“True enough, we are all tied up, but there must be something we can do. There’s always something. We must not let fear block our thought processes, girls! We are all of us brilliant scientists!” Thank goodness she was a fine actress, though it was doubtful if anything would make any difference at this point.
There was a small porthole from which she could catch a glimpse of the south bank of the Thames. Only a small amount of the steam engine showed below decks, but from the heat in the room and the speed of the boat, it had to be a powerful engine: they had to be doing fifteen miles per hour or better! They would be out of London in not much over an hour.
Candice would never get anyone to them in time.
Think! Think! You can’t give up until it’s over.
Unlike herself, the little girls had their hands tied in front of them. She knew she had to think of something soon; she had little doubt that Amity was correct in their eventual fate.
“Alright, girls,” she said, showing a confidence she was far from feeling, “Let’s put our heads together and formulate a plan to thwart these evil people! What are our assets?”
“W-w-what’s an asset?” asked Susan, sniffing.
“That’s what we have that we can use against them,” explained Amity, adding in a confidential whisper. “Pretend we’re not tied up—that will help you think.”
“I have a throwing knife in one of my boots, and a truncheon in the other,” Mirabella offered.
“A real one, or a pretend one?” asked Gloria.
“A real one,” replied Mirabella, sighing. Oh, what had she been thinking? She was expecting three eight to ten-year-olds to get them out of a mess she herself could not save them from.
“A chrunchun’?” asked Susan.
“It’s a metal cigar. Also, I have an amethyst pin in my hair, which, if I could only get into my hands, I could unlock the chains . . .” She felt herself wanting to cry, looking around her. I mustn’t give in to the fear. “Do you see the decorative stick in my hair? It’s filled with a poison dart—if you blow in it and aim it at your enemy, it will put him into a sleep.”
“Do you have a gun?” asked Gloria.
“No. I did. They found that.”
“She couldn’t get to it anyway,” Gloria wailed, a smudge of soot on her cheek. “Her hands are tied!”
“I thought we were pretending they weren’t tied,” stated Susan, confused.
“We are going so fast!” cried Amity.
“Yes, we are,” murmured Mirabella.
“This is a steam engine, isn’t it? With gears.” Amity’s eyebrows drew together in a studious manner. “Why is it going so fast?”
“It must have been modified to go faster with some type of electrical mechanism,” Mirabella muttered, her heart falling in her chest.
“No one will ever catch us,” moaned Susan.
“What would make the boat stop?” asked Amity, thoughtful.
“Something would have to jam the gears . . .” replied Mirabella distractedly, without realizing the words had come out of her mouth. But once she heard the utterance with her own ears, the words caught her conscious attention. She pictured the open door into the steam engine where the coal was shoveled. “If something were thrown into the gears so as to jam them . . . but it would require someone with excellent aim.”
“Sukey is the best badminton player anywhere,” considered Amity, looking up from her hands, suddenly hopeful. “How big would the jammer-thingy have to be?”
“Oh, it could be as small . . . as small as . . .”
“A cigar?” asked Gloria, squirming under her cuffed hands.
“Yes, a cigar,” answered Mirabella dismissively. “But it would have to be heavy and dense—of lead.” She almost choked on her own words, hearing them.
“The crunchin’!” Susan exclaimed.
“Girls, we have a plan!” exclaimed Mirabella excitedly. “If only our hands weren’t tied.”
Bang!
“Heavens! It sounds like someone is shooting at us!” She turned her head and glanced out the little porthole.
“What is it, Miss Mirabella?” demanded Gloria.
“Oh, my goodness!” she barely whispered. “It looks like . . . I think it is . . . Princess Elena!”
“The Sword Princess,” exclaimed Amity.
There, riding along the Thames in the heart of London like a bat out of hell, an Arabian warrior in all her glory, was the princess of Montenegro—carrying a rifle. Promenaders dressed by the most elegant French modistes were literally jumping out of her path, waving their parasols in hysteria.
