by Petr Macek
“Where is the rifle with the telescopic sight?” asked the detective.
I had left it by the side of the tank when we boarded. It was now leaning against the remains of the destroyed scaffolding in the middle of the courtyard. I ran over to fetch it while Holmes started the car.
“Have you ever driven before?” I asked.
“No, but I’ve read about it.”
“Can you manage with one hand?”
“I shall have to. I drove the tank, after all. But the rest is up to you, Watson. I cannot hold the rifle in one hand, and I could hardly pull the trigger with my crushed left index finger. I hope that you are a good shot and will not panic. England depends on you!”
It was a heavy burden.
Without further ado he motioned to me to get in, and we raced after the plane.
With the burning castle behind us we headed straight for the rolling aircraft, which was searching for a stretch of flat land from which to take off.
Holmes floored the gas pedal. Soil flew in all directions and the wheels bounced wildly as we sped highways and byways after our graceful nemesis.
We were about to reach the airplane before it got off the ground, and I was preparing the gun, when we suddenly heard a ferocious scream behind us.
I looked back and saw Alice’s effeminate servant galloping after us on horseback. Apparently the smoke from the fire had caused him to return to the castle. Behind him galloped our horses, which he must have found down at the forest.
The servant beat the horse to go faster and edged ever closer to us.
“Drive faster, we have company!” I shouted to Holmes, who retorted that we were driving as fast as the car would go.
Although our car was far more powerful, the animal proved more efficient on this terrain and caught up to us.
The muscle-bound servant let go of the reins and swung his leg over the horse’s back so that he could jump onto our car. I grabbed the rifle and climbed into the rear seat. I straddled the seat and waved the rifle around like a club, hoping by this mad action to drive him away.
Then our car hit a divot or a stone and I lost my balance.
I was lucky not to fall out, but I lost my footing, and one of my legs sank between the seats and got trapped. The rifle ended up on the floor.
Our adversary took advantage of the situation, swiftly loosened his feet from the stirrups and jumped into the car. While I was trying to free my leg he landed on my shoulder. But he immediately realised that Holmes was a much greater danger to him and he began clawing at him and covering his eyes. A scuffle ensued during which the blinded detective lost control of the car and it sped freely across the plain.
Alice had meanwhile finally left the ground and the plane was slowly gaining altitude.
“Watson, would you please stop playing around and get this individual off of me?” Holmes wheezed through the servant’s hands.
I gathered myself and extracted my leg from the leather upholstery. Before the servant could notice, I rolled over onto my back and kicked him hard with my heel in the chin. I achieved the desired effect. He loosened his grip on the detective’s head and lunged at me.
Fortunately the laws of physics were on my side. As the hulk bounded I raised my other leg, guiding them somewhere between his chest and stomach, and swung with all my strength behind me.
The inertia of his attack sent him flying over my head and out of the car.
He must have fallen hard because he lay stunned on the grass. Thus he learned just how dangerous it is to get out of a moving vehicle.
Lady Moriarty, now a safe distance away, could only watch my battle with her servant. But then she turned the plane around in a swooping ark and headed straight for us.
“She’s coming back!” I cried with renewed hope.
But Holmes cursed.
The yellow triplane burst through the clouds, flying straight towards us. As it approached I could see Alice’s round head in a flying helmet and goggles.
“For God’s sake duck!” yelled Holmes.
Then I saw a flash on the bow of the aircraft and lumps of earth began to leap up in front of the car. I remembered the formidable armaments on the aircraft.
The machine-gun fire lasted for a few seconds before the lady flew over us. It was only a matter of time before she made the turn and swooped back for a second attack.
I grasped the rifle, aimed and fired a few times, but all the shots were off and I was forced to reload. The detective did not say anything. He knew how difficult it is to shoot an airplane from a moving car.
My hands were shaking. I probably should not admit this, but even after everything that had happened I still found it difficult to shoot the woman who at one time had meant so much to me.
Alice did not share my feelings. Again she flew over the Silver Ghost and dotted the plain around us with a hail of machine-gun fire.
But she missed us again, either due to Holmes’s manoeuvres or because she did not have a lot of flying experience. But the bonnet of the car had been hit just inches from me. The hole in the canvas could just as easily have been in my stomach.
I fished two more rounds from my pocket, loaded the rifle and aimed without regret. They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.
I relaxed.
It was just me, the plane and the rifle. I squinted through the telescopic sight. I could clearly see Alice Moriarty’s smirking face.
I fired and hit the tail rudder. It shattered to pieces. The second shot flew wide, but the first shot was enough.
“Now she can’t change direction!” Holmes cried. “She will have no choice but to land!”
The airplane swayed as Alice tried to manoeuvre in vain. Nothing helped. The machine roared above our heads and headed helplessly in the one direction that the tail wing permitted.
