The Empty Birdcage

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  “Whatever do you mean?” Mycroft asked innocently.

  “You were stalking the count! That is something I deserved to know, do you not agree?”

  “Yes, and I do apologize. Profusely, Douglas. But, had I shared this plan with you, you would have done your best to talk me out of it.”

  “Hm. I suppose now you will want to go and witness the final collapse of the banking institutions,” Douglas added.

  “Heavens, no. Why should I?” Mycroft said as they walked back towards his suite. “For it is nothing but grief and travail. No, what I require is a spot of tea, some Apfelstrudel, and a train heading in a westerly direction towards home.

  “So, unless you wish to remain in Vienna and listen to the incessant yowling of all these injured wolves of commerce, shall we meet downstairs in, say, ten minutes?”

  Just then, they heard a roar of rage coming from the count’s suite. They hurried back inside to find that Nestor Ellensberg had bolted from the divan, clambered onto the windowsill, and hurled himself off of the ledge.

  * * *

  As Mycroft had predicted, Ellensberg did not die but would be incapacitated for a good long while, for he had indeed broken his left elbow and his collarbone, along with his right kneecap. As a gray drizzle set upon the city like a mourning cloak, Ellensberg’s broken body was trundled off to hospital, as were those of many others, though some, sadly, were beyond mortal aid.

  Mycroft and Douglas, meanwhile, took a carriage to the train station, where they found their respective sleeping compartments and went down to read and rest.

  They met up again in the restaurant car, which they had wholly to themselves, for Austria was in shock; there was no one traveling about. And although their tea was lukewarm and their Apfelstrudel stale, Douglas watched Mycroft gulp it down without minding at all.

  His friend was twenty-seven now: five years older than when they had first met, at the docks. Douglas had been unloading a crate of Mycroft’s then-favorite cigar, the elusive Cuban, the Principe de Galles. Mycroft had been arm-in-arm with a beautiful blonde girl, his fiancée, Georgiana. He had seemed to Douglas at the time like a bonny prince whose world was opening up to him with all the fanfare and fireworks that his youth and breeding expected as his due.

  But then it had all gone so horribly wrong.

  He is still a handsome man, Douglas thought, but the joie de vivre has left him…

  Worse, his former lack of guile seemed to have been replaced by a hardness of countenance, as if a natural willfulness and self-assurance was beginning to congeal into intractability. What saved him was some humor about himself, a healthy dollop of compassion, and of course a yen for justice, rather than for personal gain…

  “Unfortunately for the count,” Mycroft was saying, “the Queen had not been remarking on the state of financial affairs in Britain at all.”

  “You are referring to her message?” Douglas replied, wondering for how long his mind had been otherwise occupied.

  “Well certainly, for it was a large factor in the game. Here, read it for yourself,” Mycroft declared, pulling it out from his jacket pocket.

  Douglas took it, squinting at the words then holding it at arm’s length—which he did with depressing regularity these days. It read:

  We shall not suffer such losses as we feared. All in all, we shall come out unscathed. All is well. A tragedy has been averted. None of our quarters shall be subjected to an economic beating at the moment.

  “It appears as if she were remarking on Britain’s economy does it not? But in fact, that message refers to the most recent tragedy at sea,” Mycroft explained, grinning.

  “The RMS Atlantic in Nova Scotia? Then what in the world can she mean by ‘all is well’? Five hundred souls perished!”

  “Yes, Douglas, but few were British, which means there will be no recriminations against the ship’s Liverpool-based owners, no levies and fines on trade, nor any other penalties.”

  “Ghastly priorities,” Douglas pointed out with a shake of his head. “But do go on,” he added, handing back the message and grimacing through a mouthful of tea.

