Victorian Villainy (12 page)

One thing I must say about Holmes is that, barring his periodic fixation on me as the fount of all that is evil, he is a good companion: dependable and steadfast in adversity, intelligent and quick-thinking in a fix; a loyal ally and, as I have had occasion to discover in the past, a formidable foe. I found myself thinking about Holmes and our past history as we waited. What Holmes thought about I cannot say.

Dark fell with admirable speed that evening. By ten past eight I couldn’t read my pocket watch without striking a match—the light well shielded from view, of course. There were no lights visible from the black barge either. If lamps were lit in the cabins, the windows and portholes must have been well shielded. We waited a while longer—how long I cannot say as I didn’t want to strike another match—and then, dipping our oars as silently as possible, headed in the direction of the barge. The moon was a slender crescent, the light was scant, and the barge proved as difficult to find as you might imagine a black barge on an almost moonless night would do. For a while we could hear the painfully slow throb of the barge’s motor, but it was impossible to tell from just what direction it was coming. And the sound carried so well over the water that it did not seem to increase or lessen in whatever direction we rowed. And then it stopped. It wasn’t until a man came on deck carrying a lantern, heading from the aft deckhouse to the forward deckhouse, that we were able to be sure of our heading. In another five minutes we were under the stern overhang of the barge, where we tied the rowboat up to the port side and paused to consider.

“Up onto the deck, find a blunt object or two to use as weapons, and get below, or at least inside, as quickly as possible,” Holmes said.

“Forward or aft?” I asked.

“We are aft,” Holmes said, “so let us not waste time by going forward.”

I agreed. We moved the rowboat around to the side of the barge as far as we could without untying it and I felt about for a hand hold. “Well!” I whispered. “Piety and good works are indeed rewarded in this life.”

“What?” Holmes murmured.

“There’s a ladder fixed to the side here,” I told him. I took hold with both hands and started up, with Holmes right behind me. Once on deck we moved toward the rear cabin, feeling our way along the railing. I reached some impediment; a large metal object covered with a canvas and gutta-percha weather shield, and paused to feel my way around it and to determine what it was—like the blind man trying to describe an elephant. But after a few moments of grasping and groping the outline of the elephant became clear.

“Well I’ll be!” I said, or perhaps it was something stronger.

“What is it?” asked Holmes, who was right behind me.

“It is a three-inch naval gun, probably a Hoskins and Reed. It will fire a nine-pound projectile something over three miles accurately. It’s the latest thing in gunnery. Royal Navy destroyers are being outfitted with them even now.”

“I didn’t know you were so well acquainted with naval ballistics,” Holmes said. His voice sounded vaguely accusatory, but then it often does when he speaks to me.

“I am well acquainted with a wide range of things,” I told him.

We continued our progress toward the aft deckhouse. I was hoping to come across a belaying pin, or a length of iron pipe, or anything that could be worked loose and used as a weapon, but nothing came to hand.

We reached the deckhouse door and Holmes pulled it open. It was as dark inside as out. We entered. By creeping ahead silently and feeling along the wall we were able to ascertain that we were in a corridor of unknown length, with doors on each side.

Light suddenly cascaded into the corridor as a door further down was opened. A man stood in the doorway talking to someone inside the room, but in another second he would surely come into the corridor. I tugged at Holmes’s sleeve and pointed to what the light had just revealed: a stairs, or as they call anything with steps on a ship a ladder, going up. By mounting quickly we could avoid being seen. We did so. There was a door at the head of the ladder, which I opened and we went through. The door made a loud “click” on closing, and we paused, waiting to see whether this would alert those below. Holmes assumed the “Standing Locust” Baritsu posture to the left of the door, ready in mind and body for whoever might come through. I grabbed a spanner from a nearby shelf and stood, poised, on the right side.

There were no hurried footsteps up the ladder, no whispered voices from downstairs, so after a few moments we relaxed and looked around. An oil lamp on gimbals mounted to the ceiling cast a dull light around the room. It appeared to be the wheelhouse of a large vessel, with the forward windows covered with heavy drapes. There was an oversized ship’s wheel in the center, with calling pipes, and a ship’s telegraph, a chart cabinet and chart table to the rear, and various bits of nautical equipment affixed here and there throughout the room. A captain’s chair was bolted to the deck on the left, excuse me, port side, and a ship’s compass squatted alongside. A metal-strapped leather chest big enough to hold a fair sized man doubled over sat on the other side of the chair.

“A wheelhouse for a barge,” Holmes whispered. “How odd.”

“It does have an engine,” I said.

“Yes, but I doubt if it can attain a speed of greater than three or four knots. One would think that a tiller would suffice.” He took the oil lamp off its mount and began a slow inspection of the room, bending, sniffing, peering and probing at the walls, floor, and bits of apparatus scattered about. The chest was securely locked, and there seemed to be nothing else of interest in the room. After a few minutes he stood erect and put the lantern on the chart table. “This is very peculiar,” he said.

“It is indeed,” I agreed. “This is not the wheelhouse of a scow—this is the command bridge of a naval ship.”

“Say, rather, a mockup or model of it,” Holmes said. “The chart cabinet is devoid of charts, and the chart that’s pinned to this table is a Royal Navy chart of the Bay of Naples.

“Perhaps,” I suggested, “we have found the fabled Swiss navy.”

“I think not,” Holmes said. “I found this.” He held out a blue cap for my perusal. It was a British Navy seaman’s cap, and on the side the words “
H.M.S. Royal Edgar
” were embroidered in gold thread.

“The
Royal Edgar
is a destroyer,” I told Holmes. “
Royal Henry
class. Four funnels. Six torpedo tubes. Two four-inch and eight two-inch guns. Top speed a hair under thirty knots.”