But she would not land. Alice had apparently decided to wager everything on her last card. She was a born fighter. Instead of descending she gained altitude. She glided over the tops of the trees in the forest beneath the plains and flew onward.
“What is she doing? How does she mean to continue without a rudder?” I said uncomprehending.
“She hopes to succeed in getting out of our reach,” said the detective.
“But she will never make it! It is madness!”
“Desperate women do desperate things,” he sighed. He turned the wheel and drove the car to the nearest road. “If she does not land as soon as possible, she risks catastrophe.”
It was incomprehensible to me.
The plane was still visible on the horizon and was distancing itself from us. It was becoming a yellow dot against a dull sky. Holmes drove faster. We could clearly see what direction we needed to head in, but we did not want to lose sight of the plane. We could not risk that.
The road wound its way ahead through the Scottish highlands, but sometimes also got lost between steep hillsides. The terrain did not offer Alice a place to land and so she had to continue flying.
The detective was driving so fast that the four wheels of the car were rarely on the road at the same time. At this pace the holes and puddles of the uneven road no longer presented any obstacle to our hard-charging automobile.
I had no idea what time it was. If someone told me that we had begun the ascent of the walls of Alice’s fortress a few weeks ago, I would have believed it.
All of a sudden in the opposite lane I saw Tankosić driving in a horse and carriage. He was apparently heading from the train station in Glinney on his way to meet the Darringfords. Holmes saw him at the last moment and began honking wildly on the claxon.
We raced out of the turn in the opposite lane and literally swept him off the road. It was only by some miracle that he avoided us. Then his wheels slipped on the rocks and the carriage and whinnying hor
ses fell over.
“There is nothing for you here, Tankosić!” my companion cried to him over his shoulder.
The foreigner heard his name and literally froze. But that’s the last I saw of him, because we were racing ever onward. I can only assume that when his true identity had been revealed and he found the castle in ruins, he returned from whence he came. As far as I know he never met Alice Darringford.
Thanks to the frantic drive the detective had successfully managed to keep the aircraft in our sight. But as yet there was no indication that our wild chase was coming to an end. The precious documents remained out of reach.
I soon noticed that we were driving steadily downhill. The open plains of the Scottish highlands stretched ever onwards beneath us. My impression was correct. It was confirmed a moment later when we passed a sign to the valley of the Great Glen.
In front of us lay Loch Ness, famous around the world for its alleged resident, the mysterious creature known as the Loch Ness Monster.
The wind picked up and brought rain.
“She is running out of fuel,” Holmes cried suddenly, not taking his eyes off the triplane.
“But she has not been in the air long,” he added. “It appears you are a fine shot. You hit the fuel tank!”
The machine was nearing the jagged boundary of the horizon until it presently disappeared. But not for long. It took us a few minutes before we reached the valley, at the bottom of which lay the long narrow lake with high rocky shores. Against the background of the silvery water we saw the last moments of the flight of the yellow triplane.
With its fuel drained the machine was no longer able to stay in the air. It all turned out as Holmes had predicted.
Lady Alice’s plane hit the water. Though it at first barely skimmed the surface, the force of the impact tore off the undercarriage and wheels. The airplane skipped a few times on the surface, like a flat stone tossed by a child. Then it turned a few cartwheels and the propeller fell away and sank in the water. It was a terrifying sight.
The valley echoed with the sound of the cracking hull.
The wings snapped off and ripped into pieces, lifting a wall of spray. There was an ominous splash. The geyser of water enveloped the machine and its pilot before our eyes. We were too far away to help. The despair that I felt was boundless.
Waves formed on the surface of the water. For a moment air bubbles popped to the surface and then there was a long, heavy silence. We watched Alice Moriarty, like her father before her, swallowed by the cold water, never to be returned.
XVIII: The World Does Not Stop!
It began to rain and I cried with the heavens.
Holmes was mournful as well, though he did not share my grief over the death of the beautiful criminal. He was thrown into despair rather by the definitive loss of the strategic plans for the defence of England and the many important documents whose originals had burned. Many ingenious inventions thus ended at the murky bottom of Loch Ness.
It was not until the following summer that the future would in its way still find the path.
After the crash of the airplane we drove down to the banks of the lake and hired a boat. We searched the surface thoroughly, but found only bits of debris. We remained there until nightfall. In the first hours we still hoped that Alice had managed by some miracle to escape from the sinking wreckage and survive. But the water was cold, the weather unfavourable, and as time went by it was increasingly clear that our hopes were in vain. Due to her intransigence and pride, Lady Moriarty, just like the heavy fuselage of the triplane, was at the bottom of Loch Ness.
The next day Mycroft’s people began to arrive. Together we searched the banks of the lake. But we did not find any traces there either. In Glinney, meanwhile, a second team arrested Alice’s servant, who was grieving by the side of Rupert’s remains among the rubble of the burned down castle.
