“That his family has few resources,” Holmes corrected. “The fact is supported, too, by his attire. Curious, however, in that the writing apparatus is… aha! Note the flourishes on the capital ‘A’.” With that, Holmes began to spell out a name, letter by letter, as the boy wrote.
“A… n… a… b… e… l. His beloved’s name is Anabel!”
“Or his mother’s,” Douglas posited.
“Nonsense, Douglas. One does not ‘flourish’ one’s mother’s name unless one is given to moral turpitude…”
“Enough, Holmes, it’s not appropriate to peek into someone’s private—”
“Your duffer!” Holmes interrupted.
“Pardon…?”
“The boy signed it, ‘Your duffer’.”
“‘Your duffer’?” Douglas repeated, suddenly curious. “Perhaps because she stole his heart?”
“Since it is street parlance for ‘pickpocket,’ she would then be his duffer, would she not?” Holmes said.
“In any case,” he added as at long last they moved on, “I hope I have convinced you that he is not writing to his mother.”
“You have not,” Douglas said. “We read no actual words, Holmes. For all I know, you assumed the word to be ‘Anabel’ while the boy was writing that he is particularly fond of apricots.”
* * *
As the two of them walked out of the saloon and toward the quarterdeck, bickering back and forth on a subject of little relevance, three rough-looking characters kept a close eye on them.
One was small of stature but wiry, with the pointed, alert face of a ferret. The second was very large—or at least he seemed that way to Holmes, who appraised him out of the corner of his eye. The large man moved as if the air was molasses, and it was his ponderous duty to push through it.
The third, with bright red hair, was equally large, but seemed more sure-footed and treacherous. The scar that ran across his forehead made it look as though his cranium had been popped open, and then closed again.
A fourth man joined them. He was short, like the first, but so stocky that his chest seemed to rise to his chin with no neck in between. His eyes were two agate stones sunk into flesh. His head was shaved bald, with small cuts and scars suggesting that the straight razor was not his friend.
“Have you your revolver?” Holmes whispered to Douglas.
“In my bag,” Douglas replied.
“Well, you may want to keep it handy from this point on,” he said, and Douglas nodded.
In truth, Holmes knew no one besides Douglas who carried a firearm as a matter of course—not even his employer, the estimable Secretary of State for War. Yet he understood Douglas’s need for protection, and was glad that his friend kept with him the American-made weapon. Already it was proving to be a comfort to them both.
When he and Douglas headed to the quarterdeck to hear the captain’s report, the men did not follow.
“Much ado about nothing,” Douglas said, relieved.
“On the contrary, Douglas—it was something,” Holmes corrected. “I’m certain of it.”
“What?”
Holmes sighed. “I fear that that part has yet to be determined.”
12
HOLMES AND DOUGLAS STOOD ON THE QUARTERDECK AND HEARD the sorry news from the captain’s mouth. Fog and foul weather, Captain Miles was explaining, were causing the great ship to move more slowly than had been planned, so that she was making less progress than they would have hoped. And they were about to hit some even fouler weather, which should send all but the hardiest among them to the shelter of their cabins.
Amid the small knot of people was a fashionable dowager, wearing buckets of jewelry and a bustle so large that each time she turned, she threatened to send one of her companions sprawling headlong across deck. As the captain spoke, she tapped the deck with the tip of her umbrella, periodically adding a melodramatic sigh.
“How vexing, how very tedious!” she declared when he was done. “And this was supposed to be a fast ship. Is there no recourse at all? No route that would enable us to avoid this bothersome delay?”
“Oh, there is much to be done!” Holmes said before the captain could utter a word or Douglas could stop him. “Here we are with immense furnaces under our feet, burning with furious fires—a boiler pent up with sufficient force to blow us all into the air in an instant, and howling gales and storms violent enough—if they assail us—to send us to a watery death.
