Thirty-Nine Steps from Baker Street

by J. R. Trtek

  Holmes let his chuckle fade into a smile.

  “Your declaration reminds me of a similar one I heard many years ago,” he said. “Its author protested my interference with his plans in anguished tones at least the equal of yours, but he had a very great fall, as I expect you shall also, in time—and a rather short time at that. But allow me to apologise—for the interruption rather than the irritation.”

  “Actually, my discomfort ended some time ago, Mr. Holmes. It ceased the moment you walked through that doorway and into this shop. Tell me, did you find the Tokay to your liking?”

  “I must confess that I have not tasted it,” Holmes replied, glancing at me. “There were fears it might be poisoned, you see.”

  The German emitted a coarse laugh. “Your judgment disappoints me, Mr. Holmes. Of all people, you should have realised that such an act of desecration would be quite beneath me.”

  “So I thought, but I was counselled otherwise,” the detective replied. “Oh well, I shall open it later, when I have full cause to celebrate.”

  “A pity that opportunity will never arise,” Von Bork said. “I shall also regret never opening that bottle of Tokay, but some losses in any campaign one must expect. Am I not correct?”

  I cleared my throat, and the act caused the German leader to at last pay mild attention to me.

  “You are the secretary,” he said to me. “Watson by name?”

  Curtly, I nodded.

  “You were the chauffeur when I was abducted three years ago,” Von Bork said. “I suppose fitting it is that you share the fate of your master.”

  “Watson is my friend and associate,” Holmes corrected in a firm voice.

  “And biographer,” the German added. “Several of your stories I read while in Berlin and found not a few somewhat enjoyable. Of course, the slanderous one published some weeks ago is another matter. You did not compose it?” he asked me in an offhand manner.

  “No,” I said, and no more.

  Von Bork nodded.

  “It did not read like your previous recollections. Did you compose it?” he enquired of Holmes, who shook his head.

  “Even so,” Von Bork said, “you had a hand in it.”

  “As did you,” answered Holmes. “I hope you are not spurning your own shared creation.”

  “Bah!” exclaimed the Prussian, taking a step toward Holmes. “It is a second injustice—my brief incarceration being the first—for which you Englishmen shall pay mightily this night.”

  The spy leader motioned to the five henchmen, and hands seized us even as Holmes bade me not to resist.

  “Now you will never taste that fine Tokay, Herr Holmes. Well, at least you had your fill at my house in Essex. To the vehicle with them,” he barked to his followers. “I shall meet you at the place.”

  Von Bork grasped his stick and hat, vanishing once more behind maroon brocade. Dietrich Baumann, meanwhile, guided me by the elbow along with one other henchmen while the others escorted Holmes. We all passed through the curtains into the back of the shop, where Von Bork was nowhere in evidence, and were led to a door opening onto an empty alley. A motorised lorry waited there.

  “Years ago, you once bound our leader as a prisoner and abducted him in your vehicle,” Baumann said with a dismissive tone. “Now the tables are reversed, are they not? I was told to remind you, Mr. Holmes, that you once suggested the name of a new inn if Herr Von Bork tried to escape: The Hanging Deutsche Mann, I believe?”

  “It was the Dangling Prussian, as I recall,” said Holmes in good humour as we reached the motor.

  “Ah yes,” declared our captor. “Well, I am to advise you to make no attempt to resist, Herr Holmes, lest our chief open a beer garden in Munich named, he suggested, The Perforated Englishman.”

  “I believe we both get your point,” Holmes replied.

  “Good. Bind them and toss them into the back,” Baumann told the other men.

  Our wrists were tied behind our backs and our ankles similarly joined—in both cases with sturdy cord—and we were rudely lifted into the rear portion of the lorry, where we sat upon the wooden planks that served as a floor. Leaning against similar timbers that formed the walls of the compartment, we bent our backs beneath the canvas top.

