The Secret Abyss

by Darrell Pitt

  ‘Is there anything else I should know about Ashgrove?’ Gabrielle asked.

  ‘Oh, he is a charming individual,’ Mr Doyle chortled. ‘Witty and engaging.’

  ‘It’s a shame that’s all a front.’

  ‘Evil people seldom see themselves as evil. Charles Ashgrove is such an example. He sees himself as a liberator, prepared to fight for freedom.’

  ‘You almost sound sympathetic to him.’

  ‘There have been times in history when violence has been used to bring about change. There’s no doubt…’ Mr Doyle frowned. ‘Wait. Do you hear that?’

  They listened.

  ‘I don’t hear anything,’ Scarlet said.

  ‘Me neither,’ Jack said.

  ‘That’s what I mean.’

  Jack strained his ears. It was oddly quiet, and the silence was eerie.

  ‘It’s very stuffy in here,’ Gabrielle said.

  Suddenly a hissing sound filled the cab. Mr Doyle leapt to his feet and grabbed the door handle. It would not budge. Jack struggled with the other door, but Gabrielle shoved him out of the way and began kicking at the glass.

  It was unbreakable. Within seconds, a fine mist filled the cab. Jack thumped the glass separating them from the driver until he caught sight of the man’s face in the rear-view mirror. He was grinning.

  He’s in league with Ashgrove, Jack thought. Not a Secret Service agent at all… When Jack woke, he found himself slumped in a sitting position on a concrete floor, handcuffed to a pole. They were in a rundown warehouse filled with boxes marked with pictures of pottery and statuettes. Dull light shone through skylights.

  Beside him, Mr Doyle, Scarlet and Gabrielle were unconscious, secured to other beams. Jack could smell salt water; they must be near the harbour, he thought. There was another odour, too.

  Smoke.

  Scarlet stirred and blearily looked about. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘We really need Buckley Bonkalot is what’s happening.’

  ‘Brinkie…’ She shook her head. ‘Never mind.’

  She tried calling to Gabrielle Smith and Mr Doyle, but they did not stir. Jack saw that a pile of papers was alight on the far side of the building. Stacks of boxes next to them were already beginning to smoulder. Before long, the entire warehouse would be in flames.

  ‘Bazookas,’ Jack grunted.

  Feeling his pockets with his elbows, he realised his lock pick was gone. He still had his compass and locket. Thank goodness! But they would not help him open the handcuffs. He examined the restraints. They were of an older make. Mr Doyle had made them practise picking locks for hours. If they could find a piece of metal… An iron splinter on the ground caught his eye. He pointed it out to Scarlet. He couldn’t reach it, but maybe she could.

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ she said.

  ‘Try,’ Jack urged.

  She stretched out. Her foot was a few inches too short. She reached a little further. Now the end of her shoe teased it. A bit further and she would have it.

  ‘Good heavens,’ Scarlet said. ‘I can touch it, but I can’t do anything with it.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Jack encouraged her. ‘Kick towards me.’

  She swung her leg about and caught the sliver by the end. It flew straight at Jack.

  Got it!

  He dragged it closer with his foot. As he did so, he started to cough. The fire had taken hold. Smoke was everywhere. Within minutes the four of them would be overcome.

  Gabrielle groaned, waking up. ‘What’s…where are we?’

  ‘A warehouse.’ Jack was working on the lock now. ‘There’s a fire. They’re trying to burn us to death.’

  ‘Why? They could have just killed us with gas!’

  Jack remembered Charles Ashgrove’s words: Your end will not be swift. Nor will it be painless.

  The man was a monster. He had wanted them to die—but not without suffering first. The handcuffs clicked open. Jack raced over to Gabrielle and started working on her restraints.

  ‘Something must have happened to the real driver,’ she said.

  ‘You’d never seen that man before?’

  ‘No, but that’s not unusual. The Secret Service employs thousands of people.’ She glanced at the detective. ‘Ignatius is not moving.’

  Jack undid her cuffs and moved over to Scarlet. ‘Is he breathing?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. He must have been more strongly affected by the gas.’

  Jack worked at Scarlet’s handcuffs. They clicked apart and he turned his attention to Mr Doyle. The detective remained unconscious. Gabrielle raced to the entrance. Jack heard banging.