  “As for the bank ledger that Ellensberg discovered in my desk drawer,” Mycroft continued, “it is a fabrication, start to finish. In truth, I have no funds at all in Austria. I simply procured a book and then wrote in a series of deposits. The simple act of hiding it gave it legitimacy and value, for people are most easily fooled when they are seeing signposts that match their desires. Like many of his fellows living the high life, Count Wolfgang did not wish to believe that the prosperity he witnessed all around him would come to a hasty and an abrupt end, and so he was ready to cling to any sign to the contrary. My sole mission was to keep him from panicking and withdrawing all of his funds before the collapse—”

  “Was a casual stroll through the World’s Fair meant to convey the same message?” Douglas asked. “Do not bother to reply, for I know the answer. What about Vizily Zaharoff? How were you made aware that Count Wolfgang owed him money?”

  “I have been keeping tabs—as the Americans say—on the count. Though he has dealings with several scurrilous individuals, none are powerful enough to do him the sort of damage that Zaharoff can do. I noticed, on his bureau, information on Çanakkale Province…”

  “Çanakkale? The site of Trojan ruins?” Douglas asked.

  “Yes. I had heard in the wind that Zaharoff is interested, some say obsessed, with the treasures of ancient Troy, and the digs of one particular archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann. My guess is that the count had borrowed from Zaharoff at substantial interest to invest in the diggings, and now cannot pay him back. Wolfgang, being a man without honor, will surely blame his accountant for the loss of funds. Which is why Ellensberg attempted suicide.”

  “You think that the rumors are true, then? That Zaharoff beheads his enemies?”

  “In fact, I thought those stories balderdash,” Mycroft replied. “But I am today much closer to thinking them true. And now I am even more intrigued by this tie between Deshi Hai Lin’s future son-in-law and Zaharoff. What interest would Zaharoff have in a Chinese land developer?”

  “Well, this is no ordinary Chinese land developer,” Douglas replied, “but one who is marrying into a well-established shipping business.”

  “Precisely. The moment we return to London, I shall inform him that we are in. If you are still willing.”

  Douglas truly wished he could say no. But, as much as a part of him longed for a quiet life, a larger part wanted no such thing.

  If he were completely honest with himself, he cared deeply for Nickolus House and the services that it provided; but his presence there created a ripple that was unpleasant and could be deleterious to its proper workings. Those who knew that Douglas paid the bills were hamstrung by the fact that they could show him no deference. And those who did not know assumed that he was a spy for the ever-ailing Mr. Smythe; that his sole occupation was to notice something untoward that he could then report back to his employer.

  The truth was that Nickolus House ran perfectly well—and perhaps better—without him.

  But he had another reason for wanting, nay, requiring, the excitement that Mycroft’s proposition offered. After all, he had been born in turmoil, had lived most of his life on the churning sea, alternating between tedium and peril, so that it felt more like home than did any sort of situation that he could manufacture.

  God’s teeth, Douglas, just say yes! he thought to himself.

  “Yes,” he said aloud, and the thing was done.

  “What matters now is that we breathe not a word to Sherlock,” Mycroft said. “I have a month’s reprieve before I have to decide what to do with him, and I aim to enjoy every moment!”

  10

  SHERLOCK HOLMES DID NOT BELIEVE IN ‘RAILWAY madmen,’ the theory that the jarring movement of a train, combined with the nerve-shattering squeal of brakes and the occasional burst of a horn, caused the brain of susceptible people to become temporarily unhing
ed. Yet, it was obvious that the closer they drew to their destination at King’s Cross, the more the large man of middle years sitting across from him was becoming agitated.

  Although the third-class compartment was unpleasantly chilly, with the wooden seats doing nothing to relieve the general discomfort, the man was perspiring. As the carriage jostled about, the lights flickered on and off; and each time, like a Kinematoscope, he would be sweating more profusely. He had undone his shirtsleeves and was dabbing at the perspiration on his arms with a handkerchief.

  A fresh tattoo on the back of his right wrist read ‘PII 21:23–25.’

  It was all Sherlock could do to concentrate on his columns and the case before him, a case that he was now completely committed to.

