‘My apologies, Watson,’ he replied, ‘I should have thought to do so already. The letter is from Horace Hamblin to one Simon Jarvis.’
He held the paper out in front of him and read from it slowly and clearly.
Worthy Simon,
I hope this letter finds you in a better state than that of its sorry author, one who finds himself trapped within his own halls, counting the hours until the forces of the Devil on Earth should arrive at his doors, bearing his death along with them.
He whom I shall not name but who brings this letter to you may be trusted completely. His loyalty is perfect, as I have seen on more occasions than one over the past twelvemonth, and his words have been a constant comfort. Help him as you can to escape what was once an island of saints, my friend, for all that was once the glory of England. And remember, if it were a simple thing to love one’s ruler then there would be no virtue in so doing.
I am afraid that we shall not meet again on this Earth, but will be reunited only at the feet of Our Lord, for this is a time of endings, of Revelation, and this is the final letter of the book of my life. England’s Treasure is gone and lies hidden for the moment, but that you will already have guessed.
You will be pleased to know that I have kept myself busy to the last. I have improved the painting of the King which you admired, and added touches to five more, not of my hand. After everything is over perhaps it will please you to come to the Hall and examine them in fine? I am particularly content with the flourishes I have added to the portraits of Sir James Hamilton, Queen Anne and my own grandfather, though less so with the sketch of the wise men and the miniature depicting the twin sons of Isaac, but you will be the best judge of my success, or otherwise.
Now I must go, dear Simon. A rider is in the courtyard with news, and I have some final preparations to make.
Your friend,
Horace Hamblin
Holmes slowly re-folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope, which he placed carefully on the table. He walked to the window and stood with his back to us, hands clutching the sill, one long finger tapping against the wood. One minute passed, then a second, and still he did not move.
Nor did Zenith, I noticed. He held himself erect in his chair, sweet-smelling smoke curling from his mouth as he finished another of his drugged cigarettes. Major Conway, completing our quartet, gave every sign that he was incapable of boredom and leant against the back wall of the library, staring at Holmes’s back.
At least five minutes passed in this manner then, just as Zenith began to show signs of impatience, Holmes finally spoke a single word.
‘Genius!’ he said.
Zenith sat forward, the cigarette dangling, forgotten, from his fingers. ‘You have solved it?’ he asked eagerly.
Whatever Holmes intended to say would remain a mystery however. As he turned from the window, a single shot rang out and Major Conway spun round with a cry. The smallest dark mark on his shirt leached steadily across his front in a splash of red. His eyes glazed over even as he slid down the wall until he sat, straight-backed but dead, on the carpeted floor. Even after the manhandling he had meted out to me earlier, I was sorry to see him in such a condition.
Conway had been caught by surprise and consequently had not had time to reach for his gun, but Zenith had been forewarned by his companion’s death and had drawn and fired his pistol before the Major reached the ground. Cursing my confiscated revolver, I twisted in my seat to see what was happening, just in time to see a small Oriental man fire a metal crossbow bolt directly into Zenith’s shoulder, and another rush forward and crash the butt of his rifle into the Albino’s face. He crumpled to the floor, definitely unconscious and possibly dead.
As I have noticed occasionally happens after a flurry of violent action, the next few moments were completely silent and still. Holmes had not moved from his position by the window, and I was frozen in my seat. One Chinaman lay dead from Zenith’s shot, while the other two stood on either side of the doorway.
Then, like actors suddenly exposed by the raising of the curtain, everything came to life once more.
I shook my head to clear it and hurried over to aid Zenith. Criminal or not, he needed medical help, and I was obliged by my oath to provide it. The shoulder wound was not as serious as it might have been: the bolt was long and wickedly sharp but unbarbed. It could not safely be removed in the library, but in a hospital it would present little problem. More worryingly, the blow to his face had cracked his cheekbone and probably concussed him. I whispered a quick hope that his skull had not been fractured and arranged him more comfortably where he lay.