“Yea!!!” the girls yelled in unison. And for the first time Mirabella felt the
beginning of hope in the dingy, soot-covered room.
She could hear the men above deck, laughing and guffawing.
“Look at that!” Corbie’s harsh voice called out.
“She’s chasing us on a horse!” McVittie exclaimed. “Is that a hunting rifle she’s holding, Minerva? It is!”
“I ain’t worried,” Corbie laughed. “The chance she could actually ‘it us, at that disternce, bloody unlikely says I!”
“You fools!” yelled Miss Bickers. “Don’ you see? Someone is onto us! If she knows, thar’ could be others!”
“Wull, that’s why we brought the insurance down below,” blared out the one called Sweeney.
“Arggh!” A second later, a whizzing sound came down the hatch, followed by a loud “Thop!” And then McVittie’s screams. “I’m hit in me leg! Corbie, get them damn brats up here and line ‘em up in front of us! Hurry! A’ fore I shoot you, too!”
Corbie came down the hatch like a bull for a matador and quickly untied the rope which linked the girls to the floor. Yanking the little girls to their feet, he left their hands tied. “C’mon you lot! Time fer some sightseein’!”
All three girls began screaming at the top of their lungs, rushing towards their teacher and surrounding her, some pretend crying and some crying for real. All within ten seconds Mirabella felt the truncheon leave her left boot and something sharp land into her chained hand: her amethyst pin!
Those girls had listened to every word she had uttered! When she had thought they were only whimpering and crying. Once again she was reminded of the difference between street kids and cosseted children. It appeared the previous four minutes had been a gift from God.
She hoped it was enough.
Sweeney came stomping down the stairwell to assist Corbie, yanking Susan so hard that the tiny blonde-haired girl fell to the ground.
But when Susan looked up again there was something in her expression Mirabella hadn’t seen before: a flash of anger in her pale blue-grey eyes to rival that of a tiger mama.
“She’s just a little girl, you chicken-livered swine!” yelled Mirabella, her country upbringing finding its way into her language as she forgot weeks of debutante training in an instant.
“I’ll show you who’s chicken-livered, you whore!” Sweeney yelled back, releasing Susan and moving towards her.
“That’s right! Release me and fight me like a man—if you dare!” challenged Mirabella, ready to take him on as all her fear washed away with the attack on the little girl.
“Git yer ass over ‘ere and let her be!” commanded Corbie, and Sweeney reluctantly turned around.
Blast! It had almost worked!
She calmed her mind as much as she could, and set to the lock with determination. From above, she heard Sweeney shout, “Shoot back at her, dammit!”
“She’s at least a hun-derd yards away!” Corbie shouted back, “All I gots is a pistol! We’re gonna be a sight better orf wif’ these little chits lined up along the edge o’ the boat!”
“Look! Har! Har!” McVittie gave a loud laugh. “She just ran out of promenade, ‘an the police are chasin’ her! They’s not chasin’ us but her.”
“Shut up, you fool!” exclaimed Miss Bickers.
“What the hell is that contraption?” asked Sweeney. “Some
kinda horseless carriage?”
“The police are chasin’ her! Har! Har!” Corbie laughed.
“Stop laughing and help me tie up me leg!” McVittie commanded. He must be of some importance, Mirabella reflected, as he bossed the other two around as much as Miss Bickers did.
“It’s a pair ‘o men on bicycles,” snarled Miss Bickers. “It’s of no consequence.”
“Those aren’t regular bicycles,” considered Sweeney. “They’se movin’ awful fast.”
Corbie chimed in, laughing, “They ain’t movin’ near as fast as yer steam engine, McVittie!”
Click. Mirabella heard the padlock fall behind her. Quickly, she set at worming her wrists out of her chains.
“Oh, shyte!” she heard McVittie exclaim.
“That’s ‘im, int it?” Miss Bickers’ shrill voice asked rhetorically.
“Who? Who is it ont the bicycles?”
“Sherlock bloody ‘olmes and that doctor o’ his!”
