“I think we bent an axle,” Holmes said. “The bearings are going. I don’t know how much longer we can carry on.”
“There must be somewhere where we can pull in and take cover. A farmhouse, a vicarage, an inn – somewhere.”
“There is a place, perhaps a mile up the road.”
“Where?”
“Settleholm.”
“Mallinson’s own house?”
“It is the only building I know of that’s close enough. Unless you have a better idea…” He glanced in the rear-view mirror, then grabbed the back of my head and thrust it towards my knees with a cry of “Down!”
The next instant, the part of the windshield directly in front of me shattered to smithereens. Had Holmes not shoved me out of the way, it would have been my head.
We sped on, the Thunderbolt making increasingly distressed and recalcitrant mechanical noises.
A low flint-and-brick wall appeared at the side of the road, indicating the boundary of the manor. I braved a quick look back at the Humberette, to see that Lord Harington was now unconscious, having succumbed to shock. I doubted he would come round. His head lolled on his neck, jerking with every jounce of the car.
As for the other three, their faces, lit weirdly by the nimbus of light from the headlamps, were masks of pure righteous rage. There was no other thought in their minds but destroying us. Their eyes seemed to blaze.
The manor gates hove into view.
“One more time, Watson,” said Holmes. “Hang on.”
He wrenched the steering wheel hard over, and the Thunderbolt went into a slewing, right-angled skid. Its nose hurtled towards the gates, which were shut and latched.
The collision was tremendous. I think Holmes had been hoping that the impetus and weight of the huge car would be sufficient to bash the gates wide open.
The gates, however, were sturdier and solider than that. They withstood the impact well. One of them was knocked partly off its hinges but remained in place.
It was the Thunderbolt that came off worse. Its front end crumpled like an accordion. Its bonnet tented upwards.
Holmes came off relatively unscathed, whereas I was thrown headlong, helplessly, against the dashboard. I struck it with stunning force, and for a time saw nothing but bubbles of light bursting before my eyes.
Then Holmes seized me and shook me, returning me to my senses.
“Come, Watson. This is not the time for dozing.”
He hauled me bodily from my seat. We scrambled out and squeezed ourselves through between the front end of the car and the gate. The radiator spat and steamed. The Thunderbolt looked like a toy that had been picked up and dashed to the ground several times by an irate toddler. One wheel had been jolted free from its fixture and had rolled several yards down the driveway, where it now lay on its side.
The Humberette had drawn to a halt in the road behind it, and Mallinson, Partlin-Gray and Anstruther were climbing out. Holmes yanked me along by the scruff of the neck as the three plutocrats slithered through the half-ruined gateway, abandoning Harington in their haste to catch us. Regardless of whether they could have done anything to help their critically hurt co-conspirator, it was still a callous, ruthless act. They had treated Jenks the same way, leaving him to fend for himself in a field with a knife stuck in his belly. Such was the measure of these men.
Down the linden-lined driveway Holmes and I staggered. He was bleeding. I was half dazed from the crash. By contrast, our three pursuers were still in fine fettle, and one of them was armed.
I am not the sort of man who puts any store by miracles, but at that moment I was certainly praying for one.
CHAPTER FORTY
DEA EX MACHINA
We skirted round the side of the manor, Holmes eschewing the main door because we would be too exposed as we ascended the front steps, especially if the door turned out to be locked. By now the mist had been reduced to just a last few wispy shreds, and a bright crescent moon, waning from full, bathed everything in silvery light.
Next to the driveway turning circle there was an Italian garden, bordered by a high yew hedge. We hurried past a sunken pond where a cherub fountain spouted lazily onto the lily-pads.
Our pursuers were but yards behind us. They would have been closer if they had not paused to divest themselves of their robes, which were impeding their ability to run. A shot from Anstruther, more an aide memoire than a serious attempt to maim, punched through the thick foliage of yew by our heads with a rustling hiss.
We entered a narrow walk which led to a bower. Here there was a choice of turns. Left terminated in a grotto flanked by statues of Aphrodite and Dionysus. Right, which we took, saw us passing beneath a vine-wreathed pergola. Holmes knew exactly where he was going. During his stint as gardener Albert Tuppen he had had ample opportunity to acquaint himself with the layout of the grounds.