  He had left his studies rather abruptly and with decisiveness; so much so that neither his tutors nor the college would likely wish him back anytime soon. His departing with some animus had been on purpose, for he could not hazard that his brother would simply pay his way back into the administration’s good graces. And, since Mycroft had sworn that he would never ship Sherlock back to the parental domicile, but neither would he be at all keen to have him underfoot, Sherlock was betting that he would see the benefits of the adventure.

  As the lights flickered on again, Sherlock kept his eyes on his work. There was something in the killer’s handwriting that he had not noticed before. One of the artists had rendered the dot over the ‘i’ in the word ‘fire’ as more of a miniscule slash. If this artist had seen what others hadn’t, it seemed odd that the killer should take such pains to make his writing letter perfect, only to break form in this particular detail. He wondered which note the artist had copied, for the story had been a regurgitation of all the murders thus far.

  Sherlock was so enthralled by this discovery that as the train began to slow in its approach to King’s Cross station, he did not even chance to look up.

  A moment later the perspiring and agitated passenger was hovering over him.

  Short torso, long legs, Sherlock noticed, glancing up. For the man, when he stood, was even more imposing than he had appeared sitting down.

  “Keen on the Fire Four Eleven?” he blurted out, eyeing Sherlock’s columns.

  “Indeed,” Sherlock replied. “I aim to solve it.”

  “Solve it?” the man scoffed. “You will be lucky you do not end up dead.”

  “Why? What do you know of it?” Sherlock asked, suddenly at high alert.

  “Cease your compunction to meddle if you know what’s good for you.”

  With that, he strode out of the compartment and into the corridor.

  Sherlock glanced at his retreating form. He wondered who he was, and why he had thought to warn him off the case.

  But if Sherlock hoped to glean anything from this first subject, he would have to allow him a small head start and then track him. Based on what he’d learned of him in the half hour since he’d boarded, he could not blatantly trail this rather volatile stranger. He would need the element of surprise.

  Besides, he had always considered himself, first and foremost, a sleuth. Now was the time to put it to a crucial test. As the train came to a full stop, Sherlock remained in his seat and counted the minutes until he could go on the hunt.

  * * *

  It was an abysmal day for stalking. With the weather chilly and dry and the streets around King’s Cross clear of all but horse dung, Sherlock’s ten-minute lag time may as well have been a year. He sprinted away from Regent’s Canal as quickly as he could, for the stench of refuse and paint manufacture made it nigh on impossible to pick out any other odors—though all of King’s Cross was heady with smells, not just refuse and paint, but grain and coal, brought here and allowed to fester until they were disbursed throughout the rest of Great Britain.

  As for his quarry, Sherlock had precious little to go on. He guessed the man’s age to be fifty, and he knew the smoke he favored, for the moment the imposing stranger had stepped out of the railroad car, an errant burst of air had blown the stingy, bitter aroma of Sweet Threes tobacco back inside the car.

  But recognizing the blend of Turkish and Virginia weeds that made up his chosen brand did Sherlock little good. He could spot no detritus on the street that matched the man’s preference; there was not so much as an extinguished stub on the ground to prove pathways trodden. This made it doubly vexing, for Sherlock had gleaned, from the potency of the whiff he’d taken, that his prey was no casual smoker but a type who used the vice to quiet his nerves, and so would certainly be partaking as he walked.

  With a dearth of material clues, Sherlock relied on his memory of the stranger’s appearance. The man was of modest, even penurious means, given his clothing and grooming, yet he attempted to keep himself in passable shape, indicated by the brand-new shine of his ancient shoes, his trimmed hair and beard, and the nicks of the razor on his cheeks and neck, no doubt caused by dimming eyesight and a slight tremor in his right hand, which Sherlock had witnessed the first time the big man had nervously wiped his sweaty palms on the lapels of his coat. Such time spent on grooming meant that he still had to put on a public face. He was no common employee but a businessman.

  Beyond that, he carried himself with the upright dignity of a former military man. More specifically the arc of the leg, and the slight rolling gait when he walked, pegged him as a veteran cavalryman.

