by Ashton, Hugh
“Where is Jan, the mate?” asked Waalfort.
“He tried to kill me,” replied Glover, laconically. “He failed to do so, as you can see. I am here, and he is not.”
The Dutch officer was forced to the side of the ship, where he sat alongside the crew, his legs dangling over the side.
“Can we count on your good behaviour now?” Holmes asked Waalfort. “Or do we ask you to join the crew?”
“I will stay here,” replied the other, truculently.
“Dr Watson, keep your eye on him,” ordered Glover. “Have no hesitation in firing should he attempt any tricks.” The Dutchman stood motionless, his arms folded in front of him.
“What is that about Ramsay-Moffat?” asked Captain Glover to Holmes, in a low voice.
Holmes briefly outlined the story he had heard from the two Colossus officers, as Glover listened in mounting disbelief.
“You suspect my First Lieutenant of some sort of involvement in this affair?” he burst out at length.
“Waalfort here has already said as much.”
“I confess that I have never regarded him highly as an officer on board my ship, and he held his position as First Lieutenant by reason of his seniority rather than his abilities,” said Glover. “But for him to be involved in this kind of business... Words fail me.” He bit his lips and stood brooding silently until the Daring returned.
-oOo-
In an hour’s time, we were re-joined by the torpedo boat destroyer.
“Stand to windward,” called out Glover. “Let us reduce the risk of infection if we can,” he added to us.
“Are you and your crew not afraid of the disease you are carrying?” Holmes asked Waalfort, curiously.
“Not at all,” he answered. “Or, to be more accurate, only a little. All of us have suffered from the plaag – the plague – in the past and lived to tell the tale. We are hardened to its effects, as I informed Captain Ramsay-Moffat when we discovered that the rats were carrying it.”
“Excuse me,” said Captain Glover. “Did I hear you say Captain Ramsay-Moffat?” His tone was quiet, but carried an air of menace about it.
“Why, yes. He is a Captain in the British Royal Navy, is he not?”
“He is no such damned thing, and never will be, if I have anything to do with it!” Captain Glover was fairly dancing with rage, and his face had turned an alarming shade of dark red.
“Calm yourself, Captain,” urged Holmes. “There will be time enough for this later.” He turned back to Waalfort. “Why were you carrying Lord Haughton on your ship? Was money your motive there?”
“We were told by Captain Ramsay—” He checked himself, observing a possible further explosion from Glover, and continued, “Ramsay-Moffat told us that we could expect money from this trip, yes, but this was done largely to protect myself. Years ago in Jakarta while I was serving in the Colonial Police, I committed an indiscretion – it was not a serious indiscretion, and I am by no means the only one to have committed such – but if it were brought to the attention of the authorities, even today, I would lose my pension, and I might even face prison, if proof could be brought against me. I believed that no such proof existed. Ramsay-Moffat, with whom I had been in contact since the days of Jakarta when he was stationed there told me that the man whom I had known in Jakarta as Augustus Wilmott was likely to be made a very important man in the government, and that even without proof, his word would count against mine, no matter what proofs of innocence I produced.” He shrugged his shoulders. “And as I confess to you now, I am guilty of those past crimes. I could produce no such proofs.”
“Much as I had surmised,” said Holmes. “And the idea was to keep your prisoner on board until he agreed not to threaten you and Ramsay-Moffat in the future?” The other nodded. “And the rats? Did you know they carried the plague with them?”
“That, I swear, was not our intention. Ramsay-Moffat had told us that Wilmott had a fear of these rodents and that if we kept him below next to the cage in which they were confined, he would soon agree to our terms. But even when I cabled to Ramsay-Moffat that we suspected we had the plague on board, he would not listen to any change in our plans.”
“And so, instead of agreeing to your demands, your prisoner contracted this foul disease, from which he has now died,” pointed out Holmes. “I do not know how this is going to sit with an English jury.”
“I do not know how Ramsay-Moffat is going to sit with me when I have finished with him,” growled Captain Glover.
“Control yourself, Captain,” Holmes implored him. “I am sure your feelings do you credit, but let us await the outcome of this episode before we do much else. But, mark!”
A white ship, a red cross pained on her side, was approaching the Matilda Briggs. “Your transport to shore, skipper,” Holmes announced to Waalfort.
“Hah!” replied the Dutchman, and thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets.
The hospital ship, the Nightingale, came alongside, and the crew of the Matilda Briggs were transferred to her, Captain Waalfort leaving his ship last in the traditional fashion.
“To the prison hospital with them,” Captain Glover shouted to the Nightingale. “They must be closely guarded and kept away from others.” He turned to us. “And what do we do? We are possibly infected, and I do not wish to be the cause of spreading the plague throughout the Fleet by contact with Daring’s crew.”
“May I suggest that Daring lower her boat, and the three of us board her and move away from this vessel while Daring destroys her. We can then be towed back to Portsmouth, and the medical authorities can take whatever steps they see fit,” I put forward.
