by Robert Ryan
Beneath the dress was a small stack of envelopes, all wrapped up in a red ribbon. Within the envelopes were Desmond’s letters. He had written her such a precious few of them before—
Two paces took Mrs Gregson across the tiny room from bed to writing desk, where she scooped up and lit a cigarette. She told herself it was the smoke making her eyes water. Don’t dwell, she told herself. And don’t cry. You are in quite a pickle as it is without collapsing completely.
After that baby-faced detective had arrested her she had indeed spent a night in Holloway, but in solitary isolation. From there she had been transported in a blacked-out van to the first of a series of ‘safe and secure’ locations. All the time she had been promised her clothes and the trunk by various guards and warders – after all, she was a detainee, not a convict – but it had taken this long to catch up with her. And hidden in there was all that fate had left her of poor Desmond.
Mrs Gregson stubbed out the cigarette half smoked, picked up the letters and put them to one side, and set about extracting the tangled items of clothing and smoothing them out, laying them on the bed, over the chair and the desk, careful to move the note she had been composing to Major Watson. She had been writing it for weeks now, but she knew it was hopeless: she had no chance of getting to a postbox or post office. And that was terribly frustrating. There was one vital piece of information that trumped all the mundane jottings about Holloway and the dreadful man Colonel Montgomery, who had been in charge of her for a time and did not seem to care that she had but one pair of knickers. No, all that was irrelevant. But if the man she had seen striding the clifftop was indeed whom she believed him to be, Watson must be going out of his mind. She would pay a month’s wages to get the information through to the major.
She paused in the act of shaking out one of her Smedley silk and merino vests. Perhaps that was the answer. Bribe someone to post the letter. But no, it would still be opened and read by the local censor. Perhaps if she reduced it to a single, pertinent line, surely nobody could object to that. Ah, but even that would beg a hundred questions. What, after all, could she write?
‘I have seen Mr Sherlock Holmes and he too is a prisoner of DORA’?
When, later that night, a hand reached out for the two freshly delivered Mackeson bottles, manna delivered as if from heaven, Ross was waiting. He had crouched low next to the entrance of Oxborrow’s cottage, biding his time, breathing slowly, ignoring his craving for a cigarette and the predatory whine of mosquitoes in his ear. Then, after a good forty minutes, something happened. No light showed; Ross simply heard the slight scraping of freshly oiled hinges as the wooden door swung back.
Ross acted fast, gripping the wrist he could just make out in the weak moonlight and dragging the man up to a standing position. Oxborrow worked at the forge assisting the blacksmith and Ross knew instantly that the man was strong, stronger than he in a fair fight, but he had the advantage of surprise. He kept the man off balance and walked him into the dark room, the pair clattering into furniture.
‘Shush, there, shush, Jimmy, it’s the American. Not the guys from the estate. Shush. Be quiet, you’ll have them down on both of us. Calm down!’
Oxborrow stopped struggling and hissed, ‘Leave me alone.’
‘I just want a word.’
‘Fuck off.’
Ross used his second advantage. He tapped the great oaf on the bridge of his nose with the lead-filled cosh. The man gave a yelp as pain exploded in his sinuses and his vision became a veritable Milky Way of celestial bodies. He slumped back into a chair. Ross went and fetched the Mackeson and slammed the door, waiting for the whimpering to subside.
‘Mr Oxborrow, I need your help. I am prepared to pay for it. With money enough to keep you in drink for a year. Do you understand? But I need you to answer some questions.’
‘You’ve broken my fuggin’ nose,’ Oxborrow said in a thick voice.
‘No. It just seems like it. It’ll feel like there is a cauliflower up each nostril for a day or so. But it isn’t broken.’
‘Who the fuck are you?’ It came out as ‘oodafugaroo’.
‘I am a journalist. A writer.’
‘What kind of writer carries a blackjack?’
‘A very determined one who once rode with Roosevelt in Cuba.’ A little embellishment never hurt. ‘Now, would you like one of these beers?’
A grunt.
