The Seven-Per-Cent Solution

by Nicholas Meyer

  Freud refused to relinquish the shovel, maintaining that he was yet fit, but Holmes insisted, pointing out that if he got no rest now, he would be unable to relieve anyone later. The argument continued as we passed through Boheimkirchen, whose sign caught my eye momentarily, but the Doctor at length relented and surrendered the shovel to the station-master, who went to work with a will.

  Freud resumed his jacket with a sigh and sat down opposite to me in the cab.

  “Cigar?” he shouted.

  He held one out to me and I accepted it gratefully. Freud smoked excellent cigars and he smoked them incessantly, much the way Holmes consumed pipes, though, as I have noted, Holmes was less than particular about his tobacco—with predictable olfactory results.

  Freud and I smoked in silence. Holmes and the station-master continued heaping coal into the boiler, whilst the engineer kept watch on the pressure gauges, the governors, and the track ahead, his worried expression proclaiming his misgivings about the manner on which his locomotive was being handled. At one point he turned back from a brief examination of a gauge and called to the stokers to slow down.

  “She’ll burst if you don’t !” he protested above the din.

  “She will not !” the station-master retorted angrily. “Pay no attention to him, Herr Holmes. I was driving these engines when he was in short trousers. Burst, indeed !” he swore, throwing a heaping shovelful into the bowels of the machine. “Why, this engine was built by Von Leinsdorf, and who ever heard of a ‘Von Leinsdorf’ boiler going, ever? Ha ! Don’t mind him, Herr Holmes. It’s the younger generation: no courage, no daring—and no respect for their elders !” he concluded with a backward sweep of his hand in the direction of the timid engineer.

  “One moment,” Holmes interrupted. “Do you mean to tell me this engine was manufactured by Baron Von Leinsdorf’s company?”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, indeed! You see the plate?” He heaved another shovelful into the boiler fires, which were glowing white through the door and providing some welcome heat for the cab, and then scraped at a grimy plaque above my head with his sooty handkerchief.

  “You see?” he yelled.

  Holmes regarded the plaque curiously and drew back with a smile on his face.

  “What is it, Herr Holmes?”

  “Irony, my friend. Irony. Come, keep working !”

  And so we thundered on through the night. The station-master informed us that the Baron’s train consisted of three cars as opposed to our one, and that his locomotive, retained at only a few hours’ notice, was not so large or powerful as our own. These facts buoyed our spirits as we whizzed through the sizeable town of St. Polan, where there was one set of points to be changed, and Melk, which we rushed past at a speed I dared not guess.

  “We must make a decision,” the station-master shouted above the roar of the engine, as we left Melk behind. “Do you want to go through Linz, or not?”

  “What are the alternatives?” Holmes enquired, speaking into the station-master’s cupped ears.

  “Well, if you go through Linz, you will be taking the shorter route to Salzburg,” the worthy man informed us, now cupping his hands over his mouth to make himself heard, “but Linz itself will slow you down. There are many points to be changed. If we go south, on the other hand, we pass through Amstetten and Steyr, but they are easier, with fewer points and fewer railway people to see you do it. But you must make up your mind before we reach Pochlarn. Also, the track may not be as good in the south,” he added as an afterthought.

  “But is it usable?”

  The station-master turned to the engineer, who shrugged and nodded. Holmes looked down at Dr. Freud and me, his face a question.

  “How do we know the Baron is going through Salzburg?” Freud enquired. “Perhaps he is headed for Braunau.”

  “No, that I can promise you,” the man answered. “When a special is arranged, the route is chosen and the points are signalled by telegraph, ahead of the train. I cleared the tracks for the Baron myself and I know what route he has chosen.”

  “That is most fortuitious,” Holmes broke in. “What do you recommend?”

  The station-master thought for a moment, pulling at his moustache and dirtying it with coal dust.

  “Go south.”

  “Very well.”

