“What is this devilish plot?” I asked.
Lord Easthope focused his mild blue eyes on me. “There’s the heart of the problem,” he said, nodding approvingly, as though I’d said something clever. “We don’t know.”
“A shadow?” Holmes’s eyes narrowed. The three noblemen might have thought that he was concentrating his attention on this growing shadow, but I—and probably his brother—knew that he was considering whether Lord Fotheringham should be forcibly restrained. I had some such notion myself.
Holmes leaned back in his chair, his fingers laced over his waistcoat, his eyes almost closed. “You don’t know?”
“Perhaps I should explain,” said Baron van Durm. “There are signs, subtle but distinct signs, all over Europe, that something of great import is going to happen soon, that it concerns Great Britain, and that it portends no good. Taken by themselves, each of these incidents—these signs—could be a random happening, meaning nothing, but when one looks at them all together a pattern emerges.”
“We have a saying at the War Ministry,” Lord Fotheringham interjected. “‘Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.’”
Sherlock Holmes leaned forward and laced his hands together beneath his chin, his elbows resting on the table. “What sort of incidents?” he asked.
Lord Easthope began: “In various centers of Socialist and Anarchist thought throughout Europe—Paris, Vienna, Prague—speakers have begun warning against British imperialism and the ‘secret plans’ Britain has for world domination.”
“I see,” I said. “‘The Secret Protocols of the Elders of Downing Street,’ eh? There is, I grant you, a school of thought that believes that the English are one of the Lost Tribes of Israel.”
“By itself it would be amusing, and hardly sinister,” Easthope said. “But if you consider these speakers to be part of a plan to pave the way for—something—then they deserve to be looked at more seriously.”
“Even so,” Lord Fotheringham agreed. “Most of those who listen to this nonsense now, even among the émigré Socialist communities, must realize it to be nonsense, considering that Britain is one of the few countries that allows these groups freedom of movement and association without having to worry about police spies in their midst.”
“Unless, of course, they’re Irish,” Mycroft Holmes said bluntly, shifting his bulk forward in his chair. This was met with a complete silence, and he didn’t pursue the thought.
“What else?” asked Holmes.
“Newspapers,” said Lord Fotheringham.
“The editorial pages of newspapers in various European countries—France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland—are printing the occasional scurrilous editorial accusing Her Majesty’s government of a secret plan of aggression against the Continental powers,” Mycroft explained.
“How odd,” said Sherlock.
“We know of three different men in the governments of three different countries who are preparing anti-British legislation of one sort or another,” said Lord Easthope. “Preparing, you will notice, but not submitting. They are waiting for the proper moment. We must assume that they believe that there soon will be a proper moment. If we know of three, presumably there are more.”
“Do those three men know each other?” Holmes asked.
“Apparently not,” his brother told him.
“Then we must also assume there is, somewhere, a hand pulling the strings.”
“We do so assume,” Mycroft said.
“Is that all?” Holmes asked.
“Is that not enough?” asked Easthope.
“Actually,” said Baron van Durm, “there is one other thing. The House of van Durm, as you might surmise, has agents strategically placed all over Europe. Most of these conduct the bank’s business. Some merely collect information. The success of an international bank rises or falls on the quality of the information it gathers. One of these agents is highly placed in the government of, let us say, a foreign power that has not always been on the best of terms with Great Britain. In the course of his work for us he came across a document that might shed some light on these happenings. It was not addressed to him.”
“Ah!” said Sherlock Holmes.
“This is a copy of it, translated into English,” van Durm said, removing a sheet of paper from a folder on the table before him and passing it over to Holmes, who read it carefully twice before passing it on to me:
Thirteen—
Your concise and with information filled report was most welcome. We must continue and increase our efforts to discredit England and all things English. It is simpler to chop down a tree if you have poisoned the roots.
Sixteen has failed us. Worse, he may have betrayed us. He was seen entering the embassy on Prinz Rupert Strasse. He stayed for an hour. He will not do so again.
The day nears. The events unfold. Work and diligence carry great rewards. The Florida is now ours. Inform the brothers that the direction is up and the peak is in view. If we succeed, we will succeed together. Those who fail will fail alone. It is the time for cleverness and impudence. Stories must be told. Incidents must be arranged.
The lion sleeps peacefully. Holmes and Moriarty are watched, as are Lamphier in Paris and Ettin in Berlin. They are not alert.
Proceed to Lindau on the 16th. The company is assembling. The first place. Three white clothespins. Burn this.
One
“What do you make of that?” asked van Durm.
“It was in German originally?” I asked.
“That is so,” van Durm said.
“The embassy on Prinz Rupert Strasse?”
“The British embassy in Vienna is on Prinz Rupert Strasse,” Lord Easthope said.
Holmes leaned back in his chair. “Lindau is a German place name?” he asked.
“A town on the Bodensee, on the German side of the Austrian border,” Easthope told him.
“Quite a distance from Florida,” Holmes remarked.
“That is so,” Easthope agreed. “We have not been able to come up with a plausible explanation for that line. Not even, if it comes to that, a fanciful one.”