“So long as we are still safe and headed toward our port,” he continued, irritation evident in his tone, “so long as all the fire is shut up in the furnaces, and all the force held in the machinery, and the winds and seas allow us to move on steadily through them, then we should not utter a word of complaint, simply because we are only proceeding at twelve and a half knots, instead of thirteen!”
The aggrieved dowager began to stutter out a protest, but it was drowned out by applause. Captain Miles tipped his hat to Holmes in thanks before hurrying away—for he could not be seen to be taking sides.
“Brilliant,” Douglas said darkly. “You have now offended two older women in the span of twenty minutes. I would venture to guess that is some sort of record.”
“These new-fangled fashions,” Holmes muttered as he watched the dowager waddle off. “How she even stands erect is a mystery of science.”
“I believe the jewels at the bow serve as ballast for the bustle at the aft,” Douglas offered. “And, speaking of aft, I must admit that was a poetical turn back there, Holmes!”
“Tosh,” Holmes countered. “I read it in a magazine earlier this year, thought it was well phrased, is all.”
Douglas smiled. “So you memorized a speech assuming that you would—what, have use for it some day, on the chance that someone might complain about a ship’s speed?”
“Don’t be daft, why would anyone bother to do a thing like that?”
“Then you memorized it for no reason at all,” Douglas persisted, bewildered.
“I don’t know what you mean, Douglas, by ‘memorize’ it. I simply read it.”
“You read it once? And it stuck?”
“You must stop staring at me as if I were a specimen in a jar,” Holmes huffed as he led the way to their room. “It is a family gift. Or curse, if you will. My mother and brother, too, are capable. In my mother’s case, it drove her quite mad. In my brother’s… only time will tell.”
Douglas, bags in hand, followed, shaking his head.
* * *
At long last, they reached their room. Even after nearly two decades in England, Douglas found that he suffered cold more thoroughly than did most Englishmen. And damp cold was a particularly onerous kind, insinuating itself to bone and marrow, and forming little icicles in between. He put down the bags, massaged his cramping hands, and waited impatiently for Holmes to open the door.
When the door swung open, Douglas half-hoped he would shut it again, for the room did not look promising in the least.
“It is rather plain,” Holmes said, studying it.
That would be lofty praise indeed, Douglas mused.
Though portside, it had no view at all. It contained only two bunks and, against one wall, a wooden medicine box with mirror, a basin for shaving, and a pitcher of water. It was, in other words, just as Holmes had no doubt requested, for Douglas knew only too well his friend’s reluctance to spend money.
“I doubt you will fit in here, Holmes, never mind me,” Douglas said, all the while recriminating himself that he hadn’t booked his own quarters. “And look here—what good is a pitcher for water, with no glasses?”
Holmes had just put down his small bag and his walking stick when, through the open doorway, he spotted the same four ruffians who’d been eyeing them on deck. They were hastening down the narrow passageway toward them.
And there was no way out.
“At least there are four this time, and not a half-dozen,” Douglas muttered.
Holmes thought to pick up the walking stick again,
though in a small space it might be more trouble than help. On the other hand, the small space also meant that four men could not use their superior numbers as effectively.
“Choose!” Holmes said to Douglas.
“Darkies oughtta be ’tween decks, not here amongst us proper folk,” the wiry leader shouted.
“Choose quickly,” Holmes amended.
“The red one,” Douglas declared. “And the big one.”
“Which big one? There are two big ones!”
“The figgy pudding…”
Before Douglas could finish, the men were upon them.
* * *
As the stocky bald man—the “figgy pudding”—lumbered toward Douglas, the redhead’s fist connected with Holmes’s cheek. The ring on his pinkie opened up a gash that immediately began to bleed.
Holmes jerked his head away to avoid a second fist, and landed his own right upper cut to the redhead’s jaw, followed by a roundhouse left that dropped his assailant to his knees and sliced his chin with a well-drawn line of blood.
