‘The man is indeed dangerous,’ Mycroft said, reaching with a hand as ponderous as a grizzly’s paw for his snuffbox. ‘It is no exaggeration to say that he is the most dangerous man in the world, as far as the Allies are concerned, anyway.’
‘Greater than Moriarty was?’ Holmes said, his eyes lighting up.
‘Much greater,’ replied Mycroft. He breathed in the snuff, sneezed, and wiped his jacket with a large red handkerchief. His watery grey eyes had lost their inward-turning look and burned as if they were searchlights probing the murkiness around a distant target.
‘Von Bork has stolen the formula of a Hungarian refugee scientist employed by our government in Cairo. The scientist recently reported to his superiors the results of certain experiments he had been making on a certain type of bacillus peculiar to the land of the Pharaohs. He had discovered that this bacillus could be modified by chemical means to eat only sauerkraut. When a single bacillus was placed upon sauerkraut, it multiplied at a fantastic rate. It would become within sixty minutes a colony which would consume a pound of sauerkraut to its last molecule.
‘You see the implications. The bacillus is what the scientists call a mutated type. After treatment with a certain chemical both its form and function are changed. Should we drop vials containing this mutation in Germany, or our agents directly introduce the germs, the entire nation would shortly become sauerkrautless. Both their food supply and their morale would be devastated.
‘But Von Bork somehow got wind of this, stole the formula, destroyed the records and the chemicals with fire, and murdered the only man who knew how to mutate the bacillus.
‘However, his foul deed was no sooner committed than detected. A tight cordon was thrown around Cairo, and we have reason to believe that Von Bork is hiding in the native quarter somewhere. We can’t keep that net tight for long, my dear Sherlock, and that is why you must be gotten there quickly to track him down. England expects much from you, brother, and much, I am sure, will be given.’
I turned to Holmes, who looked as shaken as I felt. ‘Surely, my dear fellow, we are not going to Cairo?’
‘Surely, indeed, Watson,’ he replied. ‘Who else could sniff out the Teutonic fox, who else could trap him? We are not so old that we cannot settle Von Bork’s hash once and for all.’
Holmes, I observed, was still in the habit of using Americanisms, I suppose because he had thrown himself so thoroughly into the role of an Irish-American while tracking down Von Bork in that adventure which I have entitled ‘His Last Bow.’
‘Unless,’ he said, ‘you really feel that the old warhorse should not leave his comfortable pasture?’
‘I am as good a man as I was a year and a half ago,’ I protested. ‘Have you ever known me to call it quits?’
He chuckled and patted my shoulder, a gesture so rare that my heart warmed.
‘Good old Watson.’
Mycroft called for cigars, and while we were lighting up, he said, ‘You two will leave tonight from a Royal Naval Air Service strip outside London. You will be flown by two stages to Cairo, by two different pilots, I should say. The fliers have been carefully selected because their cargo will be precious. The Huns may already know your destination. If they do, they will make desperate efforts to intercept you, but our fliers are the pick of the lot. They are fighter pilots, but they will be flying bombers. The first pilot, the man who’ll take you under his wing tonight, is a young fellow. You may know of him, at least you knew his great-uncle.’
He paused and said, ‘You remember, of course, the late Duke of Greyminster?’
‘I will never forget the size of the fee I collected from him,’ Holmes said, and he chuckled.
‘Your pilot, Leftenant John Drummond, is the adopted son of the present Lord Greyminster,’ Mycroft continued. ‘But wait!’ I said. ‘Haven’t I heard some rather strange things about Lord Greyminster? Doesn’t he live in Africa?’
‘Oh, yes, in darkest Africa,’ Mycroft said. ‘In a tree house, I believe.’
‘Lord Greyminster lives in a tree house?’ I said.
‘Ah, yes,’ Mycroft said. ‘Greyminster is living in a tree house with an ape.’
‘Lord Greyminster is living with an ape?’ I said. ‘A female ape, I trust.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Mycroft said. ‘There’s nothing queer about Lord Greyminster, you know.’
‘I have heard,’ Merrivale said, ‘that there is another feral man, that is, a human being raised by animals from infancy, in Africa at this time. I refer to the Indian baronet, Sir Mowgli of the Seeonee. He, as I understand it, was raised by wolves, not apes.’