Mirabella retrieved the throwing dagger from her right boot. Once her feet were free, she ripped the beautiful chiffon and satin train from her dress. She then started at her knees and tore the pencil-thin dress with her knife, providing some mobility and revealing her petticoats.
She couldn’t have cared less.
“Whot the . . . ? “ she heard Sweeney exclaim. “Be thar some kinda’ motor on them things? I ‘kin see ‘em peddling—but they be goin’ awful fast fer bicycles.”
“You idiots! Stop worrying about the bicycles!” Miss Bickers chimed in. “Clearly the peddling charges the engine in some manner—an improvement on the scissor sharpeners. It has nought to do wif us!”
“That rig may be fast,” McVittie crowed triumphantly, “but we don’ have to dodge th’ nobs & gawkers. They’re fallin’ behind.” Mirabella could hear him dragging his leg, so it must have gotten it wrapped up.
“What ‘ar they gonna’ do on bicycles anyways?” Corbie exclaimed, laughing. “Har Har!”
Mirabella snuck up the hatchway, wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt. It was one thing to play at fighting—but against men with guns this felt entirely different, wondering if she would still be alive in the next two minutes.
I don’t think it likely.
But there were children at stake—her girls—and she would die trying to save them. Otherwise they were all dead anyway. She was a fool for not seeing that earlier—but she had been so terrified.
She would never forgive herself for that. Even in the grave, which she was no doubt headed for.
Maybe the incident at Miss de Beauvais had drained her of her courage.
The girls were lined up along the gunwale, and as she reached the top of the short stair, Amity looked directly at her. Amity then turned to her sister and nodded very slightly with her chin. Mirabella could see the fear in their eyes mirrored her own.
But these girls had faced fear before—and won. And well they knew it.
Turning ninety degrees to face her captors, Susan raised her tied hands in a passable imitation of a two-handed badminton swing.
“What ‘ere ye doin’ ye little brat?” McVittie demanded, pointing his gun at her, even as they all gasped.
“Would you like this cigar?” Susan squealed in an amazingly high-pitched voice which momentarily stunned everyone. Swinging her arms forward, the child sent the compact metal baton directly into the open gear box of the steam engine.
For a moment, all involved looked apprehensively towards the mechanism.
Pop! Crack! Grrrrrrnd! One of the brass main gears popped off its axle, cracked on one side.
All the girls began screaming and jumping up and down, suddenly elated. There was no sporting event to match it.
“Noooo!!” screamed McVittie as the momentum of the vessel began to slacken.
“You little monster!” screamed Corbie. “I’ll kill you!” And he raised his pistol at the suddenly terrified child.
God guide my throw! Mirabella prayed, hurling her dagger at the big man. The blade turned a lazy full spin in the air and settled with a satisfying thunk in the crook of Corbie’s shooting arm. He screamed like a hyena and the revolver clattered once on the gun rail and then added itself to Davy Jones’ armory.
“By God, you’ll pay for that!” Corbie growled as he pulled the blood-covered blade from his arm. Probably a mistake as much more blood gushed forth from the open wound. He threw the knife back at her with his left hand, sending it high and wide as it bounced on the deck beside her. She turned to grab it but had run out of time. Corbie had already started towards her with arms wide to entrap her.
She stepped into his embrace, pivoted and slammed her hip into his groin causing him to bend slightly, all the while grabbing his lapel. Bending her knees, she pulled and the fulcrum effect of the Jiu-Jitsu maneuver sent him over her shoulder, his appearing to fly for a moment. The hulking man landed hard across his shoulder blades on the upraised gunwale, the force of his fall catapulting him into the water.
Mirabella gasped in surprise. That had a far better outcome than I anticipated.
Quickly she glanced at the bicyclers’ progress, noting that they were turning towards the Fifth Avenue Bridge, some four hundred feet ahead of the drifting boat. Still, the little steamboat was a long way from shore and the bridge was completely unreachable from the boat.
