“Who did you tell her you were?” I asked suspiciously.
“You,” she answered promptly. “The poor wronged gentleman’s fiancée.”
“Irene!” I could not look at Quentin—an agonizing surge of pleasure made my cheeks bum at Irene’s blithe endorsement of our mock engagement as an actuality to be appropriated for her own purposes—though I was well aware that he looked at me. “And what did you learn as a result of this outrage?”
“Much.” Irene rubbed her palms together in the approved Del Sartian acting method for conveying intense satisfaction.
She resembled a glamorous Lady Macbeth immediately after the Gruesome Deed.
“You see,” she went on, “a woman will confide almost anything to another woman if it involves a matter of the heart. And the treaty has been safely returned—yes, thanks to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Her Percy is now blameless. She could not praise Mr. Holmes more highly. The only trace of sadness was when she confessed that her brother, Joseph, who had recently lost heavily in the stock market and knew that the Russians or the French would pay well to see the document, was the culprit who had taken the treaty, it was thought impulsively.”
“ ‘It was thought,’ “ Godfrey repeated.
“Yes, Casanova?”
“You don’t think it was a spur-of-the-moment theft?”
“No, I most certainly do not, and there is where Mr. Sherlock Holmes has made a fatal mistake. By the way, Joseph was punished for his act by an awful irony. He hid the treaty in his bedroom at Briarbrae—but that was the very room where Percy Phelps was confined when he collapsed at once of brain fever and where he stayed for almost two months. And there the treaty sat, unreachable to either man.
“According to Miss Harrison, Mr. Holmes lured Joseph into attempting to recover the document, then took it by force when Joseph attacked him and fled. Mr. Holmes presented it to Percy over breakfast in Baker Street, after first pretending that the document was unrecoverable. Poor Percy fainted, but luckily Dr. Watson was present to revive him.
“I told you years ago, Nell—” she glanced my way “—that a detective like Mr. Holmes would find association with a physician handy. Suffice it to say that this ‘surprise’ has redeemed Phelps and the Foreign Office. Joseph fled, and no one is minded to apprehend him now that the treaty is recovered. In a matter of weeks the alliance will be public knowledge, anyway.”
“So the treaty matter is closed,” Quentin said. “That has nothing to do with cobras appearing in my Montmartre garret or Dr. Watson’s Paddington consulting room.”
“One would think not,” Irene said demurely.
“One would,” I parroted. “What would Irene think?”
“Ah, Nell, you do anticipate my methods. First there is this puzzling paper we have retrieved from Dr. Watson’s Afghanistan bag. I wonder if he will ever miss it?” She shrugged. “Quentin, you have had time to study it, as you did not nine years ago.”
He lifted it from the marble-topped side table with a shake of his head. “I have played with it until my eyes ache. It is written in Cyrillic Russian, and combines elements of a map and a communication. Frankly, I believe it is a fragment and I cannot make head or tail of it. Certainly it was not worth my pains to preserve it,” he added ruefully.
“It is worth great pains to someone. If it is not for the contents, could it be for the mere fact of its existence?”
Quentin dubiously regarded the heavy, soft paper that wilted in his grasp like a leaf of yellowed cabbage. “Only one person might wish to destroy this, and I know you suspect him of the evildoings. Tiger.”
“Tiger.” She articulated the word with relish. “Whom we suspect to be Captain Sylvester Morgan, whom in turn we now know to be one Colonel Sebastian Moran, late of Her Majesty’s Indian Army. Thank you, Godfrey, for your investigations among the military records.”
He bowed his head slightly and smiled.
I could not help commenting. “This fabled Tiger certainly showed little imagination when it came to false identities.”
“This man secretly wishes credit even for his misdeeds,” Irene answered. “And the long, lashing tail of his arrogance will be the thing that will trip him up. Quentin, does the word ‘Tiger’ appear anywhere on that paper?”
“Why, yes. The salutation. That’s why we had code names.”
“Then if that paper came into hands that could trace the identity of Tiger then and now, it would link him to the Russians?”
“I suppose so,” he answered doubtfully. “Certainly there were rumors that he had been seen in their territories, which is why I suspected him of betraying us at Maiwand. But I can’t prove any of it! No one cares at this late date. The villains have been designated for the history books. The issue is moot.”
“Perhaps not to Tiger,” she replied. “Perhaps not to Tiger’s current activities. Consider that he may protect not the past, but the present and the future. Perhaps he cannot afford the slightest trace of suspicion about him. To prevent it, he would stoop to murder.”
“That would mean,” Quentin said slowly, lifting his abandoned cigar to his lips, “that he had monitored me in Afghanistan and India; that he only sought my life when my existence endangered his current activities and I began my return to Europe, and to England.”
Irene nodded soberly. “Perhaps he did not observe you in person. He was in London in May inquiring about you from your family. He was a spy. He must have had henchmen. Or henchwomen.”
“So it was Tiger—Moran—or his minions who looked up Dr. Watson’s name in the military files in India, and purloined the documents of his service!”
“Yes. Do you see what that means?”
