by Anna Elliott
Crack!
The explosive burst of sound shatters the stillness of the night, cutting me off and sending my heart slamming hard into my ribs.
“That was—”
“A rifle shot,” John Kelly finishes for me. “It’s—get down!”
With a sudden cry, he lunges for me, knocking me backwards and onto the ground.
Crack!
Another shot hammers against my eardrums. Almost in the same instant, Constable Kelly and I both roll upright and sideways, scrambling to our feet and racing for the comparative shelter of another of the small outbuildings.
“Go!” Constable Kelly shouts at me, when I glance behind to make sure that he’s following. “Go!”
I lose count of the number of shots that ring out as we race for the shed’s entrance and fling ourselves inside.
It appears to be a machinist’s shop of some kind. An array of tools hangs on the walls, and the air smells strongly of crude oil.
Crack!
Another shot is followed by a crash as it shatters one of the narrow windows over our heads. Glass fragments rain down.
I have to fight the urge to squeeze my eyes shut—like a child hoping to hide—as I wait for the next assault to come. Or for our gunman to burst through the door in person.
Nothing happens. I can hear distant shouts—probably from the night watchmen. But no more rifle shots.
Seconds drip by. Then a minute, and then another. Nothing happens.
The only immediate noise is the pounding of my own pulse, the painful scrape of my own breathing in my ears.
“Are you all right?” Constable Kelly finally whispers.
“Yes.” It seems almost unbelievable, but none of the shots struck home.
Almost none. As I turn my head to Constable Kelly, I see that he’s clutching his upper arm. A dark, spreading stain bubbles up from between his fingers.
“You’ve been hit!”
He shakes his head, shrugging my concern away. “It’s nothing much. I’m fine.”
A cold fist seems to have wrapped itself around my heart and started to squeeze.
“Fine? Where I come from, fine is generally taken to mean a state in which one is not bleeding of a gunshot wound.”
I’m already scanning the darkened room, looking for a rag or anything else that I might be able to use as a makeshift tourniquet. Not that I really know what to do with one, even if I find it.
Unfortunately, my returned memory offers nothing but the knowledge that nursing is not one of my areas of expertise—Sherlock Holmes’s recent experience with a bullet wound notwithstanding.
Lacking anything better, I shrug off the shawl—the one I took from Becky’s room—and pass it to Constable Kelly.
“Here. We can at least try to slow the bleeding.”
Constable Kelly’s breath hisses out through his teeth, but he makes no other noise as I press the wadded-up shawl against the bullet wound.
“You need a doctor,” I breathe.
John Kelly’s eyes are on the door. “Yeah, I’ll worry about that after we get out of here. Which isn’t happening with a gunman still outside.”
“Should we try to barricade the door?”
Constable Kelly considers, but then shakes his head. “We’ll just make more noise. Besides, they probably know where we are. If they start shooting us through the windows, we’ll be like fish in a barrel—especially if we’ve gone and blocked the door.”
We both fall silent a moment, and then Constable Kelly asks, “So how did you wind up on the street outside the museum?”
A shiver twists through me as I call up the memory again.
“I was inside The British Museum—hiding in the basement storage area, where they bring in new shipments and deliveries to be unpacked. I had heard that there was to be a new delivery of Dr. Everett’s supposed antiquities that night. I had already told Holmes and Uncle John that I suspected the doctor might be involved in our ring of spies. But they had no idea what I intended for that night. As far as they knew, I was safe and sound in the rented lodgings I had taken in my persona of Ariadne Smith.”
I stop, swallowing. It was stupid of me to be there on my own—stupid and reckless not to have brought reinforcements.
Now that I have my memories back, I can see that might have been a side effect of relying only on myself for most of my life: I am not accustomed to asking for help—and not terribly willing to, either.
“Dr. Everett was there himself,” I whisper into the dark stillness all around. “He and I think three other men. Not Ferrars—I would remember if I had seen him. These men were rougher, and older. They were unpacking crates of antiques—pottery shards and statues and such. But they obviously cared nothing at all about the articles themselves. They kept dropping them on the ground helter-skelter and then tearing through the packing as though they were searching for something.”
I swallow, remembering the scene: the flickering lamplight, the straw and broken fragments of the Egyptian artifacts scattered on the floor.
“I remember hearing one of them say, ‘Where are they?’ I inched forwards—hoping to get a glimpse of whatever it was they were searching for. But I must have kicked something accidentally—a loose pottery fragment or something else. The noise attracted their attention. I ran.”
I stare straight ahead. “I don’t entirely remember what happened next.”
This is the part of my story where my memory grows hazy—whether from the blow to the head or just from the terror of my desperate flight.
“I remember running through the basement of the museum, searching for an exit.” Praying that my panicked turns wouldn’t lead me into a dead end where I would be trapped.
“I remember finally getting outside. But that’s all.”
“So you didn’t actually shoot anyone.”
“No.” That may well be the biggest relief about having my memories back. Those haunting fragments are once more relegated to their proper place in my mind.
