“That is a fact,” Holmes acknowledged.
At that moment, they heard a hiss.
The old stove had finally burned its fuel down to embers.
“Thank heavens,” Holmes declared, eyeing it with mild contempt. “I never thought I’d mourn the London chill.”
“Have we been sitting for so long?” Douglas marveled. He rose and checked his pocket watch.
“Nearly midnight,” he confirmed.
Between the soot and the cigarette smoke, the room was shrouded in fumes.
“I realize that opening the window is impossible,” Holmes said, “but perhaps we can open the door.”
“At this hour? Not worth the trouble,” Douglas responded, “as we would be consumed by mosquitos and gnats. Besides which, I shall not be responsible for Emanuel’s catching a draft.” With that in mind, he walked over, removed a blanket from a second mattress, and laid it on top of Emanuel’s thin one—then resumed his perch across from his friend.
“I’m astonished he can breathe at all,” Holmes quipped. “Or that we can.” Nevertheless, he rolled a second cigarette, marveling how good the rancid tobacco tasted, despite the burn.
“Any thoughts?” Douglas asked, indicating the letters.
Holmes shrugged.
“One or two,” he said. “Why would the slavers suddenly feel at their leisure to wander about their former ports of call?” he asked, and then he answered his own question. “I posit that their goal,” he began, “is not numbers at all. Think of it, Douglas—once a man is willing to entertain the notion of selling a human being, never mind actually doing so, in a country where such activity has been declared illegal, he becomes complicit.
“At this juncture,” he continued, “it seems likely that enough former owners have entertained the notion—or perhaps taken actual money—that the slavers feel safe to wander about their former hunting grounds.”
“Let me be sure I have it correct,” Douglas said. “You posit that they never actually intended to kidnap ex-slaves in such high numbers—that the purpose of kidnapping is to keep ex-owners quiet and complicit. Their intent, in other words, has always been to import slaves from slave-trading countries, where it’s much less costly.”
“Precisely,” Holmes said.
“But surely the ex-owners are not fools,” Douglas protested. “Surely they have done their own due diligence and have discerned whether or not those slavers have the resources to purchase all those slaves. That would require an awful lot of money in the bank, Holmes.”
The latter nodded. “True, but in the latter case, the resources are simply a front. A wealthy investor puts up money, knowing he won’t have to spend it all. The slavers kidnap just enough ex-slaves here and there to keep the locals complicit and therefore docile. In the meantime, our villains simply wait for an opportune time to import slaves en masse, and for much lower sums, from countries that still trade, moving them through the ports of countries that still allow slaving ships to dock at their shores.” He counted off on his fingers: “Puerto Rico, Portugal, Brazil—”
“Yes, yes,” Douglas interrupted impatiently. “Thirty countries worldwide, so quite a few to choose from. With a looming war in Europe, and the United States busy with its own recovery, the slavers simply have to wait a few more months. No one will be paying this the least mind.”
He flicked nervously at his cigarette. “But why come here?” he wondered. “Why Trinidad?”
Holmes shrugged. “Oil,” he speculated. “And coal.”
“But the Amerindians are already serving as very cheap labor for both,” Douglas countered.
“Nothing is cheaper than free,” Holmes replied. “In any case, it is hard to fathom that men would go to all this trouble for oil, or even coal…”
“…or caulking.”
“You are referring to Pitch Lake?” Holmes asked.
Douglas nodded. “Most of the ships in the area purchase the sludge as caulking material.”
Holmes put out his cigarette and plucked some errant tobacco from the tip of his tongue.
“And not a peep about any of this at the War Office,” he exclaimed. “Which certainly unsettles me, though it does remind me—when we hail to Port of Spain once again, we shall have to go by the post office. I sternly charged Parfitt to send me anything of pertinence.”
“Little Huan is collecting the post for the Chinese district,” Douglas said. “I shall ask him to collect your letters, as well.” He looked distracted, and frowned. “The most pertinent question remains. If this is all true, can anything be done? Can these people be stopped?”
Holmes shrugged again.
“Britain has no jurisdiction over slave-trading countries at all,” he said somberly.
“And escape would be a constant threat,” Douglas added. “How do the slavers manage it? It’s not like the days when nearly every country had its own slave trade, and freedom was prohibitively distant.”
“Where can they locate land that is at once safe from mutiny and beyond the reach of national laws?” Holmes asked.
Douglas shook his head. Yet another dilemma, he thought, on an endless list.
* * *
As Holmes inhaled a few more puffs, he suddenly recalled something Mrs. Sutton had said.
“Mr. Sutton, God rest his soul, decided to go a different way, purchasing land off the coast…” He sifted her words through his brain—
And then it came to him.
“Douglas!” he practically shouted it. “Islands!”
In the corner bed, Emanuel chuckled and snorted in his sleep.
31
HOLMES WAS MORE THAN PRIMED TO RIDE BACK TO THE governor’s office immediately.
“If we leave now,” he insisted, “we could easily make it to Port of Spain by early morning. They will have maps of nearby islands, indicating which are located in international waters, while still being close enough to Trinidad to be practical for exchanges. There we can also find ledgers of sale.”
