Thirty-Nine Steps from Baker Street

by J. R. Trtek

  “I can hear you, of course,” I replied. Then, after pushing on the floor had caused my chair to scrape across the planked floor for a few inches, I added, “I can move, but at a snail’s pace.”

  “That must suffice. Advance in my direction, if you will, old fellow.”

  “And what will come of that?”

  “Our freedom, if fortune can smile through darkness.”

  I paused for a moment, hearing a constant, rhythmic thumping.

  “What is that, Holmes? From below us, perhaps? Someone signalling?”

  “No. What you hear is…me attempting to…utilise this damned set of boots foisted upon me by Mycroft.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Were I in your place, I should be at a similar loss, but accept the situation. Are you still sliding in my direction?”

  I pushed against the floor as best I could, making what I believed to be slow but steady progress.

  “Good,” said Holmes. “I can hear you scuttling toward me,” he said as the constant thumping continued.

  “What are you…doing?” I asked as I kept moving the chair slowly.

  “I told you, Watson, I am—”

  Suddenly, during a pause in my efforts to push myself across the floor in total darkness, I heard what sounded like the sour note of a spring being released.

  “Ah, at last,” declared Holmes. “How far do you think are you to me?

  “Perhaps three feet,” I replied, basing my answer upon the sound of my friend’s voice. “Is that your estimate as well?”

  “More or less. Stay still, for I am going to tip myself over.”

  “What?”

  “Not enough,” I heard him say with a groan. “Better…Come along…Ah! Over I go!”

  I heard him hit the floor.

  “Holmes! Are you hurt?”

  “My present condition is of less interest than your future position. Continue to slide this way, please, but do so cautiously.”

  Years of service asserted themselves, and I did as requested without further enquiry as to reason. I pushed myself backward, and then abruptly felt my chair butt up against that of Holmes.

  “Excellent,” my friend declared. “Do I seem to be on your right side?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now slowly rotate, if you will. Clockwise.”

  I executed the turn slowly in darkness and felt, after a moment, contact with what I took to the bottom of a shoe.

  “Stop,” commanded Holmes.

  Again I felt contact against my heels.

  “Do not move, old fellow, and if you feel any pain, tell me at once.”

  I heard another noise now: a rhythmic sliding, accompanied by a back-and-forth tugging at my ankles.

  “Are you cutting the ropes with a blade?” I asked, incredulously.

  “I am. With a very sharp blade, Watson. Feel free to spread your ankles, if you can.”

  I did as asked, but to no great extent for several minutes. Then, abruptly, I felt a sudden loosening of the cords round my legs. “They are coming apart,” I cried.

  “I’ve withdrawn the blade,” said Holmes. “Can you free your lower limbs now?”

  “Yes,” I replied as I felt the last small strands burst. Eagerly, I waved my legs in the darkness. “I assume you will work at my wrists now?”

  “Yes, but I must ask you to now join me in assuming a horizontal position. However, can you perhaps stand with the chair attached to you, bend down, and gently plant yourself upon the floor?”

  “You may watch me,” I said confidently.

  “In truth, Watson, given our present circumstances, that will not be possible. I do trust your physical instincts, however. And stay clear of me; I should not wish you to slice an artery with my blade.”

  I strained to get to my feet, hampered not so much by the weight of the chair as my awkward, constrained posture. I dropped to my knees, feeling pain there in the process, and then slowly tipped over so that I presented my backside—and bound wrists—to Holmes.

  “You still have not told me how you came by the blade, or where it was hid,” I muttered as I felt Holmes probe with the tip of one shoe.

  “Pull your wrists apart as best you can,” said he, ignoring my remark.

  Again I heard the slipping of the blade against rope, this time feeling the back and forth tugging directed against my arms. Without being so directed, I moved my hands to and fro, matching the cutting rhythm of my friend. More rapidly than before, I felt the strands binding me give way.