  “There will be no gags yet,” Baumann declared. “If either of you shouts, however, you will receive a very nasty blow to the head.”

  “We continue to understand,” said Holmes quietly.

  “Herr Von Bork has remarked that, as Altamount, always you were good at taking instruction,” remarked the German. “I am to remind you of that as well. Apply the blindfolds,” he said to his companions.

  A pair of the company jumped into the rear of the lorry and covered our eyes with kerchiefs tied tightly about our heads.

  “Let us go, then,” I heard Baumann say to his companions.

  Two men lifted themselves into the rear of the lorry to sit beside us and the pair already aboard. Then Baumann and the remaining henchman walked to the cab of the vehicle, and a moment later the engine came to life.

  “Do not resist, I beg you,” said Holmes quietly in my ear.

  “As you desire,” I replied calmly. “We will see this through together, then.”

  My friend’s face held the hint of a smile. “As we always have, old fellow.”

  The lorry rambled off, heading west at first, though I quickly lost my sense of direction after several turns. The sounds of London traffic flowed about us: angry shouts, the horns of motors and braying of an occasional horse, as well as the rumble of wheels and rustle of feet. The steady shaking of our vehicle eventually lulled me into a trance that was finally broken as we abruptly stopped and the engine was cut.

  I felt hands grasp my elbows while others undid the cord binding my ankles. Then I was assisted from the vehicle and through an opening into a building. Still blindfolded, I was guided up at least three sets of stairs before the kerchief was pulled from my face.

  I found myself standing beside Holmes inside a small, barren, windowless storage room illuminated by a single electric light overhead. Von Bork stood at the doorway, framed by Dietrich Baumann and the five henchmen, two of whom were silently ordered away by their master.

  “Do you find this place to your liking?” Von Bork asked. He reached out to run his finger along a portion of the dusty wall, where plaster had cracked to expose the lathe beneath.

  “I believe I have known better,” said Holmes.

  “As it is destined to become your final resting place, it will have to please, I fear.”

  Holmes smiled.

  Von Bork’s two assistants returned carrying chairs and more lengths of sturdy cord. Without a struggle, knowing what was intended, Holmes and I allowed ourselves to be bound, each to a chair, our hands still tied securely behind us while our upper torsos were similarly affixed to the seat backs.

  “Make certain there is no slack in the rope,” Von Bork directed. “We do not wish for freedom of action by either man to be available.”

  When finished, they left us sitting side by side, facing the enemy leader. I stared at Von Bork intensely, trying to draw my attention away from the tight cords pressing into my wrists.

  The German, meanwhile, completely ignored me, devoting himself instead to my companion.

  “I vowed three years ago to get level with you,” the German said, taking a few steps toward us. “And now get level I shall, that and then some—not only with you, but with your entire race of Englishmen.”

  Holmes remained silent.

  Von Bork cocked his head, glanced at Baumann with an expression of puzzlement, and then stared once more at the detective.

  “For all your crowing in victory three years ago, you are now rather quiet in defeat,” the German remarked. “Did my man Baumann tell you of the plans for a beer garden?”

  Holmes nodded.

  “Perhaps I should instead name it The Mute Londoner, Mr. Holmes. You continue to contribute so very little to this evening’s dial
ogue. Is it because it so pains you to face such a staggering defeat?”

  “When I have something worth saying, I will speak it,” replied my friend.

  Von Bork shrugged.

  “Moreover,” Holmes said, “I think your description of me being silent in defeat to be at least half wrong, for I have, after all, rendered useless your attempt to terrorise our metropolis.”

  “Oh?”

  “We have taken your mustard gas,” Holmes asserted.

  “And what of the additional store of it?” asked the German.

  “We both know that does not exist.”

  “True,” said Von Bork. Then, after a moment, the Prussian asked, “But if you knew I had no more gas up my pocket—”

  “Up your sleeve.”

  “Pardon, Herr Holmes?”

  “No more gas up your sleeve.”

