The Devil's Grin - a Crime Novel Featuring Anna Kronberg and Sherlock Holmes (12 page)

After a moment of consideration, I decided to first check on the high security blocks that lay at some distance to the remaining complex and would be most suitable for any secret undertaking. I dearly hoped to get some information on Broadmoor’s medical experiments without running into the two security men, each armed with a club and a revolver.

I heard a quiet crack and peered down. There was the gaunt figure of a man and I was surprised at how easy he moved in the dark. Holmes walked around looking at the ground as if he were trying to find my footprints, and I observed him curiously. What would he be able to see in this darkness? The soil was dry, and I had been running without shoes. I held my breath and waited for him to stop and bend down. But he never did. After he had passed me and disappeared behind the bend of the wall, I took the rucksack off my back and strapped it onto the tree. Then I balanced along the branch, carrying a length of rope. Just above the fifteen-foot-high wall, I tied the rope onto the branch before climbing down. The inner wall reached an elevation of only six feet and wouldn’t be too hard to scale.

I rubbed dirt into my too-white face and started running. With a leap, I caught the top of the wall and pulled myself up.

Cautiously, I peered around but could see no one. With a quiet thud, I dropped onto the other side and ran a few yards along the side of the wall. A bush provided limited cover and I took a look around and wondered what Holmes was doing. Or, for a matter of fact, what I was doing - a woman disguised as a man and now pretending to be an asylum burglar.

I shook off
the thought and ran to the next hiding place - a small tool shed close to the high security block for males. The night and this place were dead quiet, and I cautiously snuck up to the building and pressed against its wall. There was a window I could reach, and I peered inside - a hall devoid of people but with small bunks, each of them having four fetters - two for the ankles, two for the wrists. I counted ten empty bunks. The room did look tidy, as if recently cleaned up.

I had turned away and started towards the female block when I spotted fresh wheel tracks in the grass. The cart must have been heavy, for the tracks were deep despite the dry soil. I followed them and they led me towards my final destination. My stomach growled with heavy foreboding. I turned a corner and saw it - the heating facility. Its iron door stood ajar, letting the glow of fire lick the trodden lawn.

I
inched closer, taking each bit of cover I could get. Voices inside reverberated on the thick stone walls and made their way through the door. One of them was the rasp of Nicholson, Broadmoor’s superintendent, but I could not understand what was being said.

I was so close now, I could see through the door into a room with a large oven. One man just stood there talking - Nicholson. Another shovelled coal while two men hurled one large sack after the other into the fire. The effort it took them and the sharp downward bend in the middle of each long sack identified its content. Strangely, my mind would not allow the interpretation of what my eyes observed. Only after the sweet smoke crawled from the chimney into my nostrils, could I accept the disaster.

Gasping, I hid my face in my sleeve and
hugged my knees tightly, trying to resist the urge to run inside and rip Nicholson into pieces. It took me awhile to collect myself. There was nothing to be done, so I turned around and left quietly.

