Moran had travelled there only two weeks after Pjotr’s body was found. What was the purpose of his trip? Sherlock’s this won’t do rang in my head.
I rose, wrapped a towel around my left fist, stepped up to the window, closed it, and drew the heavy curtains. Then I hit the reveal until sweat trickled down my spine.
‘Don’t pull up your shoulder,’ he said. I heard him close the door and hang his hat on the hook. ‘Take off your dress. It restricts you too much.’
I turned around, bowed, and said through heavy breathing, ‘At you service, master.’
‘Behave yourself!’ A smile scampered across his face; then he was all focus again. ‘You’ll need space to move when I teach you how to defend yourself.’ Seeing my skepticism, he added, ‘I’ve never lost a fight.’
The dress fell to the floor with a rustle. Heavy silk pooled around my ankles.
‘Put this aside.’ He pointed to the dress. ‘And step away from the window. We will open it. It’s too warm for someone with such a disadvantageous surface-to-volume ratio as yours.’
I was glad for the breeze cooling my moist back, but I felt awkward standing in front of him only in my drawers, the loose maternity corset, and a fluttery camisole. And then I was supposed to… hit him?
‘You can try to land a punch, but I recommend you hit my palms. We will perfect your technique instead of attempting to increase your muscle power.’ He raised both hands to shoulder level.
I nodded and did as he asked.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘If I place my feet as you do.’ Both his feet were now parallel to each other. ‘I’m more prone to be tipped. Shove at my chest, if you please.’
I did, and he caught his balance by taking one step back.
‘Now, put your feet like this and keep your knees slightly flexed.’ One foot straight and closer to me, the other half a pace behind the first and at approximately forty-five degrees. ‘You’ll need a lot more force to tip me. Shove again.’
I did, and could barely move his upper body. I copied his stance.
‘Punch my hand again.’
My fist hit his palm. How pathetic.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now, use your body to punch, not just your arm.’ He tipped at my shoulder and my hip. ‘These must move. Look.’ He showed a very slow swing that began in his ankles and extended to his fist. ‘Simple physics.’ His hands went up again, his expression expectant.
I punched, he nodded, and I kept hitting his palms, paying attention to how my body turned, experimenting with swinging in various angles and listening to the slap my fist produced with each impact
‘Good,’ he said again. ‘The most important factor is that you move quickly. Moran is heavy. He’ll be slower than you.’ His gaze dropped to my stomach. ‘Or maybe not.’
‘I want to try something,’ I said. ‘How would you go about strangling me?’
One swift step forward and his hands were around my throat. ‘Stay like this,’ I said and ran my fingers over the weak points, testing my range for breaking his elbow joint, my right palm on his wrists, my left on his elbow. ‘If I hit it like this, I could perhaps dislocate the joint, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough.’
‘Joints and soft tissues are the weakest points of the human body. There’s almost no mechanical resistance. Your expert knowledge of anatomy will give you an advantage as long as you can develop a reflex to always hit these spots first.’
I nodded.
‘Obviously we will not try to dislocate joints today,’ he noted. ‘Or any other day, for that matter. But I believe we could exercise your punches to such a degree…’ He scratched his chin, his brow crinkled. ‘We could pay the morgue a visit.’ An amused mutter. His eyes shone with mischief.
The thought of him holding a stiff body up and me hitting and breaking limbs was so absurd that I laughed out loud.
‘Oy!’ he called when I grabbed both his index fingers and bent them the wrong way, peeling his hands off my throat.
‘Seems to work,’ I noted and kissed his abused knuckles before he could snatch away his hand. ‘I’ll write to the Institute of Pathology. What excuse would you prefer?’
‘Hum.’ He walked to the window and stuck his head out. ‘I’ll be Chief Inspector Nieme again. I’m on holidays, visiting a former colleague who came to consult me on an old case of his. A thought struck me and I now require a corpse or two to simulate whether or not a woman could inflict injuries as observed on a murder victim six years ago. And for that, I’ll need the assistance of my wife.’