Holmes, meanwhile, took two steps across to the fireplace and dropped the letter he held into the flames then stood, arms crossed, as if waiting for something.
The wait was momentary.
Exactly as he had in Limehouse, the Lord of Strange Deaths shuffled into the room, flanked by his giant guards. Behind him scurried a young boy holding a small, padded stool. The Lord stopped in front of Zenith and clapped his hands, prompting the stool to be placed behind him. With a groan, and the assistance of the boy, he lowered himself down to a seated position.
‘Have you an answer for me, Sherlock Holmes?’
The unexpectedness of the old man’s voice made it stranger than it might otherwise have been, but in any circumstances the high-pitched, scratchy sound would have excited comments. His English was, however, unaccented, if a little old-fashioned.
Holmes turned to face our latest captor. ‘I do. I have unravelled the riddle of England’s Treasure,’ he said, but there was no triumph in his voice. Generally when Holmes had the solution to a case at his fingertips, he was a man transformed. On this occasion, however, there was no such change. If anything his back was more stooped than before, his voice more weary. ‘I thought I had been so clever,’ he continued, ‘but I have not been a tenth as clever as Horace Hamblin. Oh, to have met the man and spoken a while! What a detective he might have made – or a criminal, for that matter!’
He suddenly stopped and looked about himself, like a man seeking direction. Not for the first time that day I was conscious of a peculiar feeling of time slowing down, creating a pocket of calm in which only we existed.
The Lord held up a skeletal hand and murmured, ‘I must insist on knowing the answer, Sherlock Holmes. When last we met I told you that England’s Treasure should not fall into the hands of a dishonourable man. That remains the case. This abomination—’ he pointed a skeletal finger at the unconscious form of Zenith, ‘—will not live to see another dawn, in any case. I, however, intend to use the Treasure for a very honourable purpose indeed.’
The Lord shifted on his stool slightly, wincing as he did so. ‘Since the Treaty of Nanking,’ he continued, ‘China has been no better than a whipped cur cowering before the boot of its master. No, do not deny it! Britain took Hong Kong from us, Sherlock Holmes, and filled the bodies of our commoners with opium. They humiliated the Emperor and burned the Summer Palaces, stole our people to build America’s railways and forced their religion upon us. But no more! No more!’
A harsh, barking cough shook the old man’s body as he raged. The boy at his side quickly pulled a stoppered cloth pouch from inside his jacket and handed it to his master, who sipped from it slowly until his coughing fit subsided enough for him to continue in a calmer tone.
‘I do not know what England’s Treasure might be, but it has been whispered in dark places that it is a priceless gift for one who wishes to see the English brought low. I am such a one, Sherlock Holmes. China will be avenged. Now, I ask you again, have you an answer for me?’
‘Miss Rhodes should now be safely on a train back to London,’ Holmes replied incongruously. ‘I have instructed her to order the train stopped at the next available station – some eleven minutes from Hamblin by my measure – and once there to send an urgent telegram to Scotland Yard, informing Lestrade that if he has not left for Hamblin Hall already then he should do so wit
h all possible haste. Fortunately, Mr Zenith was not aware that we travelled down on a Special, booked for our use alone, or that it was waiting to take us back to London again.’
He smiled coldly. The smile, I noticed, did not trouble any part of his face but his lips.
‘By my reckoning you have less than an hour to vacate this place before Lestrade and his men are at the door.’
The Lord was not so easily cowed, however. ‘Time enough for my purposes,’ he said, returning Holmes’s smile. ‘More than enough, in fact. Do you disagree?’
Holmes stepped to one side and pointed down at the remains of the letter he had disposed of moments before. Already it was merely a sheet of ash in the shape of a letter and as Holmes jabbed it firmly with a poker, it collapsed in on itself and was indistinguishable from the surrounding hot ashes.