I will probably still have nightmares about them—as I know I have for the last months—but at least I do not have to wonder what they mean.
“That was—” I stop, wondering how exactly to explain. “That was part of another case I investigated with Holmes. Last year. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
“You should wait until Becky’s there.” I can hear the brief flicker of a smile in Constable Kelly’s voice. “A Sherlock Holmes case she’s never read about before? She’ll be dying to hear it, too.”
I laugh under my breath. Though I know that we are both thinking the same thing: the odds of our living long enough for me to tell the full story to Becky are not particularly in our favor.
I stuff that thought down and keep going—mostly in an effort to distract myself.
“At any rate, I suppose that Dr. Everett or one of the other men must have caught me as I was fleeing from the museum and struck me down. I don’t know why I’m still here—why they didn’t murder me then and there. I suppose they must have been scared off by something? Maybe one of the night watchmen at the museum came along, and they had to run off?”
I shake my head, breathing to try to steady my racing heart.
I may not remember all of the details, but I do remember the terror of those few minutes. Reliving it in memory has made my hands go cold and clammy and my chest feel too tight.
I can only imagine what Dr. Everett must have thought when I walked into his office. He must have at first suspected that my presence was some sort of a trap—and then been convinced that fate had delivered me like a wrapped-up Christmas parcel.
“Have you ever thought that you were going to die?” I ask suddenly. “I mean, been absolutely, utterly convinced that a moment was going to be your last?”
“Sure.” It’s too dark for me to clearly make out Constable Kelly’s expression, but I sense his nod. “Plenty of times.”
“How do you put the memory behind you? How do you stop being afraid?”
Constable Kelly shifts position. I have the impression that he’s about to reach out towards me. But then he seems to change his mind, his good hand dropping back to his side.
An odd pang of something almost like disappointment flashes through me.
Then he says, his voice quiet in the dark, “You can’t give up, right? Otherwise you might as well have really died.”
He stops abruptly.
Just outside the door to our shed comes a soft, rattling scrape.
I freeze, my insides congealing into a clump of ice. What now?
Beside me, Constable Kelly rises smoothly and silently to his feet.
I can hardly force him back down again. But I am determined not to let him face whatever new threat is outside there. Not when he has just been shot while trying to protect me.
Slowly, slowly, I inch my way towards the hanging rack of tools I can see dimly on the nearest wall. There has to be something that will qualify as a weapon.
My fingers have just closed around the handle of a wrench when the door swings open.
I whirl around, staring at the tall man’s figure that looms in the doorway, shadowy and featureless with the comparative brightness from the outside behind him.
My hand tightens around the wrench—
And a dry, cultured voice says, “I would be most grateful if you would put the weapon down, Lucy. Having been assaulted by you once already in the last day, I find myself in no way anxious to repeat the experience. Especially since time is at the moment—”
“Holmes!” My breath goes out in a rush of relief that nearly carries me to the ground.
Before either of us can say anything more, though, Constable Kelly staggers, catching himself with one hand against the wall.
Remembrance jolts through me. “Holmes, he has been shot! And someone was out there with a rifle—”
“Yes, I am aware.”
His voice and his manner are as brusquely calm as though we had met on the street and begun to discuss the likelihood of rain.
It’s strange. When I was a schoolgirl, I used to pore over Watson’s stories in the Strand magazine, just as Becky does.
Since then, I have met other celebrities and near-legendary figures. Some live up to their famous reputations; most fall lamentably short—but with Holmes, that is never even in question.
Every time that I see him, what strikes me most is how entirely accurate Dr. Watson’s descriptions of Sherlock Holmes are.
His stories are idealized, yes. Uncle John is nothing if not a romantic at heart.
But what his stories neither romanticize nor idealize is the sheer, staggering power of intellect that blazes from Sherlock Holmes’s every word and look.
His hundreds of clients trust him with their most buried secrets for good reason—and not for the sake of his sympathy. He may have human sympathy—I suspect that he does, but so far as I have seen, he keeps it buried deep.
No, the reason his clients trust him to solve their puzzles and dilemmas is the immediate feeling one gets on meeting Sherlock Holmes that you are in the presence of a mind that is as fierce and powerful as the sun’s blazing rays.
It is that blazing intelligence that is staring—or rather, scowling—at me right now.
Holmes’s brows are drawn together in a fierce expression, his already thin lips set in a grim line.
“I heard the shots for myself and surmised that they were being fired at you. Do you know from what direction they came?”
I try to think back, recreating the sights and sounds of our escape to this shed.
Before I can give a definite answer, John Kelly breaks in. “The shooter was stationed somewhere over there.” He gestures to the right. “And high up. Maybe on top of a roof.”
I recollect that he and Sherlock Holmes have never met before. “This is—” I start to say.
Holmes raises a hand.
He turns to Constable Kelly, fixing him with a keen eye. “You are certain, young man?”
I have known older—and more highly ranked—men than Jack Kelly to whither under the focused intensity of Sherlock Holmes’s gaze.