  ‘The door’s locked!’ she yelled.

  The handcuffs on Mr Doyle clicked open just as Gabrielle returned. ‘The front door is bolted. We’ll have to exit through the back.’

  ‘There are no windows?’

  ‘None we can reach.’

  The fire was spreading from box to box with terrifying speed. Smoke clogged the air, making breathing almost impossible. They dragged Mr Doyle towards a double-locked door at the rear where boat deliveries could be made.

  ‘The lock!’ Gabrielle coughed. ‘Can you open it?’

  Jack pulled out the sliver of metal again and went to work on the lock. It was getting hotter by the moment. The roar of the blaze was deafening. He started coughing and this time couldn’t stop. The smoke burned his throat. His eyes watered. They couldn’t take much more of this.

  Come on, he thought. Come on.

  Click.

  Yes!

  Jack swung the doors open. Gabrielle and Scarlet pulled Mr Doyle into the fresh air. A crash came from behind as part of the warehouse collapsed. They stumbled onto a small dock. A rowboat lay nearby and they scrambled on board, pushing away from the landing. Gabrielle seized the oars and rowed them away from the devastation.

  ‘Good heavens.’ Mr Doyle groaned and tried to sit up. ‘What on earth happened?’

  ‘Jack and Scarlet rescued us,’ Gabrielle said.

  ‘Jack, Scarlet and Gabrielle worked together to escape,’ Jack corrected her. ‘It was a team effort.’

  The warehouse was now an inferno. Smoke poured from every opening. Glass exploded and flames licked up through gaps in the roof. Something detonated within the building as another section of roof collapsed. The sirens of fire engines cut through the afternoon air, but they were too late.

  ‘A close call,’ Gabrielle said.

  Mr Doyle frowned. ‘Too close.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘What now?’ Jack asked, chewing hesitantly on a hot dog.

  They had abandoned the rowboat and were in a small diner on the West Side of Manhattan. The diner was clean and tidy and, to Mr Doyle’s delight, served a good cup of tea.

  ‘We have actually been rather lucky,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘Charles Ashgrove believes us dead and I think we should continue that charade.’

  ‘It won’t hurt for the Secret Service to think that I’m deceased for a day or two,’ Gabrielle said. ‘What are you suggesting we do?’

  ‘Our intention was to visit Ashgrove’s warehouse. We should pursue that line of enquiry.’

  But Mr Doyle insisted on a recovery day. He asked Gabrielle to find them a hotel. Fortunately there was an establishment in the same street by the name of The Brass Buckle. Mr Doyle checked them in under false names: he assumed the identity of Sherrinford Pocklocker, Jack became Ormand Snotsbury, Scarlet was Mistletoe Baincuttle and Gabrielle became Joan Brown. The clerk, to Jack’s surprise, noted the names without comment.

  The next morning they hired a steamcab. The warehouse was uptown in a quiet street a few blocks from the water. Gabrielle suggested they enter via the rear. ‘The Secret Service is probably watching the front,’ she explained.

  ‘A wise move if we want to remain undercover,’ Mr Doyle said.

  They scooted around the side, where the detective peered in a dusty window. ‘It looks empty in there,’ he said. ‘Though we did find ourselves being shot at
the last time we entered a seemingly vacant building.’

  ‘Allow me,’ Gabrielle said.

  She removed one of her shoes and broke a pane of glass. She pushed the window up, then reached down to loosen her skirt.

  Mr Doyle’s mouth fell open. ‘My dear—’

  ‘It’s nothing to be concerned about, Mr Doyle. I am wearing my bloomers under my skirt.’

  ‘Bloomers?’

  ‘Sporting shorts.’ Dragging off a layer of clothing, she revealed a pair of baggy knee-length pants. Scarlet stared at Gabrielle in fascination, as if seeing her for the first time.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ Gabrielle said.

  ‘Of course, my dear,’ Mr Doyle said, peering at the sky.

  Gabrielle climbed lithely in the window and disappeared from sight. A few minutes went by before Mr Doyle muttered, ‘I should not have allowed her to do this.’

  ‘She is a government agent, Mr Doyle,’ Scarlet pointed out.