  “I am free!” I said. In the darkness, I frantically reached for the cord binding my torso still to the chair, eventually undid the knots and cautiously slid from the seat before, with a lack of grace, stumbling to my feet.

  “Find the light pull,” said Holmes from the floor. “It is behind you, recall. Take care to give yourself ample room and stay clear of me, Watson.”

  “On account of that knife of yours, whatever its source?”

  “Quite so. Once we again have light, you will understand.”

  Slowly, my hands before me, I turned round and, by flailing my arms, found the light pull. I gave a slow tug, and the lamp clicked on.

  Turning again, I beheld Sherlock Holmes, still bound in his chair, which was tipped onto its side. My friend’s homburg lay upside down a short distance away, and my own chair and the cords which had recently restrained me lay near it. What attracted my attention, however, was the shining piece of steel protruding from the toe of Holmes’s left boot, its razor-sharp edge glinting in harsh light as the prone detective idly turned his ankle back and forth.

  “Good God, that is a nasty piece of metal,” I said. “Is it attached to your boot? It was hid in the anterior of the sole?”

  “Yes,” replied Holmes. “The damned thing is supposed to detach, but the mechanism will not respond. I suppose we should be thankful that, at least, the spring worked as designed, releasing it from within.”

  I bent down beside my friend. “Shall I try to pull the blade free?”

  “You may try, Watson, but I fear there is no place to grasp it firmly without risking a wicked cut.”

  Carefully, I attempted to dislodge the knife from the toe of Holmes’s boot, but to no avail.

  “I must untie you by hand,” I said.

  “I thought as much.” Holmes sighed. “The knife would have been faster.”

  “Much faster,” I said, beginning to work the cords that bound his ankles. “These knots are intricate, tight, and will take much effort to undo.”

  “Best get at it, then.”

  “I have already begun, if you have not yet noticed.”

  “Yes, of course. My apologies, Watson. Time, of course, is of the essence.”

  “And how much do you believe we have?” I enquired as I released a large bit of rope.

  “There is no way of knowing the answer. I suppose it depends on how much of a head start Von Bork arranged for himself.”

  “To get out of the City before German bombers arrive?”

  “Rather, to get onto the river before the fires take hold.”

  “He will go there?”

  “If London is on the verge of being consumed by an inferno, what other venue offers refuge within a short radius?” asked my friend. “Here, I feel the rope loosening.”

  I reared back as Holmes carefully but firmly kicked his legs apart.

  “I believe you were warning me earlier regarding that blade of yours,” I delicately remarked.

  “Oh, so I was. Pardon my enthusiasm, old fellow.”

  I cautiously pulled the loose cords free from his legs and crawled behind Holmes to begin working on those that still bound his wrists.

  “I suppose I should thank you for insisting that you accompany me,” he said as I laboured with the knots. “Had I been alone, Mycroft’s little device would have been useless to me, I fear.”

  “And so M’s present of new boots was actually—”

  “To serve as a hiding place for
the knife, should I find myself in a situation where a blade would be handy, yes.”

  Holmes struck the floor several times with the heel of his bladed boot, and at last the knife separated from the toe.

  “I am glad to be free of that,” my friend said. “There are more of Mycroft’s devices that we shall employ shortly. At a more convenient time, I will describe to you even more gadgets he attempted to foist upon me. And, Watson, please do not employ that single-letter sobriquet for my brother again in my presence. As dear to me as you are, your continued reference to him in that manner tries our friendship most seriously.”

  “I will take those words to heart,” I said. “There! I believe your wrists are free.”

  I backed away and allowed Holmes to wrestle his hands free of the ropes and then reach down for the knife and cut himself free from the chair. We both got to our feet simultaneously.

  “We are no longer bound, but we are not yet free,” I said as Holmes reached for his hat. “What can we do now?”

  “Set ourselves free,” replied my friend as he held his homburg. Searching its brim, he pinched the fabric and then extracted from it a pair of long, patterned metal pins.

  “Your brother gives you hats with lock picking tools inside?” I said.

