The Sign of Fear

by Robert Ryan

  The landlady returned with a brown folder, which she handed over to Watson. The advertisements were in there, plus something very strange. A flick book Holmes had made up, by cutting some diagrams from the newspaper, and gluing them to card. They were pictures of hands making shapes. ‘Sign language,’ he said to himself.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Holmes knew the next man would be deaf because they announced it with these, published in several newspapers. The black square previously heralded the blinding of Sir Gilbert.’ It explained those strange movements with his fingers he had been doing for Mycroft. He had been trying to demonstrate sign language.

  ‘So did they announce the cutting off of . . .’ Mrs Turner almost couldn’t bear to say it, ‘. . . that poor man’s hands?’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Mr Holmes asked me to collect all the morning and evening newspapers until further notice. I’ll fetch them.

  They found it in the Evening News of the previous day. It was a square box, bordered in black. Inside were three words:

  INCULCATE

  HOLBECK

  LUMBAGOED

  ‘Lumbago?’ asked Mrs Turner. ‘It was a little more than lumbago they did to him.’

  ‘It’s a telegraphic code,’ said Watson. ‘But which one?’ He looked around the room for suggestions.

  ‘ABC?’ asked Bullimore. The telegraphic codes were a way of reducing the cost of sending a telegram. By using an agreed codebook, people and companies could communicate with the minimum of words on paper, thus often saving a fortune. ‘It’s the most popular.’

  They all looked at Mrs Turner. ‘I have no use for telegram codes. I could ask the neighbours. They’re probably out of the cellar now the raid is over.’

  She returned with an ABC and a Universal Telegraphic, but, as Bullimore had suggested, it was the ABC version that the kidnappers had used.

  ‘Inculcate . . .’ Watson turned the pages, ‘. . . means “Regret to inform you”. Holbeck we know.’ When he turned to the key for lumbagoed he gave a snort of disgust.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Bullimore.

  ‘It’s a code for shipping and insurance companies. It stands for: “Lost with all hands”.’

  ‘Good grief,’ said Miss Pillbody. ‘That’s wicked even by my—’ She quickly drank the rest of her tea. ‘By my understanding of the Germans’ standards of behaviour.’

  ‘That a man could be so flippant about such things,’ said Watson slowly, ‘is almost beyond belief.’

  The clock struck and Watson checked his wristwatch. ‘We should just search today’s papers for any hint of the next outrage.’

  They spent thirty minutes combing the classifieds of Mrs Turner’s trove of newspapers, but, despite a few false alarms, turned up nothing.

  ‘Well, it could be good news, maybe even a reprieve, for Carlisle and Arnott,’ said Watson. ‘Or we could have missed something.’

  ‘Or they could have tired of playing games,’ offered Miss Pillbody.

  The mantel clock struck the half-hour. ‘I think there is little more we can do tonight. I suggest we reconvene at midday. If that is agreeable to everyone?’

  All nodded, apart from Bullimore. ‘I have to meet my contact with the security services. They are going after the Irish angle, which I think is a waste of time.’

  ‘Irish angle?’ asked Watson. ‘What Irish angle?’

  ‘Oh, just something Sir Gilbert said. He thought the main abductor had a touch of the Hibernian to his voice.’

  The little details are usually by far the most important things about a case.

  Watson walked to the window, pulled back the curtains and lifted the lower sash. The smell of smoke was on the air, not domestic, but the stench of burned buildings. Somewhere off in the distance guns were still firing. He turned back to the room. ‘There is a man who, so we heard, is back in London. We know that he can make trouble. He was born in Ireland, but brought up here, although he still affects an Irish accent. Holmes was convinced he was up to no good, but we lost sight of him.’

  ‘This man’s name?’ asked Bullimore.

  ‘Shackleton.’

  ‘Ernest Shackleton?’ the detective asked, his voice laced with surprise.

  ‘No, his feckless brother, Frank, the man who, allegedly, stole the Irish Crown Jewels.’

  ‘And you have no idea where he is?’

  ‘None.’