“How do you happen to know that?” Holmes asked, an undercurrent of suspicion creeping into his voice.

“I have recently done some work for the admiralty,” I explained. “I, of course, made it a point to learn the names and ratings of all of Her Majesty’s ships currently in service.”

He shook the cap in my face. “You mean they trust you to—” he paused and took a deep breath. “Never mind,” he finished. He pointed across the room. “That chest may hold something of import, but the rest of the room is devoid of interest.

“Except for the hat,” I said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “That is very interesting.”

“I didn’t bring my lockpicks,” I said, “and if we break the chest open, we will be announcing our presence.”

“Interesting conundrum,” Holmes allowed.

It was one we never got the chance to resolve. There was a rumbling and a thudding and a screeching and the sound of voices from below. No—from the deck outside. Holmes closed the lantern and we pulled one of the curtains aside to see what was happening.

The steam launch had returned and was now tied up alongside. If the men now embarking from it saw our rowboat tied up at the stern life would get interesting over the next few minutes. But the rowboat had swung back around out of sight, and it would be an unlucky accident if they were to see it.

There was a barking of orders—in German, I noted—and the eight or ten men who had come aboard scurried about to do whatever they had come aboard to do. Three of them headed to the door in the aft deckhouse below us, and the two men inside had opened the door to greet them.

“If they come up here...,” Holmes said.

“Yes,” I said, remembering the layout of the darkened room. “There is no place to conceal ourselves.”

“Behind these curtains is the only possibility,” Holmes whispered. “And that’s not a good one.”

“Well,” I said, hearing the tramp of boots on the ladder,” it will have to do.”

We retreated to the far side of the curtains and twitched them closed scant seconds before I heard the door being opened and two—no, three—sets of footsteps entering the room.

“The lamp must have gone out,” one of them said in German. “I’ll light it.”

“No need,” another replied in the same language, the sound of authority in his voice. “All we need from here is the chest. Shine your light over there—there. Yes, there it is. You two, pick it up.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Take it down and onto the launch right away,” the imperious voice said. “This must accompany us on the train to Trieste.”

“Right away, Your Grace.” And, with a minor cacophony of thumps, bumps and groans, the chest was lifted and carried out the door. After a few seconds it was clear that His Grace had left with the chest, and we were once again alone in the room.

“Well,” I said, stepping out from behind the curtain. “Trieste. Now if we only knew—”

Holmes held his hand up to silence me. He was peering out of the window with a concentrated fury, glaring down at our recent guests as they went on deck through the downstairs door.

“What is it?” I asked.

“One moment,” he said.

For a second “his grace” turned his head, and his profile was illuminated by the lantern carried by one of the crew. Holmes staggered backward and clapped his hand to his forehead. “I was not wrong!” he said. “I knew I recognized that voice!”

“Who, His Grace?” I asked.

“He!” he said. “It is he!”

“Whom?”

“His name is Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein,” Holmes told me. “Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and Hereditary King of Bohemia.”

“Is he indeed?” I asked. “And how do you know His Grace?”

“He employed me once,” Holmes said. “I will not speak of it further.”

“The case had nothing to do with our current, er, problem?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he assured me.

“Then I, also, shall not speak of it again.” Whatever it was, it must have affected Holmes greatly, but now was not the time to pick at old wounds. “I take it he has little use for the English?” I asked.

“He has little regard for anything British,” Holmes affirmed. “And I believe that he has no fondness for anyone except himself, and possibly members of his immediate family.”

“Truly a prince,” I said.

The last of our visitors boarded the steam launch, and it cast off and pulled away from the barge. “I wonder what prompted the midnight visit,” I said.

“Nothing good,” Holmes opined.

There was a crumping sound, as of a distant belching beneath the water, and then another, and the barge listed toward the starboard side with a great creaking and a series of snaps.

“There’s your answer,” Holmes said, as we both grabbed for the nearest support in order to remain upright. “Those were explosions. They’re scuttling this craft. She’ll be under in ten minutes, unless she breaks apart first, and then it will be faster. Much faster.”

“Perhaps we should make our exit,” I suggested.

“Perhaps,” he agreed.

We hurried down the ladder and onto the deck.

“Hilfe! Hilfen sie mir, bitte!”

The faint cry for help came from somewhere forward. “We’re coming!” I called into the dark.
“Wir kommen! Wo sind Sie?”

“Ich weiss nicht. In einem dunklen Raum,”
came the reply.

“‘In a dark room’ doesn’t help,” Holmes groused. “It couldn’t be any darker than it is out here.”

The barge picked that moment to lurch and sag further to starboard.

“Hilfe!”

We struggled our way to the forward deckhouse. The cry for help was coming from somewhere to the left of the door. I felt my way along the wall until I came to a porthole. “Hello!” I called inside, knocking on the glass.

“Oh, thank God,” cried the man in German. “You have found me! You must, for the love of God, untie me before this wretched vessel sinks.”

Holmes and I went in through the door and down a short length of corridor until we came to a left-hand turn.

“Ow!” said Holmes.

“What?”

I heard a scraping sound. “Wait a second,” Holmes said. “I’ve just banged my head.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“No need,” he told me. “I’ve just banged my head on a lantern hanging from the ceiling. Give me a second and I’ll have it lit.”

He took a small waterproof case of wax matches from his pocket, and in a few seconds had the lantern glowing. “Onward!” he said.

Opening the third door along the corridor revealed a short, portly man in a white shirt and dark, striped trousers and vest, tied to a large wooden chair. His exertions in trying to escape had covered his face with bands of sweat and pulled much of his shirt loose from his waistband, but his thin black tie was still properly and severely in place. “Light!” the man said. “Oh, bless you my friends, whoever you are.”