‘What if they send a wire to the Yard, enquiring about the existence of Nieme?’
‘We will not give them enough time to receive an answer. We’ll announce our visit a mere twenty minutes in advance. Besides, the good inspector is indeed employed at the Yard’s Division H. But I doubt he has ever been to the continent.’
He ruffled his hair and walked back to me, raised his hands again, and nodded invitingly.
Two days later, we climbed the stone steps to the Institute of Pathology. A white-clad assistant beckoned us in, raised his eyebrows at me, bent to Sherlock, and murmured, ‘Are you certain, Inspector?’
‘Would I bother you if I weren’t?’
Hearing Sherlock speak German needed some getting used to. ‘It’s not the first time,’ I informed the assistant, but that didn’t seem to appease the man at all. Only with effort could he keep his eyes from flitting to my abdomen and his upper lip from curling in distaste.
As we walked through the corridor, the sweet stench of death seeped into my clothes, hair, and nostrils. A large double-winged door screeched on its hinges, flapping back and forth, screeching again and again, until it finally came to a rest. Corpses were laid out, their stiff legs sticking into the narrow walkway between the rows of tables.
‘Thank you, Mr Kleinmaier,’ said Sherlock and waved the man away. He left, visibly irritated by the impolite gesture. The winged door squealed and we turned to work.
‘Pick one,’ I said. ‘Did you notice the two cats near the stone steps when we entered the premises?’
He hoisted up a medium-sized man and held him by the chest. Both of the corpse’s arms were pinned to the torso.
‘Lay him back down, please,’ I said. ‘One can always find two or more cats lingering on the Institute of Pathology’s lawn. The medical students have their own theory about this. They believe the pathologists feed the animals pieces of liver to test for toxins.’
I bent over the body and broke the rigor mortis at both shoulders. The stiff flesh sang under the strain. I thought that perhaps I should feel ashamed. I used to dissect the dead and had never felt the need to apologise when running the scalpel through cold skin, so where did the slight uneasiness suddenly come from?
‘Sounds plausible,’ said Sherlock.
I nodded at him and he picked up the corpse again. I stood facing the two and placed the corpse’s right hand on my shoulder. The stiffness in wrist and elbow forced the arm straight.
‘You know,’ I whispered, ‘this assistant represents the unscientific, pseudo-educated majority of medical staff as I came to know it during my years as a doctor. He believes that the child will be damaged when the mother looks at all these dead bodies. And these people, who put superstition above knowledge, aim to solve cases of unexplained death.’
I hit with both my hands, my right against the wrist, my left against the elbow. The joint was dislocated with a sickening plop. I switched hands and hit the other arm; it didn’t give as easily.
‘I want to try this two more times.’ I was glad my right hand didn’t hurt too much from the impact.
He laid the corpse aside and picked up a bulkier one. Perspiration was forming on his brow.
Dissecting room, 1894. (14)
— twenty-three —
We spent our days with research and with long and silent walks. Our progress was slow, occasional moments of understanding shining brightly in the semi-darkness of guesswork. What we had so far
were only fragments of information. In August 1885, Pjotr was found dead in the Thames after arguing with a man who was suspected to have been Moran. Half a year later, Moran traveled to St Petersburg and spent more money in three weeks than I had earned in a year.
In December 1887, James lost his wife and newborn son to tetanus. According to Moran’s journals, only two weeks later, James paid him two hundred pounds and sent him through half of Europe. There were records of hotel costs in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and again, St Petersburg. None of Moran’s notes hinted at the purpose of his trip.
In the evenings, Sherlock exercised shooting and punching with me. It felt more like a polishing of my ego than a real improvement of my chances when faced with Moran.
‘Exhale when you punch,’ he reminded me. ‘Focus on your hips, Anna.’
‘Dammit, Sherlock! Try to swing your hips with a stomach like this. If you want me to use my whole body for a punch, I have to do it the way a very pregnant woman does it and not the way a man does it.’