“The whole missive has something of the fanciful about it,” I said. “Addressed to ‘Thirteen’ from ‘One.’ There’s something of the Lewis Carroll about it.”
“Why was it not burned?” asked Holmes.
“It was,” van Durm told him. “At least the attempt was made. The original was found in a fireplace grate, charred and singed. But it had been folded over several times, and so it was merely the edges that suffered the damage, and the whole message was retrieved intact.”
I smiled, reflecting on the image of a high government official crawling about in a fireplace.
Holmes glared at me. “I detect your hand in this,” he said.
I was not amused, and I’m afraid that I allowed an ill-considered expletive to pass my lips.
“Quite so,” said Lord Easthope.
“His name is on the document,” Holmes insisted. “Can’t you see—”
“Enough!” cried Mycroft in a deceptively quiet bellow. “Your name is also on the document. Take my word for it, Sherlock, that whatever else Moriarty may be involved in, he has no hand in these events.”
Sherlock Holmes gave his brother a long glare, then assumed an attitude of sulky acquiescence from the depths of his chair.
Baron van Durm looked from one to the other of us. “I thought you said they could work together,” he said to Mycroft.
“They can,” Mycroft assured him. “They just need a little time to get over their mutual spitting match.”
I resented that. I had done nothing to encourage Holmes in his asinine accusations. But I held my tongue.
“When we saw the references to you, we naturally checked,” Lord Easthope said, “and ascertained that you were, indeed, being watched. Had you noticed?”
“I assumed that it was at the behest of the younger Mr. Holmes,” I said.
“I thought Mori
arty was up to more of his usual devilry,” snarled Holmes.
“Well there, you see, you were both mistaken,” said Easthope. He turned to Mycroft. “Are you sure these are the men we want?”
“Yes,” said Mycroft.
“What of Lamphier and Ettin?” Holmes asked.
“Ah!” said van Durm.
“Would that be Alphonse Lamphier the noted French criminologist?” I asked.
“Yes, it would,” van Durm affirmed.
“How can you be sure that he is the Lamphier referred to?” Holmes asked.
“Because he was murdered yesterday.”
“Coincidence,” said Holmes.
“He was found in the ruins of a burned-out cottage outside the village of Lindau,” said Lord Easthope. “Pure accident that he was found. He—his body—could have stayed there for months. He was almost naked and had his hands tied together. He was already dead when the place was set on fire, but a section of interior wall collapsed and preserved his body from the fire.”
Holmes opened his mouth to say something, but Lord Easthope continued, “He had scratched some words on his inner thigh with a pin before he died. Ils se réunissent. Means ‘they meet,’ or ‘they assemble,’ or ‘they gather,’ depending.”
“I stand corrected,” said Holmes. “One can stretch coincidence too far. Does anyone know precisely what he was working on when he was killed?”
“Our agents in Paris are attempting to ascertain that even now,” van Durm said.
“What would you have us do?” I asked.
“As they—whoever ‘they’ are—are watching you,” said Lord Easthope, “we infer that they have reason to fear you. Perhaps because of your known abilities, each of you in his own sphere, or perhaps because you possess some information that you might not even know you have, that would be of value.”
Holmes and I pondered this for a minute. Just as I was about to disagree with this assessment, Holmes anticipated me. “I think not,” he said.
Baron van Durm looked startled. “Why not?” he asked.
“In Welsh coal mines the miners take a canary down into the pits with them,” Holmes said. “It is to give them early notice of bad air, as the canaries are more susceptible than the miners. We are these people’s canaries.”
“I fail to see the analogy,” said Lord Easthope.
“Our, ah, opponents watch us because they believe that, if Her Majesty’s government were to become aware of their machinations, it would send one of us to investigate. Either myself, for obvious reasons, or Professor Moriarty”—he paused for a second to glare at me, and then went on—“because of his known associations with the underworld of Europe. So much is undoubtedly so. But they no more fear us than the coal miner fears the canary.” Holmes punctuated his talk with restless motions of his slender hands. “If they believe we have knowledge of their doings, they will immediately and ruthlessly eliminate us.”
“How do you know this if you know nothing about them?” Lord Fotheringham asked.
“Alphonse Lamphier told me,” Holmes replied.
“What? How could—oh, I see.”
“Perhaps I should have said attempt to eliminate us,” Holmes continued, “since others have tried, and none has yet succeeded.”
I was amused at Holmes’s inclusion of me in his statement, as he had so often accused me of trying to eliminate him. But I said nothing.
“So what are we to do?” asked Baron van Durm.
“Out of the myriad of possibilities,” said Mycroft, “there are three that appeal more than the others.”
“And they are?” asked Lord Easthope.
“One is to keep my brother and Professor Moriarty visibly at home, to reassure our antagonists, while using others to subvert their plans.”
“Who?” asked Lord Easthope.
“What others?” echoed Baron van Durm.
“I have no idea,” confessed Mycroft Holmes. “The second possibility is to spirit Holmes and Moriarty away without letting the watchers know.”
“How?” asked Lord Fotheringham.
“Perhaps with wax dummies of the two placed in their windows and moved about to achieve a verisimilitude of life.”
“Ridiculous!” said Baron van Durm.