  ‘But what if she is attacked? In her underwear?’

  ‘That’s not her underwear. Those are her…bloomers. Her sporting shorts.’ Scarlet frowned as if something dawned on her. ‘Gabrielle is a kind of true-life Brinkie Buckeridge. In The Adventure of the Singing House, Brinkie reveals she always wears specially equipped undergarments.’

  Jack tried to visualise such a thing. ‘Specially equipped?’

  ‘Yes. They hold a gun. Currency from a dozen nations. A small cannon.’

  ‘In her underwear?’

  Meanwhile, Mr Doyle was stroking his chin. ‘Bloomers?’ he said. ‘They must be some kind of new invention.’

  The back door opened and Gabrielle reappeared with a smile on her face. ‘All’s clear,’ she said. ‘Whoever was here is gone.’

  Gabrielle slipped the dress back on and they followed her. There was little to see. It was dusty, and the ground floor empty. Stairs led to a tiny office on the next level, which contained a desk.

  ‘This is strange,’ Gabrielle said when they returned to the ground floor. ‘Our man said that people had been coming and going from this building.’

  ‘Maybe it’s only used as a meeting place,’ Jack said.

  ‘Odd there is no evidence of movement,’ Scarlet said.

  Mr Doyle examined the floor near the front door. ‘The dust is disturbed here.’ He followed the trail of footsteps over to an unused fireplace. ‘Look! Here the footprints end.’

  Gabrielle examined the mantelpiece. ‘This dust looks undisturbed.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s the shelf we need to focus on.’ Mr Doyle eyed the blackened brass decoration around the fireplace. It was a vine with some sort of flower that grew from both sides and joined in a knot in the middle. ‘Does one of those flower buds look a little brighter than the others?’

  One did. Jack pressed it and a click came from the fireplace. Mr Doyle gripped the shelf and swung the whole thing open. A set of stairs led downwards.

  Scarlet gave a cry of delight. ‘It’s just like The Adventure of the Exploding Frog.’

  Gabrielle gave her a sideways glance. ‘You read the Brinkie Buckeridge books?’

  Scarlet eyed her suspiciously. ‘Of course.’

  ‘My favourites are The Adventure of the Shrinking Steamcar and The Adventure of the Robot Menace.’ Gabrielle paused. ‘I even have a signed copy.’

  Scarlet swooned. ‘A signed copy?’

  Jack and Mr Doyle looked at each other. ‘We may have stumbled into the annual convention,’ Mr Doyle sighed.

  ‘That’s not till later in the year,’ Scarlet said.

  ‘Must keep moving.’ Gabrielle pulled a pistol from her blouse. ‘We need to be ready.’

  ‘A gun?’

  ‘Mr Doyle, I’m with the Secret Service.’

  ‘Of course.’ The detective reddened. ‘How foolish of me.’

  Gabrielle led them down a curving stairway to a basement. It smelled of mould. The room was empty apart from a table with a dozen chairs. Covering the walls was an enormous crimson flag. A single blue line, filled with white stars, divided it diagonally.

  ‘That’s the flag of the Southern Liberation Army,’ Gabrielle said.

  A newspaper lay on the table. Mr Doyle read the page. ‘It’s open to an article about the president.’

  Gabrielle peered over his shoulder. ‘He’s speaking at the Liberty Theatre in Washington on Saturday night.’

  ‘Really?’ The detective scanned the article before raising his head to stare into the distance. ‘What a fool I have been. I don’t know how I did not see it earlier.’

  ‘What is it, Ignatius?’ Gabrielle asked.

  ‘The Chameleon is an assassin,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘Why would Charles Ashgrove liberate him from custody if not to assassinate someone? And then, of course, there was the clue of the eagle.’

  ‘But doesn’t that just refer to the United States?’ Scarlet said.

  ‘The eagle is also on the presidential seal.’ Mr Doyle clenched his fists. ‘The Chameleon’s mission is to assassinate the president.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The road to Washington was choked with traffic. Visibility was poor due to fog and smoke. Jack sat in the rear of a luxury steamcar driven by an agent of the Secret Service. Unlike the man who had gassed them, this agent had been known to Gabrielle Smith for years. A middle-aged man by the name of Edmund Wilson also joined them. He was Gabrielle’s supervisor.

