The Wilhelm Conspiracy (A Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery)

by Charles Veley

  Holmes’s voice was kind. “As do we all, I am sure.”

  The Colonel was examining the hat that had belonged to the late Mr. Gruen. “I see nothing unusual here,” he said.

  “It should be stored with his other effects, I should think,” said Holmes. “And speaking of those, I wonder if anything suggestive was found on Mr. Gruen’s person? I also wonder where Mr. Gruen was staying in town, and whether he may have left any clues behind.”

  “Do you believe that is pertinent to your mission?”

  I spoke up. “Mr. Gruen was the man who took my valise yesterday.”

  The Colonel’s eyes narrowed. “And you did not see fit to inform me of that fact?”

  “I have not been quite myself since I was struck down. I apologize.”

  “We have all had a difficult and trying time of it,” said Holmes, intervening smoothly. “I wonder if we might be permitted to retire to our rooms and reconvene in the morning? I shall of course notify you if I receive any message from Miss Radnar’s abductors.”

  The Colonel gave his permission. Holmes and I escorted Lucy to her room. To my surprise, Holmes entered ahead of her, turned on the electric light, and examined the room and the adjoining bedroom and bathroom. He then opened the balcony drapes, unlocked the balcony door, looked outside, and then closed and locked the door, shutting the drapes once again. “It is as well to be certain,” he said. “If someone abducted Harriet, someone may well intend to do the same to you. Under no circumstances are you to open your door to anyone other than Watson or myself.”

  He lowered his voice. “Now I have points for you both to think about. First, consider the effect of the ransom demand on my movements between now and ten tomorrow. The message was addressed to me, and therefore I am obligated to make myself available here at the hotel to receive instructions as to where to make the payment. What is to be gained by keeping me here? Second, why make a demand that is so extremely difficult to meet, and with an amount and a form of payment identical to the obligation the Kaiser promised me would be forgotten?”

  “It cannot be coincidental,” Lucy said.

  Holmes nodded. “And third, what are we to do with this object?” He produced a small square of blue pasteboard from his vest pocket. “It is a ticket to the left-luggage checkroom at the railway station.”

  Lucy said, “You found it in Mr. Gruen’s hat.”

  “It was tucked inside the hatband, to be precise. The problem we must address is how to make use of it, taking into account that I must stay in the hotel and that the Colonel’s men will be watching.”

  40. TO THE RAILWAY STATION

  At the first light of dawn, I abandoned my futile attempts at sleep. I dressed and walked down the hotel corridor to knock at Holmes’s room. He answered, fully dressed and wearing his Inverness cape. The curtain and balcony door were open. Nevertheless, the room reeked of shag tobacco. Little wisps of smoke hung about the ceiling. The bed was in complete disarray. Both sheets had been pulled off the mattress and lay twisted in an untidy pile.

  “I have had two responses to my telegrams,” Holmes said. “Lansdowne says the sum is regrettably quite impossible to manage. Lord Radnar’s hotel says that in view of the urgency, they have forwarded the message to his destination in Colorado. He is expected there this week.”

  “So there is no way the ransom can be paid.”

  “Certainly not before ten o’clock this morning.”

  “You have been airing out your room after a nightlong consumption of tobacco, I see.”

  “I would remonstrate with you regarding your deductive methods, old friend, only there is no time. In fact, I was just on my way to see you. Would you kindly go to your room and return with your overcoat and hat. Also please bring the funds given you by Mr. Arkwright for expenses.”

  I did so without question.

  “Perfectly satisfactory,” he said, and tucked the fat wad of gold marks into my overcoat. Then he removed his Inverness cloak. To my astonishment, he took from the cloak a ginger-haired wig and false beard.

  “Where did you get those?” I asked.

  “From the room of the man who was calling himself Mr. Gruen.” Holmes sat before his dressing table mirror and began to apply the whiskers to his face. “He had been staying at the Brenners Park-Hotel nearby under a different name. Fortunately, he had stored the requisite spirit gum with these whiskers.”