‘What is he doing in Africa?’ Holmes said. ‘India is his native land, and its central area his domain.’
‘You haven’t read the recent accounts of him in the Times?’
‘No. I read only accounts of crimes and the agony column.’
I do not know why Holmes lied about this. It had long been evident to me and the readers of my accounts of his adventures that he reads almost everything in many London and some foreign journals.
‘He is in central Africa with an American film company which is making a movie based on his life. He is playing himself as a boy of eighteen, though he is forty-three years old or thereabouts. His leading lady is the British actress, Countess Mary Anne Liza Murdstone-Malcon, better known under her stage name of Liza Borden.’
‘Making a movie? During wartime?’ I said. ‘Isn’t the baronet a major in the Army?’
‘There are neither British nor German forces in that area,’ Merrivale said. ‘Major Sir Mowgli is on leave to make this film, which I understand contains much anti-German propaganda.’
Mycroft slammed his palm against the top of the table, startling all of us and making me wonder what had caused this unheard-of violence from the usually phlegmatic Mycroft.
‘Enough of this time-wasting chitchat!’ he said. ‘The Empire is crumbling around our ears and we’re talking as if we’re in a pub and all’s well with the world!’
He was right, of course, and all of us, including Holmes, I’m sure, felt abashed. But that conversation was not as irrelevant as we thought at the time.
An hour later, after receiving verbal instruction from Mycroft and Merrivale, we left in the limousine for the secret airstrip outside London.
II
Our chauffeur drove off the highway onto a narrow dirt road which wound through a dense woods of oaks. After a half-mile, during which we passed many signs warning trespassers that this was military property, we were halted by a barbed wire gate across the road. Armed R.N.A.S. guards checked our documents and then waved us on. Ten minutes later, we emerged from the woods onto a very large meadow. At its northern end was a tall hill, the lower part of which gaped as if it had a mouth which was open with surprise. The surprise was that the opening was not to a cavern but to a hangar which had been hollowed out of the living rock of the hill. As we got out of the car men pushed from the hangar a huge aeroplane, the wings of which were folded against the fuselage.
After that, events proceeded swiftly—too swiftly for me, I admit, and perhaps a trifle too swiftly for Holmes. After all, we had been born about a half century before the first areoplane had flown. We were not sure that the motor-car, a recent invention from our viewpoint, was altogether a beneficial device. And here we were being conducted by a commodore toward the monstrously large aircraft. Within a few minutes, according to him, we would be within its fuselage and leaving the good earth behind and beneath us.
Even as we walked toward it, its biplanes were unfolded and locked into place. By the time we reached it, its propellors had been spun by mechanics and the two motors had caught fire. Thunder rolled from its rotaries, and flames spat from its exhausts.
Whatever Holmes’ true feelings, and his skin was rather grey, he could not suppress his driving curiosity, his need to know all that was relevant. However, he had to shout at the commodore to be heard above the roar of the warming-up rotors.
‘
The Admiralty ordered it to be outfitted for your use,’ the commodore said. His expression told us that he thought that we must be very special people indeed if this areoplane was equipped just for us.
‘It’s the prototype model of the Handley Page 0/100,’ he shouted. ‘The first of the “bloody paralyser of an aeroplane” the Admiralty ordered for the bombing of Germany. It has two two-hundred-fifty-horsepower Rolls-Royce Eagle II motors, as you see. It has an enclosed crew cabin. The engine nacelles and the front part of the fuselage were armour-plated, but the armour has been removed to give the craft more speed.’
‘What?’ Holmes yelled. ‘Removed?’
‘Yes,’ the commodore said. ‘It shouldn’t make any difference to you. You’ll be in the cabin, and it was never armour-plated.’
Holmes and I exchanged glances. The commodore continued, ‘Extra petrol tanks have been installed to give the craft extended range. These will be just forward of the cabin . . .’
‘And if we crash?’ Holmes said.
