Watson on the Orient Express

by Anna Elliott

  “Don’t move!” Becky was peering in through the window, her face gone very white as she clutched at the sill. “Don’t move a single bit!”

  “Oh, well, I was planning on practicing my dance steps, but now you say that—” Flynn couldn’t risk turning his head to look at her, but he sounded as though he was gritting his teeth.

  “Could we defuse the bomb somehow?” I asked Holmes. One of our more memorable cases had involved a timed detonator attached to several sticks of dynamite, and we had just barely managed to cut the bomb’s wires in time to prevent its going off.

  Holmes shook his head. “From what I can tell from the outside here, the entire apparatus is contained under the floorboards. With time, we might succeed in removing some of the neighbouring floorboards to gain access. But that effort might also cause enough vibration to trigger the detonator.”

  “Do you think the front door is set with an explosive like this, too?”

  “I cannot be certain, but I should think it not very likely,” Holmes said. “Everything points to this being the primary trap—the locked front door, the half-open window, offering a chance to get into the house surreptitiously, without attracting notice from the street.”

  Anger vibrated in his tone. Flynn’s current position wasn’t Holmes’s fault, but he blamed himself nonetheless—and would a thousand times more if anything happened to Flynn today.

  We needed another solution, and quickly. There was a limit to how long Flynn could hold perfectly still. Sooner or later, muscle fatigue would set in and cause him to shift weight.

  Flynn cleared his throat, breaking the moment of silence. “I reckon you should get out. All of you.”

  “What? No!” Becky looked up at me, horrified. “We’re not leaving you! Are, we, Lucy?”

  “Of course not. Flynn, listen, we’re going to find a way to get you out of there.”

  “That’d be nice. But I’m not seeing any way it’s going to ’appen.” Flynn’s voice wavered briefly, then firmed. “I’ve ’ad some near shaves and pulled through. But everyone’s luck’s gotta run out. I reckon I’m for it this time. So go on. Scarper! There’s no point in all of us getting blown to bits.” He stopped, swallowing, then added, “Thanks for everything, Mr. ’Olmes. You’ve always been decent to me.”

  “Enough!” Holmes’s expression could have been carved out of granite, which meant that he was more worried than he wanted any of us to believe. But he went on in the same crisp tone. “There will be no need for heroism or dramatic last speeches. What we need is a solution that will allow you to walk out of there without triggering the bomb.”

  “But what if there’s no way out?” Flynn had been holding amazingly steady for an eleven-year-old boy, but now I could hear a thread of panic starting to creep into his tone. “I can’t just stand here for hours, waiting for the moment when I ’ave to move and get blown up. I’d rather it happened quick, before I’ve got time to dread it! If you all leave so’s I know you’ll be safe, I could just get it over with—”

  “You will do nothing of the sort!” Holmes’s voice rang with authority. “All the enemies we have faced together, all the criminals we have brought down have been unable to kill you—and now you seriously propose to save them the trouble by doing the job for them? Without so much as a fight?”

  I still couldn’t see Flynn’s face, but his spine straightened, and he drew a shaky breath. “No, Mr. ’Olmes.”

  “That’s better. Now, Flynn, how much do you weigh?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe five stone?”

  I saw where Holmes was leading and turned to Becky. “Go and look in that shed over there.” I gestured to a small outbuilding at the back of the dingy yard, of the sort usually used to store tools. “See whether there’s a bucket—a sack—anything that could hold a quantity of weight. Look for a rope or a chain, too.”

  “What are you going to do?” Becky asked.

  “Go back to the street and see whether there’s a coal vendor about who will sell me about five stone weight of coal.” Or rocks. I wasn’t particular. If a potato seller appeared and offered me a hefty enough sack of his wares, I would welcome him with open arms.