‘Do you have an opening device?’
‘Give ’er ’ere.’
Oxborrow took the bottle and put it between his teeth, levering off the cap, spitting it across the floor into darkness. ‘Always carry an opener with me,’ he chortled.
Ross waited while the man gulped some down. ‘Mr Oxborrow, I would like to know what happened to you when you went on to the estate. Am I right in thinking you know a way in?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Word has reached London of a terrible injustice. Families turfed out of their home, livelihoods ruined—’ An aggrieved snarl in the throat. ‘Schools and churches declared out of bounds. Now, I say the Government, your Government, has gone too far.’
‘Aye. And it’s mine by rights, you know.’
‘What is?’
‘The estate, like. From my grandfather.’
‘Of course it is, Jimmy.’ The man was rambling. ‘Miss Pillbody asked me to investigate, to see what can be done.’
‘But it’s army secrets, innit?’
‘What kind of secrets?’
Ross could hear the man’s ragged breath in the darkness, sense he was thinking things out, considering the possibilities. ‘You’re not with ’em, are you? Is this like a trial? I told you that I saw nothing in there. Nothing.’
‘Relax, Jimmy. I’m not with them.’
The man guzzled the bottle dry.
‘Another?’ Ross asked.
‘Suppose.’
Ross handed it over. ‘You know a way in? To the estate?’
A chuckle. ‘Course I do.’ Ross winced at the sound of teeth enamel on metal. ‘Like I said, it’s all mine. Know every inch. I should sue that Lord Iveagh. There’s a stream . . .’ He clammed up. ‘You said summit about money.’
‘So I did.’ In the half-light Ross took out a stack of banknotes. Forgeries, but good ones. ‘Fifty pounds there.’
‘Fifty pound?’ He reached out, but Ross snatched it away.
‘Not yet. So there’s this stream that you use?’
‘Aye.’ Oxborrow was sullen once more, now the cash had done a vanishing act back into a pocket.
‘You can show me on a map?’
‘’Tain’t on no map. Can show youse for fifty pound.’ He laughed to himself and glugged some more stout.
‘But you got caught.’
‘Not there. I had some old traps for rabbits I went to inspect. Over in woods to the south. Nabbed me straight away.’
‘But they let you go.’
‘They was all for shippin’ me off to some place, but I told them, I saw nothing. Never changed me story. Promised them I’d disappear and say nowt to anyone.’ He laughed again. ‘And also, those woods with the rabbit, they weren’t in the evacuation area. Not really. That’s what I said. An’ I was right and they knew it. So when I buggered off, they weren’t too concerned. They searched the woods, came here once. But they’ve given up now, I reckon.’ Now he gave a low giggle. ‘But I never told ’em the truth.’
Ross leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Told them what? You did see something? In the woods?’
‘Not a bloody sausage.’
Ross remembered his training. You have to ask the right question. ‘But there was something?’
He could see the head with its shaggy hair nodding up and down. ‘Aye, was something all right.’
The temptation was to hit him with the bloody cosh again. But he kept his temper. ‘What was it, Jimmy?’
‘Gotta be worth another tenner?’
‘An extra sovereign.’
Oxborrow grunted a
reluctant acceptance. ‘It were voices. All around me. In the trees. Took me a while to work out what they was doing.’
The man paused and Ross resisted the urge to grab him by the throat. ‘What are they doing?’
‘They’s making invisible men.’
‘What?’ asked Ross, louder than he intended.
‘I reckon they’s building an army of invisible men.’
FIFTEEN
They hadn’t spoken for some minutes when Watson broke the silence. ‘H. G. Wells.’
‘I’m sorry, Major?’ asked Coyle, snapping back into the here and now. He had been thinking of his first meeting with Gibson, when he had saved the Englishman’s life. ‘What was that?’
‘You were wondering what Churchill gave me in the library.’
‘Actually I wasn’t, Major,’ said Coyle. ‘Like I said, best a man like me doesn’t know too much.’ He looked over at Watson, who was sitting next to him in the Vauxhall sports tourer. ‘I’m an axe, a club, a pike, a simple weapon, me. Best I don’t know.’
