I stepped out into the quiet village high street and collected the horse, taking the time it took to adjust the girth and mount up to look in either direction. The cart that had silenced the in estimable Mrs Saxby so effectively was jolting out of sight amongst the trees lining the road leading up to the cliff top and Lellantrock House. My first step would seem to be to test the lay of the land; spy out the enemy’s lair. I turned the gelding towards the hill and tailed the cart at a discreet distance.
Lellantrock had possession of an idyllic spot, perched on a high, wooded hilltop, overlooking the glittering blue sea, yet its builders seemed not to have taken account of that beauty. Even from a distance it was a grim square building constructed from local grey stone. There were no vines to soften its starkness. Tall dark windows of the kind popular at the start of the century marched around its three floors in a symmetrical pattern. Behind it lay a series of low single-storey buildings in similar style, giving the overall effect of building blocks abandoned there by some giant child. This was a fortress, and was by no means quiet in the absence of its ‘squire’.
I pushed my mount at an easy pace along a well-worn path that led around the estate. The main house was surrounded by a stone wall, which I estimated to be some six to eight feet high, and the gate through which the cart had gone was manned by no fewer than three men. They seemed at ease, but I was aware of how carefully they watched me as I walked the bay gelding up the steep incline towards the cliff top. I tipped my hat to them and called out a polite greeting. Two of them replied with curt nods and tugged caps.
The third man was none other than Jacob Moriarty. He stared at me with narrowed eyes and then melted away into the courtyard beyond the archway. I am sufficiently vain to consider myself possessed of a pleasing face. Perhaps not a truly handsome man, and not as memorable as Holmes had been, but sufficient to be easily remembered. I had no doubt a description of myself and my mount would be with Moriarty residing within in very short order.
I pushed the horse on a little faster. It was foolish of me to come here. Had I been identified then I was in immediate danger. There was no way I could have known of the professor’s survival, but I should have anticipated that some of his henchmen would be loyal to the estate.
Holmes would not have been so headstrong. He would have come here, of that I had no doubt, but he would have had a plan. Perhaps with one of his cunning disguises to conceal his identity. Or else hiring one of his seemingly endless associates to scout the territory for him. What he would not have done was parade himself past the main gate like some Soho streetwalker.
I kicked my horse into a trot and moved out of sight of the gates. There was little cover along the cliff path beyond a few stands of scrubby gorse and hawthorn and I kept moving until I came to the tall, square fortress-like mine building, which stood almost a quarter of a mile from the walled house and garden. I dismounted and secured the gelding by a convenient trough in the shaded side of the stone building. As the horse drank, I sat back on the remnants of a cart and considered my options.
The mine was abandoned, and seemed to have been for some time. The wheel that should have topped the station was already gone and the windows stood dark and glassless. I tried the only door and found it locked, which was curious in a place so obviously ill kempt. I peered through the nearest window. The inside was stacked with boxes, barrels and chests, all far newer than the abandonment of the building would allow. Not hard to imagine what was in the array and easier still to link it all from the postmistress’s gossip to Jacob Moriarty.
I stepped back to peer around the side of the sheds towards the house visible across the rabbit-cropped sward. There, in that stately array, was the man I found in the darkest portion of my heart to hate with an implacable depth of feeling I had not thought myself capable of. A hatred that doubtless bordered on insanity in that moment.
The weight of my service revolver, which I always kept close when travelling wilder places, pressed heavily on me as a reminder of my soldierly past.
Presumably the reputation of the family, and the fact that it was broad summer daylight, lulled them into believing themselves safe from intruders. I am certain no sane person would have attempted entry, but in the event it was simplicity itself even taking in my own derisory health.
Once inside, I made my way to the house in short order through a neglected garden and ramshackle collection of recently constructed outhouses. It must have been an impressive manor at some point but had been let go. Sad, in some respects, but to my advantage when it gave me a great deal of cover to approach the house itself.
I slipped across a small walled terrace and in through an open window. Still no sign of any guards or staff, though I could hear voices coming from the service quarters raised in ribald laughter. Plainly not a house run on traditional lines, because no butler or housekeeper of my acquaintance would have allowed such laxity. But once again this was only to my advantage.
