The Fall: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller Book 2)
Page 1
Contents
Title
Copyright
Other Books
South Downs
Two Men
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 10
Day 14
Day 19
Day 40
Day 49
Day 52
Day 53
Day 54
Day 55
Day 57
Day 58
Day 59
Day 62
Day 63
Day 64
Day 66
Day 67
Day 69
Day 71
Day 74
Day 81
Day 82
Day 89
Day 90
Day 91
Day 93
Day 94
Day 104
Day 131
Day 142
Day 151
Day 152
Day 160
Day 171
Day 183
Day 184
To the Continent
Anton
The Fallen
Preview of The Journey
Credits
Acknowledgements
The Fall
by
Annelie Wendeberg
The Fall
Annelie Wendeberg
Copyright 2014 by Annelie Wendeberg
Illustrated Amazon Edition
This is a work of fiction. Yet, I tried to write it as close to the truth as possible. Any resemblance to anyone alive is pure coincidence.
Mr Sherlock Holmes, Dr John Watson, and Mrs Hudson are characters by Sir A. C. Doyle. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of my imagination, or lived/happened/occurred a very long time ago. I herewith apologise to all the (now dead) people I used in my novel. I also apologise to all Sherlock Holmes fans should they feel their Holmes got abused by me, too.
The cover is an image from The Queen’s London. A Pictorial and Descriptive Record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks, and Scenery of the Great Metropolis in the fifty-ninth year of the Reign of her Majesty Queen Victoria. Publisher: Cassell & Company, London. 1896. Author’s archives.
Books by this author:
The Devil’s Grin (An Anna Kronberg Thriller, Book 1)
The Fall (An Anna Kronberg Thriller, Book 2)
The Journey (An Anna Kronberg Thriller, Book 3)
Moriarty (Illustrated Compiler of The Devil’s Grin, The Fall, & The Journey)
The Lion’s Courtship (A Prequel to The Devil’s Grin)
Find out more at:
www.anneliewendeberg.com
Full moon over the South Downs, 1880. (1)
— two men —
And soon the rotting corpses tainted the air and poisoned the water supply, and the stench was so overwhelming that hardly one in several thousand was in a position to flee the remains of the Tartar army. Gabrielle De’ Mussi, 1348, on the Siege of Caffa
For this moment, this one moment, we are together. I press you to me. Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. I sob, I sob. Virginia Woolf
Wednesday Night, October 22nd, 1890
Something cold pushed my head into the straw mattress. Two sharp clicks and the smell of metal sent my heart slamming against my chest. The gun’s mouth was pressed flat against my temple. If fired, the bullet would rip straight through my brain, driving blood and nerve tissue through the mattress down onto the floor. If the gun were tipped a little, the bullet would circle inside my skull, leaving a furrow in the bone and pulp in its wake.
‘Dr Kronberg,’ a voice echoed through the dark. ‘Get up slowly, if you please.’
I opened my eyes.
‘Sit over there,’ he rasped, waving a lantern towards the table. I obeyed and the small chair gave its usual quiet squeak. A match was struck. Sulphur stung my nostrils. A candle cast the room into unsteady light.
A man of approximately fifty years sat across from me. A face chiselled in hardwood, cracked by tension and ageing, his demeanour commanding strict obedience.
‘You are good at hiding,’ said he. Waves of goosebumps rolled over my skin. He looked at me, waiting for a reply that did not come. What could I possibly say? Obviously, I hadn’t been hiding well enough. My tongue glued itself to my palate. The wrong word might end my life in an instant.
Suddenly, my ears picked up a sound. The floorboards had produced a lone pop, raising the hair on my neck as though to assess the danger lurking behind me.
‘Last spring, a group of medical doctors were captured by the police and led to trial. Only one month later, they found their end at the gallows,’ he said.
I remembered that day — sitting on the very same chair I had read about the hanging of sixteen medical doctors along with the superintendent of Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum and four of his guards. What a spectacle that must have been for the Londoners! Details about their deeds, however, the abductions, murders, and medical experiments on paupers, had not been reported.
The tiny hairs on my neck ached, pricked by a noise so low I almost missed it — calm breathing, just behind me and far up.
‘All but one,’ the man interrupted.
Shock had broadened and sharpened my senses in the most exhilarating fashion. My first assumption was that the man behind me was a backup, someone to break my neck, if needed. I coughed, flicked my gaze towards the window and back again. For a short moment I closed my eyes, examining the reflection burned into my mind: the small prick of candlelight, the table, the man sitting, myself in a nightgown, and a tall, slender figure behind me. I opened my eyes, hoping the behaviour of the man facing me would tell me more about the other.
‘We were surprised to learn that Dr Anton Kronberg overpowered Mr Sherlock Holmes and made his escape.’