“The third possibility,” said Mycroft, “is for them to leave openly, but in such a fashion as to cause those watching them to conclude that their interests are elsewhere.”
Sherlock looked at his brother. “Brilliant, Mycroft,” he said. “And just how are we to achieve that?”
The possibilities of the situation appealed to me. “I’d suggest, Holmes, that you chase me to the ends of the earth, as you’ve so often threatened to do,” I said, smiling.
Holmes glared at me.
“Perhaps,” Mycroft said, “with a little modification, that is indeed what we should do.” He rubbed his right forefinger along the side of his nose. “If the two of you were to kill each other, nobody who knew you would be surprised. And I think it safe to assume that the watchers would cease watching in that event.”
“Kill each other?” Holmes repeated incredulously.
“How do you propose they do that?” asked Baron van Durm.
Mycroft shrugged. “Somehow and someplace where there can be no suggestion that it was a sham,” he said. “Plunging over the side of a tall building together would suffice. Perhaps the Eiffel Tower.”
Now this was being carried a bit too far. “And how do you propose we survive the fall?” I asked.
Mycroft sighed. “I suppose it should be somewhere less public,” he said, “so you don’t really have to go over the edge.” He sounded honestly regretful. Which of us was he picturing leaping off a precipice, I wondered.
Baron van Durm snapped his fingers. “I know just the place!” he said. “Near the town of Meiringen in Switzerland there is a great waterfall on the Reichenbach River.”
“Reichenbach?” asked Holmes.
“A tributary of the Aar,” van Durm explained. “This spot has but one path leading out to it, and if you were said to have fallen, nobody would expect to find your remains. The river at that point is rapid, deep, and, er, punishing.”
“Why so far from home?” asked Lord Fotheringham.
“It has several advantages,” said Holmes thoughtfully. “Our trip there will give our opponents time to see that we are chasing each other rather than hunting for them, and it will leave us in Switzerland, and a lot closer to Germany and the village of Lindau.”
“Even so,” Mycroft agreed.
“Won’t that make them suspicious, your ending up in Switzerland?” Lord Easthope asked.
I ventured a reply. “They know nothing of our interest in Lindau, and if they believe us dead, it won’t matter anyway.”
“That is so,” Easthope agreed.
“So,” said Lord Fotheringham. “Do you two gentlemen believe that you can put your personal enmity aside long enough to serve your queen?”
I was about to answer with a polite guffaw, or perhaps even a mild snicker, when to my surprise Holmes stood up and drew his shoulders back. “For queen and country,” he said.
All eyes were at that instant on me. I shrugged. “I have nothing on for the next few weeks,” I said.
With a slight change in the original plan, the race across Europe was to be carried out with a verisimilitude designed to convince Watson, as well as any onlookers, that it was genuine. The change was that I was to pursue Holmes rather than the other way around. Mycroft decided that would be more convincing.
Two days later the great chase began. Holmes called upon Watson to tell him that I was trying to kill him (Holmes), and he must flee to Europe. The tale was that my “gang” was about to be rounded up by the police, but until that was accomplished Holmes was in great danger. Watson agreed to accompany him in his flight, and the next day joined Holmes in “the second first-class carriage from the front” of the Continental Express at Victoria Station. Holmes was disguised as a humble elderly p
relate, but Watson wore no disguise, and so the watchers had no trouble watching. They saw Holmes and Watson flee in the Express, and watched me engage a Special Train to pursue them. Holmes and Watson appeared to elude me by abandoning their luggage and getting off the Express at Canterbury. They went cross-country to Newhaven, thence by the paddle steamer Brittany to Dieppe.
Shaking my fist and murmuring “Curses, foiled again!,” I went straight through to Paris and lingered about their luggage for several days, apparently waiting for them to come and claim it. When they didn’t appear I put the word out among the European underworld that I would pay a substantial reward for information as to the whereabouts of two Englishmen who looked thus-and-so. Eventually word came to me, and I spent several days pursuing them about Europe, followed in turn by several gentlemen who did their best to stay just out of sight.
As planned, I caught up with Holmes and Watson in the village of Meiringen in Switzerland on May 6. They had gone after lunch to look at the falls, about a two-hour hike away from the inn, and I sent a boy with a note to Watson designed to lure him back to the inn to care for a mythical sick woman. Holmes was then to write a letter to Watson, put it and some article of clothing on the ledge, and disappear; leaving it to be believed that he and I had gone over the edge in a mighty battle of good and evil. Hmmph! I would then fade away from the scene and meet Holmes in Lindau in four days.
But it was not to be. Even as the lad scurried off to carry the note to Watson, I was forced to change the plan. I followed and concealed myself behind a boulder when I saw the lad and Watson hurrying back. Then I rushed forward to the ledge, where Holmes had already put the note in his silver cigarette box, placed it by his alpenstock at the side of a rock, and was enjoying one last pipe of that foul tobacco he smokes before disappearing.
“Aha!” he said, upon spying me approach. “I knew it was too good to be true! So it’s to be an all-out fight to the death, is it, Professor?” He sprang to his feet and grabbed for the alpenstock.
Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years Page 26