  The German smiled. “As you wish. But again, if you knew there was no more gas, then why did you accept the offer to meet this evening?”

  “To find out what you do intend,” Holmes replied.

  “You believe I have another hammer with which to strike against you English?”

  “Yes.”

  Von Bork approached closer and bent down, studying the detective’s face most closely by the light of the overhead electric lamp. I saw odd expressions wash over the face of my friend, but remained silent. Then the German smiled broadly.

  “You know there is more, but you have no idea what it is, do you?” he said. “You thought the sulphur mustard was the only deck I had up my sleeve.”

  “Card.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “The only card up your sleeve,” said Holmes. “And I know it is not.”

  “Yes, but as I said, you know not what more I have waiting,” replied Von Bork. He crossed his arms. “You have no notion of the grand design, do you?”

  Holmes smiled. “I have notions of your colleague,” he said. “The man I knew as Moxon Ivery, for instance.”

  Von Bork smiled derisively.

  “The man whom I should have named as the Graf von Schwabing.”

  The German’s smile vanished.

  “I am acquainted with the name, you see.” Holmes went on, taking a deep breath and glancing at the high ceiling before resuming. “And the man. He did not avoid my notice. I know he became unfairly caught in a rather nasty scandal, and that he required some means of restoring his reputation in Berlin. As does someone else I know.”

  It was now Von Bork’s turn to remain silent.

  “To such a man as Von Schwabing, joining your group of Wild Birds must have had great appeal,” Holmes said, a comment that brought another silent reaction from our captor.

  “You see, I know far more than expected,” claimed Holmes, who leaned his head forward toward the Prussian. “Yes, Ulric von Stumm, Hilda von Einem, and Heinrich von Bork: such a wicked, unprincipled set.”

  “Entry to our esteemed small circle was a privilege for the Graf von Schwabing,” Von Bork said at last. “For whom would it not be? To be part of a cabal that sends the history of the world along a glorious new path is distinction indeed.”

  “A new path you had charted for some time.”

  “Yes,” agreed the German. “I told you as much long ago, that night in Essex, when I revealed the combination of my safe.”

  “August 1914,” recited Holmes.

  Von Bork nodded.

  “Von Stumm and Von Einem had doubts that a war could be ignited by that date, but I convinced them. And history proved me correct, Mr. Holmes.”

  “History will condemn you.”

  “As I shall help write it, I think not. Rather, it will extol me.”

  “No person of sound mind extols mass murder,” said Holmes. “For that is what you and your Wild Birds cabal have wrought, Herr Von Bork. Nothing but millions of needless deaths.”

  “They are cleansing deaths, Mr. Holmes. And from the ashes of the departed shall arise a new Europe—a new world, for that matter.”

  “Your uncle, the Count von und zu Grafenstein, would think otherwise, were he still alive.”

  “Do not mention my mother’s brother to me, Mr. Holmes. Better that you had not saved his life during that ridiculous diplomatic mission of his.”

  “Your country—and the world—had better prospects during the brief time he served Germany.”

  “My uncle was a fool,” snarled Von Bork. “He did not serve the Fatherland; rather, he was the slavish errand boy of a false, weakling monarch who was so fortunately short-lived himself.”272

  “Your uncle was an earnest diplomat and a noble individual.”

  “Bah!” exclaimed Von Bork. “Humanitätsdüselei!”273

  Von Bork gestured for his men, other than Baumann, to leave the room.

  “Von Schwabing has proved a more than able colleague,” our captor declared. “His triumphs came to exceed those of another of our group, the man you knew as Alasdair Moncrief. They surpassed the efforts of Von Stumm and Von Einem, for that matter.”

  “All three that you just named were subdued by Richard Hannay,” said the detective with an air of satisfaction. “As Von Schwabing will be, in time.”

  “Sadly, Mr. Holmes, you will not be able to learn whether that prophecy ever comes to pass. But I congratulate you on discerning Von Schwabing’s hand in the Black Stone, and his presence in that village of Biggleswick. He did great damage against your Allied cause before being forced to flee this accursed island.”