  Miss Pillbody snatched up one of the newspapers she had previously examined and flicked the pages, finally holding one up for them all to see. It was a picture of Ernest Shackleton, standing with his wife, Emily, on a London street. ‘Why don’t we ask his more famous brother?’

  THIRTY-TWO

  ‘Armed police! Come out with your hands up!’

  Walter Birchall was sitting down to a boiled egg when he heard the muffled cry from outside. It was followed by the thumping of something heavy and hard against the front door of his Fulham house and the splintering of wood.

  Birchall leaped to his feet, knocking over his tea, pulled up his braces over his shirt and was across to the French windows in a few strides. But he could see uniformed figures climbing over the garden wall, at least one of whom had a rifle. Another of them spotted him and raised an arm to point him out to his companions. A whistle blew.

  There was a gun, his ever-reliable Smith & Wesson, sitting in the drawer of the sideboard in the dining room behind him, but he had the feeling that even so much as waving that at the policemen would result in his being shot.

  Glass shattered out in the hallway. They had smashed the etched panes out of the door. He couldn’t even make it up the stairs: they could and probably would shoot him as he ran by, firing through the empty frames.

  Perhaps he should do just that. It might even give the cause more publicity than he could alive, perhaps as much as those mutilating thugs that had hijacked the whole campaign.

  The door to the street gave a final groan and swung back with a crash that sent the last of the glass to the floor, and he heard the drumbeat of boots on his carpet. A high-pitched whine started in his ear, so debilitating he could only just hear the plain-clothes man who came in behind the two constables with pistols, but ahead of two others with Lee Enfields rammed into their shoulders.

  ‘Walter Birchall, I am arresting you for kidnapping, blackmail and inflicting grievous bodily harm—’

  One of the policeman produced handcuffs. He held out his arms to them and almost laughed when he saw the look on the copper’s face. How do you handcuff a man who only has one hand?

  Bullimore lit a cigarette and handed it over to the young man before him. Amies sat in the corner of the interview room at Bow Street, legs crossed, already smoking.

  Birchall took the cigarette with his left hand and tapped the stump of his right on the table.

  ‘Will I be able to get the new hand? It’ll be ready tomorrow, so they said at the hospital.’

  ‘Let’s see how this goes, eh?’ said Bullimore softly. ‘Because up till now, I am not sure I believe a word of what you’ve said.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘So you say.’ Bullimore sat down. ‘But I am not going to get a stenographer in here to take a statement until I am convinced by this story of yours. This organization you belong to . . .’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘GODS.’

  ‘No, I told you, I have no idea who they are—’

  Bullimore banged the table with the palm of his hand. Birchall jumped. The lad was twenty-six and he had lost his hand trying to throw a German grenade back over a trench top to save his men. He had also lost three toes on one foot after he had lain in a waterlogged trench for hours before a medical team could reach him. He was lucky not to have bled to death. ‘Yet these GODS seem to have the same aims as you.’

  ‘But not the same methods.’

  ‘And you don’t know who they are?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Some friends of yours who decided that throwing flour wasn’t aggressive enough,
perhaps? That you had to take more affirmative action? Animals who thought you had to maim these people into understanding what you are going through?’

  Birchall’s voice was very small now. ‘No. We thought we would act like suffragettes – early suffragettes before they started attacking property and people. Letters, throwing flour or eggs, advertisements.’

  ‘And Captain Trenchard was one of your number?’

  ‘Yes,’ Birchall admitted.

  Bullimore cursed softly. He had sent Trenchard to find Watson. How was he to know that the man had an agenda of his own? And would the super believe him? He was beginning to wish he had just put out the arrest warrant as he had been asked.

  ‘How many of you altogether?’

  ‘Fifteen. Thirteen since you shot Captain Trenchard and Myrtles in that taxi.’ He held up his stump. ‘And nearly killed me.’

  So, he assumed the rescue of Watson had been carried out by the police. ‘And you can provide names of these thirteen?’

  ‘Yes. We are not GODS. We are called—’

  ‘Were,’ said Amies languidly from the corner. ‘Now, you are just a young man in serious trouble.’