  Sherlock had been searching a good long while, finding nothing. He had zig-zagged through one neighborhood after the other, from Agar Town to St. Pancras, past row after row of new but badly constructed dwellings, none with any purpose whatsoever beyond a utilitarian sameness.

  Was he really so off the mark in his tracking? He let out a frustrated sigh. He hardly knew King’s Cross. In fact, as he pushed through streets and alleyways, he was chagrinned by how little attention he had paid to this section of the city, and he added it to the growing list of quarters he would need to know intimately. He would make it his business to do so.

  Finally, in the near distance, on a corner, he spied what he had been searching for all along.

  It was a store that sold buttons, along with assorted odds and ends for the household dressmaker, with a small sign that read:

  WELLHAM BUTTON EMPORIUM

  SINCE 1825

  Above the emporium were small lodgings.

  It was there that the man resided, Sherlock was certain of it, for his ancient but well-mended waistcoat had sported new and rather costly buttons, of the sort one would wear only if one wished to advertise a business and an occupation. The buttons had been sewn on by an expert hand, and quite securely.

  Sherlock noticed that the window on the upper floor had been opened a crack, but that the lit candle on a table by the window was not yet guttered, which meant that the window had not been ajar for long.

  He calculated the length of time it would have taken the button man to walk directly home from the station, and then he gauged it against the newly melted wax.

  Possible.

  The door to the button shop was locked. A dangling sign in the window displayed the weekday hours, but a hastily written addendum said, “closed to-day.”

  Sherlock looked towards the upper window. He saw a shadow and knew by then that he had been spotted, but that the man who resided there, however put out he might be, would not emerge without some industrious coaxing.

  Rather than shy at the challenge, Sherlock felt a sudden rush of exhilaration, along with a burst of rather addictive fearlessness that seemed part and parcel of the hunt. He backtracked to the middle of the street, cupped his hands around his lips and cried out: “Into the jaws of Death! Into the mouth of Hell—Rode the six hundred!”

  Then, he listened.

  Nothing.

  Strangely, it did not matter a whit, for he felt certain that this tactic would work. He had, at long last, found an appropriate use for a tedious bit of literature, and he was not about to be undone by the recalcitrance of his subject.

  He redoubled his v
olume and his efforts:

  “Cannon to right of them,

  Cannon to left of them,

  Cannon in front of them,

  Volley’d & thunder’d;

  Storm’d at with shot and shell,

  Boldly they rode and well,

  Into the jaws of Death,

  Into the mouth of Hell

  Rode the six hundred!”

  By the time he was finished, there was no need to strain to listen. Footsteps barreled down the stairs, the front door burst open, and the man hurtled towards him, snarling: “Who told you? I will kill them all, kill them where they stand!”

  His eyes were bloodshot, his breath rancid from nerves and bile as he pressed his face two inches from Sherlock’s.

  “Who told you?” he insisted in a hoarse whisper.

  “No one!” Sherlock assured him.

  “Then how did you know?”

  Sherlock was unnerved by the intensity he saw in the man’s gaze. Clearly, he was a warrior with a bottomless repository of hatred and rage.

  Sherlock opened his mouth, but nothing was forthcoming.

  “Who told you?” the man repeated, grabbing hold of Sherlock’s lapel with one large, gnarled, and powerfully strong hand.

  “You… were with the 11th Hussars!” Sherlock gasped. “Their badge is in the breast pocket of your waistcoat! I can make out its outline, for it has worn away the fabric where it sits…”

  “Liar!” the man declared. “You brayed about the Hussars in the street, before you could see anything at all!”

  “No, you are wrong!” Sherlock insisted. “I noticed it aboard the train. You fought at the Battle of Balaclava and you suffer from nerves,” he continued. “But you are inured to most sounds, for when the horn blared, or the brakes squealed, you did not flinch. Yet the tenor of your body betrays you, for it is constantly on alert. I thereby assume it is only gunpowder and the flash of steel that disquiet you. I know too that you are a widower—”