  Holmes shrugged.

  “Still, your bragging has distracted us from the more important point I was making: you cannot tell me what I have planned for this night, can you? You cannot tell me because you do not know what it is.”

  I watched my friend, waiting for him to relate our knowledge of the coming air raid and the German plans to incinerate London.

  Holmes, however, stayed mute for several seconds before declaring in an even voice, “No, I fear that, while I know you have plans, I have not learned their substance, Herr Von Bork. Perhaps now, in your hour of presumed victory, you might enlighten me.”

  Von Bork studied Holmes for a moment and then stepped forward, chuckling loudly as he approached us again.

  “You wish me to gloat?” he asked. “Do you hold hope that I will offer a trite declamation of purpose and plan, for your edification?”

  The German bent down and sharply slapped Holmes across the face.

  “No,” Von Bork said quietly, hovering within inches of my friend. “I will not. Never.”

  He backed away, strolled toward the door, and then stopped to turn round.

  “I liked you better as Altamount, you know. You were convivial and amiable in that guise,” the German said as he contemplated Holmes. “Indeed, in those days I almost considered you a friend, though in the same manner as my dogs back in Berlin.

  “But you—the real Mr. Holmes—you are ever the annoying, curious one! Gathering your facts in your so-called commonplace books. Sifting evidence and clues, trying to unlock one mystery after another. Do you find that satisfying?”

  “In its way, it has been a stimulating way to pass a life.”

  Von Bork grunted. “British fool! This time, it will be you left dangling, not I. In your last moments, Herr Holmes, you will live the agony of a curious mind lacking answers, having no knowledge of what you are about to face, torturing yourself for failing to deduce it. Baumann!” he shouted to his assistant.

  “Yes, mein Führer.”

  “Go and make the vehicle ready,” Von Bork ordered as he checked his timepiece. “We shall leave. All depends now upon Die Fliegertruppe.”274

  “You will not tell me what is planned to happen tonight?” asked Holmes in a suddenly insistent voice.

  “I have just told you so,” the Prussian replied as Baumann left.

  “You mean you refuse to—”

  “I will tell you nothing more,” affirmed Von Bork, who reached up for the chain connected to the light overhead. With a sharp pull of
his hand, the room became dark, lit only by a faint glow from the doorway.

  Our adversary stood in the illuminated opening, his body appearing only as a black silhouette.

  “You will not tell me?” said Holmes yet again, his voice more urgent than before. “What, do you expect me to beg?”

  “No, Mr. Holmes,” declared Von Bork’s shadow just before the door closed with a metallic clink. “I expect you to burn.”

  * * *

  270 What is now called Old Spitalfields Market is a covered market in east central London.

  271 Heil di rim Siegerkranz (“Hail to Thee in Victor’s Crown”) was the national anthem of the German Empire at the time. It had been the royal anthem of Prussia since the eighteenth century, but because its melody derived from the British “God Save the King,” the song never became popular throughout Germany as a whole. See also footnote 91.

  272 By “weakling monarch,” Von Bork undoubtedly refers to Kaiser Frederick III, who assumed the throne in 1888. A liberal who professed hatred of war and was often at odds with the policies of his father, Wilhelm I, and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Frederick had developed cancer of the larynx by the time of his accession and died after a reign of only ninety-nine days. He was succeeded by his son, Wilhelm II, whose militaristic attitudes contributed to the origins of the First World War.

  273 “Humanitarian babble”

  274 Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches, or “Imperial Flying Corps,” was the name of the air arm of the Germany Army prior to October 1916, when its name was changed to Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte, or “German Air Force.” Von Bork here employs the outdated term.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: BOWING TO TIME

  “Can you hear me, Watson?” called Sherlock Holmes in the darkness, his voice now suddenly firm and unwavering. “Can you move your chair?”