Douglas, for his part, gave better than he got. As the figgy pudding lurched his way, he leaned sideways and kicked, his leg parallel to the floor—and broke his assailant’s nose with a crack that reverberated down the passageway. The man collapsed in a puddle of blood and snot while Douglas twisted that same leg toward their wiry leader, shifting his foot from first to fourth position like a ballerina, nailing him neatly in the throat.
The leader fell in a heap, struggling to breathe, while the big man with the cobalt eyes rushed at Holmes with a roar.
Holmes ducked.
His assailant tumbled over him.
Using the man’s own momentum, Holmes pushed him into the figgy pudding, who was just rising on wobbly legs when his partner toppled him again like a bowling pin.
The wiry leader, still gasping for air, fled first, running as fast as the narrow passageway would allow. The others limped away soon after, and Holmes and Douglas made it to their cabin in one piece, bolting the door behind them.
“You said you would take the redhead,” Holmes muttered. The gash on his cheek was bleeding profusely. He held his handkerchief to it, trying to stanch the flow.
“I think he chose you first,” Douglas replied. “I noticed you used the move I taught you. Momentum is a gift.”
Holmes nodded. “You’re not half bad yourself, for an old man. All that spinning and flailing about does come in handy…” He stared at his reflection in a mirror on the wall. Douglas stared at it, too, and frowned.
“That is a nasty wound you’ve got there, Holmes. Perhaps the ship’s physician…”
“Tosh,” Holmes replied. He opened the medicine box with its mirrored lid. Inside were a used strop and straight razor, along with a little jar of carbolic acid.
“I have no clue what ‘tosh’ means in this regard, Holmes. That is a bad cut—you must see a physician!”
“Tosh means tosh… ah, here we are!” Holmes exclaimed. “Ask, and you shall receive!” He mixed a handful of carbolic crystals with a few drops of water from the pitcher.
Then he frowned.
“Something doesn’t sit quite right,” he muttered.
“Beatings seldom do,” Douglas opined.
“When you mentioned that the redheaded man chose me, Douglas, you were unintentionally correct. He did choose me. A ruby, cabochon cut, did this. But they weren’t the sorts who could afford a ring at all, much less a cabochon! You noticed, yes?”
“The cabochon? Or the redhead?” Douglas asked. “I have to admit that I did not.”
“He wore it on that sausage he no doubt refers to as his ‘pinkie’.” Holmes frowned. “And it barely fitted.”
“What are you saying, Holmes, that someone gave it to him?”
“Lent it, most likely, yes.”
“Whatever for?”
“To cut me.”
“A knife would not serve?”
Holmes grimaced. The carbolic acid was beginning to sting.
“With a knife, it is too easy to slip up, do real damage,” Holmes explained. “Whoever arranged this did not want me dead—merely warned.”
“Warned of what?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
“What good is a warning if you are not certain what you’re being warned about?” Douglas protested.
“You fought them, Douglas, and yet you ask such a question? They were back-alley fighters, at best. Clearly not professional killers—merely incidental. Our presence here has disrupted a plan of some sort…”
“Your presence, you mean,” Douglas corrected. “Secretary to Edward Cardwell. I would be of no consequence to them.”
“Perhaps.”
“You say ‘perhaps,’ but you do not know what sort of plan,” Douglas said.
“Of course not,” Holmes shot back. “How should I? I am a secretary in an office! D’you think this sort of thing happens to me every week?”
He stared again at his face in the mirror. It was an ugly cut, running from the top of his cheekbone nearly to the top of his lip. Bearing the sting, he applied more carbolic acid, hoping it would heal properly, and not leave too prominent a scar.
In truth, he was thinking of Georgiana. If she was in any way displeased with his appearance, he feared he could not bear it.
And where in the world is she? he wondered.
“If Georgiana is aboard, under an assumed name or otherwise,” he said aloud, “I must find her. In the morning, I shall do a thorough search of the ship—”
Suddenly the Sultana pitched, interrupting Holmes’s thought and sending both men scrambling to hold onto something solid, while the cabin creaked and groaned as if it were in agony.
