew from the announcement where we were headed.

Holmes and Carter sprinted ahead down the street. We struggled to keep them in sight, Mary on my arm. If we were mistaken, we might have been left inexorably behind, so intent were the detectives upon their race with death.

We did, as a matter of fact, misplace them at one corner, but caught up with them where we'd expected to, before the shuttered ice-cream parlour formerly owned by the late Osbert. But my heart sank when we drew within sight of the front door. The padlock placed upon it by the police was still intact.

Holmes, however, did not hesitate. He grasped the lock and rattled it fiercely, releasing a thin shower of pewter-colored dust: The hasp had been sawn through and plaster and paint applied to make it appear that it still held fast.

“They took no chances,” rapped Carter. “Any passerby might have wandered in out of curiosity and freed their hostage.”

They swung open the door and bolted inside, Mary and I close behind. The store was empty, stripped of its fixtures and furniture, and we were alone in it. But Holmes and Carter went directly to a door at the back, adjacent to the storage room entrance and built of what appeared to be double-reinforced oak, painted so thoroughly in shining white enamel that no space showed between the planks. Oddly, it had a homely familiarity I could not quite place.

Holmes ran his fingers along one edge. “A rubber gasket. It's the cold room, where the ice cream was stored.”

I knew then what the door had struck in my memory. It resembled the hatch of an icebox. The realisation nearly stopped my heart. If cold could not escape, oxygen could not enter. The room beyond was Lady Jane Chilton's death-cell.

It, too, was padlocked, this time securely. Holmes clawed from a pocket the small leather case he was never without, containing an assortment of picks and skeleton keys for any occasion.

Carter, less patient, seized a great chunk of hickory that had been leaning against the wall, evidently intended to prop the door open when someone was inside, and swung it with all his might, striking the lock with such force the door jumped in its gasket. Once, twice it banged against the lock. Then Carter planted his feet apart solidly, brought the piece of timber back as far over his right shoulder as he could, took a deep breath, and swung with biblical force, his muscles splitting his Norfolk wide from collar to hem. The lock shattered.

I nearly cheered; but what would we find inside, a lady or a corpse?

“Watson! Quick!”

Holmes's tone left no room for dispute, even had I wanted to offer any. As Mary and I hurried inside, he and Carter were already bent over something in a far corner of the tiny room, blocking our view of anything but the empty shelves on the walls.

I crossed the floor in a stride, parting the pair roughly, and knelt beside the woman who lay at their feet, a young, slender creature with her strawberry curls in disarray and her fashionable dress soiled for want of a change. Her eyes were closed and she appeared not to be breathing.

I was prepared for the worst—I carried no instruments or restoratives—but as I placed my hand behind her head to lift it and raised my other hand in an attempt to slap colour into her pale cheeks, she arched her back suddenly, took air into her lungs, and expelled it in a fit of bitter coughing. Immediately I lifted her into a sitting position and forced her head between her knees. She coughed and gasped for two minutes at least, then her breathing settled into a rhythm, rapid but regular. I helped her sit up in the normal fashion. Her blue eyes darted from one face to another, like a frightened bird's.

“Calm yourself,” I said gently. “I am a doctor. You're among friends. You're safe from the villains who mistreated you. Can you tell me your name?” I was still unsure whether her respiratory ordeal had affected the function of her brain.

“My name is”—she hesitated, then—“Jane. Jane Chilton. My father is Sir James Chilton, of Middlesex.”