Die Again, Mr Holmes

by Anna Elliott

  The shadowy light cast by the wall candle played over Ming’s scarred face, making it even more hideous.

  With Ming was little Becky.

  Ming’s good hand clutched Becky by her hair, pulling her head back to reveal the sharp point of a steel hook that gleamed in the electric light. I realized the hook came from the end of what we had thought was Ming’s immobile arm. The back of the hook was pressed into the soft white skin of Becky’s exposed neck.

  “Drop it, Mr. Holmes,” repeated Ming, “or this little girl will suffer the same fate as Inspector Swafford. And you will watch it happen.”

  “We thought his hand was just crippled,” Becky said. “We didn’t know the hook was inside.”

  “In weakness there is strength,” Ming said, with an evil leer.

  “He cut the ropes with it,” Becky went on. “We ought to have been watching, but we didn’t know.”

  “Where is Jack?” Lucy asked. “Where is Flynn?”

  “Kai-chen is guarding them,” Becky said. “He has the revolver.”

  “You are wrong,” said Ming. He tightened his grip on Becky’s hair and pressed the back of the hook more tightly against Becky’s neck. Then he turned slightly. “Isn’t that correct, Kai-chen?”

  In answer, Kai-chen stepped forward, into the light. His face was scraped and misshapen from our earlier struggle, and his broken knife hand dangled at his side. In his other hand he held my Webley. His grip on the revolver was firm.

  The gun was aimed directly at Lucy.

  “Your friends are locked into the therapy room,” Kai-chen said, “along with Alice and the two other British ladies.”

  “Not so clever now, are you Mr. Holmes?” Ming smiled his hideous smile. “I presume the tube you are holding is some kind of explosive. You will drop it immediately. Or I will order Kai-chen to shoot your daughter. Her death will not be a quick or painless one.”

  “Kai-chen admires you, doesn’t he, Ming?” Holmes said.

  The two were momentarily silent.

  Holmes went on, “I wonder if he knows the truth about how you were injured. Does he know how you really got your face burned and your hand crippled?”

  “In a battle with the British,” Kai-chen said.

  “No,” said Holmes. “This man, Ming Donghai, was burned, but not in a battle with the British during the Opium Wars. That conflict ended more than thirty years ago. Ming’s injury came only four years ago, in Hong Kong, when he became a bit careless with the chemicals and the heating flame while working in a morphine factory. His investors, who owned the factory, were not pleased, as the fire caused them considerable financial loss. To atone for the loss, he came up with the idea of turning pirate, only in a more efficient manner. He would bribe captains and officers of three vessels sailing from India. His audacious plan earned him the respect of the emperor, and the funds to pay for the bribes—and the murders that followed to hide the piracy.”

  “Sheer fabrication,” said Ming. “You have made this up out of whole cloth.”

  “Associates of Sun Yat Sen are my source. They were only too happy to describe what they knew of you.”

  “They are notorious liars,” said Ming.

  “Others knew the truth—in particular, those who were involved building this facility, which you needed to store your stolen cargo. Swafford’s brother saw the cargo being unloaded two years ago. He went to sea, but his greed drove him to return. He recovered one of the opium chests from this hoard and took it to London, where his brother thought it would serve admirably as bait in a police investigation. You killed Inspector Swafford personally, with the hook that I ought to have realized you kept with you at all times. You were seen committing the murder.”

  “By whom?”

  “Hasson, that very robust owner of the Red Dragon, saw you. Now that Newman is dead and his gang is in disarray, Hasson has thrown in his lot with the police.”

  “Hasson is unwise,” said Ming.

  “You had the help of Newman’s gang to alert you to Swafford’s activity. You hired them to make certain that Swafford’s fiancée would not reveal what Swafford and his brother knew. Your money paid for the murders of two innocent women.”

  Ming said nothing.

  “You hired Newman’s gang to continue their watch on the police investigation, and they alerted you to the activities of the unfortunate Inspector Plank, who wrongly suspected Swafford of being in league with opium smugglers. He was so anxious to keep me from discovering what he thought was a shameful secret that he wounded himself, in a clumsy ruse intended to frighten me away. He came to the Chinese Legation hoping to learn the identity of Swafford’s opium source. You lured him there, Ming.”