A soft grunt and a nod. Then he waved his hand at me, beckoning. We were mostly dancing, trying to foresee the other’s next step. He trained my eyes and reflexes, showed me how a heavy man like Moran would move, and what I had to expect. ‘The sharp mind wins, not the heavy fist,’ he kept telling me. I had yet to land a punch he couldn’t block.
My shooting — although without ammunition — had improved. I could use both hands to aim and pull the trigger; Moran wouldn’t expect this. But how much this short moment of surprise would help me in the end, I didn’t know.
We had received a message from Mycroft earlier in the morning. Sherlock was deciphering it.
‘Opium,’ he muttered.
I placed my cup down, stretched my bulging body, and waited for him to continue. Should he continue, that is. He often spoke to himself in moments of deep concentration, when his eyebrows were drawn low and his lips formed a thin line.
He whirled around, his eyes gleaming, a long index finger tapping the note. ‘Mycroft filled a gap for us. Moriarty had invested in cotton and opium trades. We know his meticulousness. He would have known everything worth knowing and controlled everything worth controlling.
‘Moran returned from St Petersburg with valuable information, which he reported directly to the War Office. He stated that Prince Nicholas of Russia planned a railway that would connect Russia with China — in effect, threatening Britain’s opium resources. The Russians were already moving the Central-Asian Railway towards our Indian colonies. The War Office dismissed Moran’s statement as unreliable.
‘We know that Moran entered employment with Moriarty just before Pjotr was found in the Thames.’ He pointed to Moran’s journals on my lap. ‘Then, in March 1890, the War Office dug up Moran’s report because it had proved correct. The future Tsar inaugurated the Far East segment of the Trans-Siberian Railroad.’
He placed the note on the coffee table with a slap, rubbed his brow, and said, ‘It’s not surprising that Moriarty founded his private espionage club. My brother keeps complaining that no one in London seems interested in an overarching organisation to put the Foreign Office, the Admiralty, and the War Office under one wing. The purpose of the Central-Asian Railway is almost exclusively military. Hum… Moriarty’s trading business wasn’t listed as part of his assets. I wonder…’ He began pacing the room, hands in his trouser pockets, shoulders drawn up.
‘I see no connection to James’s plans on using disease as a weapon. We need to talk to Walsh and Hooks,’ I said. ‘Now, one could speculate that he wished to spread disease to slow the building of railways and hence to protect Britain’s resources. After all, the railway workers live under dreadful conditions; cholera and typhus outbreaks are all too common.’ I rubbed my aching stomach and burning eyes. ‘I don’t know… We are missing crucial information, and all I can do is guess.’
‘I never guess,’ he said.
‘Well, I do! And I test my guesses against the data I have available. I try to prove my guesses and then disprove them. It’s like playing with a variety of realities.’
‘I’d call that theories and hypotheses.’
‘Oh well, that’s my working-class background.’ I smiled up at him. ‘Poor sods guess; ladies and gentlemen hypothesise.’ I bent my hip and cracked my lumbar region.
‘Lie down and rest. I can see how this tires you. Come.’
I took his offered hand and he pulled me up to my feet. ‘I must be twice as large now,’ I sighed. His eyes slid back to the notes.
I spread my heavy self out on the bed and watched his bent figure move over the scattered papers on the floor, his hands picking up a piece and placing it adjacent to another. The master of puzzles. I wondered what mysteries and excitements life could provide him once Moran and Parker were behind bars.
I watched him rereading the newspaper clippings. He frowned at the rather recent one from the Standard. It stated that Britain and Germany were friends and allies of old standing and that any threats to the peace in Europe would be met by the union of England’s naval strengths with the military strength of Germany.
‘Sherlock?’
‘Hrmm.’ An irritated grunt. One that signalled please don’t disturb. I looked up at the ceiling, waiting and thinking my own thoughts until he was ready to leave our puzzle for a moment.
After an hour of no response, I rose, straightened my dress, packed the revolver into my purse, and made for the door. He didn’t seem to notice.