  A nod from the prisoner. ‘We were called the League of Unfortunate Gentlemen. L-O-U-G. You can see it in the classifieds we put in the paper.

  ‘That’s a terrible name,’ said Bullimore.

  ‘It took four weeks just to agree on that. Then we started by writing to the members of the Compensation Board, arguing that the proposed settlements were unfair. Not so much to me, you understand. But Captain Trenchard has a badly maimed brother. Myrtles, the cabby you killed, has a son who has gone soft in the head. Spends all day singing the same nursery rhyme, over and over again.’

  ‘So you decided to move things up a peg or two,’ said Amies.

  ‘No, sir, it wasn’t like that. When we realized that these GODS were pursuing a similar line to us, we decided to distance ourselves. Trenchard said we could talk to Dr Watson—’

  ‘Talk? At gunpoint?’

  ‘We needed his attention. We wanted to explain to him that we had nothing to do with these terrible crimes. Of course, as you know, we didn’t have a chance. Your thugs came charging in, guns blazing like it was a Broncho Billy picture. Your people executed Myrtle and Trenchard, you know. A cold-blooded execution. By the State.’

  Bullimore said nothing. He looked over at Amies, who shook his head. It wasn’t MI5 or Special Branch who had rammed that taxi and shot those men. So who was it?

  And just as importantly, why was Major John Watson lying to him?

  Watson could smell the drink on the man’s breath from twenty paces. And it was not yet midday. He was fairly sure there was more than coffee in Ernest Shackleton’s cup. He sat down in the lobby of the Hotel Cosmopolitan, a place Watson hadn’t been in for close on a quarter of a century. It was still grand, with gold swags of fabric at the windows, and marbled pillars with gilded caps, but like many of the best establishments, it was looking a little faded in places, another victim of the war.

  Shackleton rose as Watson approached and ordered him a coffee from the waitress and one for himself while she was at it. They shook hands and Watson felt his coarse skin, the result of a life on ships and ice and the frostbite he had suffered on the Endurance trip after famously giving away his mittens to his photographer. ‘Sit yourself down, Major.’

  There was an Irish accent there, Watson noted, but worn away by the years so only a nub, albeit an attractive one, remained.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me, Sir Ernest,’ Watson said.

  ‘Oh, how could I refuse the man who kept us entertained on board ship for so many hours? Both Discovery and Nimrod had copies of your Holmes stories. Maybe if Endurance had had them, we might not have got into so much trouble, eh?’ The voice was smooth and comforting, in sharp contrast to his rugged, lived-in face. His eyes glistened as he laughed and when he smiled the face transformed. ‘And you can drop the Sir, Major. Ernest will do fine. Mick if we get to know each other a little better. Ah, here we are.’

  Two coffees arrived and Shackleton was very particular about which one he had. The signs of a hard-drinking man were all present and correct – the slight shake of the hand, the web of veins over the nose, the broken blood vessels under the eyes.

  ‘Actually, Major Watson, before we get going, there might be something you can help me with.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You’re an influential man, Major. Is that not so?’

  ‘Well, my name carries a little weight in some quarters. In others . . .’

  ‘Ach, Sherlock Holmes is not forgotten and neither is his Boswell.’ Shackleton leaned forward, giving Watson a blast of brandy-laden breath. ‘You’re a man of a certain age, are you not? Yet here you are in that smart uniform, when you could be tucked up in a cosy armchair in Baker Street. Am I right? So how did you do it? How did you get back in the army? Me, with my big, important “Sir” in front of m’name, I haven’t managed it.’

  ‘I became a specialist. In blood transfusion.’

  The explorer nodded his great head thoughtfully. ‘I can see that they’d need that. But I have a specialism, too.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Leadership. I didn’t lose a man out there, not one. They could do with some more officers who try to keep their men alive.’

  There was only one way to guarantee keeping men alive, Watson thought, and that was to stay away from trenches, machine guns and poison gas. ‘How old are you, Sir Ernest?’

