The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (63 page)

“I have it! See here, Watson. The cross gains a leg.” In triumph he added it in pictorial form to his list. “Eleven o’clock.”

“Should we not ask Lestrade to seek out the Baroness?”

“And lose the only hope we have of recovering the letter? No, Watson, we shall attend this auction sale. We are permitted to bid any sum, but I have other plans – I recommend you bring your pistol.”

His pipe then claimed his attention, and it was not until the cab was taking us to Charing Cross station that I was able to ask Holmes why the Baroness had gone to so much trouble to disguise the rendezvous.

He answered readily enough. “Because I know our good friend Lestrade is hot on the track of both the Baroness and Meyer, though he has orders not to take them up. Why else did the first message, ‘The circle contains a stop’ appear? It conveys: ‘Danger of being quodded’. The Baroness feared arrest and that is what gave us our second chance, Watson, the delay between the messages. There must be no question of failure now.”

We descended from the London, Chatham and South-Eastern Railway train at half-past ten at Blackheath station, whence it was but a short drive up from the village to the wild heathland and the Dover Road, and then to Shooter’s Hill. All conversation had ceased, and one might well have imagined us as Scarlet Pimpernels in a desperate race to Dover. Indeed, our own mission was of even more importance. Our driver halted at an old mounting block near the summit of the hill and no sooner was he paid than Holmes was striding eagerly down the hill back towards London, ignoring the dust thrown up by passing vans and carriages. A milk cart swayed dangerously near, its measuring cans almost catching my friend, and its driver grinning infuriatingly. The air was sweet and fragrant after the smoke of London, and in the villa gardens late tulips, giving way to the blue and purples of May, made a pretty sight after the grimy and blackened buildings bordering the streets of London.

However, we had no time to linger over such pleasures. Already Holmes was striding up the path that led to the tradesmen’s door of a sizeable villa. I struggled to keep abreast of him, but by the time I reached the door he was already rapping upon it for the second time. When no answer came, he thrust it open, having found it unlocked. I patted the pistol in my pocket for reassurance, as I followed him in. There was something about the place I did not like. Perhaps it was its silence, its grey coldness. We walked into a surprisingly large and airy kitchen, and the sensation of an empty house intensified.

“We are somewhat early,” I commented, merely for the sake of breaking the silence to counter my unease.

“Hush.” Sherlock Holmes walked through into the main house, and hard on his footsteps, I came to the parlour door. This too was open.

The house was empty of life indeed, but the appalling sight that met our eyes told us that life had not long fled from it. My hand was at my pistol even as my eyes took in the terrible scene before us. Sprawled on the Persian rug before the hearth was a woman’s body, clad in black bombazine, and its sightless, staring eyes turned horribly towards us; blood covered the carpet and was splattered on the walls. There was no weapon to be seen, only a profusion of blood to suggest a stab wound in the chest. But there was worse. By the window overlooking the rear garden lay the body of another woman. This one was of a somewhat younger woman, perhaps forty, old for the mob cap and print gown she wore. The maid had died in the same appalling way as her mistress, whom I presumed to be the cook-housekeeper. I hurried to confirm what I knew must be the case, that there would be no pulse to be found in either.

“Is there life, Watson?”

“In neither, Holmes,” I replied quietly, rising to my feet after a brief examination of both bodies. “What devilry is this? To stab the housekeeper
and
the maid?”

He made an impatient gesture. “You see, but you do not observe, Watson. This may well be the housekeeper, but that is no serving maid. What maid could afford such kid boots, or keep her hands in such fine condition? See the nails – and this.” Gently he removed the cap and long, well-cared for auburn tresses tumbled from it. “No maid’s face either, Watson. It is that of an adventuress who has lived by her wits these last few years and now died by another’s. The Baroness did not deserve such a fate, of that I am sure. The maid’s outfit was doubtless to give her anonymity until she could be sure of the identities of any bidders.”

“And the letter?”

Holmes shrugged. “We can search, but we will not find. You will have noticed my silence on the way here. I had reasoned that the cross with the leg indicated eleven o’clock, since nine o’clock, with the leg on the other side, would hardly have been practical with the man of the household leaving at that precise hour, a deduction which the Baroness was fully capable of appreciating I would surely make. We were meant to arrive too late, Watson.”