  “How did you locate the room?”

  “Two nights ago I followed Mr. Gruen after he had called on you. I saw the room number when the night clerk retrieved his key for him. He was not wearing this beard and wig. Presumably, they were part of his disguise for when he was travelling.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the railway station, to recover whatever Mr. Gruen stored there when he received the claim ticket. You will stay here. If you receive instructions concerning payment of the ransom, you will come to the station and find me.”

  “You take my breath away, Holmes. Do you think it possible that you will find the jewel box?”

  He gave a last satisfied nod at his bearded and bewigged reflection in the mirror and picked up his battered leather valise. “Assuming the materials associated with the claim ticket still remain and are worth keeping, I shall place them into this valise and bring it back here. But time is of the essence. It is five thirty in the morning. We have less than five hours until the deadline. We do not have a million pounds, but we may have a jewel box. That may give us something with which to negotiate Miss Radnar’s release.”

  So saying, he donned my overcoat, jammed my hat down over his wig, and picked up the valise in one hand. With the other, he swept up the bedsheets, which I saw had been knotted together. A moment later he was on the balcony, tying one end of the sheet to the bottom of the wrought-iron rail. Then he climbed over the railing, holding up one end of the sheets. “Just pull these up after I have landed, would you please, Watson,” he said.

  He dropped the valise over the balcony to the ground. The faint predawn light cast his figure in shadow as he grasped the sheet and swung away from the balcony, sliding down hand-over-hand, like a circus trapeze artist on a rope.

  I had retrieved the sheets and closed up the balcony entrance when there came a knock at the door. I opened to see a bellman. “Liefurung fur Herr Sherlock Holmes,” he said, in a gruff, abrupt manner, thrusting a cheap maroon carpetbag at my feet. Automatically I picked it up, noticing that it felt quite empty. I opened it, intending to ask where he had received his instructions, but by then he had gone and the door to the hallway stairs was clicking shut.

  Inside the bag was a white paper envelope. On the note inside, written in the familiar block capital letters, was this message:

  PLACE THE BONDS IN THE CARPETBAG. LEAVE BY THE STATUE OF THE KAISER AT THE TRINKHALLE AT TEN A.M. NO POLICE OR SHE DIES.

  I had no sooner sat down to try to puzzle out what to do than there came another knock. Lucy was in the hallway. Quickly I brought her in.

  “You are safe, at least,” she said. “Where is Holmes?”

  I explained where he had gone. Then I showed her the ransom note instructions and told her of the messages Holmes had received from Lansdowne and Lord Radnar.

  “I had hoped they would change their minds. They cannot expect us to comply with this.”

  “Holmes thinks if we recover the jewel box it may give us something with which to bargain.”

  Quickly she took the envelope from me and turned the paper over onto the other side. With a pen from her reticule she wrote: “You must see that we need more time. You have nothing to gain by being unreasonable. We shall deliver the ransom tomorrow at the same time at a place of your selection. S. Holmes.”

  Lucy put the note into the carpetbag and closed the hasp. “Just before ten I will take it to the Trinkhalle and deposit it under the statue.”

  “Ought we to tell the Colonel?”

  “We can ask Holmes. We have four hours until ten o’clock. Now let u
s go to the station. Perhaps we can help.”

  In the hotel lobby the Colonel awaited us, along with two of his men. He asked, “Where is Herr Holmes?”

  “He is following up a clue as to the whereabouts of the jewel box.”

  “We have had men in the hotel since midnight, but we have not seen him. Where are you going with that carpetbag?”

  We told him of the note, and of the reply Lucy had written upon it.

  “We will have watchmen posted discreetly. The Trinkhalle is a large place. Do not worry. They will not be seen. We also have men at the railway station, checking all passengers leaving town.” He looked at the clock above the registry desk. “The first train departs at seven thirty.”

  “We will go there as well,” Lucy said. “I have known her for several years. I may be able to recognize her, even if her captors have altered her appearance.”