  Ming said nothing.

  Holmes turned to Kai-chen. “You were there at the Legation that night, young man. Did you distract Inspector Plank so that Ming could attack from behind? Would you have done so, if you had known the truth about Ming—that for his own profit he creates addicts, both in England and in China, and perpetuates all the human misery that goes with addiction?”

  “Lies,” said Ming. “Kai-chen, these are lies.”

  “I have proof to the contrary,” said Holmes. “Sun Yat-Sen’s associates were very helpful. I have photographs of you with the Chinese Legation, taken five years ago. Your face is undamaged, and both your arms are intact.”

  “It seems you have been very active for a man who supposedly died four days ago,” said Ming.

  “Lansdowne and the British Navy have been active as well. As I said earlier, Royal Marines will soon be inside this tunnel.”

  “You are bluffing,” said Ming. “And I have had enough of your falsehoods. Kai-chen, I order you to change your target.”

  Kai-chen hesitated for a moment. Then he trained the revolver on Holmes.

  Ming’s raspy voice purred with pleasure. “Now you must die again, Mr. Holmes.”

  As if contemplating a reply, Holmes gave a long look at the tube of dynamite in his right hand.

  Then in one swift move, he turned to the burning wall candle and lighted the fuse. The glowing tip of the cord crackled and sparked.

  Brandishing the dynamite, Holmes stepped towards the partially opened door to the storage room. He held the lit dynamite stick at arm’s length. His hand and the dynamite were inside the doorway. “It is a thirty-second fuse, Ming.”

  For a moment, we all stared, fascinated by the thin smoke and tiny sparks that emanated from the fuse, only a few inches from the dynamite.

  Ming screamed to Kai-chen. “Shoot him!”

  Then Holmes flung the dynamite into the storage room.

  73. ACTION

  LUCY

  Time seemed to skitter and slow down as I watched the lit stick of dynamite arc through the air, land with a thump, and then roll across towards the far side of the storage room floor.

  Ming screamed another order at Kai-chen—probably repeating his order to shoot Holmes, but the words were drowned out by the thunder of my own heart in my ears.

  Holmes had a plan. He had a plan and was trusting me to know that and to carry out my part.

  Jack and the others could be dead. My throat felt clogged with the thought of how easily Kai-chen could have lied about that.

  But right now, Holmes must have a plan—and my part was to block out absolutely everything else and take advantage of the split second my father had just given me to act.

  Ming had been caught equally off guard by Holmes’s lighting the fuse, and for just this brief moment his attention wavered, his muscles going momentarily slack with shock.

  I dove forward, wrenched his arm away from Becky’s throat, and in the same movement hooked my ankle around his, throwing him off balance.

  Kai-chen could shoot me at any second, but I had to trust that Holmes had a plan for that, too.

  Becky was ready, and the moment I touched Ming, she wrenched herself free and slid, eel-like, out of his grasp.

  I struck his face with the heel of my hand, then t
urned and elbowed him in the throat.

  Wheezing, he bent over but then brought his arm up. The knife-sharp edge of Ming’s hook slashed barely an inch from my eyes. I ducked aside, readying myself for my next move.

  But I never got the chance.

  Ming threw himself forward, weakened and gasping, but still scrambling towards the stick of dynamite Holmes had thrown. It had rolled towards the far wall, maybe twenty feet away. And it had … how long? Maybe twenty seconds left on the fuse?

  Kai-chen’s gun still hadn’t gone off, and I had no idea why—until Kai-chen himself flew backwards past me, staggering into the storage room, crashing into one of the shelves that lined the walls.

  I spun, and saw Jack, breathing hard.

  The breath I’d been holding rushed back all at once, a sharp stab in my lungs.

  Jack had a darkening bruise over one cheekbone and a cut over one eye. But he was alive.

  “Thank you.”