“Girls!” she yelled, “get to the back of the boat, now!” and the children, though still amazed by her feat, rushed as best they could to do as she ordered, all tied together as they were. As she stood there, she heard a metallic shhiinng sound and turned to see Sweeney coming down the walkway with her own sword cane in his hand, its gleaming Sheffield steel ready to eviscerate its owner. She looked around frantically and saw where the knife had fallen.
Just in time she snatched it up but soon wondered if it had been worth the trouble.
Predictably, the rat-faced Sweeney hesitated when he saw his prey had a chance of fighting back, but quickly came to the conclusion that the sword was mightier than the jackknife—as did Mirabella. She tensely watched him maneuver around her, and thought to herself how terrifyingly different a real fencing situation was in comparison with a training session.
A real fencing situation without a sword.
Sweeney came towards her, and she realized she was up against the engine with nowhere to go. He pulled his arm back to deliver the final thrust . . .
Whiz! Oh, he was hit! Sticking in his forehead was a . . . a . . . poison dart!
Thud! He fell towards her—and that alone might have been her demise if she hadn’t moved in the nick of time.
Turning to look behind her, she saw the colorful container in Gloria’s lips! Smiling around the dart gun, her dimples had never shown her to greater loveliness.
Mirabella ran to the girls and they all hugged each other.
“I missed,” Gloria stated. “I was aiming for his chest.”
“That is the best mistake I have ever seen!” Mirabella hugged her.
“Look, Miss Bickers and Mr. McVittie are gettin’ away!” Candice yelled. Evidently Miss Bickers and McVittie had decided to flee incarceration and probable hanging, showing more sense than she would have given them credit for. The two of them were in a very long rowboat that had been tethered to the steam launch and they were pulling away under the high bridge towards shore, several of the boxes from the boat with them.
“There you are, you little whore!” Bickers screeched. “Everything we’ve worked for, gone in flash! Well, you’ll pay, miss! You surely will!” To Mirabella’s horror, the older woman raised a revolver that was the twin of Corbie’s and aimed it directly at her over the intervening twenty-five yards, growling, “SAY ‘YER PRAYERS!”
Bang! Before Mirabella could move she heard the explosion from the gun, expecting to fall to the ground. Instead she stood where she was. In terror, she looked behind her to see if any of the girls had been hit.
It appeared the shot had gone high. Looking back to the boat, she saw Miss
Bickers clutching her bleeding hand with no gun in sight. She looked up to see John Watson standing on the bridge and holding a smoking revolver. Sherlock had always said Watson was a capital shot, and he had not understated the matter!
In addition, what appeared to be a large paving stone fell from the bridge and neatly smashed through the rowboat’s bottom. The impact knocked McVittie off balance, leaving him splashing in the Thames. Miss Bickers just sat there, watching the boat fill with water as she clutched her hand.
“We have these two, my dear!” Mirabella heard a familiar voice call out, John Watson waving at her, as the police joined him, apparently tired of harassing Princess Elena.
“It’s a little invention of mine I like to call the rock,” Holmes yelled.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
31
Something is not right.
Mirabella and the children were now ashore, and Watson was congratulating them on their intrepid handling of the situation as the little girls enthusiastically told him the tale.
“Well, Miss Hudson, it seems my teachings were not wasted.”
She sighed heavily, her torn dress revealing almost the entirety of one leg, her long chestnut brown hair having come loose and fallen past her shoulders, and her skin flushed. “I see. You are going to take credit for this, Mr. Holmes?”
“Naturally. Credit where credit is due.”
“I thank you both for your most timely intervention, Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson,” she muttered between barred teeth, looking astonishingly bewitching in her disheveled state.
“You are welcome,” Sherlock replied, taking his jacket off and putting it around her shoulders, which did nothing to cover that . . . very shapely . . .leg. “Hmm hmm.” He cleared his throat. “We must give you some credit as being an apt pupil, Miss Hudson.”
“You astonish me, Mr. Holmes. Heavens, is that a compliment?”
“Although your escapade diverted us from the actual case we are working on, bringing our client we are supposed to be protecting into the open.”
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Sword Princess Page 22