Constable Kelly merely straightens his shoulders and tips his head in a brief nod. “I’m sure.”
“Very well, then.” Holmes steps back, satisfied. Then he suddenly stiffens, his head lifting as though scenting the air.
A moment later, I smell it, too. “Smoke!”
Holmes’s eyes refocus on Constable Kelly. “You appear to be in need of medical attention, young man.”
“I’m all right.” Constable Kelly is pressing the shawl I gave him over his arm.
It is too dark for me to see whether the wound is bleeding through or not—I suspect that it is—but his voice is not one to brook any opposition. “Just go on, I’ll be right behind you.”
21. ALARUM
Outside, the source of the smoke is immediately apparent. A smaller building at the farthest end of the docks is ablaze, orange and yellow flames leaping against the night sky.
From all around the docks, guards and workers and night watchmen are running and shouting out alarms.
The one advantage is that all the outcry seems to have driven away our anonymous rifleman. No shots ring out as we race towards the burning building.
I glance behind me, worried—but true to his word, Constable Kelly is keeping up with the pace that Holmes sets.
One of the dock’s guards has reached the fire ahead of us. Holmes seizes him by the shoulder, spinning him around.
“What is this building?”
In the glow of the fire, I can see the guard’s face. He is a young man, with a head of sandy-colored hair and freckles. He gapes at Holmes, then finally manages to answer, “S-storage.”
“Storage!” Holmes bites off the word furiously.
“Y-yes, sir.”
Holmes casts a quick glance at the building. Tattered banners of flame extend upwards from the windows and are licking at the roof.
“Go and summon the fire brigade!” He orders the guard. “Buckets—hoses—whatever measures you have to extinguish these flames!”
“Yes, sir,” the young man stammers—then stares at him again. “Who exactly did you say you were, sir?”
“I am an agent of Her Majesty’s government, acting in the interest of the Crown,” Holmes barks. “Now do as I say!”
It is a mark of Holmes’s natural authority that the young guard does not arrest us as trespassers or on suspicion of arson, but instead leaps to obey.
“Now.” When the guard has vanished, Holmes raises his voice to be heard above the roar and crackle of the fire. “We must see whether anything may be salvaged. If we are lucky, perhaps we may learn what they wish so badly to conceal from our eyes.”
“You think the fire was deliberately set?”
Holmes gives me a look, eyebrows raised. “You know I dislike coincidences. A conflagration of this nature—erupting at precisely the moment we trace our German spy ring here—cannot conceivably be mere chance. Our opponents clearly realized their failure to exterminate you with the rifle shots. They knew that the dock’s night watchmen would be coming to investigate—and so they chose to burn their bridges, doing away with the evidence. Or so they hoped.”
He starts forwards—plainly about to plunge directly through the doorway of the burning building.
“Wait!” I catch hold of him.
“What is it?” There is an edge of impatience in his tone—making what I have to say all the more difficult. But I cannot help but go on.
“You can’t go in there! You could be burned alive.”
Holmes’s expression is calm. “I estimate the likelihood of that to be less than three in ten. Though the odds will certainly increase if I delay. This young man is clearly not functioning at highest capacity”—Holmes tips his head at John Kelly. “Therefore, I am the most logical—”
“I will go,” I interrupt. The words seem to come out on their own. I do not have a clear plan; I’m not thinking of anything, really—only that I cannot let Sherlock Holmes die in this fiery blaze.
“You will what?”
I have never seen a man in the throes of an apoplectic fit. But if I had, I imagine the victim would look something like Holmes does in this moment. His eyes bulge, his jaw muscles go rigid, and his cheeks flush an unhealthy shade of red. “You will do no such thing!”
“But why?” I demand. “I am perfectly capable—”
Holmes interrupts me. “Over the course of the past thirty-six hours, I have had little to no idea where you were or what horrors might have befallen you! Wiggins discovered you acting most peculiarly in Montague street—at which point, I hastened to make contact myself, giving you the opportunity to use the code word we had established as a sign of danger or distress—the one that would lead to your being rescued, regardless of whether or not it would damage the credibility of the persona you had cultivated.”
“Snow.”
I remember now. The old man—Holmes—certainly gave me every chance to say the word. Unfortunately, though, I had no recollection of having chosen it as our distress code.
“I left the card for you—the very same card which you had sent to me—as a query mark!” Holmes goes on. “A message, intending to ask whether you still suspected Dr. Everett of being a linchpin in the smuggling scheme. I expected that you would reply using the drop-spot we had arranged for the purpose in Hyde Park! I did not suspect that you would take the card and march straight into the lion’s den.”
At Holmes’s words, another memory slips into place. We did arrange to leave messages for one another under a bench in the park, near the statue of Achilles.
Holmes stops, slightly breathless, then goes on, his voice rising. “I did not dare approach you overtly. If you were being watched—or had been taken prisoner—betraying your true identity might be signing your death sentence. Over the course of the last day, I have been forced to don the most outlandish and absurd of disguises in my efforts to ascertain that you were going with this young man of your own free will, rather than being abducted.”