  And so it was that we slowed down at the little town of Pochlarn and Holmes himself descended the train and switched the points.

  Dr. Freud and I, rested from our labours, were now in a position to resume them, and did so as we sped towards Amstetten. At the time, I noticed that our coal supply was giving out rapidly, and I said as much to Holmes when I returned to the cab with a load, leaving Freud inside the tender, scraping the remainder of our fuel towards the front. He nodded but said nothing, being in the act of shielding a match from the wind as he attempted to light his pipe.

  “How much have we left?” he demanded of the station-master when this had been accomplished. The man returned with me to the tender, then inspected the gauges presided over by the engineer.

  “If we make it to Steyr we’ll be lucky.”

  Holmes nodded once more, got to his feet and, grasping the iron rails on the edge of the tender, hauled himself down the outside of it towards the lone car we were pulling behind. I stopped shovelling and involuntarily held my breath, praying that our speech would not cause him to lose his grip and be swept over the side. His cloak, which he had resumed, was billowing about him like a sail, and the wind blew so strong that it made off with his ear-flapped travelling cap.

  He disappeared from view for some time and I went back to shovelling the remainder of our fuel with Freud, but his continued absence worried me. I was on the point of saying so to the Doctor, when Holmes climbed into the tender from the rear, throwing before him a pile of curtains and other flammable material from the interior of the car.

  “Work on these,” he instructed. “I’ll be back with more.” Saying which, he climbed out of the tender again.

  It might be instructive—and even amusing—to detail the manner in which we tore apart that unfortunate car and burned it piece by piece, chair by chair, window frame by window frame, door by door. I say it might prove instructive, but the moment is scarcely appropriate for such a digression.

  Suffice it to say that we all took turns, except the engineer, who refused to collaborate and informed us bleakly that we were destroying railway property. The station-master favoured him with an oath in German, whose import I was unable to decipher save that it was connected in some way with the man’s mother and sounded singularly effective in that language, and then removed an axe from its niche above the plaque and went to work on the carriage himself, by way of example.

  As we tore through the night on our mad chase, that car disappeared entirely under our ministrations, and our speed did not slacken. We stopped only to change points in order to maintain our circuitous route, and once, towards five in the morning, at the engineer’s insistence, we halted at Ebensee to take on water. It was an operation that lasted some minutes, and a good deal of steam escaped into the pre-dawn air with a shriek and a shower of sparks, but the engineer was considerably relieved to have done it, and we gathered speed once more, contenting ourselves with the station-master’s assurance that the Baron had no doubt encountered worse obstacles negotiating the big terminus at Linz.

  Light was piercing the sky and brightening our way in orange and red streaks as we threw the last set of points at Bad Ischl, where the railwaymen stared in astonishment, then yelled after us as we roared through the station. Leaning out of the cab, I could see them scurrying in a dozen different directions like so many ants.

  “They’ll telegraph ahead,” I prophesied. The station-master nodded heavily and threw out his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “We must take that risk,” Holmes decided, “there is nothing for it. Keep the throttle open, engineer !”

  On we plunged, the sun rising behind us and some charming lakes glistening in its e
arly rays to our right. Indeed, though we scarcely had time to admire it, the scenery repeated the magnificence I had observed passing through the district on our way to Vienna.

  Now, however, instead of sitting idly in a comfortable compartment, gazing out of the window at the snow-capped peaks and philosophising, I was in the act of breaking down a very similar window, whilst Holmes with other tools at his disposal from the engine cab was standing on the roof of the car, pulling it apart, piece by piece, and dropping it into a hole he had gouged for the purpose on to the aisle beneath. There Dr. Freud collected it and dumped it into the tender from where the station-master transferred it to our still burning fire.

  The city of Salzburg was in plain view, and I was adding my lot to the pile of debris in the corridor, when shouts from the engineer and station-master drew us to the front of the cab.

  Wonder of wonders! Not three miles off, as I should judge, a train was heading south-west, with an engineer, a tender and three cars in tow.