We emerged onto a lawn. The west wing of the house lay to our right, and Holmes guided me towards the servants’ entrance, a half-glassed basement door at the foot of a stone stairwell. The door was locked, but my friend bashed out a pane with his elbow, reached through and turned the key on the inside.
A boot-room, then a scullery, then a laundry – we threaded our way through the manor’s labyrinthine below-stairs realm. In the kitchen Holmes paused to snatch a meat cleaver hanging from a rack above a marble chopping slab.
“Not much defence against shotgun rounds,” he said, “but any weapon is better than none. Also, it is high time you were freed.”
He parted my bonds with a couple of quick, deft slices with the cleaver. Then onward we ran, until we reached the back stairs.
Up on the ground floor, we passed through a dining room and a library. Neither afforded a hiding place large enough to accommodate us.
We came out into the vast, capacious hallway, and Holmes’s eye fell on the two suits of armour positioned at the foot of the main stairs.
“Ah, now that’s more like it,” he said. “A sword will present us with…”
His words trailed off. The swords which had accompanied the suits of armour when last we had been here, were now gone. Each pair of steel gauntlets cupped nothing but empty air.
“Singular. Why would Mallinson remove the swords? It makes no sense. There is no way he could have foreseen that you and I would find ourselves in his hallway, in need of weapons. I’ve heard of taking precautions but this is foresight that’s almost clairvoyant. Unless…” The corners of his mouth turned up in a wry, enigmatic smile. “Very good. Yes. In the absence of firangi or khanda, why not?”
“Holmes,” I said, neither understanding the import of his words nor caring, “shall we attend to the more pressing issue at hand?”
Our three pursuers were, to judge by their footfalls, currently in the library. It was only a matter of moments before they entered the hallway.
“We should try one of the bedrooms,” I went on. “We could buy some time by barricading ourselves in. While our enemies are occupied breaking down the door, we could fashion a rope out of sheets and lower ourselves out of the window.”
My plan seemed sound to me, and I started up the staircase. Holmes followed, but stopped after just half a dozen steps.
“I’m not sure if this is our best bet,” he said. “Do you smell smoke?”
I sniffed the air. I detected the faintest whiff of burning. “Yes. What does it mean?”
“If I am correct in my surmise, then nemesis looms for our enemies.”
Just then Mallinson came charging into view below, the ceremonial dagger tucked into his belt.
“There!” he cried. “Got you at last. Victor?”
Anstruther skidded to a halt beside him. Up came the shotgun.
Holmes raised the cleaver, ready to throw. But he seemed to be waiting for something.
A scream issuing from the library set all of us pivoting round in that direction.
“Josiah?” Mallinson called out. “Was that you?”
A second scream came,
this one blood-curdling in its duration and intensity. It was hoarse and agonised, the sound of a man in dire torment. I have to say that it made every hair on my body stand on end.
A third scream was truncated, becoming a ghastly wet choking.
“What is this?” said Mallinson. “Is there someone else here?”
“There is, isn’t there?” I whispered to Holmes. “And you know who. That’s why you brought us here. Settleholm was your destination all along.”
My friend’s eyes gleamed. “Help is indeed at hand, my friend. One could call it a deus ex machina. Or, to use the correct gender, dea.”
“Go and look,” Mallinson told Anstruther.
The latter shook his head. “You go.”
“I only have this knife. I don’t have a gun.”
Anstruther thrust the shotgun into his hands. “Now you do.”
Mallinson was torn. Holmes and I were still on the stairs. On his very person he had a convenient means of disposing of us. Yet there was the baffling question of what misfortune had befallen Partlin-Gray.
This, in the event, was partly answered when Partlin-Gray himself staggered from the library. He was clutching his throat, blood gushing out over his hands like lava from a volcano. A pair of further wounds, one to his chest, the other to his stomach, were also bleeding, albeit not so profusely.
His mouth worked. His eyes rolled. He tried to speak, but all that came out were garbled syllables, liquid noises like the final gurgles of a man drowning.