My hands grew cold. It finally clicked — the Club. Holmes had given that dubious title to the group of medical doctors who tested deadly bacteria on workhouse inmates. It had taken us months to round them up. Yet we were unable to identify the head of the organisation who had caused so much suffering and death. Ever since my escape to the Downs, I had feared he would find me and take revenge. I eyed the man in front of me, wondering why he talked to me at all and what might be coming before he pulled the trigger.
‘We were even more surprised as we found Anton Kronberg — a carpenter in a German village. An old man with a single child — a daughter of exactly your age, Doctor Anna Kronberg.’ He flashed a smile, displaying a row of yellow teeth.
I made an effort to slow my frantic heart, trying not to think of my father or what might have been done to him. The man behind me seemed calm; his breathing had not changed in the least.
‘You do say rather little.’
‘You have not asked a single question,’ I croaked.
No audible reaction from the man behind. The man facing me smiled a thin line and fingered his gun. His eyes were glued to my face, while mine flicked between his and the weapon’s hammer. He repeatedly pulled and released it. Click-click. Click-click.
‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Will you admit to these accusations?’ Click-click.
‘Your accusations must have escaped my notice.’
The clicking stopped. The man’s eyes flicked sideways and back at me again, as though he wanted to check with the other man, but could not reveal that man’s presence by looking at him directly. Behind me, I heard a faint smack. It made me think of wet lips being pulled apart. He must be smiling. For a second I had the insane thought it was Holmes.
‘No,’ I answered.
He waited. We both did. And then I made a mistake. ‘What does a man from the military want from me?’ It was only a guess based on the few things I had seen.
He growled, ‘What do you know?’ before noticing that he, too, had made a mistake.
‘Not much. Only that you broke into my cottage to press your beloved gun to my head and tell me things I already know. And there is a man behind me who is very calm, approximately six feet tall and very lean. He is most likely the brain, while you are the brute.’
There was no time to flinch before his fist hit my temple.
Whispers penetrated my ears. I heard a groan; it came from inside my chest. My head drummed arrhythmically, throwing blue flashes of light on the inside of my eyelids. I lay flat on my mattress, my hands bound across my stomach. The whispering stopped. I opened my eyes and turned my head. Both men looked at me.
‘Thank you,’ I said. The taller of the two pulled his eyebrows up and seemed a little amused.
‘For showing your face,’ I explained.
‘You do realise that having seen me will likely diminish any chances of your survival?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Shall we continue, then? How did you overpower Mr Holmes?’
My throat tightened. How could I describe it? It was a long story and I would surely not tell the whole truth.
‘I kissed him.’
His eyes widened and he threw his head back, barking a single laugh.
A second later, he recovered from his emotional outbreak. Turning to the other man he said, ‘Sebastian, would you be so kind as to make us tea?’
Sebastian left. I heard a match being struck, the hiss of the gas lamp followed by the clonking of earthenware. The hearth was still hot. I used it to get a little warmth into the cottage during chilly autumn nights. In winter, I would have used the fireplace, too. But there wouldn’t be a winter for me here.
More wood was thrown onto the embers. The tall man observed me silently, and I realised he had come to decide whether I should be shot immediately or maybe a little later.
While we waited for the tea, he said, ‘We learned a few things about you, Dr Kronberg. But there are gaps I’d like filled.’ He bent over me, grabbed my neck and pulled me up into a sitting position.
Then, he commenced his speech. ‘You lived in London disguised as a male medical doctor for four years. You must have met Mr Holmes over the course of summer or autumn 1889, is that correct?’
I nodded, knowing my face showed my shock.
‘A little more information would help extend your lifespan.’
I cleared my throat. ‘I met Mr Holmes at Hampton Water Treatment Works in the summer of last year. A cholera victim had been found floating in the water and Scotland Yard wanted us to provide expert opinions. Mr Holmes saw through my disguise, but strangely decided not to report me to the police. The corpse bore signs of abduction and maltreatment, but the evidence was weak and the Yard did not think it worth investigating.’
I looked up at him. He was waiting for me to continue. And so I did, weaving lies and facts into one, ‘There was very little to go on, and Mr Holmes soon lost interest in the case. Or so I thought. Meanwhile, I did research on tetanus at Guy’s and later visited Robert Koch’s laboratory in Berlin. I was able to obtain tetanus germs in pure culture; it was a sensation, and the papers reported it widely. You are aware of this, of course.’
He tilted his head and I continued. ‘Only a few days later, Dr Gregory Stark invited me to give a presentation at Cambridge Medical School and I came into contact with all members of what Mr Holmes later called the Club.’
‘The Club? How charming!’ He chuckled.
‘I knew it couldn’t have been Bowden,’ I said. ‘You were the man at the centre.’
Holmes and I had believed that Dr Bowden was the head of the Club. Doubts about the importance of his role surfaced only at the very end of our investigation. But we could prove nothing and had no clue who the leader was. Until today.