The horse tram, Berlin, 1894. (15)
I took a horse tram to the Museum for Natural History. My brain needed something else to think of; it was running in circles around the same useless theories, the same tiresome gaps of knowledge. I felt as though I had run on a muddy track over and over again, deepening the track to such a degree that leaving it would cost great effort.
We were hunting breadcrumbs. We tried to peek behind a veil James had created to conceal his plans and doings. Once in a while, messages from Mycroft arrived. More breadcrumbs yet. Hope to move aside the blinds. Sometimes we believed a picture was forming, only to be wiped off the slate with a new piece of information.
I sat down on a bench, a large beech tree providing shade, and then I let all I knew pass through my mind once more:
James had known about the Kaiser’s plans to enlarge the German Navy — clearly a threat to Britain. The timing, however, didn’t fit. The plans for enlarging naval and military forces were hatched after Bismarck was expelled, at least a year after we had found the first victim of James’s medical experiments. The day of my abduction, however, fit quite neatly.
Mycroft had informed us that the Russians appeared to fear that England — her rival in the Far East and Central Asia — would join forces with the now-powerful Germany and, by extension, with Austria-Hungary, Russia’s rival on the Balkan peninsula. England feared Germany’s secret plans to increase military and naval strength, but actual facts were so far lacking. In Foreign Offices across Europe, unsettling questions arose about the future of Germany’s foreign policy, since Bismarck was gone and rumours of the French welcoming Russian overtures had begun to spread. Should France and Russia sign a treaty, Mycroft wrote, it would result in a dangerous polarisation of powers in Europe. What looked like handshakes to the common man and woman appeared to government officials like arm wrestling. Whose perception was correct?
James couldn’t possibly have foreseen these developments. Or could he? There had been tendencies, and as a mathematician, — and, hence, an excellent theoretician — he had developed his own hypotheses. What precisely these had been, and what this had to do with the bacterial weapons he’d wanted me to develop, was a mystery to me.
I placed my hands in the cool grass, picked a few blades, rubbed them in my palms, and inhaled the fresh scent. Then I went into the museum, leaving James and Europe behind, to spend an hour or two among pickled corpses of animals and humans.
— twenty-four —
Rows of glass cabinets and wood sh
elves gave off the familiar odour of old dust and beeswax polish. Years ago, I had spent many lunch breaks strolling among stuffed South American birds of every colour, skeletons of all sizes and shapes, and pale, malformed human stillborns floating in jars.
I rested a hand on my stomach, feeling the child within. Mycroft had cyphered Watson’s messages, then sent them to me. Mary, Watson’s wife, had recovered from a severe cold. For a few days, Watson believed she might have tuberculosis. She was well now and dearly wished to adopt my child. We had agreed that once the danger had passed and I could return to London, they would arrange for a wet nurse. Watson would assist during the birth. I wouldn’t have to hold my child for even a moment. Why the thought would make my throat clench, I couldn’t fathom. I wiped the sentiment away, focussing on the matter at hand.
The newly constructed museum was a three-winged building with high ceilings and a great variety of exhibitions of geological, petrographical, and zoological nature. Its newest exhibit interested me the most, so this was where I went: An account of how Dr Robert Koch developed what he had hoped was a remedy for tuberculosis. The so-called cure had been widely publicised the previous year. Had I not been in James’s grip, I would have visited his laboratory. Early spring this year, he’d admitted publicly that the remedy did nothing to stop the disease, but could instead be used as a test. The resulting scandal must have broken the man.
I leaned over the glass cabinet with the newspaper clippings from August of the previous year, detailing Koch’s presentation in November, reports of his colleagues’ opinions, Professor Virchow’s responses, and finally, a report of Koch admitting his grave mistake.
I found this premature announcement and the resulting downfall strangely untypical for a man as meticulous as Koch. He would test and test again, run various negative controls, then test once more, and only when he was absolutely certain his hypotheses were correct would he publish them.
The Journey: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller) Page 17