“She would hardly have connived at her own murder, Holmes,” I protested.

“The game was planned to a different end, Watson. Had Meyer not been the evil monster he is, I have little doubt we should have arrived, only to have the cook hand us a note from the Baroness mocking us for our tardiness. As it is –” He broke off, as the door opened behind us.

“Good morning, Mr Holmes, Dr Watson.” Lestrade’s eyes went to the bodies. “A pretty pickle,” he remarked after a moment.

“Meyer has preceded us both, Lestrade. I have no doubt that a certain rotund milkman I observed on his cart was he.”

“Shall I set my men after him, Mr Holmes? We can hold him and search his house.”

“And he will have the letter safely stowed elsewhere. He must hand it to his European masters.”

“Every port will be watched. Even callers to the Legation.”

“Good, good,” Holmes muttered absently.

“Suppose he sends it to von Holbach by mail or smuggles it by boat?” I asked.

“Such a prize is too valuable for that,” Holmes replied. “No, he will hand it over personally.”

“Then it won’t be in Germany,” Lestrade declared stoutly. “And we’ll be watching lest von Holbach comes here, and hold him.”

“On no account do so, Lestrade. Von Holbach is known to us, an agent who would then doubtless be sent would not be. Let the game continue.”

The days then weeks passed, while Holmes fretted. The newspapers carried a short paragraph about an unfortunate stockbroker who had returned to find his home full of police constables, and his cook together with a total stranger, who was as yet unidentified, lying murdered on his floor.

As June opened, a heightened sense of excitement swept through London as it prepared for Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee on the 22nd of the month. Carpenters were already at work on a huge stand in Whitehall, another in the churchyard of St Martin’s Church, and a colossal one by St Paul’s churchyard. Large sums were being demanded of the visitors now flocking into London from all quarters of the globe, for space at windows. From the eleventh of the month when the official programme was published, the sole topic of conversation wherever one walked or dined was Jubilee Day. Everywhere, that is, save in our Baker Street rooms, where my friend paced in silence save for a few days when he disappeared, and, I suspected, disguised as a beggar or postman, tramped the streets of London in search of his prey.

Even Mrs Hudson’s patience wore thin, as the air became thick with smoke, and meal after meal was returned uneaten. Pursuing the fiction of his illness, he avoided going out save in disguise, keeping the curtains drawn much of the time.

Of Adolph Meyer there was no sign whatsoever. Lestrade swore he had not left the country, but he was not to be found in London. His servants professed not to know his whereabouts. A watch on the Legation ensured he had not sought sanctuary there. Towards the end of the week of the 13th, decorations began to blossom all over the city, transforming grey stone into a veritable bower of flowers and coloured flags. Favours sprouted in buttonholes and hats, and bicycles and carriages streamed with red, white and blue.

Returning to Baker Street late on Saturday the 19th, I found to my relief that Sherlock Holmes was at last disposed to talk. “Sir George visited me today. Watson, he has come.”

“Who, Holmes?”

“Von Holbach himself. He lodges at the Legation. He has no official invitation, of course, for his master’s regrettable severing of friendly relations between his nation and ours at Cowes in ‘ninety-five means that not only can he not cross the Channel, but his
eminence grise
is not officially welcomed here either.”

“Then when Meyer goes to deliver the letter, we have him.”

“He would be arrested before he pulled the bellrope. No, he will seek some other means.” Holmes picked up his violin and I knew we were in for another long spell of waiting, though the sands of time were running out fast.

My friend’s violin droned on that evening and again on the Sunday morning, the usual sign of great pressure bearing upon him. The hot, stifling air around us in the darkened rooms bore insupportably in upon me. “Holmes,” I cried, “at least play some recognizable tune.”

A screech from the fiddle. “Tune, Watson?” my friend replied icily. “What could my poor violin choose to please you? “God save the Queen” might be appropriate. Or a Sousa march? The Ride of the – Watson!” he exclaimed, “I have not been using the wits God granted me.” In a moment, the violin lay disregarded on the table as his eyes took on the gleam with which I was so familiar.