  11. LUCY

  I didn’t find a coal vendor, but half a block up the street I did find an elderly woman selling bags of sand, of the sort scullery maids used for scouring pots in the kitchen. She was mildly surprised but entirely incurious as to why I was asking to purchase the majority of her supply. And for a five-pound note, she happily accepted my offer to purchase her wheelbarrow for transporting the goods, as well. The last I saw, she was shuffling her way up the street, probably to regale her friends in the nearest gin hall with the story of the strange American woman who had offered her a near-fortune for a rusty wheelbarrow.

  “Excellent,” Holmes said, when I had returned to the rear yard with my purchases. “That should work admirably.”

  Becky had succeeded in unearthing a large burlap sack from the tool shed, and together we worked to fill it with sand.

  “How closely do we have to match Flynn’s weight?” I asked.

  “Exact precision should not be necessary,” Holmes said. “If we are within a margin of half a pound or so, that ought to be close enough. We should, though, err on the side of making the sack’s weight heavier than Flynn. If I am correct about the bomb’s mechanism, Flynn’s weight is currently keeping the sensor depressed. If the weight we substitute for him is light enough to allow it to release, the explosive could be triggered.”

  Half a pound still seemed like far too narrow a margin of error, and there would be no second chances if we got it wrong. We worked in silence, and then Holmes straightened, hefting the burlap sack in one arm.

  “I believe that ought to do.”

  I resisted the impulse to ask whether he was sure; obviously he was, or he wouldn’t be willing to take the risk.

  Becky went to the window to look in at Flynn. A trickle of sweat was running down the back of his neck and his muscles were shaking a little; whether we’d gotten the weight right or no, he couldn’t stand there holding perfectly motionless much longer.

  “How are you feeling?” Becky asked him.

  “Ask me again in five minutes?” Flynn turned his head a fraction, licking his lips. “What’s the plan, Mr. ’Olmes?”

  Holmes approached the window, weighted bag in hand. “I’m going to lower this through the window and onto the floor where you stand. At the precise moment it touches the ground, you will jump away—a distance of two or three feet should put you clear of the pressure plate.”

  “And if I don’t jump fast enough?” Flynn asked.

  “I cannot say for certain.” Holmes’s voice was calm, but I could hear the tension underlying the words. “But it is possible that the added pressure of double the weight on top of the bomb might cause it to explode.”

  The timing had to be impeccable, in other words.

  “I don’t think I can do this!” Flynn’s voice rose. “I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can.” Holmes cut in. “You have over the past few years of our association impressed me with your nerve and dedication, and I am notoriously difficult to impress. You can do this now.”

  “All right.” Flynn still sounded shaky, but he gave the barest fraction of a nod.

  “Very well.” Holmes turned to Becky and me. “While I appreciate what you said earlier about not abandoning him, there is no reason for all of us to remain in danger now.”

  I nodded. “Come, Becky. We’ll go and wait behind the shed.” It was built of brick, and ought to be strong enough to offer protection—

  I didn’t want to finish that thought.

  Becky held back a moment, resisting when I took her hand. “Flynn, just in case—” her voice wobbled.

  “Who’s giving last speeches now?” he asked.

  Becky swallowed hard. “You still owe me a shilling from the other day when we wanted peppermints from the sweet shop, but you were out of money and I had to b
uy them for both of us. So don’t die, because otherwise you’ll never be able to pay me back!”

  Flynn gave a smothered sound that might have been a laugh, and his voice sounded a little more back to his ordinary one when he said, “It’s a bargain.”

  Becky held tight to my hand as we crossed to the rear of the yard and crouched down behind the tool shed. We waited. Neither of us spoke, but every second seemed to crawl by interminably. I couldn’t see or hear anything from the house. Had Holmes attempted to lower the sand bag weight in yet?

  But after what seemed an eternity, Holmes’s voice rang out. “All clear!”

  When we emerged, Holmes was standing by the window, rope in hand, and Flynn was still inside on the far end of the kitchen, looking dazed, as though he couldn’t entirely believe that he was still alive and breathing.

  “It worked!” I couldn’t quite believe it, either.