“I concur,” agreed Glover, after a short pause for thought. “What do we do with the body of poor Lord Haughton, though?”
“Let it be said that he went down with the ship,” replied Holmes. “None of this business must reach the public’s ears, as I am sure you understand.”
“It is a Viking’s funeral, I suppose. From all I hear of the man, it is an ending that he would have wished for himself.”
The boat was lowered, and Glover and I rowed the boat away from the Matilda Briggs. “Ahoy!” he shouted to the Daring when he we were at a distance he estimated would be safe. “Fire at will, Mr Fanshawe,” he called through the megaphone we had brought with us.
There was a muffled thumping sound, and a long cylinder seemed to leap from the bow of the Daring. “A Whitehead torpedo,” explained Glover. “Two hundred pounds of guncotton should put paid to that hell-ship.”
We watched the torpedo’s trail, easily visible as a consequence of the escaping compressed air by which it was propelled, speeding towards its target. After less than a minute, the sea erupted at the waterline of the Matilda Briggs, and the sound of the explosion reached us a few seconds later. Almost immediately, the coaster heeled over, and in a matter of minutes, nothing remained on the surface other than a few wooden fragments, and an oily scum.
“Excellent work by Fanshawe,” commented Glover, as we were towed back to port by Daring at the end of a long rope.
On arrival at the port, I explained our situation to the doctors who had charge of the Matilda Briggs’ crew. Based on my report of the nature and length of our exposure, they recommended salt baths for the three of us, together with some unpleasant-tasting prophylactic medicines. Whether it was due to these precautions, or whether it was a matter of luck, I do not know, but we escaped infection.
-oOo-
“In many ways, one of the simplest cases I have encountered,” Sherlock Holmes told Mycroft as we sat together in Baker Street. “I fail to see how you missed all the clues.”
Mycroft had been persuaded by his brother to leave his familiar circuit of his lodgings, Whitehall and the Diogenes Club on account of the sensitive nature of the information that Holmes was about to impart to us. On arrival at Baker Street, he had sniffed superciliously at Holmes’ eccentric domestic arrangements, but had at length allowed himself to be settled
in an armchair with a brandy and soda by his side. Sherlock Holmes was now recounting the story to him and to me. On our return from Portsmouth, I had returned to my practice, and I had not seen Holmes for two days while he clarified the answers to a few final problems regarding the case. Earlier that day, I had received a telegram from him, requesting my presence. I was keen to know the details, and I gladly accepted.
I was anxious to know of the fate that had befallen the players in this affair, and I asked Holmes if he had received any news thereon.
“I received a dispatch from the good Captain Glover yesterday,” Holmes replied. “He managed to maintain control of his feelings sufficiently to confront Ramsay-Moffat without recourse to physical violence, and presented him with the evidence of his crimes. Given the choice between a court-martial, which might have passed a capital sentence, and would undoubtedly have ruined him, and the gentleman’s recourse in these circumstances, Ramsay-Moffat selected the latter. His body was discovered floating in Portsmouth harbour the same evening, a bullet-hole through the right side of the head. A letter addressed to Captain Glover was discovered in his cabin.”
“A most unpleasant business, even for a blackmailer, would you not say?”
“Most unpleasant,” repeated Sherlock Holmes, “in that we had two blackmailers, blackmailing each other. Haughton and Ramsay-Moffat were linked by a cord of mutual distrust and hatred.”
“One would have assumed that the two would cancel each other out,” I said. “Where both are blackmailers, surely there is nothing to expose.”
“Nothing and everything,” replied Holmes. “For Lord Haughton, the exposure of his escapade in Jakarta all those years ago would almost certainly lead to the complete collapse of his career. On the other hand, we now know, thanks to the confession he left behind, that Ramsey-Moffat’s own promotions were largely due to an admixture of the influence wielded at his behest by his victim, Haughton, and by his destruction of the careers of other officers through bullying and blackmail over minor peccadilloes, as well as outright forgery of orders and documents in a number of cases. Naturally, Haughton was aware of all this, and had it in his power to wreck Ramsay-Moffat in his turn. He was, strange though it may seem, in a stronger position than the other. If he were to expose Ramsay-Moffat, the latter would have nothing on which to fall back, while Haughton, of course, would have his estates and eventually his father’s title. The two were like fencers with their foils at each other’s throats, neither daring to move forward for fear of the damage they might inflict on themselves.”
“How did you come to know that Ramsay-Moffat was involved, Sherlock?” asked his brother, speaking for the first time.
“From the letters written by Haughton,” replied Holmes, bringing out the copies that had been supplied by Mycroft.
“I examined these letters and could make nothing of them,” exclaimed Mycroft. “Perhaps you would be good enough to explain yourself here.”
“It was not until after we had been introduced to Ramsey-Moffat that the meaning became clear,” explained Holmes. Read the first letters of each epistle.”