Douglas peered around with concern.
“I am afraid the captain’s prediction was right—we are hitting a patch of very bad weather,” he said. “Searching a ship in a storm is not the soundest plan, Holmes.”
“Nevertheless,” Holmes responded with great determination, releasing his handhold, “I must.”
The ship pitched in the other direction, sending him skittering into Douglas.
“Beg pardon,” Holmes muttered, touching his forehead as though they were two strangers who’d bumped each other on the train.
Then he sat hard on his bunk.
“Strange,” he said. “Even when the ship is not pitching, my head continues the movement…”
“You might have a touch of seasickness,” Douglas posited. “Understandable, under the circumstances.”
“Tosh…” Holmes replied. But he nevertheless put his head on the pillow and closed his eyes.
* * *
Douglas left Holmes napping in their cabin and hazarded a trip up on deck to judge for himself just what sort of quandary they had stumbled into. He doubted that he would encounter the toughs again. They were street ruffians, not sailors.
None but a damn fool would walk the promenade on a night like this.
Nevertheless, he tucked his Smith & Wesson top-break, single-action Model 3 into his coat, just in case.
The damn fool might just be me, he thought wryly.
13
BESIDES PASSENGERS AND CREW, THE GREAT SHIP CARRIED A FULL cargo of tobacco, leather goods, and lard. Douglas thought she was less than six years old, from the looks of her, and as fit as any vessel put to sea. Then again, he doubted that her mettle had been tested in a storm of such magnitude.
He watched her bow rise and dip over angry black water that seemed not so much beneath as all around her, while above her the twilight sky was a patchwork of mist and fog and flying scuds of rain, so that there was no respite to be had, either above or below.
If she sank beneath those fulsome waves, succumbing to a watery grave, the only thing left afloat would be the lard.
He walked back to their cramped quarters, having discovered nothing of import. Neither he nor Holmes had a notion what the next move might be, but one thing was certain. Since they could not discern friend from foe
, for the time being they would keep the assault to themselves.
“I say we go to the saloon and have some dinner,” Holmes said, “as if nothing had transpired. We simply keep our wits about us, and judge if anyone is surprised to see us there.”
“Our other alternative is to remain where we are,” Douglas said, only half joking, as he already knew how that suggestion would be received. Holmes frowned his disapproval and put another round of carbolic acid and water on his wounded cheek—after which the men silently dressed for dinner and exited the room.
* * *
The moment they stepped outside, the wind seemed to want its pound of flesh. It howled through each crack and cranny of the long, dank passageway, whipping up whorls of dust like ghosts rising up and taking form. They could hear the water slosh against the great ship’s sides as she forced her way through the swells.
Douglas bent his knees to lower his center of gravity. He had long grown accustomed to the motion of a ship, and could anticipate the Sultana’s moves and coordinate them with his own. Holmes, on the other hand, was attempting to ride her, to beat her, to wear her down. He treated every sway as combat, pitting his balance and reflexes against her feints and jabs. Watching him, Douglas became concerned that his young friend would soon land upon his head—so he decided to act the role model.
He grabbed the handrail.
“You will find this to be of service,” he said, hoping his tone would carry a warning.
Holmes assiduously ignored him.
Douglas abandoned the futile effort and let go.
No use providing an object lesson, he mused, when the student pays not the slightest heed. Not to mention that the effort to stay upright actually seemed to be having a positive effect on his friend. It was the first time he’d seen Holmes act even remotely carefree since they’d boarded.
At that very moment a shadow crossed their paths, quick and fleeting. Douglas instantly laid a hand on the gun in his coat pocket. The move did not slip by unnoticed—Holmes glanced at him, curious, especially once the shadow proved to be a play of the light, and nothing more.
Douglas laughed. “There’s nothing like a ship, once the sun has set,” he said, “to give true meaning to the term eerie.”
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