  Fortunately the Colonel did not send his men to accompany us. Lucy and I walked the five minutes’ journey to the station under an overcast sky. The rising sun made streaks of dark purple and red along the edges of the morning clouds. As we arrived, the hiss of steam and squeal of brakes cut through the morning air. “The southbound train,” Lucy said.

  Inside the station, we looked for Holmes. He should have been readily recognizable with the ginger beard and the wig. However, we could not find him amidst the passengers waiting to board and those who had only now arrived and were milling about, getting their bearings and attempting to locate porters to handle their luggage. Nor could I spot any obviously military watchmen, which I took as a good sign, since that augured well for the Colonel’s men not being spotted at the Trinkhalle. We did see an old beggar man seated on the station floor against the wall near the street entrance. His legs were stretched out and motionless, protected from the hard cold tiles by a folded blanket of some kind. In the dirty fingers of one hand, he grasped a black felt hat, holding it out upside down to collect coins. With his other hand, he was pressing something tightly to his chest. His weather-beaten face bore an unusually pleased expression. He was staring towards the far end of the station, opposite the entrance to the train platform, where three people stood in a line.

  “The left-luggage office,” Lucy said, following the beggar’s gaze. “We should keep our eyes on that doorway, for it is the one place we know Holmes intends to visit. Now that the first train of the day is in, they ought to open for business.”

  As if to prove the accuracy of her statement, the top half of the luggage-room door swung inwards, revealing a middle-aged clerk standing behind the counter. We watched the clerk deal with the parcels and suitcases of his three customers. Then a resentful-looking grey-haired man with a crutch limped up, a battered leather valise at his side.

  “That’s Holmes,” said Lucy.

  41. TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY

  I saw. It was indeed Holmes, holding his own valise, placing what had to be the left-luggage ticket into the clerk’s hand. Yet such was his ability to immerse himself in any role he happened to be playing that I could not help believing he was indeed anxiously awaiting his parcel before boarding his train, all the while enduring the pain from his injured limb.

  The clerk accepted the ticket and withdrew into the storage area.

  Lucy continued, “Talcum in the hair, black shoe polish to colour the false moustache. Probably had those in his valise. Probably that’s where he put what’s left of the ginger beard and the wig. He must think people are watching for him. I expect he traded your coat and hat for the crutch.” She glanced over at the beggar man. “He probably added a few gold marks to the bargain, judging from the way that beggar’s protecting his breast pocket with his free hand.”

  At the luggage counter, the clerk was handing Holmes a parcel wrapped in brown paper and twine. Holmes tucked it into his valise and then turned towards the open area and the passageway to the platform. I scanned the crowd, hoping to spot any danger before it became a threat to Holmes. Adding to the noise of the crowd and the steady chuffing sound of the waiting steam engine, I heard a distant rumble and the faraway high-pitched whistle of an approaching train. For some reason, I thought of Dietrich and Richter. I watched, particularly alert, but saw no one who resembled either man. The crowd seemed quite orderly and calm, preoccupied with their individual affairs. None of them was looking at Holmes, who was hobbling on his crutch towards the ticket counter. He made his way to the end of the ticket counter line, behind a uniformed nurse pushing her patient in a wheelchair.

  The wheelchair patient, a white-haired invalid woman, coughed violently, reacting, I thought, to the wisps of black coal smoke drifting into the station from the waiting steam engine. To her right, at the doorway that led to the station platform just outside the building, two uniformed soldiers were stationed to observe the approaching passengers. Before reaching them, Holmes shuffled sideways to the right, moving out of the stream of passengers. He was now coming in our direction. He approached us where we stood beside the beggar man, hugging close to the inner station wall.

  To my astonishment, he passed us, holding the valise close to his side. His stern features gave not even a hint of recognition, save for a cold look and a barely perceptible gesture with his free hand, palm downwards, to indicate that we were to remain in place.