Once inside, however, I was at a slight loss. I crammed myself into a dark alcove, praying I would not be discovered, and stood for some minutes weighing up my situation and wondering if I should retreat.
Above stairs was eerily quiet with none of the noise I had heard earlier permeating into the main house. Like the gardens, the house was shabby, and as clean as one might anticipate. The carpets were unswept and the walls stained above the lamp sconces. No electricity or even gas in this ancient place, just oil lamps and candles like any commoner’s cottage. I was surprised, therefore, to hear the tinkling of a telephone. A tall figure strode across the hall to where the instrument sat. It was Jacob. His end of the conversation was abrupt and the call short and unwelcome from the way the younger Moriarty slammed the handset back into its cradle.
He turned back the way he had come, shouting ‘Cole! Get my horse. We have a cargo!’ He paused. ‘Mrs Dench? Mrs Dench!’
‘Yes Mr Jacob, sir?’ A portly woman of mature years bustled along the hallway. She was dressed in the traditional blue dress and white apron and cap of a nurse and I smiled. This, I reasoned, must be the postmistress’s missing Aunt Alice.
‘I must be out for a few hours.’ He glanced up the stairs and swore vehemently – and I saw the poor woman flinch. ‘I will be back as soon as I may. I trust you to keep things on an even keel.’ He swept away, leaving the woman visibly shaken. Once he had gone, she hurried up the staircase, and to the end of the landing. She entered a large bedchamber, and I was close behind.
Inside the room was dark and fetid. The curtains were drawn and a fire lit despite the warmth of the day. It smelled strongly of bodily functions, of sweat and urine and worse. And there, in the depths of a huge four-poster bed, lay the man that I had dreamed of facing ever since my return from the Reichenbach Falls.
As I stared at Professor James Moriarty so Mrs Dench was staring at me.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded.
‘A doctor,’ I replied. ‘How is the patient?’
‘Close to the end, sir. The infection of the lungs is too deep.’
I nodded, approaching the bed as calmly as I was able, though my blood raced noisily in my ears. ‘Fever?’
‘Up and down, sir. Mostly up. And his pulse is weaker by the hour.’
I nodded and smiled. ‘Thank you, Nurse. Would you be so good as to fetch me some soap and water?’
‘Sir.’ She inclined her head and withdrew.
Only when she had left the room did I approach the bedside.
The man was little more than a skeleton: eyes sunken deep into hooded brows as dark as bruises; yellowed skin, taut across his face, dampened with fever. He lay prone in a welter of snowywhite pillows, his cracked lips moving slightly with silent words as he raised his head.
He was a pathetic wreck of a man yet those eyes blazed with every particle of that vast intellect which had made him infamous still very much intact. This was the man who had driven Holmes into fleeing across to the Continent, and the man who had taken the dive into those viol
ent waters of Reichenbach. The man, I had no doubt in that moment, who had ordered the carriage accident and who had ordered me shot – executed.
The eyes opened slowly, pale blue eyes that were surprisingly sharp for one deep in the grip of ague. Eyes that focused on me and crinkled in amusement. ‘Ahh … my—’ he struggled to draw a noisy breath ‘—good … Doctor … finally.’ He laughed … wheezed … coughed, and laughed again. His frail shoulders shook with the effort and his eyes watered, but through the tears those gimlet eyes never left mine.
Blood hammered at the back of my eyes in a red rage, which fogged my thoughts. I don’t recall picking up the pillow. I have no recollection of holding it between both hands and pressing it firmly across the arrogant face of the most evil man I had ever encountered.
His hands brushed at mine, too feeble to grip my wrists or push me away. His legs moved, knees raising the coverlet by just a few inches and back again. His hands fell away to flop across the cover, twitching feebly for a second or two longer before even that slight resistance had ceased.
I raised the pillow to stare at that face. Those eyes were wide and staring. Looking at me and yet not. I did not need to feel for a pulse to know he was dead. And at my hands – I who had sworn an oath to protect all life. To treat. To heal.