  Without replying, Holmes strode to the door and within seconds had opened the lock accessible from our side the entry. The door itself, however, did not budge.

  “There must be a bolt of some sort on the exterior,” the detective said, looking at the sturdy door that kept us from escaping. Striding to an overturned chair, which he righted, Holmes added, “We shall take the required next step.”

  “And what is that?”

  In response to my query, Holmes sat down in the chair, lifted one leg across the knee of the other, and grasped the heel of his raised boot. He pulled and then gave it a twist, and the piece came away in his hand, allowing several small items hidden within the hollow heel to drop onto the floor.

  “A small mallet head,” I said. “And a length of small cord. Are there other—”

  “Yes,” interjected my friend as he reached into the remainder of the disassembled heel to extract a thin wooden handle, which he screwed into the mallet head. Slapping the back of the boot against the floor, Holmes caused a small chisel to appear as well.

  “These pieces are all very charming,” I remarked. “But we are locked within a windowless room that boasts a sturdy door, which is bolted on the outside. We can never hope to bore our way out.”

  “I quite agree,” said Holmes as he gathered up the set of small implements. “That is why I propose to simply remove the door. Here, drag that chair over to it, if you will.”

  “It is not clear that those diminutive tools can defeat such a large door,” I said as I complied with my friend’s request. Within seconds, I had the chair in its desired place.

  “We will divide and conquer, Watson,” said Holmes, standing upon the chair with mallet in hand. “As you correctly point out, the bolt is on the outside. The hinges, however, share this side of the room with us. They are the focus of our attack.”

  Holmes bent down on his knees and positioned the thin chisel beneath the bottom hinge bolt. Pounding upward upon the chisel, he forced the bolt upward with repeated strokes until it could be worked loose by hand. Then he got to his feet and mounted the chair, standing upon it, now within reach of the upper hinge.

  “Steady both myself and the chair, old fellow,” he said.

  With one hand I took hold of the chair back, and with the other I grasped a portion of Holmes’s coat. My friend now performed the same operation on the second hinge bolt, eventually freeing it as well.

  “We are done with these,” he said, reaching down toward me, the mallet and chisel in his hand. “Pocket them, if you will.”

  I let go Holmes’s jacket and took the pair of tools as he wound a portion of cord round the upper hinge portion attached to the door itself, taking care to thread the fine line between it and the hinge portion affixed to the door frame. Letting out the line, he hopped off the chair and reached into a pocket with his free hand.

  “Here,” said my friend. “Do the same with this and the lower hinge. Double the cord, Watson, as I have done.”

  I rapidly complied, and now the two of us stood back from the door, each holding seemingly frail lines that looped round the flanges of the door hinges.

  “Mycroft has insisted this cord is the strongest devised by humankind, but all the same, we have doubled it,” Holmes declared. “Hope with me that my brother is correct and then some, and pull with me on the count of three.”

  I gripped my line tightly, listened to my friend’s count, and together we pulled on his signal. The one side of the door jerked suddenly and then stopped.

  “Again,” said Holmes. “One, two, three!”

  The door slid again, and this time the hinged side broke free of the frame, sliding into the room with us, though the lines remained taut.

  “Now step to the left, maintaining your pull,” my friend commanded. “There. Now we pull back once more. One, two, three!”

  The door slid in a direction parallel to its plane, coasting into the room as I heard a rough metallic thump on the other side. Holmes dropped his line, and I did the same.

  “Here,” said Holmes, pushing on the hinged edge of the door, rotating it slightly to widen the opening between it and frame. “Around me and out, old fellow.”

  I slid past my friend and out of the room. Holmes followed immediately, and without another word, we rushed down the stair toward the ground floor. Reaching the building door first, I found it locked.

  “Can your tools breach this barrier?”

  “Perhaps,” said Holmes, looking round in the darkness before finding a small crate, which he carried to a single pane window. “This approach, however, should prove much faster. He threw the wooden box at the glass, which gave way with a shattering crash, leaving a gaping hole through which we each might squeeze our way to escape.