  “There they are !” Holmes cried with satisfaction, his eyes gleaming. “Berger, you are a genius !” He gave the astonished station-master an enthusiastic hug, then paused to watch the train ahead of us cross the nose of our engine a mile or two away as it switched effortlessly into the line for Salzburg. If the Baron and his party saw our train, or suspected from its presence that anything was amiss, they gave no outward sign. A mile farther and we were obliged to stop and change the last set of points to put ourselves directly in the wake of the Baron’s special.

  CHAPTER XVI

  What Happened Next

  “NOW WE MUST POUR on every ounce of steam we can,” Sherlock Holmes ordered, cupping his hands to make himself heard, “and don’t worry about the points. They have all been switched to accommodate the Baron’s train, but we must catch them before they reach the frontier at the Salzach.”

  We had been exhausted moments before, each man on the point of collapse, but now, fired by the sight of our quarry, we did as Holmes bid and rushed frantically about, heaping the boiler fires higher and whiter than ever with the fragments of a once proud railway carriage. As we entered the city of Salzburg, the tracks branched before us into a labyrinth as complex as the bloodstream in a human body. If just one of these points had already been switched back we were dead men, and the engineer lost his nerve totally. His place was assumed at once by the lusty station-master, Berger, while the frightened man contented himself with timidly tossing pieces of wood into the stokehold, no longer daring to look ahead.

  Once again we drew near the Baron’s train and Holmes discharged the revolver into the air to gain their attention. It was a needless gesture for we had already been seen. I could perceive two heads sticking out the cab window, looking back at us, and moments later the Baron’s engine picked up speed.

  The city of Salzburg whipped past at a dizzying speed. I found—like the unfortunate engineer—that it did not pay to look too closely at the track. Nevertheless, it was impossible not to see the station rushing up at us as we roared through it, and the stares of amazement on the faces of the people there. The Baron’s train was travelling at a far greater speed than was permitted by the rules of the station, but to watch another train hurtling through right behind it—this was clearly as astonishing as it was hazardous! I was dimly aware of whistles blowing (one of them was ours, pulled by Berger) and people yelling.

  Once through the station it was only a matter of moments before the Baron’s train reached the River Salzach and crossed into Bavaria. Oblivious to everything now, we scuttled the remains of that car faster than one would have supposed possible.

  “They’ve closed the barriers !” Freud cried, pointing up ahead to the frontier, which the Baron’s special had just passed through.

  “Ram them,” ordered Sherlock Holmes, and we did, sending a spray of wood and splinters in every direction.

  In Bavaria now, our locomotive proved its worth, and we began gaining in earnest on the fugitive special. In pauses for breath we could see someone shaking a fist at us, and a moment later we heard shots.

  “Down !” Holmes commanded, and we fell to the floor of the cab—all except the foolish engineer, who had chosen that moment to raise himself up for a look when he took a bullet in the shoulder. He whirled back like a puppet yanked by a string and spun round against the tender. Holmes waved me over to him while he and Freud went back for more fuel. Crawling over to the unhappy man I ascertained that the wound was not a serious one, though painful. I staunched and bandaged it with what was available to me in my bag, but the removal of the bullet at this time was impossible. Our locomotive was trembling as though it had contracted palsy, and my scalpels had all been dulled beyond repair when they were appropriated for slitting seat covers.

  Freud and Holmes returned with the last load of improvised fuel and deposited it in the fire, informing me that there was nothing left of the carriage that would succumb to flame. It was now or never. If the fire diminished, as it appeared it must, the game was lost.

  “Turn loose the platform,” the station-master suggested. “It will give us more speed.”

  Holmes nodded and, taking me with him, left Freud to look after the engineer. We climbed through the empty tender and stood over the naked couplings which connected it to the remains of the carriage, the ground rushing by below us at a fearful rate. Holmes straddled the huge iron claws while I got on my stomach and held him firmly around the waist.