  Gabrielle had gone straight to Mr Wilson after Mr Doyle had revealed his suspicions about the Chameleon and the assassination. Mr Wilson had immediately arranged to transport them to the capital. ‘Is it your first time to the States?’ he now asked the detective.

  ‘I have been here before,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘But not to Washington.’

  ‘You will probably find our government works a little differently.’

  ‘If you mean it is slow, inefficient and bureaucratic,’ Mr Doyle smiled, ‘then it will be no surprise at all.’ He produced a piece of cheese covered in blue mould. ‘I think it’s supposed to be that colour,’ he said, popping it in his mouth.

  The pollution cleared as they approached the centre of the capital. Jack stared in wonder at the nation’s landmarks. Unlike New York, there were no rules to limit building heights. The original Washington Monument was encased within another duplicate structure stretching almost a mile into the air. Not far from it sat the Buchanan Memorial. The immense statue of the slain president was almost twice as high. It contained the Museum of American History and housed items as famous as the first American steam engine and the Nautilus bathysphere, the first man-made object to journey to the deepest points of the ocean.

  Behind the mighty city, as in every metropolis on earth, soared the Washington Metrotower. Ten thousand people lived and worked in the tower.

  ‘What’s that?’ Jack asked, pointing at a bronze spire.

  ‘The Arlington Memorial,’ Gabrielle explained. ‘It was built to remember the victims of the Civil War.’

  ‘Did you have ancestors who fought in the war?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I did. My grandfather fought for the South.’

  ‘Really?’ Scarlet said. She seemed to have warmed to the woman since discovering Gabrielle’s reading habits. ‘So old animosities have not divided the entire nation?’

  ‘The Civil War is history to most of us,’ Gabrielle said. ‘It’s only the radicals that are still living it.’

  The steamcar wound through avenues and around other monuments until it reached the White House. Unlike so many other famous buildings, the presidential offices remained unaltered. Jack had read in a guidebook that many suggestions had been made to renovate them, but had been vetoed by successive governments. Even the Capitol Building had been altered so that the old structure was simply a façade leading to an immense dome that housed thousands of workers.

  They pulled into a driveway behind the White House and stepped out. It was impressive: three storeys, neoclassical in style and painted—of course—white. Guards were everywher
e. Dressed in bronze bulletproof vests and carrying rifles, they surrounded the building. Every window also had a guard, while men were stationed on the roof. Jack felt his heart leap into his throat as he realised the weapons were trained on them.

  Scarlet glanced about. ‘I would suggest none of us make any sudden moves.’

  ‘Like breathing?’ Jack asked.

  Gabrielle Smith and Wilson flashed their identification at the door before the five of them were taken into an antechamber and frisked. Everyone, including Mr Doyle, was forced to surrender weapons. He looked sad as he handed over Clarabelle.

  ‘Shame I didn’t bring Bertha,’ Jack said.

  ‘I’m certain it’s illegal to carry a concealed spider,’ Scarlet said.

  A man with grey hair, blinking as if he did not often see the light of day, came to meet them. He reminded Jack of a librarian, someone who spent most of their time secreted away among books. Mr Wilson introduced him as the Secretary of State, James Jefferson. He led them through the building to the West Wing where they settled around a table in a small office.

  ‘Your fame has preceded you, Mr Doyle,’ Mr Jefferson said. ‘I understand you assisted one of our more distinguished citizens in recovering a missing ring some years ago.’

  Mr Doyle had told Jack and Scarlet about the case. The famous ring, known as the Speckled Band, had belonged to Amelia Emerson, a Washington socialite who had been visiting Britain. The ring was named for the diamonds encrusted into the gold band. It was reputed to have once belonged to Elizabeth I.

  ‘A small matter,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘Not as important as that which brings us here today.’

  ‘Ah yes.’ The secretary glanced through the file before him. ‘You think the president is in some danger.’

  ‘If assassination can be considered “some danger”, then the answer is yes.’

  ‘But your evidence appears rather flimsy.’

  ‘The Chameleon’s breakout was a well-planned manoeuvre carried out by a dedicated individual. He is an assassin. It seems only reasonable that he was broken out in order to kill someone. We believe his target is the president.’