‘Generally speaking I would agree with you, but on this occasion I am afraid that all the time in the world will be of no benefit to you. You see the paper burning so merrily in the fireplace? That was the map which I discovered and which Mr Zenith was about to take from me. It depicted some area of England – I did not recognise it – and contained a tiny black cross under which, I presume, the Treasure is buried. How unfortunate that I did not have chance to do more than glance at it before it was destroyed. Now nobody will ever know what England’s Treasure was.’
The effect on the Lord was startling. With a strangled cry he screeched something in his native tongue to one of the bodyguards, who ran over to the fireplace, then plunged his hands into the very flames. I could smell the burning of his flesh as he attempted, with no chance of success, to scoop up what was left of the letter, but it was ash and flame alone and could not be salvaged. Perhaps most disturbingly, the man made no sound as the fire cooked his arms, and continued to attempt his impossible task until his master called him back. To nobody’s surprise the giant took two steps, then tumbled forward onto his face, his entire body in shock. He lay there, twitching but still silent, while the Lord continued to rant in what I assumed was Mandarin.
Though it took several minutes, he finally calmed down enough to speak English again. ‘You think you have defeated me, Sherlock Holmes?’ he asked. ‘Know that you have not. I have sought England’s Treasure ever since one of my people purchased a book from the owner of this house and found an ancient letter inside. And yet I have never discovered what the Treasure is, nor where it can be found. If nobody may have it, then I am no worse off than I was before I heard its name, and though I may not use it to China’s benefit, no other nation may use it to force England into an unfortunate alliance.’
This long speech appeared to have exhausted the old man, for he held out a hand for balance, which the boy at his side provided. He sat like that until he regained his breath, then barked a command at the two men guarding the doorway. Whatever he said, the effect was troubling.
Each man reached behind his back and pulled forward a lethal-looking crossbow, which they loaded with a bolt apiece. The Lord was helped back to his feet and the boy retrieved the padded stool, while the bowmen ensured Holmes and I made no surprising moves.
I looked over at Holmes as the Lord shuffled his way back to the door. He gave a tiny shrug in response. Were we to be allowed to leave?
At the last moment, the Lord of Strange Deaths paused then issued a final guttural command.
This time there was no doubting his intentions, for the two bowmen stepped smartly forward and prepared to fire at Holmes and me. I had a moment in which to wonder why they did not also kill Zenith, and another to realise that they would do so as soon as they had disposed of the only conscious enemies in the room, before the room exploded in a frenzy of movement.
At my side, Zenith suddenly sat upright and shot his right arm forward until it was completely straight. By means of some mechanical marvel concealed within his sleeve, a tiny Derringer pistol shot into his palm and, without a pause, he fired its single shot into the chest of the first bowman prior to lapsing into unconsciousness once more. The Chinaman staggered back on legs that suddenly would not obey him, then crumpled like a discarded linen sheet to the floor.
On the other side of the room Holmes had taken advantage of the distraction to chop the second bowman across the throat, and followed this with an uppercut as accurate as any in the boxing ring.
If Holmes had expected his opponent to drop, however, he was to be sorely disappointed.
Instead, the man took a step backwards and launched a flying kick at Holmes’s head. The height reached was as astonishing as it was unexpected and Holmes only just managed to duck to one side, otherwise the fight would have been over before it properly began.
I would have watched the contest with interest, had I the time to spare, but I realised at about that time that I had been left, unarmed, to face the remaining enormous bodyguard, who pulled a wickedly sharp sword from the belt at his waist and walked slowly towards me.
I quickly knelt and snatched the crossbow from the hand of the dead bowman, but the bolt had dislodged when he fell and was nowhere to be seen. The delay was almost fatal. I barely managed to get back to my feet before a mighty blow from the bodyguard’s fist sent me spinning across the room and into a set of mahogany bookcases, which shuddered with the impact as my back and head painfully connected.