Douglas—though every bit as anxious as Holmes—would not forsake Emanuel.
“I will not have him wake up alone,” he declared.
The two fashioned a compromise. They would set off at dawn the following day, to arrive at the governor’s office by mid-afternoon.
While Douglas stretched out on one of the little beds, Holmes declined to lie down at all, preferring to remain seated at the table, to smoke what was left of the rank tobacco, and to stare periodically at the window for any sign of light.
* * *
By the time they had deposited Emanuel safely in San Fernando, then made their circuitous way back to Port of Spain, the sun was beginning its unflagging drop from the sky.
Worse still, when Holmes dismounted, his tired nag missed her step and landed a front hoof neatly on his right foot. As pain shot through him, he cursed the horse, the toes, and “the whole bloody mess.” Then he dug Sherlock’s walking stick out of his bag and, while Douglas procured water for the horses, did his best to navigate the stairs to the governor’s front door, continuing the imprecations the entire way.
When he finally reached the top landing, he noticed three men standing guard outside the closed door. They were large, sullen, and pasty-white, like the professional fishermen he had seen on the Liverpool docks—the ones who sailed on Russian whaling ships.
Holmes approached them with as much gravitas as he could muster under the circumstances. When he announced himself, however, they seemed neither to care about his credentials, nor about any emergency that might involve the governor’s time and attention.
“Nyet, nyet!” they said when he insisted he be allowed inside—thus confirming their nationality. When he didn’t depart, the portliest of the lot balled up his fist and threatened him with it—specifically indicating that he would like nothing better than to leave its imprint on Holmes’s sole unmarked cheek.
He was further demoralized to note that the man’s substantial fingers were decorated with an array of cheap
rings, and he worried that another scar might be in his very near future.
A second brute—this one with a door-knocker beard and a chewed-up toothpick which he bounced from one side of his mouth to the other—growled, “No more governor!” in a thick accent.
“No more governor?” Holmes repeated. “Surely you don’t mean he is deceased…?”
The man didn’t answer, and the three of them simply fingered the long pistols hanging at their thighs, drawing closer to him, making their resolve quite clear.
Holmes hobbled his way back down the stairs and intercepted a very surprised Douglas, who was making his way up. Quickly he explained the dilemma.
“As determined as we are to get in, they seem even more determined to keep us out,” Holmes concluded.
Douglas peered up at the men.
“Could this be a misunderstanding?” he asked.
“No misunderstanding at all,” Holmes said. They’ve simply been instructed to keep people out of the office, and that’s what they’ll bloody well do. The good news, I suppose, is that it’s not personal. They’ve not been warned about us, per se.”
“Whether personal or not,” Douglas interjected, “it would not do to waylay the governor’s guards. And in any case, we are in no condition to take them on.”
“Then what are our options?” Holmes asked, not really expecting an answer.
Douglas frowned again at the guards, then made his way back down the stairs, motioning for his friend to follow. He led Holmes around the back of the edifice, to the five-finger tree that they had seen from the governor’s window. It was rich and lush, with outstretched branches that grew up past the balcony. Its star fruit left a trail of sticky juice on the ground and the leaves, making them shimmer.
“You cannot be serious,” Holmes said. “I’ve two toes sprained to a fare-thee-well…”
“It is a dramatic approach, I grant you,” Douglas replied. “But at least no heads need be broken in the process.”
Holmes looked at the tree, then back at Douglas.
“Other than mine, you mean,” he muttered.
Without another word, Douglas began to climb.
Damning his weariness and his aches, Holmes followed suit, flinging himself onto the lowest branches. While Douglas’s greater reach gave him a distinct advantage, Holmes used Sherlock’s walking stick to good effect, hooking upper branches to propel himself ever higher.
In a matter of minutes, they climbed to the edge of the balcony. Douglas leapt across the railing, while Holmes more or less stumbled over it, but both results were the same, and they found themselves at the office’s balcony door.
It was unlocked.
The two brushed themselves off and were just praising their own cleverness when they realized that the room was occupied, but not with the governor. Inside, half a dozen Amerindian workers were in the midst of packing up what looked like the governor’s personal belongings.
They stopped their labors and stared.
Before Holmes or Douglas could utter a sound, the governor’s smug young aide, Beauchamp, strode in. He seemed taken aback to see them, but quickly recovered.
“May I help you?” he inquired contemptuously.
Holmes, still out of breath from the climb, took the lead.
“We are here to meet with Governor Hamilton-Gordon,” he said in his finest “official” tone.
Beauchamp just smiled thinly. “Sir Hamilton-Gordon has left for Mauritius.”
“I see,” Holmes said, trying to sound nonchalant. “And when is he scheduled to return?”
“He is not,” the aide said.
“Is that a fact?” Holmes said, not yet quite believing it. “And just what is he doing in Mauritius?”
“Oh, did he not inform you, then?” Beauchamp responded. “On the twenty-fifth of June, the governorship is to be turned over to one Sir James Robert Longden. I am afraid that whatever… plans you made with the governor, you shall have to revisit with his successor.”