“I grow dangerously near that practice of which our friend Mr Didier might approve, but I have always distrusted, that of assuming an end as yet unsupported
entirely
by fact. We have very little time left to us. Logical deduction is our only hope.
The Times
of yesterday, if you please, Watson, and the Jubilee programme you so kindly purchased for Mrs Hudson.”

When I returned from my errand, having promised to return the booklet to her possession, he snatched the programme from my grasp, and after a few moments’ perusal cried: “Come Watson, you will need your best straw hat, your smartest cane, and that unfortunate blazer you purchased for boating.”

“Where are we bound, Holmes?” I asked eagerly, relieved beyond measure that at last we were taking action. “Shall I have need of my pistol?”

“To take a solitary turn round St James’ Park, Watson?” he jested. “I trust not. Though you go alone, the ducks are not thought to be a hazard.”

My hopes fell. I was in no need of a constitutional walk, but of a resolution of this affair. However, he was in no mood to bandy words; he was set upon my taking this walk.

“Very well, Holmes,” I agreed, albeit reluctantly.

“Good old Watson. And after your stroll, I recommend to your earnest attention the concert advertised to begin at the St James’s Park bandstand at noon.”

“Concert, Holmes? Good heavens, how can I think of music at such a time as this?”

“What more obvious place for us to meet, my dear fellow?”

Relieved that Sherlock Holmes had indeed some plan in mind, I took a cab to the Birdcage Walk entrance to the park and had it not been for the urgency of the dark situation in which we were placed, would have enjoyed my stroll in this delightful park, now crowded with Jubilee visitors. Children bowled hoops in and out of the promenaders round the lake, sweethearts floated in a blissful world of their own, flowers spread a carpet of colour before my eyes, and as I crossed the bridge the sun chose to appear. The weather had been capricious for some time, but nothing could dim the enthusiasm of these crowds.

I obediently took my seat at the bandstand, towards the back of the rows of seats as befitted my cavalier holiday appearance. A travelling ice-cream vendor wheeling his bicycle passed by, as I looked anxiously for Sherlock Holmes. There was no sign of him. The front rows were filled with those of high social standing, amongst whom the ticket-seller was now moving, a rough-looking fellow despite his peaked cap and crumpled navy uniform. The German band, usually resident in Broadstairs in Kent, was already preparing to play by the time the ticket collector reached me; I handed over the sixpence demanded of me, my thoughts elsewhere.

“The game is afoot, Watson.”

The hoarse whisper as the ticket collector bent down to retrieve a fallen coin startled me. But why should I have been surprised to see Sherlock Holmes himself, presently the most unremarkable ticket collector the Royal Parks had ever boasted? He passed on, exchanging a few gallant remarks with the young lady next to me, which made me wonder if my friend had not courted more young ladies than he acknowledged, whether in pursuance of his profession or otherwise.

Of course. A brass band concert. Holmes was expecting Meyer himself to be in the audience, and for von Holbach to join him. But when? The concert proceeded without incident, though I was scarcely in a mood now to appreciate it. A rousing selection of Gilbert and Sullivan choruses concluded the concert, and the audience rose for the National Anthem, sung with deep feeling and solemnity on this opening day to the week’s festivities. I was in great anxiety. Holmes had vanished, the band was packing its instruments, and the audience was drifting away.
Now
was the time and yet I could see no one amongst the groups of lingering spectators to answer Holmes’s description of Meyer.

At last I spotted Holmes, on the platform, and hurried as unobtrusively as I could to be at hand. He was busy helping the band with their instruments and the music stands, no doubt to gain a vantage point over the audience. A few people had mounted the bandstand to congratulate the players, and I watched an insignificant man in mackintosh and Homburg hat approach the tuba player to shake his hand, though a less musical instrument I have yet to hear.

“Watson!”

Holmes’s shout sent me running for the steps to his aid, as unbelievably he hurled himself between the two men. Amid the general alarm, the tuba player recovered his balance and aimed a vicious blow to Holmes’s body sending him staggering back. I caught a glimpse of the most malevolent eyes I have ever seen, and then he was pinioned, by myself and, I recognized with relief, Lestrade. I had not recognized him, in his guise as ice-cream vendor. His whistle was even now summoning his constables.