  First he threw off the heavy emergency links and then proceeded to undo the revolving bolts that pinned the car to the tender. Because of the great speed and deafening noise, it was difficult work, as I could tell by the expanding exertions of his chest. From my vantage point I saw nothing of his efforts, and my arms were beginning to ache with the strain of maintaining his precarious position, when there was a sudden release and a great burst of speed. Had I not been holding fast, Holmes would have toppled to an instant death.

  As it was, I held tight and brought him slowly to the lip of the tender, an operation that seemed to take for ever and one I should not gladly undertake again. When he had landed safe, Holmes nodded heavily and bent over to get his breath.

  “Never let them say you were merely my Boswell, Watson,” he gasped when he could speak. “Never let them say that.”

  I smiled and followed him as we clambered back through the tender for the last time, being careful going over the top, for someone was still squeezing off rounds in our general direction, though at this distance and rate the bullet that had struck our engineer had been a lucky one.

  We succeeded in regaining the cab once more, and looked ahead. There could be no doubt of it; we were rapidly overtaking the Baron’s train. I suggested releasing the tender as well, as there was nothing to bum left inside it, but Berger cautioned us that it served as ballast and that at the speed we were making it would be dangerous to dispense with it.

  Yet we had burned every scrap of flammable material at our disposal; we had released the iron wheels of our only carriage. There was nothing further to be done. If we did not now close in on that train, all our efforts had been in vain. I shuddered to think of the international repercussions caused by our blasting through the barriers at the frontier, to say nothing of the general manner in which we had flung down and danced upon every regulation in the rail manual. Destroying railway property, indeed!

  Even as I watched, the needle on the pressure gauge dropped from its hitherto constant position (some few degrees to the right of the red-labelled danger zone), and Holmes gave vent to a sigh that could be heard above the roar of the pistons and furnaces.

  “We have lost,” he shouted.

  And so we would have, too, had not the Baron, in his eagerness to escape, made a fatal error. I was on the point of replying with some words of false cheer when my attention was caught by the rear carriage of the Baron’s train, which seemed to be drawing nearer at an alarming rate.

  “Holmes !” I pointed. “He has released one of his cars !” Ber
ger had seen it almost at the same moment and he threw the sticks over as hard and quickly as he could. I felt our wheels freeze beneath us and saw sparks fly in every direction from the rails as we struggled to avoid a collision. For twenty agonising seconds we squealed along with no evident diminution of speed, ever closer to the cast-off car. Everyone braced for the shock, and Freud held the wounded engineer, but at the last moment we realised that we were not going to strike after all. The Baron had released the carriage on a downgrade, and, having been pulled along at a smart pace behind his locomotive, the vehicle had succumbed to the inevitable laws of momentum and was now travelling ahead of us through the mountains at a good clip, though indeed slow enough to have sunk us had Berger not taken prompt and vigorous action.

  Holmes, perceiving the situation, threw off his Inverness and started round the cab towards the front of the engine.

  “Open it up !” he called. “We can join her !”

  Berger hesitated a moment at the audacity of the plan, then nodded and eased open the throttle. The railings which ran along the boiler were too hot to hold, as I could tell, for Holmes was obliged to remove his Norfolk and was using it to shield his hands as he worked his way along the side of the heaving locomotive.

  Freud, Berger, the engineer (who had got to his feet), and I watched with breathless anticipation as Holmes inched towards the nose of the engine whilst the Baron’s discarded railway carriage again loomed into imminent perspective.

  Berger, however, was a master craftsman, and nudged into that car as gently as could be expected, considering the rate at which both vehicles were travelling. There was a brief shock, but neither engine nor carriage jumped the rails, and, as the downgrade became an upgrade, the car settled quite nicely against us.

  From the nose of the engine, Holmes managed to step aboard. There he waved one of us to follow him. I started to go, but Freud held me by the arm.