‘Well, I’m still as baffled as you are as to exactly what they are doing. I just don’t want you to think I’m being led by the nose by Churchill.’
‘We’re all led by the nose by someone, Major. Harry says—’ He broke off as he remembered Gibson’s fate.
They had spent the night in what Coyle had called a ‘safe’ house to the south of London. Although Watson was keen to be on his way, Coyle had insisted a night in London would be best.
That morning they had argued over the route, with Watson insisting on several diversions along the way. One had been to purchase a new medical bag and equipment. The other was to head down into Sussex.
As they motored on after a few minutes of silence, Watson cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry about Gibson. I liked him.’
Coyle just nodded, his face impassive. Then he said: ‘It was my fault.’
Watson recognized the guilty phase of mourning. ‘Coyle, that’s not true.’
‘Ah, it’s good of you to say so, Major. But I know different. I was surprised by them. It’s my job not to be surprised. It didn’t make sense, coming after you like that. Odd. That was before I knew it was something to do with H. G. Wells.’ He let a smile flicker over his face. ‘Don’t worry, Major, I’m not going to dwell on Harry, not yet. I told Harry he’d have to have a little patience. What I was really wondering is why you insisted we go south before going north.’
They had just left Ashdown Forest, motoring at a steady fifty miles an hour, the wheels humming on newly laid asphalt, disturbing the still, late-summer air. They were not far from Foulkes Rath, site of the tragedy of Squire Addleton, a grisly case yet to be written up and published. Watson pushed it from his mind.
‘I have my reasons,’ he said vaguely.
‘I don’t doubt it. I was planning on taking you to Colchester, Ipswich, Diss and Attleborough, coming in above Thetford. Not the way anyone looking out for you might expect. But then, this’ – he indicated the twisting road ahead – ‘isn’t the way I expected.’
‘No.’ Watson looked at the AA motoring map he had purchased at the garage in Reigate, tracing the route Coyle had just described. It seemed a sound plan. ‘But I need to investigate something first. Something that is bothering me. Trust me on this.’
‘I do, Major. But we’ll have to stop overnight somewhere again,’ said Coyle, looking at the falling sun. ‘We’ll get to your destination before dark, but I don’t want to be on the roads at night. I need to see who and what is around us.’
‘I know an inn or two in Sussex where we can spend the night. Small, anonymous places.’
‘Good.’ They slowed as the road dipped and turned, twisting through a village comprising two oast houses and a cluster of half-tiled cottages. A few locals stopped to look at the handsome little car with the fishtailed bodywork as it roared by. Watson admired the Irishman’s driving. He never seemed wrong-footed by the gears, the one thing about driving that often baffled Watson. Coyle was always in the correct ratio, meaning the engine never laboured. His braking was smooth and controlled, even though he had complained that the system needed upgrading for such a powerful engine.
There was little traffic on the road, barring local agricultural vehicles, and most of them were horse-drawn, and Coyle could let the Vauxhall have its head. Watson had rarely felt safer in a car. It was certainly an improvement on Mrs Gregson, the VAD auxiliary nurse who had acted as his driver in Belgium. They had kept in touch for a few months, but once she had gone back to the front, they had lost contact. He found, sometimes, he missed her forthright and often acerbic take on life. But not her driving.
Coyle’s handling of the motor car might be exemplary, but the springing on the Prince Henry was a little stiff for Watson’s liking. He could feel a twinge in his spine and another in his left hip. He tried to shift as subtly as he could to the most comfortable position. He didn’t want the Irishman to think he had an old invalid on his hands. Well, old, yes. He’d accept that. Getting old was something being denied to millions of soldiers across the globe. He mustn’t begrudge the toll of time. But he wanted this body to last a few more years, till peace broke out. Perhaps, then, it would be time to find a spot to see out his final days. Perhaps near the Sussex Downs. But until then, there was much to do.