  Jack’s expression was grim as he watched Kai-chen. He had taken possession of the gun, but still was braced for the other man to come at him again.

  “I owed him one.”

  “Holmes!” That was Uncle John, who was shouting from near the doorway.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that the chemicals from the shelves had spilled onto the floor, forming a widening pool of liquid between us and the dynamite—and that Holmes was poised over the spreading river with another lit match.

  He tossed the match, and instantly flames sprang up, separating us from the dynamite by a leaping wall of fire.

  “Don’t be a fool, Ming,” Holmes said. His voice was deadly calm.

  With a snarl, Ming ignored him and lunged again—not for Holmes but for the dynamite. The fire licked the hem of his silk robes, and he sprang back with a furious cry.

  Holmes caught hold of my arm. He turned to Kai-chen. “You have a choice, young man.”

  Kai-chen’s expression was still dazed from his impact with the wall. But he blinked, shook his head to clear it—and then ran towards Ming and the burning fuse and the spreading flames.

  Outside in the tunnel, Uncle John led the way, while Jack carried Becky. I held tight to his other hand.

  The tunnel sloped downwards and was slippery underfoot, making it treacherous and impossible to run—as much as I could almost feel the fuse on the dynamite growing shorter by the second.

  “How did you get free of the hydrotherapy rooms?”

  “Becky managed to slip Flynn her lockpicks. Well done, Beck,” he added. “Almost makes up for your not actually staying where I asked you to.”

  “Alice and the others?”

  “Flynn is leading them out. Should be upstairs in the hotel by now.”

  “Hurry!” Holmes was following close behind us all. “Watson, open that door!”

  We were already in sight of a heavy metal door that I assumed must lead to the harbor. Uncle John wrenched it open, and we burst through—nearly running into the tall, aristocratic figure of Lord Lansdowne.

  The cold light of the full moon illuminated the scene. Lansdowne was standing over a group of trussed-up men lying on the ground, who were also being guarded by a group of sailors in Royal Navy uniforms.

  Lord Lansdowne raised his eyebrows at the sight of us. “Ah, Mr. Holmes. I trust you were successful?”

  Holmes, together with Watson, slammed the heavy metal door behind us—just as the great, thundering boom of an explosion rent the air and made the ground shudder under our feet.

  Only when the last lingering echoes had died away did Holmes turn back to Lord Lansdowne.

  “Indeed, my lord. I believe I may say that this part of the affair has been brought to an entirely satisfactory conclusion.”

  74. A NEW SUSPICION

  LUCY

  “How are you feeling?” Becky asked.

  On the surface, very little inside the Slades’ cottage had changed. The sitting room was still dusty, the piles of laundry and newspapers and half-drunk cups of tea still exactly where they had been the last time Becky and I had been here.

  There was something indefinably different in Mrs. Slade’s expression, though, as she lay on the sofa and smiled wistfully up at Becky.

  The three of us were alone in the cottage. Chief Constable Slade was still down at the Grand Hotel, cataloging the evidence and supervising the builders who had come to determine whether the explosion in the cellar had caused lasting structural damage.

  Mr. Torrance himself was, at the moment, residing in the holding cell of the police station next door. The last I had heard, he had been stridently maintaining his innocence and claiming that he had no idea of the morphine being manufactured in the cellars of his hotel. But I very much doubted that the judge and jury at his eventual trial would believe him.

  Holmes, Jack, and Uncle John were already back in London. They had left on the first morning train and were even now no doubt meeting with the plethora of officials who would want answers as to what exactly had happened to the huge quantity of opium they had hoped to recover.

  Becky, though, had wanted to say goodbye to Mrs. Slade. I still hadn’t entirely recovered from seeing her pinned with Mr. Ming’s hook at her throat the night before. Probably, I never would grow used to Becky’s being in danger—just as my father would probably never grow fully comfortable with my taking part in his investigations. But I had come to accept that Becky was no ordinary ten-year-old girl, and that I had to trust her to know her own mind. She had slept without any nightmares for what remained of last night, and now seemed a little quiet, but almost her usual self.

