by Andrew Lane
Eventually they moved on to precise footwork exercises. Reilly concentrated on the advantages of varying the speed of moving backwards and forwards, constantly ensuring that Sherlock’s torso was half twisted around, which allowed Sherlock to show only a third of his body target. Sherlock stood with his front foot forward, but his back foot pointing away at a right angle. He felt the pressure on his thigh as he lowered his body weight to maintain balance. It proved awkward at first, especially as he tried to maintain his imaginary sword in a position of en garde, poised to block any potential blows.
Matty sometimes came in to watch them, but often left within a few minutes saying he was bored. He seemed to be enjoying being the centre of attention of the kids he had fallen in with.
In between training sessions Sherlock ate ravenously in the Princess Helena’s galley, and at night he slept like a solid lump of wood: unmoving and completely unaware of the passage of time.
A few days after they had left Southampton, Sherlock caught up with James Phillimore and Matty over lunch – one of the few times Phillimore had come out of his cabin.
‘I don’t mean to pry,’ he said, ‘but could I take a look at the message that you got concerning your brother? Things moved so fast over the past few days that I forgot about it, but I have some questions.’
Phillimore nodded, and reached into an inside pocket of his jacket. He pulled out an envelope and handed it across the table.
Inside the envelope was a slip of paper. Strips of white tape with typewritten characters on were glued in parallel lines across the paper. The message said:
REGRET TO INFORM THAT YOUR BROTHER HAS DISAPPEARED FROM POSITION IN EGYPT STOP IF IN CONTACT PLEASE TELL HIM TO RETURN IMMEDIATELY STOP SUEZ CANAL COMPANY
‘Hmm.’ Sherlock leaned back in his chair, and let his gaze roam around the galley. It was half full: white-jacketed stewards were moving among the tables, delivering full plates and taking empty ones away.
‘What’s the matter?’ Matty asked. ‘You look like you’re suckin’ on a thistle.’
‘I was wondering . . .’ Sherlock glanced back at Phillimore. ‘How did whoever sent this telegram know that you and Jonathan Phillimore are brothers? How did they know where even to send you a telegram?’
Phillimore frowned. ‘I presume,’ he said slowly, ‘that my brother had listed me as his next of kin, even though we weren’t on speaking terms for so many years. Our parents are dead, and he never married. There is nobody else – the fact that he reached out to me recently in his hour of need is . . . incidental.’
Sherlock nodded. ‘That makes sense. I hope it’s the truth.’
The SS Princess Helena docked at Gibraltar early on a warm and sunny day. Mr Reilly had said that Sherlock could take time out from sword practice to see the port, so Sherlock and Matty both disembarked to look around, impressed by the massive bulk of the Rock of Gibraltar as it loomed over everything else. Looking at the small town and the limited resources there, Sherlock wondered if the place was ready for what would happen when the Suez Canal opened – if it opened. He suspected that Gibraltar would suddenly find itself in a strategically important position and would probably not be ready for it.
Matty was particularly taken with the street vendors and the market traders who seemed to inhabit every main road. He was also taken with the small monkeys who prowled everywhere, stealing food and even money whenever they could.
‘Can I take one wiv me?’ he asked as the Princess Helena’s steam whistle blew, alerting all the passengers ashore that it was about to leave.
‘No,’ Sherlock said. ‘Come on – we’ve got to get back.’
‘But I could slip one in me pocket. Nobody’d notice!’
‘What’s it going to eat?’ Sherlock asked.
‘Whatever I eat.’
‘Where’s it going to sleep?’
‘Wherever I sleep.’
Sherlock sighed. Obviously Matty was serious about this. ‘Well, how’s your horse going to feel about having a monkey around all the time?’
Matty’s face fell. ‘’Adn’t thought of that. ’Arold gets really jealous. Don’t like cats nor dogs. Don’t think ’e’d like monkeys.’ He nodded resignedly. ‘You’re right – it was never goin’ to work.’
They got back to the SS Princess Helena well before it cast off and started the next leg of its journey. Some passengers had left the ship at Gibraltar and others had joined, meaning that the mood onboard shifted slightly compared to previous days. The weather was different as well, after they had passed through the Pillars of Hercules and into the noticeably calmer Mediterranean – hotter, and more humid – and that affected the way people acted as well. Top buttons were undone on shirts, ties were loosened, and there was a general air of gaiety about the ship. The ship’s bar, which had until now been a scene of perfect propriety, suddenly seemed to be hosting a party every night.
By this time Sherlock had worked out the professions, hobbies and other interests of everyone on board, based only on their clothes and their hands. It was a trick that Amyus Crowe had taught him, and one that his brother Mycroft also demonstrated on a regular basis. Sherlock had got to the stage now where he didn’t even realize he was doing it, most of the time. He did check his deductions by engaging people in conversation once or twice, and asking them what they did back in England, but once he had established that he was correct sufficient times he didn’t bother checking any further.