He felt in his pocket again for the magazine Churchill had given him, taken from a handsome bound set in the library. It was The Strand for December 1903. Everything he needed to know was in there, the politician had told him, and had marked a page. At first he had thought Churchill was playing games, because in the same issue Watson had published The Adventure of the Dancing Men. But it was another section altogether that he had earmarked. Watson hadn’t had time to read it yet, as he had fallen into a sound, exhausted sleep in Norwood. He would when they stopped that night.
Coyle cleared his throat to get Watson’s attention. ‘I don’t mean to pry, Major, but this is something I should know. Is it Mr Holmes we are going to see?’
Watson pushed himself up in the seat a little, ignoring the stab of pain in his hip. ‘It is. I tried telephoning, but the machine seems to be out of order. Or so the operator suggested.’
‘Why, exactly, do you need to consult him? And could anyone know this side trip is on your agenda?’
Watson put a cigarette between his lips and offered one to Coyle, who took it. Watson lit them both.
‘I doubt anyone would predict when I might visit him. We meet sporadically. Then again, my name is forever associated with his. Like Swan and Edgar or Tate & Lyle.’
‘Or Burke and Hare,’ said Coyle.
Watson laughed. ‘Quite. I don’t expect him to be here, not if Churchill told me the truth, but I am looking for clues to his whereabouts.’ As Holmes himself would insist, he would go over the scene of the crime for clues – for that was exactly what Watson considered the removal of Holmes to a ‘safe and secure place’ to be. A heinous act. ‘I shall be frank, I am worried for Holmes.’
‘Why?’
‘Churchill thinks this project of his is the biggest secret of the age. But it isn’t. There is one piece of news which, if it were to get out, would shock the nation far more than any war-winning device they are dreaming up in Suffolk.’
‘And what is that, Major Watson?’
He took a deep draw on his cigarette and let out a stream of hot smoke that was snatched away by the slipstream. ‘Sherlock Holmes is losing his mind.’
As Coyle predicted, they reached the little cottage on the South Downs before the dying sun had touched the treeline, but it was a close-run thing. Banks of low cloud blotted the pre-sunset glow into a crimson band along the horizon. To Watson’s mind, it looked like a giant sabre-gash in the sky. Perhaps, he thought, as they pulled up at the gate, one day he would stop seeing the wounds of war in everything he experienced.
Coyle sat, examining the little house as the car cooled down, engine and exhaust pipes ticking and creaking as it did so. Watson ma
de to get out but an arm slid across his chest. ‘Just a moment, Major.’
Watson looked, trying to see with Coyle’s eyes. No smoke from the chimney. No lights – and it had a dark interior even in bright sunshine, so lamps were always lit early – but a letter or note of some description was pinned to the door. The paper was curled at the corners, as if it had been out in the weather for some time.
‘Telephone’s been cut,’ said Coyle, nodding to the wire coils high on one of the corners. ‘Let’s take a look. Stay behind me.’
They exited the vehicle and walked up the path. As they moved closer to the front entrance, Watson could see the faded writing on the note: ‘For the Attention of Mr Sherlock Holmes’. Coyle peered at it, then removed the pin holding it in place, passing the paper back to Watson. He also put a finger to his lips as he pressed down the latch. Watson pocketed the letter. There would be time for that later. A wave of the hand told him to stay put and Coyle, pistol drawn, stepped into the cottage. Watson could feel the chill from within. No fire had been lit and no one had been in there for some time. A pocket torch flicked on, and he heard Coyle moving around, fast and efficient.
Coyle stepped back out. ‘The good news is, nobody in the opposition is waiting for us. The bad news is, your friend isn’t here. The even badder news is, the place has been ransacked.’
Watson followed him into the living area, lit one of the oil lamps and took in the scene: the unwashed plates, mounds of cigarette and pipe ash, tottering piles of books and magazines, and the remnants of half-completed experiments. ‘No, it hasn’t,’ said Watson. ‘In fact, if anything, I’d say he’s had a tidy-up.’
Coyle looked perplexed. ‘Really?’