  “Indeed.” Predictably, Holmes had already recovered enough that he sounded entirely unruffled. “And now I believe we ought to turn our attention to—carefully—searching the premises. It would give me great pleasure to find a clue that would allow us to confront whoever set this bomb.”

  The interior of the house, though, proved remarkably and disappointingly lacking in anything that might point us towards where our enemies had gone. The kitchen cupboards were bare, the fireplaces were swept entirely clean; the rooms were dusty and covered with a layer of grime, but empty of anything more than a few pieces of cheap furniture. Apparently when they had packed up and left yesterday morning with Watson in tow, they had done a thorough job.

  “Nothing,” Holmes growled in frustration. We had already made a preliminary sweep through the house. Now, prostrate on the ground, he was making a minute examination of the floorboards in the front room. “Not so much as a cigar ash or a broken end of a matchstick. Judging by the footmarks in the dust, our friend from outside who walks with a limp was here a day or two ago, but otherwise—”

  “Wait a moment.” I held up a hand, feeling as though I was hearing Holmes’s observation for the first time. “A man who walks with a limp.” I peered down at the dusty prints. My ability to read foot marks was nowhere near as accurate as Holmes’s, but I said, “His right leg is the one with the weakness, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Correct.” Holmes frowned, for once not seeming to leap to the same conclusion that I had done. Maybe because the idea that had suddenly struck me was so far-reaching that it could scarcely be called a conclusion at all.

  “I saw a telephone cabinet out in the hall.” It was one of the few articles that hadn’t been removed—and proof, if we had needed it, that there was money backing the group that had lodged here. Telephones were by no means common in this part of Clapham.

  A few minutes later I had succeeded in asking the operator to connect me to the Dartford Police Station, and was speaking once again to the adenoidal Constable Oakes.

  “I’m speaking on behalf of Sherlock Holmes,” I said, when we had finished with making our introductions. “I wanted to check on whether Lady Harwell has been in to identify her husband’s body.”

  “Oh aye, that she has. Took on terribly at the sight of him, poor lady. Cried and came over all faint. We had to fetch a doctor who could see to her and bring her back home.”

  “I see.” That was nothing more than I had expected. But my heart quickened as I went on, “Thank you. Now, there’s just one further question I need to ask.”

  12. WATSON

  I awoke. The train was not moving. There were no passengers in my carriage. No luggage. I looked for the conductor. Nowhere to be seen. Groggy with sleep, I stumbled out of the carriage and onto the platform.

  An attendant was positioning an empty baggage cart. I walked over to him.

  “Which way to the ferry?” I asked.

  “Down to docks,” he said, and pointed.

  “Thank you.” I started to walk in that direction.

  “But you won’t find the ferry.”

  “What?”

  “Gone. You missed it.”

  “When is the next one?”

  “9:40. Tomorrow morning.” He gave me a strange look. “You look all in, mate,” he said. “I’d get some sleep if I were you.”

  13. LUCY

  “We are sorry to trouble you at this late hour, Lady Harwell.” Holmes bent low over the lady’s hand. “But we wished to express our condolences personally to you on the sad loss of your husband.”

  Lady Harwell was very much as we had left her that morning, reclining on the sofa in her parlour. Although she had changed her dress, and now wore heavy mourning: a bombazine gown of deep black, trimmed with jet beads that clinked together whenever she moved.

  She raised a handkerchief to her eyes. That, too, was different from this morning, being edged with black ribbon. “Thank you, Mr. Holmes. As you can see, I am utterly prostrated from the shock. That such a thing can have happened to my poor Gerald! That he should leave me utterly alone in this way—” her voice broke.

  “It is hard to be alone,” I said. “But there are consolations, of course. For example, a wife’s money belongs to her husband, even if it is hers by birthright. But a widow has control of her own fortune, to spend or save as she pleases.”

  Lady Harwell’s small dark eyes widened for a split second. Then she shook her head, sitting up with indignation. “Why, really, I can’t imagine what you mean, saying a thing like that. I assure you that money is the very last thing that matters to me at such a time as this—”

  “Is it?” I leaned forward. “Your husband recently visited the dentist’s, didn’t he? To have a tooth extracted?”