There was a slight scuffing from across the room and I turned rapidly, the pillow dropping from my nerveless fingers, to see Alice Dench in the doorway, watching me with a shrewd gaze.
She advanced, setting the jug of hot water on the washstand before asking, ‘How is the patient, Doctor?’
Her expression held the paucity of emotion employed by all our profession. Had she seen what I had done? I had no way of knowing. Indeed I hardly believed it myself.
‘Gone,’ I whispered.
‘I thought as much.’ She pulled the cords from the drapes around the bed and sat in the bentwood chair at the dresser. ‘I suggest you render me unable to raise an alarm. Doctor Watson, isn’t it?’
‘How do …’
She motioned to the door and held a finger to her lips. ‘Young Mr Jacob has been studying your likeness, and your good lady wife’s for many a month. Ever since Mr James here was brought home,’ she murmured. ‘He holds you to be a part of Mr James’s illness. He already knows you are here in Cornwall. He said as much not half an hour since. And now? He will kill those dear to you. That is what Jacob does.’ She sighed, her hand going to her throat. ‘Leave, quickly. Save her.’
I closed my eyes and shuddered. ‘I should stand judged for what I …’
She touched her lips lightly once again. ‘You only hastened what the Good Lord and our own medical man had predicted. He had days at most. And the world will not miss him. Praise God their dear mama did not live to see what her boys have become. I would not be here, but for her memory.’ She blanched at a strident voice from the main hall. ‘Go, Doctor. Go back the way you came. But …’ She held up the cords. ‘Bind me. That way at least I may survive.’
I hesitated, for the smallest of moments. Guilt was far harder to overcome than she might wish. But I thought of Mary and her awful fate and knew I could not fail her memory now. I took the silk rope and sat her in the chair, and bound her hands behind her. I raised the fine scarf she had around her neck to gag her mouth, noting the scars that it revealed, and was only able to wonder what dire circumstance had led to them. I gave a final tug at the ropes to see that they were loose enough not to cause pain but sufficient to appear real.
I gave one last lingering look at the cooling body on the bed and hardened my resolve.
I crossed to the window balcony and looked out. The ivy covering the wall was as neglected as the rest of the garden and thick enough to take my weight. It went against all I held sacred to leave a woman in peril, and to leave a crime of my doing unacknowledged. But Mary … The garden on this side seemed empty still and I swung myself out on to the green ladder to swarm ground-wards with all speed that my old injuries allowed.
I ran for the wall, very much aware of the furore breaking out in the house behind me and scaled it in good order. Another time I might have been proud of that, but all I saw was open space to where my horse was secured.
The garden was full of noise: voices and gunshots and yammering of dogs. No time to plan. Just to run. I set off across the grass, keeping to what small cover there was, until I reached the mine, the noises of pursuit loud in my ears. I skittered into the yard. My horse was there, exactly where I had left it, but not as I had left it.
The poor creature lay in a pool of its own blood. Its throat had been slit and belly slashed. Death would have been rapid at least. My pity for the animal was short-lived as I was forced to take stock of my own situation. My human and canine pursuant alike were closing fast. Perhaps a half-minute behind. The mill’s door was firmly secured still, and the windows barred so there was no chance of seeking refuge within the building itself, and thus the mineshafts that lay beneath.
I ran through the yard and out into the cliff path beyond. The trackway lay open to left and right for some distance. Too far for a wounded old soldier to even consider sprinting. And even had I been as lithe of limb as I had been before my war service, I could never have outrun the dogs.
I scurried to the edge of the cliff, looked down and swallowed hard. The tide was in, with white-foamed waves surging against the rock face. Time slowed, lending added grace to the wheeling gulls over the sea, and gazelle-like spring to dogs and men who closed in from the landward side. At the head of the pack was Jacob Moriarty, his face impassive and implacable. I had seen that face before on old comrades charging into battle. The very visage of death.