I lay stunned on the floor and watched a giant set of feet walk towards me, dimly aware of the sound of Holmes still fighting as consciousness slid away from me. I feebly swung an arm in a lamentable attempt to trip my assailant but he stood just outside my reach and laughed down at me. Still, I had no intention of giving up, and swung at him again, with as much success – but the tips of my fingers as they traversed their arc brushed against something sharp and metallic.
The crossbow bolt had rolled beneath the bottom shelf and wedged itself between the base of the bookcase and the floor. If I moved another six inches closer I might extract it and I would at least have a weapon, but it might as well have been back in Baker Street for all the use it was likely to be, with the giant raising his sword high above his head, ready for the killing blow.
In retrospect, I should have wondered about Frogmorton before he saved my life by running into the room and shooting the bodyguard in the neck. Even that might not have been enough to kill a man of such prodigious size, but as he wobbled I rolled backwards, grasped the crossbow bolt in my right hand then, spinning back round and terrified I would pass out before I completed my task, stabbed the point into the giant’s thigh.
The bright geyser of blood from the wound confirmed that I had hit the femoral artery. Within seconds the bodyguard had swayed backwards and within a minute he was sprawled unmoving across a table. The last thing I saw before blackness engulfed me was Holmes kneeling at my side…
Nineteen
There is something primal about battle which causes even the most bitter of enemies to discover common ground in its aftermath. I have seen it on the fields of Afghanistan and in English street brawls, and now I saw it in the drawing room of a Home Counties country house.
I had come to my senses to find myself sitting in an unfamiliar armchair before a roaring fire, with Holmes sitting opposite me in a high-backed wooden seat, a look of concern etched on his face, which disappeared as soon as I opened my eyes fully.
‘The Lord of Strange Deaths?’ I asked as soon as Holmes had handed me a glass of water and I had moistened my dry throat. My head thumped with all the force of a set of steam pistons and every thought seemed leaden and slow, but I had too many questions to consider resting.
‘Gone,’ Holmes replied. ‘It does not sit well with me, but I was faced with the stark choice of aiding you and Zenith, or chasing after the Lord. I chose the former, and I do not believe I was mistaken. It may interest you to know, however, that when I sent Miss Rhodes to contact Scotland Yard I did mention that the men they should particularly look out for are a group of Orientals.
‘Even if the police do catch him, the government will eventual
ly be forced to release him, I imagine. He is an important man in China, and it would not be what Mycroft would call “politically expedient” to detain him.’ He shrugged. ‘The inconvenience and embarrassment will be marked, though.’
‘He did not get what he came for?’
‘No, he did not. He left with his tail between his legs, thanks to the sterling efforts of Mr Frogmorton who, for all his past failings, is quite the warrior when roused.’
‘He saved my life, Holmes. Where is he? Was he injured?’
‘No, he is quite well. In point of fact, he has gone down to the station to await the arrival of Lestrade and Miss Rhodes.’
I winced a little at this snippet of information, but there were more important things on my mind at that moment. My problem was articulating them through the thick fog that still clouded my thoughts.
‘Zenith?’
‘Present, Dr Watson!’
Zenith stepped into my eye line and gave a bow. His cloak was gone, and there was a rent in the shoulder of his coat through which I could see the white of a bandage, but otherwise he was exactly as he had first appeared in the library.
He settled himself across from me and, without further preamble, turned to Holmes and said, ‘The good Doctor is now awake. It is time for you to fulfil your side of our bargain. Tell me about England’s Treasure.’
I struggled to rise but a wave of dizziness pushed me back into my seat. ‘What are you doing, Holmes?’ I asked.
I was aware that Zenith had saved us both, in all likelihood, but even so I could not believe that Sherlock Holmes would aid a criminal to steal what might well be a national treasure.
Zenith raised the glass he was holding in a slow salute. ‘You are very tenacious, Doctor, and very dutiful. But Mr Holmes and I have come to an agreement that suits us both and satisfies the honour of all involved. For myself I have no desire whatever to embarrass Her Majesty or any member of her family. But I am a curious man, when all is said and done.’
Albino's Treasure Page 20