He collapsed to his knees. His hands fell from his neck. A crescent-shaped gash fissured his throat from ear to ear, like some hideous grin. His partly severed windpipe was visible, as were blood-jetting arteries.
He toppled forwards, face-first onto the floor. In no time his prone, motionless body was the epicentre of a fast-spreading crimson puddle.
“My God…” Anstruther breathed.
Our gazes having been fixed on the dying Partlin-Gray, we had failed to notice the figure standing behind him, until now, when she took a further step forward into the hallway and the moonlight shining in through the windows limned her.
It took me a moment to recognise her.
It was Elizabeth Vandenbergh.
But also, it was not.
She was dressed in a costume. She wore an ornate golden headdress, a plethora of gold necklaces, a yellow bodice, diaphanous blue pantaloons, and bracelets on her ankles and wrists. A long black wig hid her blonde hair. Huge fan-shaped earrings framed her face. Her arms were bare, her feet unshod.
The finishing touch for this ensemble was the most garish of all, and sinister too: a garland of miniature skulls hung around her neck, falling almost to her navel.
In either hand she brandished one of the swords from the suits of armour. The blades of both were bloodied.
In her eyes was the glow of pure, all-consuming hatred.
She advanced into the hallway, stepping over Partlin-Gray’s body as though it was no more than a log which happened to be lying in her path. Her bare feet traipsed through his blood and left prints behind on the chessboard tiles as she closed in on Mallinson and Anstruther.
“You,” Mallinson said. “Patrick’s woman.”
“I have a name,” said Elizabeth.
“Yes. Miss Vandenbergh.”
“I had that name once. Now I have another.”
“What is the meaning of this? You have killed Josiah. Are you quite mad? Do you have any idea what you have done?”
“Look at me,” Elizabeth replied. Her voice was low and even. “I am more than I ever was. I am reincarnated. Reborn in fire. I am Elizabeth Vandenbergh no longer. I am vengeance. I am destruction. I have a name… and it is Kali.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
A FUSION OF THE NOBLEST INSTINCTS AND THE BASEST
It made for an extraordinary, gruesome tableau.
On the one hand, Elizabeth Vandenbergh dressed as the Hindu goddess Kali, carrying a pair of bloodied swords.
On the other, Mallinson and Anstruther, their jaws slack with startlement.
By the library door, the body of their colleague Partlin-Gray, freshly slain.
A handsome baronial hallway transformed into a scene from Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol.
The smell of burning was getting stronger. A haze had begun to fill the gallery that overlooked the hallway. Somebody had started a fire in one or more of the upstairs rooms, and I had no doubt that it was Elizabeth.
“Now really, my dear,” said Anstruther. “Put those sharp things down. I have no idea what manner of hysteria has overcome you, but you had best snap out of it. To have murdered one of this country’s pre-eminent citizens in cold blood – you are clearly not in your right mind. Your attire confirms it.”
“Don’t try and sweet-talk the bloody woman, Victor,” said Mallinson. “Just go over there and disarm her.”
Anstruther took a step forward. He must have reckoned that Elizabeth had sneaked up on Partlin-Gray in the library, taking him unawares. That was the only way she could have bested him. Anstruther could not imagine her to possess any degree of swordsmanship.
It was a fatal misreading of the situation.
Elizabeth moved with sinuous speed and grace. It was almost as though she was infused with the spirit of the warrior goddess she was impersonating.
I suppose Holmes and I could have warned Anstruther to be on his guard. But we did not.
She struck him in the shoulder and simultaneously the thigh. She withdrew both blades then stabbed again, now skewering him in the stomach. A third attack in as many seconds saw her sink the points of the swords between his ribs. Throughout, Anstruther merely stood there helplessly like some sort of practice dummy. The sword thrusts came too thick and fast for him even to recoil.
Once Elizabeth pulled the blades from his chest, however, he fell. Tremors ran through his supine body as though he were afflicted with St Vitus dance. I watched him gasp for breath, clinging to the last dregs of life. His hands formed strange, gnarled shapes in the air.
Then he was gone, his body stilled, his soul escaping to whatever hell awaited it.