“‘Read’ – R.” Mycroft turned to the next sheet. “‘As’ – A, and the next starts ‘My’ – M, and the next is ‘Some’ – S. R A M S... I see it now. Ingenious.”
“Too ingenious,” replied my friend. “You missed it entirely, and it was too late for me to act on it when I had discovered its meaning. However, it was obvious to me that there was more to these letters than met the eye. The letters were written at Waalfort’s orders, I am sure, in order to allay any fears that Haughton was dead, and the captive developed a plan, too subtle for its own good, to communicate with the outside world. The whole message, by the way, read ‘RAMSAYMOFFATASKHIMWHEREIAM’. Following Lord Haughton’s contracting the plague, the communications naturally ceased. My suspicions regarding Ramsay-Moffat were aroused, you will remember, Watson, when he told us the whole of the story regarding the past incident in Jakarta – you do not need to know the details, Mycroft. It was a sordid little tale that reflects well on no-one and is best forgotten, but it was indicative of some kind of devilment on Ramsay-Moffat’s part. Following his tale to us, I re-examined the letters.”
“And that was enough to put you on the track of the Matilda Briggs?”
“The connection was obvious. My enquiries at the docks confirmed that there was a link with the East Indies in the shape of the crew and the officers. We knew that both Haughton and Ramsey-Moffat had served in that part of the world, and it therefore seemed more than likely that Ramsey-Moffat had retained connections there. Waalfort turns out to have been one of the police officials who brought Haughton back to the Bellorophon that fateful night. He admitted to us that he had committed misdeeds – maybe he accepted bribes, or worse – and somehow Haughton had discovered this. I have no doubt that Ramsay-Moffat also had this knowledge, and used it to further his own ends.
“After that, it was plain that there was some form of blackmail afoot. Ramsay-Moffat had been using his knowledge of Haughton’s past to further his own career, but dared not push too hard, for fear he himself would be exposed. It has transpired that many documents in his Service file are not authentic, and he would most certainly have suffered had their authenticity been questioned.”
“What caused him to adopt these desperate measures at the last?” asked Mycroft.
“I believe it was exactly as we were told by Waalfort,” replied Holmes. “Haughton was believed to be on his way to greater things – even if your championing of him as First Lord of the Admiralty was not common knowledge, Mycroft, it seems that he was highly regarded by many. His word would have carried much more weight than previously, and any attempt by Ramsey-Moffat to use his knowledge against his superior would be dismissed as the ravings of a failed rival.”
“You appear to have saved the country from two plagues, Sherlock. Not only a physical disease, but also a moral plague that could have infected our political system. Your bravery in confronting this threat is commendable.”
“You should rather be commending Watson for his bravery,” commented my friend. “To approach and give comfort to a man you know is dying of such a vile disease argues a degree of courage that few possess. I frankly confess, Watson, I am humbled by your actions.”
I was embarrassed, and muttered something about its only having been my duty.
“Nonetheless,” said Mycroft, “I concur with Sherlock in his opinion.”
-oOo-
Naturally, none of the above was ever made public, nor do I intend it to be so, given the high positions held by some of the principals of the case, and the importance of them to the Crown. Lord Haughton was given out as having been lost at sea in a boating accident, and the capsized wreck of his yacht was adduced as proof of this.
Captain Glover, I am pleased to say, remained firm friends with Holmes and myself for many years to come, and largely as a result of Mycroft Holmes’ invisible influence, rose to the rank of Rear-Admiral, a promotion, in my opinion, well deserved. Waalfort and his crew were held in quarantine, after which time a request was made to the Dutch government, and they were returned to Holland on a Dutch naval vessel. I never discovered their ultimate fate.
Holmes, as was his wont, refused all honours and glory connected with the business, and I followed his lead on this matter, though I have sometimes wondered how my and Mary’s lives would have been changed had I yielded to the momentary impulse, and we had henceforth been addressed as Sir John and Lady Watson.
>>>---<<<
About the Author
Hugh Ashton came from the UK to Japan in 1988 to work as a technical writer, and has remained in the country ever since.
When he can find time, one of his main loves is writing fiction, which he has been doing since he was about eight years old.
As a long-time admirer of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, Hugh has often wanted to complete the canon of the stories by writing the stories which are
tantalizingly mentioned in passing by Watson, but never published. His latest offering of three such stories brings Sherlock Holmes to life again.
More Sherlock Holmes stories from the same source are definitely on the cards, as Hugh continues to recreate 221B Baker Street from the relatively exotic location of Kamakura, Japan, a little south of Tokyo.
If you enjoyed this book, look for Hugh's other books:
Tales From the Deed Box of John H Watson MD
Beneath Gray Skies
At Sharpe's End
Red Wheels Turning and
Keiko's House
All available at Smashwords.com and other fine booksellers.
If you have questions or constructive comments, feel free to contact Hugh at [email protected]