“But the governor said he would help us,” Douglas interjected, brushing aside Holmes’s small attempts to quell him. “He gave us his solemn word.”
“Did he?” The aide allowed himself a condescending grin. “Well then, were I you, I would board the first boat to Mauritius to inquire if you heard correctly.”
The workers tittered at this last, before resuming their packing.
“Mr. Holmes,” the aide said as he pointedly turned away from Douglas, “though you did not ask my advice, I shall now offer it. Your issue, as I understand it, is with a few missing Negroes. But you must understand that Caribbean society has complex, overlapping divisions of castes and classes. Frankly, the Negro is the last thing in the world anyone cares about.”
Beauchamp opened the door. His expression was cold, his intent clear. With no other options, the two men started out. Just as he passed, Douglas turned and cold-cocked the little aide in the jaw, dropping him neatly to the ground.
The workers said not a word, but continued their efforts.
As Douglas shook out his fist, he and Holmes strode out of the office and down the stairs to where the Russians still stood guard.
* * *
When the sentries saw Holmes and Douglas again, their laconic expressions gave way to puzzlement, as if the two had simply materialized out of thin air. One muttered something to another in Russian, but they showed no signs of making a move.
They simply watched Holmes and Douglas walk past.
As the two friends untied their nags, Douglas whispered to Holmes.
“I infer by this that you were correct—that they were hired specifically to guard against strangers entering through the front door. Since we did not, in fact, enter through the front door, it seems as if we did not fall within their purview.”
Holmes nodded.
“Next time,” he said as he began to mount, “they should be paid enough to guard the perimeter, as well.” He clicked his tongue at his nag. As the barn-sour horses began their plodding way toward the road, Holmes sighed deeply.
“In any case, we must return and scout around,” he said. “Somehow I doubt that these men will be quite so accommodating when they see us again.” He grimaced as pain shot through his foot.
“Huan,” Douglas said, eyeing his friend, “can have someone take a look at your toes. They most likely can be persuaded back into service.”
“You mean through some sort of Chinese mumbo-jumbo?” Holmes asked, not in the mood. “No, thank you.”
“Perhaps I should venture back here alone, then,” Douglas replied, “as your limping about might impede our progress.”
“No one knows their way around an office better than I, Douglas,” Holmes replied. “It would be like keeping a duck from water. Though if you insist on utilizing your Chinese friends, I wouldn’t mind it if a handful stood sentry for us.”
Douglas shook his head.
“They are tenuous residents here in Port of Spain,” he said, “with families and livelihoods. They don’t need any problems with the governor’s office, though I am sure they would be glad to help in other ways.”
Holmes nodded unhappily.
Finally out of the path of pedestrians, the men tapped the horses’ flanks and headed back to the Chinese quarter, to wait out what Holmes hoped would be an uneventful evening, before they returned to the governor’s office.
32
HOLMES LAY ON HIS BACK, STARING AT THE WOODEN SLATS OF his hovel and waiting for one a.m., the assigned hour that he and Douglas were to venture back to the governor’s office. He hoped that their opposition remained unaware of their goal—the land claims—and had not already spirited away pertinent documents.
And what an opposition they are, he thought with chagrin. People so vile that they would whistle away someone’s life, simply for their own gain.
And Georgiana is among their ranks.
She had ceased, in his mind, to be Georgiana. She had fully become some other creature entirely. She had bec
ome Anabel Lynch.
Or perhaps he had separated the two so as to keep a bit of his sanity.
In any event, Georgiana was the lovely, caring creature with whom he had fallen in love back in England, when the most exotic thing in his life was the jumbie bead bracelet she wore on her right wrist. Anabel Lynch was another sort of creature entirely—frightening and unpredictable, who had made certain that he and Douglas would survive the journey to Trinidad, though not precisely in one piece.
She was the one who had lied repeatedly, who had been at least partway responsible for heaven-only-knew how many deaths—while at the same time had felt qualms enough to hide Douglas’s letters so that her fellow conspirators might be found out.
He stretched out on the hard, prickly straw, testing both his emotions and his physicality as one might test an unfamiliar object that held some interest, though was not particularly dear.
It no longer felt as if wolves were tearing at his throat each time he thought of her; and although his toes were certainly smarting, physical discomfort did not seem to matter as much as it once had. Aches and pains had become a part of him.
Though at three and twenty, he mused wryly, I should not be feeling quite so many.
Something else was occurring, as well, something that seemed foreign to anything he had assumed about himself to this point. He recalled the nightmares he’d had on the ship, and before that the chills he’d felt up his spine at the sight of that false sailor, spitting out of the wrong side of his mouth, and the mutes guarding the house of death.
What would Sherlock say, he wondered suddenly, if he knew his older brother had given himself over to phantoms and premonitions?
Whatever this was, this otherworldly sensation, he sincerely hoped it would dissipate. The last thing he needed was to fancy himself a mystic.
He heard the dissonant sound of a nightingale-thrush sing somewhere nearby, and realized that in spite of the ache in his foot, the terrible burden of memories, and a sort of a chronic bone-weariness, he felt strangely lulled inside this little lean-to in the Chinese quarter.
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