We returned to London with one arrested person and reported to Mycroft. But we could only boast of a partial success: we had prevented the secret war documents from falling into enemy hands. But we had not succeeded in returning them to the King.
I must admit that Mycroft valued our achievement more than his despondent brother.
“Although we do not have the patents to the war machines, neither does Wilhelm,” he said. “That is more than enough.”
In any event, they had long been working on new strategic plans for the defence of the country. The risk of a breach had been far too great.
The suffragettes led by the Pankhurst clan continued to be a pressing social problem. But with the dispersion of their militant comrades we had nevertheless succeeded in declawing them. Nevertheless, they continued to promote their objectives in their own way.
As for Luigi Pascuale, his work in the factory of Vito Minutti did not last much longer after the end of our case. Mycroft sent his Italian counterpart an unofficial message full of exceedingly interesting information, which divorced Luigi not only from his lucrative position, but also for a while from his freedom.
Meanwhile Holmes and I took a several-week-long rest.
The case had been a great burden on my friend’s weakened heart. I judged that if he had continued to exert himself thus just a little while longer he would have suffered another coronary. His injured hand also required care, particularly the crushed finger. With the help of experts from the clinic we succeeded in saving that too, although the detective never quite fully recovered all feeling in it.
But this was a small price to pay compared to what would have happened had I not intervened.
Unfortunately, Holmes saw it differently.
To tell the truth, since we got back to London he hardly spoke to me. He blamed my foolhardiness for the loss of the documents. For a long time he did not allow me to explain that I had only acted impulsively when I could no longer bear to witness his suffering.
We reconciled shortly before his return to Fulworth.
“Cherchez la femme,”[24] he said to me by way of farewell, as we embraced on the platform before he boarded the train. “Never forget it, my friend.”
The phrase hung in the air as I gazed through clouds of white steam at the departing train.
24 French: “Look for the woman.”
Epilogue
At the end of the case I did not suspect that for the next two and a half years Holmes and I would not see each other at all or even keep up a correspondence. He did not answer my letters and I was too busy and too proud to travel to his farmstead uninvited. At first I suspected that he was simply angry at me, but the truth was actually much more prosaic. Shortly after his return to Cuckmere Haven he was visited by the minister of foreign affairs and the prime minister himself, who embroiled him in the case of a German spy named von Bork. The work occupied Holmes for more than two years and took him all the way to the United States and Canada. It all finally ended - once again with my assistance - just a few days before the Great War.
Yes, that war, which Miss Moriarty helped bring about in revenge for the death of her father and from which she sought to establish her powerful, radical offshoot of suffragettes as the rulers of an industrial empire. Our efforts, however, had not been in vain. We had delayed the conflict by a whole three years and had given England precious time to prepare. Only in our worst nightmares could we imagine the evil which threatened to destroy the world thanks to the inventions and patents for the war machines that Lady Alice wanted to build for Tankosić and other wicked men. Although Sherlock Holmes had stopped her, the new chemicals and technologies of the Great War brought death to countless thousands.
Without Holmes everything would have unfolded differently and Britain may have been reduced to ashes.
And so by way of conclusion allow me to paraphrase what the detective said at one of our last meetings just after von Bork’s arrest in August 1914, when war w
as irreversibly at our doorstep.
“There’s an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it’s God’s own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.”[25]
I will never forget his words.
My friend was a wise man and it was always an honour for me to be by his side. Let his words, which I have attempted to reproduce in my literary work as faithfully as possible, continue to inspire each new generation.
Dr. John H. Watson
November 11, 1927
25 From “His Last Bow” (1917)
Afterword
Holmes before the Battle
That Sherlock Holmes is probably the most famous literary character of all time (at least in English letters) is thanks in large part to the measured judgment of his chronicler Dr Watson and editor Arthur Conan Doyle[1]. After all, fate and insatiable curiosity ceaselessly compelled him to leave his beloved chemistry and violin - and the quietly burning fireplace in Baker Street - to pursue cases so wide-ranging, that prudence was necessary when publishing them. Not all of them were terrifying or devastating. Many were simply too intimate or their publication incompatible with the spirit of the age or the interests of the British Empire. Doyle knew that Watson could not yet publish them, despite the fact that he had recorded them. That they really happened is testified only by cursory mentions in several published cases.
The “good giant”, as the French nicknamed Doyle, generously gave his successors the opportunity to write what he had not yet had the chance to publish. In addition to the gaps in time between the various stories, which are being gradually filled in thanks to the unrelenting zeal of his “pupils”, the works contain exciting references to an entirely unknown world of other Holmes cases, which Watson, despite the clamour, in his devoted zeal simply had to record. An unexpected legacy of Watson’s manuscripts is therefore constantly being discovered in suitcases and boxes found in attics or bank safes. The wind of time has spread many of his stories throughout the world. The sheer number of stories makes one wonder when he found time for his medical practice. Let us leave the answer to the researchers, the men and women who love Sherlock Holmes.