  Then he was gone. Lucy and I stood against the wall near the entrance, scanning the crowd. We could hear the distant rumbling of the northbound express. We could see the ebb and flow of the lines of passengers, some coming in from the waiting southbound train and others going out to board it. The nurse and her wheelchair patient evidently had obtained their tickets, for they were moving slowly towards the waiting soldiers at the entrance. The patient had another coughing fit. The uniformed nurse placed a white scarf over her patient’s face to protect her from the smoke, and the coughing subsided.

  “I know that cough,” Lucy said. “It’s Harriet!”

  I acted by instinct. As the rumbling sound of the northbound express grew ever louder, I made my way towards the wheelchair. If the patient indeed was Harriet, I would have to stop her kidnappers from getting her on the train. Had her cough been an alarm, a call for help? Was the white scarf an attempt to conceal her face from the two soldiers at the entrance? I pressed forwards against the flow of arriving passengers. Behind me I heard a commotion from the street outside. I turned and glimpsed Colonel Brandt and three of his uniformed men coming into the station. I pressed on. Now the nurse and her wheelchair were only a few feet ahead of me, passing under the gaze of the two soldiers. Now I was past the soldiers as well. On the platform, the nurse and wheelchair had paused at the entrance to the underpass steps that would lead them beneath the tracks. I thought the nurse was considering how best to navigate her patient down the steps. From the south came the reverberation of the steam engine, propelling the express train ever closer. I readied myself to stride confidently up to the nurse and lift up the white scarf from the face of her patient. I would call for help from the soldiers if indeed it was Harriet in that wheelchair.

  Then the woman in the wheelchair threw off the scarf and stood. The nurse lunged towards her, but the woman spun away, running north along the platform. As she ran, she threw off a white wig. I was looking at her from behind, but I was quite certain that the woman was Harriet. Behind me from the south came a shrill blast from the steam whistle of the fast-approaching northbound express. I started to run after Harriet, but the nurse pushed me off balance. I staggered back, nearly falling off the platform down to the northbound tracks some four feet below. To my horror, I saw the engine of the express train looming out in the distance. It was barely two hundred yards away, belching black smoke and thundering ever closer. The roar of the train increased. Righting myself safely on the platform, I caught sight of the nurse behind me. She was hurrying down the steps to the underpass. The two soldiers were staring at me and towards Harriet. So were Colonel Brandt and his three men, who were just emerging from the station onto the platform.

  Tu
rning, I could see Harriet clearly. She was at the edge of the platform, a wild-eyed, dazed look on her face, staring fixedly at the train. Then she leaped from the platform onto the tracks, directly in the path of the oncoming locomotive. She went down on her knees, appearing momentarily dazed by the impact. In the last instant that she remained in my vision, she appeared to begin crawling towards the southbound train on the adjacent tracks. The driver in his locomotive must have seen her, for the shrill blast of a steam whistle cut through the air, followed immediately by the earsplitting screech of brakes. Then the great mass of the black metal locomotive was alongside me, sparks issuing from its locked steel wheels as they skidded along the bright steel rails. The train hurtled past. In the cacophony of the roaring engine and the shriek of brakes I thought I heard a woman scream. The huge locomotive with its trailing railway carriages continued relentlessly down the northbound track. Finally the train came to a juddering stop.

  A shadowy stain darkened the tracks beneath one of the carriages, at the spot where Harriet had jumped. The locomotive had passed at least fifty yards beyond.

  PART FOUR

  AND CHECKS AND SLAYS

  42. A HAUNTING MEMORY

  About fifteen minutes later, I was standing in the station with Lucy and Holmes, who had returned to us with his hair free of the white talcum, and his sharp features cleared of the false moustache. Immediately he had donned his cape and, with a cautionary nod, stuffed his valise into Lucy’s carpetbag, placing it behind her.

  I had just told Holmes and Lucy what I had witnessed on the platform.

  “Could Harriet have rolled clear of the locomotive?” Lucy asked.

  “She was on her knees between the tracks and certainly trying to get to the other side. But she appeared to be confused and faltering. Then the incoming locomotive and the rest of the train blocked my vision.”