Breathing was almost impossible
with that large lump in my throat. Scaling the inner wall wasn’t easy, either. I found my oak and the rope hanging down from it and made my way up. Then I lay flat on the thick branch and wept.

~~~

‘
I’d have preferred you stayed in London,’ a quiet voice said.

My head jerked up and I star
ed at Holmes who sat on the very same branch, leaning his back on the massive trunk. Unspeaking, I stood up, undid my rope, and pushed past him.

‘
Wait,’ he said.

Ignoring him I
slung my rucksack on my back and climbed down the tree. He exclaimed quietly while making his way down, too. Quickly, I started off to a place where I had spotted a small clearing earlier tonight, and was gone long before Holmes’s shoes had touched the forest floor.

After a while of racing my lungs out,
I reached a small bog lake. A circular black velvet cloth, its rims decorated with clumps of grass, fenberry shrubs, and pale green sphagnum moss. I dropped my rucksack and shed my clothes. More than in the forest, I felt at ease here. Everyone believed the moor meant death, but for me it meant beauty and peace. Few would dare to come here.

The moss swung around me with every step I took, the oscillations reaching as far as ten feet in each direction. I walked slowly, placing my naked feet mostly on the thick grass clumps. At the very edge I sat down and immersed my legs in the black water. The turf was sinking down now, softly releasing me into the lake. My outstretched toes did not reach the mud; the lake was deep enough for me to dive. And I did.

Blackness embraced me and I let the cold water wash off the stench and the images of human corpses stuffed into linen sacks and thrown with carelessness into the roaring fire of Broadmoor’s enormous oven.

My lungs started to protest, my ribcage contracted, eager to suck in fresh air and expel what I had used up. I kept diving and just before the darkness was about to enclose my mind, I pushed my head through the lake’s surface. With one long sigh, my lungs greeted the crisp night air of the Berkshire forest.

A movement at the lake’s edge caught me eye. Someone was undressing hastily, and then stopped as I peered into his direction. I waited for him to put his trousers back on before I swam back to my pile of clothes with Holmes standing next to them. He hadn’t dared to walk onto the swinging plant cover and I wondered how he had planned to rescue me. He probably hadn’t planned much at all.

‘
I would appreciate some privacy,’ I said quietly and upon seeing his hesitation I added: ‘Mr Holmes, do I have to remind you that any other gentleman would leave discreetly now?’

‘
I certainly will. Under one condition: you listen to what I have to say.’

I could not believe what he had said
and felt rage clawing at my intestines. ‘You have nothing to bargain with.’

He considered that for a short moment and then replied, slightly amused: ‘You wouldn’t!’

But I had already placed my hands on two clumps of grass and pulled myself out of the water. Holmes stumbled two steps backwards. The sight of a naked woman, alabaster against an obsidian lake, seemed to have left an impression.

I stood up slowly and looked him straight in the face.

He turned around and left, his hands balled to fists.

I shook the water and the anger off me and walked across the lake’s swinging fringe to find my clothes and get dressed.

Walking back into the forest,
I spotted Holmes leaning on a tree, arms folded over his chest. I walked up to him and after a little while we found a dry place. We sat down and I extracted the little food and drink from the depths of my backpack and placed it between us.

‘
I would like to say something first, Mr Holmes, if I may.’

He nodded.

‘
I am tired of your games. Whatever you have to say, make it short. If I get the impression you are not truthful or purposefully omitting details, I’ll leave.’

He neither nodded nor made any other move. Staring at the forest floor, he spoke quietly. ‘Last winter I investigated a burglary and paid a group of street urchins to tail the suspect. The man was killed and one of the boys saw the murderer. Two days later the boy was found beaten to death. He was eleven years old.’

Holmes still did not
move and I waited, gradually understanding his actions.

‘
I swore I would never again put anyone in danger for the sake of a case,’ he said finally.

I opened the brandy I had brought and offered him my one cup; he took it without a word.

‘
I am sorry,’ I said softly, ‘for you and the boy.’

S
lowly the crickets’ music faded. It was obviously time for them to go to bed. I, however, was wide awake.

‘
You think you should have known better,’ I added with a thin voice, ‘you do think that rather often.’ It wasn’t meant to be a question. I turned towards him and touched his hand with mine. ‘Absolutely nothing can be learned from cruelty.’

He looked at me then, quizzical at first and after a moment his eyes had gotten cold and hard.

‘
I am sorry; it was not my intention to humiliate you,’ I said.

‘
You didn’t,’ he
replied, still cold. Then I knew my assumption had been correct: someone had torn him apart a long time ago. No one is born untrusting, only made so.

I refilled
the cup he held in his hand. He nodded and took a mouthful, then offered it to me. I poured its entire content down my throat.

We were quiet for a long time, eating, drinking, and contemplating until I interrupted the silence.

‘
The flame was white.’

‘
I know.’

There was no use to call the police. A white flame burns at over one-thousand two-hundred degrees Celsius, turning bones and even teeth into ashes within twenty minutes.

‘
What else did you see?’ I asked him.

‘
Much what you saw
; I followed you.’

‘
You are an exceptional detective and I can understand that you feel I’m in your way.’ He looked over at me and I continued: ‘I won’t budge. I have a personal interest in this crime. They are experimenting with highly pathogenic germs and they shouldn’t be able to get past London’s best bacteriologist.’

‘
You have a plan,’ he noted
.

‘
Yes. Two of the victims got infected with tetanus, one with cholera. From tonight on, I will focus my research on tetanus and get so attractive that whoever is behind it will pay me a visit. There must be a number of medical doctors involved, and one of them will want my services, sooner or later.’

Holmes exhaled audibly but after a while he said: ‘That is sensible.’

It took me a moment to digest that.

Then he added: ‘They have just destroyed all evidence and it will take them a while to start anew. They will have to select test subjects and I’m quite certain they will try to find them in workhouses.’ His smug smile told me he had a plan.

‘
How do you plan to get into the workhouses?’

Inviting, he raised one eyebrow
and I said: ‘Not as a pauper?’

‘
Isn’t that the most obvious strategy?’ He seemed a little disappointed by my question.

‘
It is;
I am just having problems picturing you in rags.’

He
only smiled then, looked at his watch, producing light with a match. It was two o’clock and the night had gone chilly. Somewhere close by an owl hooted. I unfolded my blanket, moved closer to Holmes, and draped it over his legs and mine.

‘
What happened in Broadmoor this morning?’ I enquired.

‘
Nicholson had been warned and had the whole of the night to clean up. It was as clear as the bright daylight but Lestrade didn’t notice. The usual.’

The thought of Nicholson supervising the burning of corpses made me shudder.

‘
Who warned Nicholson?’ I asked.

‘
Gibson.’

‘
What?’

‘
He was in an exceptionally smart mood and wired the local police force
asking for reinforcement for our raid the following morning. As he did this against my instructions, he didn't dare telling us before we left. The bobby who received the wire is Nicholson's nephew. Naturally, he warned his uncle.’

‘
Shit! I mean… sorry!
Drat
is what I meant. My apologies, sometimes I’m a bucket.’