Eventually content that Sherlock had mastered the technique of good footwork, Reilly permitted his protégé to move on to blade work. And so, for the next few days, Sherlock found himself slashing and cutting at the empty air, just as he had found Reilly doing when he first met him. Reilly would shout out the number of a particular cut and Sherlock would launch himself on a lunge, stretching his body to move on to his opponent in a lightning fashion. He would be expected to immediately execute each attack with a level of accuracy. He soon found himself varying the guard poses for seconds on end, on instruction from Reilly: keeping his feet solidly on the ground and his muscles relaxed, allowing the sword to absorb the force of an attack.
The whole process fascinated him. He wished he had known all this when he had fought Baron Maupertuis in France. He could also see the point of the stretching exercises Reilly had put him through for the first few days: without them, his body would have rebelled against the strange positions it was being forced to adopt.
As well as the seven ‘cuts’ and the seven ‘guards’, Reilly introduced Sherlock to three several other important movements: the ‘thrust’, the ‘parry’ and the ‘riposte’. The thrust, was pretty much as it sounded – a pushing forward of the blade while the right foot shot forward as the left foot remained to provide a solid base. The parries were blocking actions made with the blade, designed to stop an opponent’s attack, which were aimed not only at the body but also the head. This move was often followed by an immediate counter-attack, which Reilly called the ‘riposte’.
After a few days of this, Sherlock felt as if his muscles had been literally stretched. Strangely, he felt taller, with a longer reach. His body was changing, evolving thanks to the exercises. He also found himself dreaming about the exercises. Each night his brain would put him through the same set of movements that Reilly had put him through during the day.
And so it was three days into their voyage, in the middle of a calm blue sea, that the Paradol Chamber made their move.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They were heading across the ocean towards Malta. The sea was calm and the sun was high in a cloudless blue sky. Sherlock had started wearing the pale linen suit and the hat that James Phillimore had bought for him in Arundel. He was taking a break from sword-fighting, standing at the rail of the Princess Helena, with the outside wall of the ship’s lounge behind him, staring out at the translucent waters, when he became aware that something around him had changed. He had for a while been aware of the noise of a group of men and women playing croquet on the ship’s
deck, just a little way away on his left, but the click of mallet hitting ball, and the chattering of the players, had suddenly stopped. The croquet pitch had been occupied pretty much every daylight hour since they had left Southampton, and Sherlock couldn’t think of any reason why they would stop now. Glancing along the deck to the corner of the lounge, he could see the edge of the pitch: a flat green carpet with little metal hoops set up on it. Nobody was there. Intrigued, he left his position at the rail and walked along to see what had happened. So little of interest ever happened on a ship that perhaps their attention had been caught by something and they had all gone to look. If so, Sherlock wanted to know what it was.
The pitch was deserted, and there was no sign of the players anywhere nearby. In fact, there was no sign of anyone – passengers or crew. That wasn’t the strangest thing, however. In the centre of the croquet pitch a table had been set up and covered with a white tablecloth. Two chairs were drawn up to the table. In the centre of the table was a pitcher of something that looked very much like cloudy lemonade with ice floating in it, and two glasses.
Sherlock looked around. He was the only person in sight.
He walked slowly towards the table. In front of the two chairs, on the pristine white linen of the tablecloth, there were two pieces of white cardboard, folded so that they stood up in the shape of a triangle. A name was written on the card nearest Sherlock.
It was his name. He could see that clearly, even though he was a good ten feet away. It was handwritten, but in a large and clear style that, he thought idly, probably belonged to a woman rather than a man. That thought was eclipsed, however, by the much bigger question that occupied his mind: who would consider setting out a table for him in the middle of the Princess Helena’s croquet pitch? Neither James Phillimore nor Matty would have bothered to do something that formal – besides, he saw them every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Perhaps if it was his birthday they might have arranged some sort of celebration, but it wasn’t. The strangeness and formality of it might have appealed to Mycroft, but how would he even know that Sherlock was on the ship?
The name on the other card might well give him an answer, but he felt strangely reluctant to look.
In the end, of course, there was only one thing he could do. He walked over, pulled the chair out and sat down in front of the card with his name on it.
Nothing happened. He looked around, but nobody was approaching him, nobody was watching him. The deck was entirely deserted, which, thinking about it, was very unusual for that time of day. Usually it was crowded with sightseers.
He looked at the jug of lemonade, but he made no move to pour himself a glass. The ice made little chink noises as the ship shifted.
He suspected he knew what he had to do in order to move events on, but despite the fact that he wanted to know what this was all about, he didn’t want to be too predictable. He wanted whoever was watching him secretly – and he knew there had to be someone – to start wondering whether he was ever going to pick up the other card and look at it. He wanted them to wonder whether he was just going to sip lemonade for a while and then get up and walk away.
In the end, of course, he reached out and picked up the other folded card. He had to know.
Mrs Loran
The words were in the same large, clear handwriting.