Another glance towards the water and the foaming waves, with no way of knowing what obstacles lay beneath. Yet even as I made the decision to jump I was hit amidships by a flying mass of solid muscle. I felt myself topple, arms flailing, felt the wind in my hair, my ears, felt the impact with the water hard as iron … and then I hit the water, which felt every bit as solid as the ground above, knocking the breath from me as a hammer blow. Waves wrapped themselves around me as the current sucked me down and the light faded. I wondered in that moment if this was what Holmes had felt in his final moments at the falls.
Then I felt myself being pulled upwards. I kicked hard to propel myself through the water, and found myself being hauled none too gently into the bottom of a lobster-fisher’s skiff. I made to sit up and was kicked soundly by a sea-booted foot.
‘Stay down,’ a voice growled. ‘We’ll be landed soon enough.’
I did as I was bid, curling low in the bottom boards amongst the spare pots and ropes and debris. My lungs ached, as did a dozen abrasions and bruises that I dared not investigate. I was chilled through to the bone despite the sun, but I was alive. Against all odds, I had survived the drop. ‘I thank you, sire.’ My voice was hoarse and I found myself coughing up saltwater, retching frothy bile into the bilge.
The fisherman watched me with no comment or emotion and only when I lay back exhausted did he make comment. ‘I’ve to take you along the coast,’ he said. ‘The gent from Lund’n has an agent waitin’.’
‘What gent …’
The man looked down to me and tapped his nose. ‘Not fer me to say. So don’t you ask.’
‘But who?’
‘A friend. I was set to watch fer you. An’ just’s well. You’d be fish bait, else. Quite a tumble you took.’
‘I was pushed …’
‘Argh, you were’n all. Big dog it were. Gorn now.’ He said no more, hand to the tiller and gaze fixed on the shore. He seemed of a kind, familiar and yet not. I was fairly sure we had not met, and equally sure I would never see him again once we reached the small harbour. I stepped ashore to find a package awaiting me.
My own valise with a change of clothes and money, and a single sheet of paper with a few curt sentences written upon it:
“A foolish move that was wholly expected. I will be waiting for you at Baker Street. Go there and
await my further word. I have news that will be of great interest to you. M.H.”
I did not think to argue. Indeed I doubt that I could have, had my life depended on it. Instead, I lay in the gently rocking embrace of my rescuer’s chariot, gazing up at the sky and contemplated what the ‘other’ Holmes might have in store.
The Caribbean Treaty Affair
Jill Braden
There is no question that the Diogenes Club is superior to all other gentlemen’s clubs in London. While the younger Mr Holmes may refer to my fellow members, including his own brother, as the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town, he also rightfully praises it for comfortable chairs, the selection of periodicals and, most importantly, its silence. While a member might clear his throat in outrage at some bit of nonsense in the afternoon papers, he wouldn’t grip the pages and give them an irate snap as Colonel Moran does now to his magazine as he sits in my chambers.
Will he not be still? We are celebrating, after all. When this evening’s business is complete, he will have sufficient funds to fritter away on his habits, and I will possess an item I have coveted since I donned my professorial robes.
Nothing can go wrong. So, why does a centipede of ire crawl up my spine, each spiky leg plucking at a nerve? Every contingency has been planned for, but the details of the intricate plan set into motion this night nip at the heels of my contentment. It’s excruciating to place fate in the hands of others, but if my instructions are carried out precisely, they cannot fail. They will not fail!
It is early April, and the air still bears a chill that seeps around the windows into my lodgings. Too much warmth lures a man into a mental torpor, so I welcome the tendrils of cold occasionally caressing my neck above the collar of my dressing gown. Years of hunting in the wilds of India and Africa have inured Moran to harsh conditions and he is comfortable enough in his sporting tweeds. Yet I had the girl put on more coal and turn up the gas as this promises to be a long night.
His foot bounces in irritating jerks. The gaslight shines on the leaf of a rare flowering shrub clinging to his boot. There are only three Nepalese rhododendrons in London, and two of them are at Kew. Moran doesn’t strike me as a horticulturalist. He has been loitering outside a certain Georgian monstrosity despite being told to stay away. The match to light the flame of my temper has been struck.
The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty Page 42