‘Poof!’ the commodore said, smiling. ‘No pain, my dear sir. If the smash doesn’t kill you, the flaming petrol sears the lungs and causes instantaneous death. The only difficulty is in identifying the corpse. Charred, you know.’ We climbed up a short flight of wooden mobile steps and stepped into the cabin. The commodore closed the door, thus somewhat muting the roar. He pointed out the bunks that had been installed for our convenience and the W.C. This contained a small washbowl with a gravity-feed water tank and several thundermugs bolted to the deck.
‘The prototype can carry a four-man crew,’ the commodore said. ‘There is, as you have observed, a cockpit for the nose gunner, with the pilot in a cockpit directly behind him. There is a cockpit near the rear for another machine gunner, and there is a trap-door through which a machine gun may be pointed to cover the rear area under the plane. You are standing on the trap door.’
Holmes and I moved away, though not, I trust, with unseemly haste.
‘We estimate that with its present load the craft can fly at approximately eight-five miles per hour. Under ideal conditions, of course. We have decided to eliminate the normal armament of machine guns in order to lighten the load. In fact, to this end, all of the crew except the pilot and co-pilot are eliminated. The pilot, I believe, is bringing his personal arms: a dagger, several pistols, a carbine, and his specially mounted Spandau machine gun, a trophy, by the way, taken from a Fokker E-l which Captain Wentworth downed when he dropped an ash-tray on the pilot’s head. Wentworth has also brought in several cases of hand grenades and a case of Scotch whisky.’
The door, or port, or whatever they call a door in the Royal Naval Air Service, opened, and a young man of medium height but with very broad shoulders and a narrow waist, entered. He wore the uniform of the R.N.A.S. He was a handsome young man with eyes as steely grey and as magnetic as Holmes’. There was also something strange about them. If I had known how strange, I would have stepped off that plane at that very second. Holmes would have preceded me.
He shook hands with us and spoke a few words. I was astonished to hear a flat midwestern American accent. When Wentworth had disappeared on some errand toward the stern, Holmes asked the commodore, ‘Why wasn’t a British pilot assigned to us? No doubt this Yank volunteer is quite capable, but really. . .’
‘There is only one pilot who can match Wentworth’s aerial genius. He is an American in the service of the Tsar. The Russians know him as Kentov, though that is not his real name. They refer to him with the honorific of Chorniy Oryol, the French call him V’Aigle Noir and the Germans are offering a hundred thousand marks for Der Schwarz Adler, dead or alive. The English translation is The Black Eagle.’
‘Is he a Negro?’ I said.
‘No, the adjective refers to his sinister reputation,’ replied the commodore. ‘Kentov will take you on from Marseilles. Your mission is so important that we borrowed him from the Russians. Wentworth is being used only for the comparatively short haul since he is scheduled to carry out another mission soon. If you should crash, and survive, he would be able to guide you through enemy territory better than anyone we know of, excluding Kentov. Wentworth is an unparalleled master of disguise . . .’
‘Really?’ Holmes said, drawing himself up and frostily regarding the officer.
Aware that he had made a gaffe, the commodore changed the subject. He showed us how to don the bulky parachutes, which were to be kept stored under a bunk.
‘What happened to young Drummond?’ I asked him. ‘Lord Greyminster’s adopted son? Wasn’t he supposed to be our pilot?’
‘Oh, he’s in hospital,’ he said, smiling. ‘Nothing serious. Several broken ribs and clavicle, a liver that may be ruptured, a concussion and possible fracture of the skull. The landing gear of his craft collapsed as he was making a deadstick landing, and he slid into a brick wall. He sends his regards.’
Captain Wentworth suddenly reappeared. Muttering to himself, he looked under our blankets and sheets and then under the bunks. Holmes said, ‘What is it, captain?’ Wentworth straightened up and looked at us with those strange grey eyes. ‘Thought I heard bats,’ he said. ‘Wings fluttering. Giant bats. But no sign of them.’
He left the cabin then, heading down a narrow tunnel which had been specially installed so that the pilot could get into the cockpit without having to go outside the craft. His co-pilot, a Lieutenant Nelson, had been warming the motors. The commodore left a minute later after wishing us luck. He looked as if he thought we’d need it.