He knew the name instantly. It hadn’t been far from his thoughts ever since he had met the woman for the first and only time a few years before. At the time she had been pretending to be an actress in a small theatrical company, but when they were together in Moscow Sherlock had discovered that she was actually a high-level member of the Paradol Chamber – the secret group that spanned countries and used criminal activities to achieve political ends. Actually, Sherlock corrected himself, he hadn’t discovered that she was a member of the Paradol Chamber. He had been completely taken in by her portrayal of a middle-aged, matronly lady. She had told him herself, in a cafe, and even then, for a while, he had found it hard to take in. He had come to realize later that she actually was an actress, amongst other things, and a much better one than he had given her credit for.
The question was, what was she doing here on a ship heading for Alexandria?
No, that was just one of the questions. There was also, among others: why did she want to talk to him, and what connection did she and the Paradol Chamber have with what was happening at the Suez Canal construction site?
Having picked up the card and seen the name, Sherlock knew what would happen next, and it did. He looked around. Mrs Loran was standing a few feet away, looking for all the world like somebody’s grandmother who had put her knitting down and forgotten where it was. She was wearing a long white dress with a short jacket and a large hat. She was carrying a parasol, which Sherlock thought was ironic.
‘May I join you, young man?’ she asked.
‘Do I have a choice?’ he replied. Memories of that cafe came flooding back, causing his heart to speed up and his breathing to become tight: the threats that had been made, the fire that Rufus Stone had started to get him out, and most especially two of the other people who had been there – Mr Kyte and Mr Wormersley. Kyte was dead, having run full-tilt into a halberd that Sherlock had set as a trap in an underground cave in Ireland. The last time he had seen Mr Wormersley the man’s face was being attacked by a falcon, but he had later heard that Wormersley had been arrested by the Moscow police. As far as he knew, the man was still languishing in a Russian jail cell somewhere. He was sure Mycroft would have told him if Wormersley had got out.
Mycroft would have told him, wouldn’t he?
‘Thank you,’ Mrs Loran said, stepping forward and pulling the chair away from the table. ‘I do find that the older I get, the more my bones creak. The sea breeze doesn’t really help, and as for the pitching and yawing of the ship in the waves – well, one doesn’t know from one second to the next where one is going!’
She sat down and smiled at Sherlock, her hands carefully folded in her lap. For a moment, sitting there, Sherlock found himself thinking of his Aunt Anna. He was sure that she and Mrs Loran would have become fast friends. They could meet up in tea shops and talk about knitting, and embroidery, and murder.
‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here,’ he said, breaking the silence.
‘You weren’t supposed to,’ she replied. She tilted her head to one side, examining him. He wondered if she was going to tell him to fasten his top button, tighten up his loose tie or make sure he wore a hat to avoid sunburn. ‘Your intelligence is sharp – the sharpest I’ve ever seen, with the exception of your brother – but if you have no evidence to analyse, then how can you come to a conclusion? There is no evidence that we have an interest in this matter.’
‘Those three burglars – the ones who broke into Holmes Lodge and who imprisoned Mr Phillimore in his own wall: they don’t report to the Paradol Chamber, do they?’
She shook her head. ‘Certainly not!’ She seemed affronted at the very idea.
‘They were clumsy,’ Sherlock went on. ‘They made mistakes. That isn’t what I expect of your organization.’
‘Not my organization,’ she corrected mildly. ‘The Paradol Chamber has been in existence since before I was born, and will live on after I die. I am merely a replaceable cog in the machine. Eventually all the cogs will be replaced, but the machine will keep on working.’
‘To what end?’ Sherlock asked.
‘Power. Money. Influence. They are all the same thing, in the end.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I doubt that I am giving away any secrets if I say that what we aim for is to be the power behind the scenes in every major government in the world. It may take a long time, but I think we will get there.’
‘And in the meantime,’ Sherlock observed, ‘what do you get out of it?’
‘Why does anybody do a job of work? For the money, of course, and for something to do, something to occupy the time.’ She smiled again. ‘Working for the Paradol Chamber is certainly lucrative, and
it is far more interesting than running a post office in a small town somewhere. And I get to travel, which is nice.’
‘I presume,’ he said mildly, ‘that the money is compensation for the risk. Is it worth it?’
‘The risk?’ She thought for a moment. ‘I suppose there is a degree of risk involved. Certainly more than running a post office. Poor Mr Wormersely is still in a prison in Moscow – we could get him out, of course, but he deserves some punishment for his failure. His face looks like someone has tried to assemble it from a pile of jigsaw pieces, and he has had the most terrible infections. And then there’s Mr Kyte and Baron Maupertuis. Even the power of the Paradol Chamber can’t get them back from the place where they have gone – or, rather, the place where you sent them. But life is risk, young man. This ship might hit a rock or a reef and sink tomorrow. I might be run over by a runaway horse the moment I step off the gangplank when we make port.’