  Holmes wound his kerchief round one hand and struck at the portions of glass that still adhered to the window frame. Suddenly, we heard a voice.

  “Stand back and offer no resistance!” a man called. “We are armed!”

  I instantly recognised the voice.

  “We will give you no resistance, Inspector Magillivray,” called back Sherlock Holmes. “If you will give us assistance.”

  As we waited, Magillivray’s face appeared in the open window frame. Behind him, Jack James, Sergeant Scaife, and Sandy Arbuthnot pressed in beside him to look inside.

  “I fear you are all blocking our exit,” said Holmes, stepping toward the opening and beckoning me forward. “If you will grasp Watson’s arms on his way out, I will assist from the other end in extracting him from this place.”

  In brisk fashion, I was removed through the window frame before helping pull out Holmes as well.

  “It appears you would have escaped without us,” Magillivray remarked as Holmes dusted off himself.

  “Yes, but we cannot reach the river in time without you,” the detective answered. “I assume you all arrived in motors.”

  “I apologise for disobeying your orders,” said Jack James from behind the wheel of the taxicab. Holmes and I were crowded into the rear, alongside Inspector Magillivray, while Sergeant Scaife occupied the seat beside the chauffeur.

  “And I ask forgiveness as well,” shouted Sandy Arbuthnot as he clung to the cab while standing upon the right running-board. “Neither Jack nor I thought it best to abandon the two of you to fate.”

  “Both the colonel and I would have survived,” said Holmes calmly. “But again, had you not followed us, we could not make it to the riverbank in time to snare Von Bork!”

  “I followed the advice in that monograph of yours, sir,” said James as he drove south. “The one about automotive pursuit. The Germans never saw us.”

  “I am certain they did not,” said Holmes with a smile.

  “Once
Sandy hopped out and approached silently on foot, he saw them take you into the building. We then sped down to where the police launches were and brought the inspector and the sergeant with us.”

  “There had not been any signal from that barge master, Evans,” Magillivray declared. “The constables tending our launches have been ordered to wait upon our return.”

  Just then, young James swerved to avoid a horse-drawn lorry.

  I looked back at the vehicle and then turned to Holmes.

  “Do you suppose that was—”

  “One of the members of the London Transport League?” interjected the detective. “It would not surprise. Let us hope that if such is the case, their destination is one of the intersections manned by Scotland Yard. And let us hope the parties directed by Inspectors Hartley and Carter are about to begin their raids, if they have not already initiated them.”

  For another few minutes, we rambled through the evening toward the river, with Sandy Arbuthnot hanging on the outside of the motorcar. More than once, Scaife or Magillivray called out in the congestion, identifying themselves as policemen in order to clear our way. In that fashion, we reached the river’s edge, where three police launches waited, tended by four constables, Shinwell Johnson, and Frank Farrar.

  “Sir!” cried Farrar. “We’ve just seen the signal from Tatty Evans!”

  “Not more than a minute ago,” added Johnson. “Shall we be off?”

  “Sandy, you and Jack take that boat with two of the policemen,” ordered Holmes. “Johnson and Farrar, join the remaining constables in the second launch. We four shall go in the third vessel,” he told Magillivray, Scaife, and me.

  “Wait, sir,” cried Arbuthnot, who ran back to our taxicab and retrieved the burlap sack he had held earlier. He handed it to Holmes, who took it before turning round to view the river.

  We also looked out across the waters, where a close pair of lights sat off to the east.

  “The second one was lit just a moment ago,” repeated Porky Johnson.

  “Let us head for them, then,” said Holmes.

  As directed, James and Arbuthnot tumbled into one craft in the company of two constables, who started up the motor. The second vessel, with Farrar, Johnson, and the second pair of policemen, also roared into life. As both boats waited, I boarded the third launch in the company of Holmes, Magillivray, and Scaife, who stepped to the stern to take control.