‘I am merely a bystander, or assistant, so to speak.’
‘The assistant who pulls the strings?’
‘Perhaps,’ he said. I trembled as he bent closer yet again and pulled a blanket over my shoulders. I killed my hens the same way — I calmed them, caressed their heads and backs, then broke their necks and cut their throats.
‘You infiltrated the Club and brought them down with the help of Sherlock Holmes,’ he stated.
I forced my eyes to look into his and remain steady. ‘Not quite, although in hindsight, even I could possibly interpret it as such.’
He leaned back, waving his hand invitingly.
‘Just after I returned from Berlin I was mugged and badly injured. I needed a surgeon, but whom could I have asked? Certainly not my colleagues! So I told a friend to find Dr Watson. That is how I met Holmes again, and only two days later he told me about his suspicions — that someone had been conducting medical experiments on paupers in Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum. I thought he was out of his mind.’
‘Pray proceed,’ he urged, as though time were running out.
‘I had started working at London Medical School, developing vaccines against tetanus. We also had the prospect of a cholera vaccine. But we knew that wouldn’t come without sacrifices.’ I shoved away the picture of the soiled and dying woman. ‘Holmes kept insisting that what I was doing was wrong and I should instead help him arrest my colleagues.’
‘Mr Holmes would never have asked you for your assistance. You are a liar, my dear,’ he declared. A reaction I had anticipated.
‘He would have never asked such a thing from just anyone, you are correct. But he and I are made of the same material. He was fascinated by a woman as intelligent as he and equally strong-willed. And I fell for him because I had never met such an observant and sharp man in my life. That is the reason I saved his life in Broadmoor and the reason he let me go.’ And I remembered the kiss, that singular kiss, and turned my gaze away to look out of the small window where night slowly retreated and the sky paled to greet the new day. Would I see the sun? Maybe it did not matter much. I had seen it many times already.
I looked back at him and said, ‘I know you want something from me, or you would not have given me time to utter a single word tonight. If you allow me to make a guess — you need a bacteriologist to continue your work. I am your first choice, but you do not trust me. Naturally.’
He smiled again. It was worse than a gun pressed to my head.
‘No, I do not trust you in the least. And yes, I require the services of a bacteriologist. Although you are the best to be found in England, you are also the one bearing the greatest risk. I need to be certain I have your loyalty.’
What could I possibly offer? My life? He already had it in his hands.
‘Of course, you could choose to be shot right away. But decide quickly now, or I will do it for you.’
I gazed down at my hands, anticipating the moment I would drive a blade into the man’s throat. Slowly, I let go of all the air in my lungs.
‘Am I to isolate pathogens for warfare?’
Another warm smile.
‘You remind me of him,’ I whispered. His stunned expression opened a wide spectrum of possibilities for me. A second later he had blinked the shock away.
‘You have my loyalty,’ I answered.
All I got as a response was a scant nod. ‘Drink your tea,’ he said, filling my cup.
Finally I noticed the peculiar situation — the brute had made tea, the brain served it. I gazed at the two. ‘What else is in it?’
‘Chloral,’ the taller answered lightly.
/> ‘Ah,’ I exhaled. ‘How much?’
‘A few drops.’
I nodded and took the cup. The harmless-looking tea produced circular ripples just before I tipped it into my mouth. The brew carried a peculiar sting. ‘You never introduced yourself,’ I noted.
‘My apologies. This is my friend and trustworthy companion Colonel Sebastian Moran, and I am Professor James Moriarty.’
Slowly, my surroundings unhinged. I looked at the window which seemed unnaturally far off. Had it not been rectangular a few minutes ago?
‘I forgot to mention a small detail,’ said Moriarty, his voice reverberating in my skull, words melting into one another. ‘By the time you regain consciousness, your father will be my hostage. Should you do anything that could jeopardise our work or my safety, he will die immediately and, I must say, rather painfully.’
The world tipped and the table approached with shocking speed.
— day 1 —
Nausea hit as I opened my eyes. The ceiling wafted from left to right. The taste of vomit bit my tongue. I touched my face and throat, but found nothing soiled. The nightgown I wore was unfamiliar, as was the room and the bed I was in. Panic clamped me down.
I slapped my face, rubbed my eyes, and slowly, memories trickled back. I remembered two names — Professor James Moriarty, Colonel Sebastian Moran. I had never heard of them before…was it…yesterday?
The last thing Moriarty had said before the poison swallowed me echoed in my head and re-awoke the terror. My father was being held hostage! Sweat stung my skin. My breath came in bursts. I pushed myself upright, fighting to stay conscious. Bile welled up. I forced it back down. Reality seemed to crack. I could almost see fissures forming around me. My throat constricted and a sob squeezed through. Shaking, I collapsed back onto the bed.