That just left Mallinson. He belatedly swung the shotgun towards Elizabeth, uttering a curse which slandered her and all her gender.
With an almost preternatural turn of speed, Elizabeth was upon him. She batted the gun from his grasp with the flat of one blade. Then, with a sidelong sweep of her foot, she brought him crashing to his knees.
Taking up position behind him, she crossed the swords in front of his neck so that they formed an implacable steel X. Mallinson’s head was bowed like that of a condemned man at the chopping block. All it would take was for Elizabeth to wrench both swords back with force and he would be decapitated.
“Wait,” said Holmes.
He descended the staircase. Tendrils of smoke were creeping along the gallery, and the crackle of flames was now distinctly audible. Settleholm Manor was on its way to becoming an inferno, meeting the same fate as Elizabeth’s shop.
“We had an understanding, Mr Holmes,” Elizabeth said.
“That we did, madam. I am not going to halt you in your vengeance. I simply desire a word with Mr Mallinson first.”
Mallinson growled something defiant and uncomplimentary.
“What was this about, Mallinson?” Holmes asked. “Was it all merely a bid for divine intercession in sparking conflict? I find it hard to accept that four hard-nosed businessmen would be so credulous.”
“Why not?” said Mallinson. “Faith in any kind of god can reap rewards. Faith can move mountains, isn’t that what they say? If one wishes for a war, is it not prudent to enlist the aid of gods who have one single reason for being, one attribute alone that is of relevance?”
“Martial gods. Yes indeed. But why would you and your colleagues want there to be war? Why would anyone?”
“I’m sure you have deduced why, Mr Holmes. If not, then you aren’t half as clever as I thought.”
“I have. You are a ma
n who mines and imports minerals. One of those minerals is potassium nitrate, commonly called saltpetre. Saltpetre, as every schoolboy knows, is a principal ingredient of gunpowder. Another of those minerals is sulphur, also a principal ingredient of gunpowder. A pan-European war would see your product in greatly increased demand, would it not?”
“Very much so.”
“And take the late Mr Anstruther here. I am certain he would have found his production lines turning out new vehicles for the military – staff cars, ambulances and the like. Artillery pieces too, perhaps. And Sir Josiah over there. His steel mills would be turning faster than ever to meet the demand for metal for arms and munitions. And as for Lord Harington, would he not be sending huge quantities of his medical supplies to the battlefront for the treatment of wounded men? All four of you stood to profit handsomely from fat government contracts and a wartime economy. In other words, this madness you concocted together – this folie à quatre, if you will – was born of the basest motives. It was all for the sake of profit margins and the augmentation of your already sizeable personal fortunes.”
“We would have benefited materially, yes,” said Mallinson. “Is that so wrong?”
“Setting aside for one moment the millions of strangers’ lives that might be lost as a result of any conflict,” said Holmes. “Would mere financial gain, however substantial, truly compensate for the family members you so coldly and brutally despatched? Therein lies the real tragedy in all of this. You were so bound up in your grand mystical project, you four, that people became as nothing in your estimation. Even the ones closest to you, the ones you should protect and cherish, were reduced to the status of pawns. Mere kindling to be thrown on the bonfire and stoke the flames.”
“I gave up my own son. Can you not appreciate the strength of character that required?”
“The less favoured of your two sons,” said Holmes. “Not Clive, your true heir, the older boy who has followed obligingly in your footsteps. Clive, who has even been prepared to live out amid the heat and dust of Egypt, minding your commercial interests there for the past four years. He still lives. He gets to carry on the Mallinson name for you, the Mallinson lineage. Patrick, on the other hand, you liked less and found troublesome. He was surplus to requirements. You could, in a sense, afford to lose him. Likewise Sir Josiah dispensed with a wife who had increasingly come to mean nothing to him, each of them growing more estranged from the other with every extramarital affair they engaged in. Victor Anstruther divested himself of a parasitic brother, Lord Harington a father already close to death. Your blood sacrifices were not quite as profound as you make out. They were less of a hardship, more a case of doing away with inconveniences. What you call strength of character, I see instead as a pitiful, selfish kind of weakness.”
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