Presently, Wentworth phoned in to us and told us to lie down in the bunks or grab hold of something solid. We were getting ready to take off. We got into the bunks, and I stared at the ceiling while the plane slowly taxied to the starting point, the motors were ‘revved’ up, and then it began to bump along the meadow. Within a short time its tail had lifted and we were suddenly aloft. Neither Holmes nor I could endure just lying there any more. We had to get up and look through the window in the door. The sight of the earth dropping away in the dusk, of houses, cows, and wagons, and brooks and then the Thames itself dwindling caused us to be both uneasy and exhilarated.
Holmes was still grey, but I am certain that it was not fear of altitude that affected him. It was being completely dependent upon someone else, being not in control of the situation. On the ground Holmes was his own master. Here his life and limb were in the hands of two strangers, one of whom had already impressed us as being very strange. It also become obvious only too soon that Holmes, no matter how steely his nerves and how calm his digestion on earth, was subject to airsickness.
The plane flew on and on, crossing the channel in the dark, crossing the westerly and then the south-western part of France. We landed on a strip lighted with flames. Holmes wanted to get out and stretch his legs but Wentworth forbade that.
‘Who knows what’s prowling around here, waiting to identify you and then to crouch and leap, destroying utterly?’ he said.
After he had gone back to the cockpit, I said, ‘Holmes, don’t you think he puts the possibility of spies in somewhat strange language? And didn’t you smell Scotch on his breath? Should a pilot drink while flying?’
‘Frankly,’ Holmes said, ‘I’m too sick to care,’ and he lay down outside the door to the W.C.
Midnight came with the great plane boring through the dark moonless atmosphere. Lieutenant Nelson crawled into his bunk with the cheery comment that we would be landing at a drome outside Marseilles by dawn. Holmes groaned. I bade the fellow, who seemed quite a decent sort, good-night. Presently I fell asleep, but I awoke some time later with a start. As an old veteran of Holmes’ campaigns, however, I knew better than to reveal my awakened state. While I rolled over to one side as if I were doing it in my sleep, I watched through narrowed eyes.
A sound, or a vibration, or perhaps it was an old veteran’s sixth sense, had awakened me. Across the aisle, illumined by the single bulb overhead, stood Lieutenant Nelson. His handsome youthful face bore an expression which the circu
mstances certainly did not seem to call for. He looked so malignant that my heart began thumping and perspiration poured out from me despite the cold outside the blankets. In his hand was a revolver, and when he lifted it my heart almost stopped. But he did not turn toward us. Instead he started toward the front end, toward the narrow tunnel leading to the pilot’s cockpit.
Since his back was to me, I leaned over the edge of the bunk and reached down to get hold of Holmes. I had no need to warn him. Whatever his physical condition, he was still the same alert fox—an old fox, it is true, but still a fox. His head reached up and touched mine, and within a few seconds he was out of the bunk and on his feet. In his one hand he held his trusty Webley, which he raised to point at Nelson’s back, crying out to halt at the same time.
I do not know if he heard Holmes above the roar of the motors. If he did, he did not have time to consider it. There was a report, almost inaudible in the din, and Nelson fell back and slid a few feet along the floor backward. Blood gushed from his shattered forehead.
The dim light fell on the face of Captain Wentworth, whose eyes seemed to blaze, though I am certain that was an optical illusion. The face was momentarily twisted, and then it smoothed out, and he stepped out into the light. I got down from the bunk and with Holmes approached him. I could smell the heavy, though fragrant, odour of excellent Scotch on his breath.
Wentworth looked at the revolver in Holmes’ hand, smiled, and said, ‘So—you are not overrated, Mr. Holmes! But I was waiting for him, I expected him to sneak in upon me while I should be concentrating on the instrument board. He thought he’d blow my ass off!’
‘He is, of course, a German spy,’ Holmes said. ‘But how did you determine that he was?’
‘I suspect everybody,’ Wentworth replied. ‘I kept my eye on him, and when I saw him talking over the wireless, I listened in. It was too noisy to hear clearly, but he was talking in German. I caught several words, sckwanz and schweinhund. Undoubtedly, he was informing the Imperial German Military Aviation Service of our location. If he didn’t kill me, then we would be shot down. The Huns must be on their way to intercept us now.’
The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes II Page 9