  The explorer drank his coffee. ‘Forty-three. I know I look older, but that part of the world, the cold and the wind ages a man. Jesus, there’s winds that’ll strip your skin like a barber’s razor.’ He cleared his throat and quoted:

  O you that are so strong and cold,

  O blower, are you young or old?

  Are you a beast of field and tree,

  Or just a stronger child than me?

  ‘Robert Louis Stevenson,’ said Watson.

  ‘Aye, another fine writer. But forty-three, I ask you, is that an age to tell a man he can no longer serve?’

  ‘I am afraid I have no influence . . .’

  Disappointment flitted over the iceman’s face.

  ‘. . . But I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘That’s all I can ask. I’m off to Buenos Aires next month. A sort of performing pony, to try to get some of these South Americans to join us against the Germans.’

  ‘A diplomatic mission?’

  ‘You could call it that.’

  That didn’t strike Watson as an appropriate use of Shackleton’s talents. He was a man of action and work, and although he clearly loved a slice of poetry, the language of diplomacy was arcane and deceptive. Maybe the Government could find the explorer something, perhaps in training others to survive in harsh conditions.

  ‘So you’ll be back when?’

  ‘Early next year. Perhaps we could talk about it by then.’

  ‘If the war is still on,’ said Watson.

  ‘Amen to that. It’s a fine sentiment. But I wouldn’t wager a pound on peace right now. Not with the submarines and the bombers – the Germans still have some fight left in them.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re right.’

  ‘Now we’ve got my future army career out of the way, how can I help you, Major?’

  ‘It’s about your brother.’

  The man stiffened and suspicion clouded his features. ‘You’re not still after him on that crown jewels business?’

  ‘No, not at all. But we need to find him.’

  ‘We, Major? Who is we?’

  ‘I am working on behalf of . . .’ Who was he working for? ‘Scotland Yard. We need, as they like to say, to eliminate him from an on-going inquiry.’

  ‘In my experience that means we’d like to fit him up for something he didn’t do.’

  ‘We believe he is in London.’

  ‘You believe wrong.’ Shackleton drained the coffee with a small shudder of
pleasure. ‘Let me tell you, Frank is a bad boy. Not good with money. None of us Shackletons is. Look at me, I still owe thousands to my investors. Frank, well, he’s worse than me. Declared bankrupt a few years back. Debts of £85,000.’

  Watson whistled at the enormity of the sum.

  ‘And there was that fraud business. But he did his time.’ Frank had persuaded a young woman called Mary Browne to let him look after her inheritance. He had burned through it in a matter of weeks.

  ‘Fifteen months, wasn’t it?’

  A nod. ‘Hard labour. When he came out, I got him a job. A job, mind. And a house in Sydenham.’

  ‘So he is in London.’

  ‘More coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Shackleton signalled for a refill. ‘Frank Shackleton is dead.’

  This was news to Watson. ‘Dead?’

  ‘To all intents and purposes. Goes by the name Mellor now. Lives as quietly as a man with his tastes can.’

  ‘His tastes? You mean his criminal tendencies.’

  Shackleton’s voice flowed like honey from him, as if to soften the sordid words he was speaking. ‘Tastes he shares with a gentleman once of your acquaintance. Mr Oscar Wilde. I think you take my meaning.’

  ‘Ah. Indeed.’

  ‘Some months ago, he picked up what some call a social disease, although if you ask me it’s an anti-social disease. He is in New York, at the Osler Clinic, as we speak.’

  Watson knew that a very effective regime to treat several types of venereal disease had been trialled in the city.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And what, out of interest, do you think he might have been involved with?’

  Watson explained about the kidnappings. ‘No, that doesn’t sound like Frank. I’m not saying he’s an angel, but I don’t think he would be doing this sort of mutilation. And besides, it’s all in a good cause. The only good cause Frank believes in is Frank Shackleton.’

  ‘Your father is a doctor. We thought perhaps . . .’

  ‘That Frank had some surgical skills? He’s like me. Has trouble sharpening a pencil.’

  ‘In which case, I’m sorry to bother you.’ Watson rose to leave.