  So I had agreed to her pleas that we go to see Mrs. Slade, and we had stayed behind to take a later train.

  Now Mrs. Slade was looking pale, her face drawn with exhaustion. And yet there was a look of clarity, almost peace in her dark eyes that I hadn’t seen there before.

  “I feel terrible,” she said. The wry smile deepened. “Positively, absolutely dreadful.”

  I didn’t doubt that. The after-effects of the drugs Mr. Ming had given her would still be lingering in her system, and would, according to Uncle John, take some days to fully subside.

  “But—” Mrs. Slade bit her lip, looking down at her joined hands, and seemed to hesitate before going on in a stronger tone. “But I wish to be better. That was why I went to see Mr. Ming. I wanted those pills he gave me to work. I did want to get better.”

  “Then you will get better,” Becky said.

  Mrs. Slade’s expression softened as she looked at Becky. “I hope so. I have been thinking … no.” She stopped, suddenly squaring her shoulders. “I have decided. I am going to London, to stay at a clinic there. A real clinic, that is. Dr. Watson told me of it when he came to see me this morning, on his way to the London train. He thought the doctors there could help me.”

  Becky beamed. “If Dr. Watson said that, then it’s true. And if you’re going to be in London for a while, then we can come and visit you, can’t we Lucy?”

  I smiled. “Of course we can.”

  Outside the cottage, Becky slipped her hand into mine. “Do you think she really will be all right?”

  “I hope so.” I glanced over my shoulder at the small cottage, framed by the backdrop of the fenlands. The flat, spreading pools of water glittered silver in the pale winter sun. “She has a difficult journey ahead of her, but she seems determined to help herself, and that is half the battle.”

  Becky was silent for a few steps. Then she said, “If Mrs. Slade does start to get better at Dr. Watson’s clinic, I’m going to introduce her to Flynn.”

  Flynn had chosen to accompany the others back to London on the earliest train. There was, he said, too much fresh air up here, so far outside of the city.

  “To Flynn? You do realize that there’s a significant chance of him murdering you if you try to get him adopted to a family where he has to do things like bathe regularly and sleep under a roof?”

  Becky looked unperturbed. “It would be good for him to h
ave a family—people he can trust, people to care about him.”

  “Maybe.” I squeezed her hand. “At the very least, he has us—and he has you for a friend. He’s lucky there.”

  “What about Alice?” Becky asked. “And Lady Lynley? Have you heard what’s going to happen to them?”

  “I saw Alice last night—or rather early this morning.” After Becky had—to her only mild indignation by then—been bundled off to bed. “Remember Connor Faraday, from the Lynley’s stables? Apparently his mother lives in a cottage not far from here, and she’s going to let Alice stay with her for a while, until she’s recovered from the shock of everything that’s happened.”

  “Do you think Alice will marry him?” Becky asked. “I hope she does, he’s nice.”

  “You sound like a village matchmaker.” I glanced at her. “You’re awfully anxious to see everyone settled into domestic arrangements today.”

  “Well, families are nice to have.” Becky’s grip on my hand tightened a little, and I knew without asking that she was thinking of her father—the father who would never be able to take her away from our home. She was safe with us.

  “I certainly won’t argue with you there.”

  Becky walked in silence for a few steps, then looked up at me. “Lucy?” She seemed oddly braced, as though she’d been nerving herself up to say something, and when she spoke the words came all in a rush. “Do you think there’s any chance that I’ll turn out, like, you know … like him?”

  “Like your father? Is that what’s been worrying you these past days?” For the sake of her feelings, Jack and I had spared Becky the ugliest details of our interview with Benjamin Davies. Maybe she would be ready to hear them someday, when she was older, but not today. I shook my head. “Becky, I don’t think you could turn out anything like your father even if you tried.”

  Becky blinked quickly, brushing impatiently at a loose strand of hair. “We’re related. No matter how much I want to, I can’t get away from that. You don’t understand, your father is Mr. Holmes—”

  I put my hands on her shoulders. “Did I ever tell you that there was a time when I thought that I was Professor Moriarty’s daughter?”