  Lady Harwell’s doughy features went blank with surprise. “Why, yes. But why—”

  “The man currently lying in the mortuary at the Dartford Police Station has all his teeth intact. I don’t know who he is, but he’s not your husband.”

  “I—I—” Lady Harwell’s mouth opened and closed with no more sound emerging.

  “It must have been difficult for you,” I went on. “Watching your wastrel of a husband squander your fortune, and being powerless to stop him. Then you learned that he planned to turn traitor to his country—sell the state secrets he was in possession of, fake his own death by means of a body substitute—and escape under a new identity, provided for him by a certain criminal organisation that specialises in such fresh starts for wealthy criminals. He probably coached you in what you would have to do, once his supposed body was found—how you would have to identify him. Was that when it occurred to you that it was a perfect chance to get rid of him permanently, without a shadow of blame attaching to you? Because of course, there would be no signs of foul play on the body that would be found—and anyway, you could be proved never to have left the house here at the time when he died.”

  Lady Harwell’s fingers were clutching the string of black beads at her neck, her face gone an odd mottled colour. “I—you’re lying! All of this is a tissue of wicked lies, you can’t prove any of it!”

  “I think, you know, that we can.” I nodded to Holmes, who drew back the curtains that covered the parlour window facing out onto the grounds. The slope of grass and trees were in darkness, save for a few specks of yellow illumination that flickered and danced across the lawn. “Do you see those lights out there, Lady Harwell? Those are police officers breaking into the icehouse. I think we both know what they’re going to find there.”

  “I don’t—you can’t—”

  “You killed your husband, Lady Harwell. Then very early in the morning when no one was about, you concealed his body in the ice house—likely at the back, well covered in layers of sawdust, where it would not be discovered until you had a chance to move it to some more permanent hiding place. You were seen that morning, though, by one of the gardeners, and since I am certain that it is indeed a rare occurrence for you to set foot outside this room, you had to give some account of your presence there. Hence the story of the unsatisfactory roses, and yo
ur threat to dismiss the gardener who had seen you.”

  Lady Harwell stared at me a moment, her eyes narrowed, her cheeks unhealthily flushed. Then her mouth twisted. The words seemed almost to burst out on their own in an angry flood. “Do you know what Gerald was like? For years he squandered my money on his drink and his gambling! Then he planned to just walk away and leave—taking as much as he could grab of my fortune with him! He laughed about it, said that he would soon be living the high life in South America without a care in the world. And he expected me to help him do it! He said there would be a scandal if it came out that he had sold state secrets, and my name would be disgraced. So to avoid it, I was to identify the false body as his.” Her eyes darkened with the memory. “He laughed and said he hoped I’d give him a good funeral. It never occurred to him that I wouldn’t do exactly as he said. He never even considered me a threat!” She stopped, panting for breath, and then a small smile played about the corners of her mouth. “I stabbed him straight through the heart with my letter opener. The one I keep right there, on the desk.” She gestured. “And never in my life have I seen a man look so surprised.”

  “What will happen to her, do you think?” I asked Holmes.

  We were in our carriage on the way back home. I hadn’t looked out the window, but just by the familiar rattle of the cobblestones I could feel that we were nearly at Baker Street.

  “Consideration may be given to her on the grounds that her husband was guilty of treason. With a good lawyer, she may escape being hanged.” The glow of Holmes’s lighted pipe was a small orange ember in the darkness opposite me. It moved; he must have unclamped it from between his teeth. “Why do you ask? Are you feeling sorry for her?”

  “Not particularly.” I had felt pity for Lady Harwell at the beginning of the case. But Holmes and I dealt with murderers on practically a daily basis—and nearly all of them tried to convince us of the righteousness of their crimes. “I was just wondering whether she might know anything that will point us towards Lord Sonnebourne. If her husband confided in her at all—”