“It means that... that I was safe only so long as I remained abroad; that my journey has brought these attacks on myself, perhaps even on Dr. Watson.”
“My dear Quentin, you are too swift to blame yourself in everything,” Irene rebuked him. “Do you see what it means for the battle at Maiwand? How it colors every incident, from Maclaine’s killing to Dr. Watson’s wounding even as he tended you?”
“My God—” Quentin’s voice was hardly audible. “Even then... even then.”
“What does he mean?” I asked Irene, whose attention was utterly bent on Quentin’s bowed head. “Godfrey?”
Irene swiftly turned to me. “If Tiger/Moran was spying for the Russians in Afghanistan, he not only misled thousands of men into a battle they could only lose, he is responsible for Lieutenant Maclaine’s posthumous slandering.”
“And he hit me over the head after I’d talked to Mac, meaning to kill me!” Quentin exclaimed. “Except—”
“Except that you not only survived,” Irene interjected, “but Tiger later discovered you had taken a paper that was extremely dangerous to him. He suspected you the moment he found the paper missing, of course. He couldn’t risk letting anyone survive to reveal his role in neglecting to report the secondary ravine. Obviously you had told Maclaine about it, or your friend Mac would not have dashed beyond the ordered lines to fire upon the Afghanistan forces.”
Quentin’s head shook dully. He seemed as dazed as when we had found him—or he had found me—in Paris. “Then Tiger saw that I had survived the retreat. You believe that the bullet that wounded Dr. Watson in the shoulder was meant for me?!”
She nodded slowly, watching him. “Most likely. You mentioned dust and confusion. I suspect that Tiger was not among the confused at that time. I doubt he knew you had put the paper in Watson’s medical bag, but now that events have come to a head in London, he knew that he could not take the risk that you had told Watson anything. Some happening here in London in the past year made him see ghosts of the conscience from the past and move to make them ghosts indeed; first you in India and en route to London; then hapless Dr. Watson in Paddington.”
“What about Maclaine’s death?”
Irene reversed direction and paced toward the draperies, resting her chin on her tented fingers. She seemed to change the subjec
t. “Were not the Russians and the British both aching to claim Afghanistan? Would they not attempt to do so by subterfuge if force couldn’t prevail?”
“Of course. The game has gone on for decades. We British had ‘our’ candidate for Khan who would favor our interests; the Russians had theirs. Spies were everywhere, and the Afghans, being long used to treachery in their own ruling families, played both ends against the middle. Who can blame them?”
“In this case, I think the Ayub Khan behaved honorably. He did leave orders for his six British prisoners—Lieutenant Maclaine and the five sepoys—to survive. Instead, Tiger intervened. Dressed as an Afghan and disguised by his desert robes—he hardly needed your command of their language for this work—he swirled into the prisoners’ midst even as the rescuing troops were riding in, and slit Maclaine’s throat.”
Irene stopped and turned, her hands dropping to her sides. “Maclaine’s death was murder, Quentin. Cold-blooded murder in the guise of a casualty of war. With one ferocious stroke Colonel Sebastian Moran virtually beheaded the one credible witness to your suspicions. Maclaine could never testify to the unreported second ravine, testimony that would lead to more damaging investigations.”
“Maclaine murdered. I hadn’t considered that.” Quentin looked up with eyes whose luster had been dulled by shock. “A fiendish use of a fiendish weapon: war itself. Then why did I survive so long?”
“What did you do after the battle?” Irene asked with a terse smile.
He frowned. “I... arrived at Kandahar in one piece, which was a significant achievement. They needed a scout to try for headquarters in India, so I volunteered. My suspicions about Tiger were only that, and no one but Maclaine could confirm them. I knew Mac had been taken prisoner—there were witnesses—but his death would not come for another month. They gave me a horse, and I made my way to the new railway at Sinjini and then on to Peshawar in India, where I collapsed.”
“Hence the medal,” Irene interrupted him, “not for the collapse but for the deeds before it.”
Her words scarcely touched him. “I had recovered by the time of the relief of Kandahar at the end of August and was gone long before the wounded from Maiwand were transported to Peshawar.”
“So you and Dr. Watson never crossed paths again?” Godfrey asked.
“No. News of Maclaine’s dreadful death came to Peshawar before the wounded, of course. I thought only that a witness to the treachery was dead by an ironic stroke, not by... murder. Yet, spying was still needed, and the waste of lives at Maiwand had sickened me.
“I went out, as commanded, into the godforsaken wasteland, which was still sweeter to me than the ruin we had made of ourselves and our enemies at Maiwand. Out of sight, out of mind. Everyone seemed to forget about me. Eventually, I was honorably discharged.” Quentin laughed bitterly. “What a phrase for an honorless place and time! I took my bit of brass and lived where I wished, among those I liked.”
“And your life was never threatened?”
He eyed Irene with a sudden glint. “Many, many times, but not by anyone European, and most often by nothing human. Why did Tiger spare me then?”
“He had better things to do, and he found you no threat as long as you remained in the wilds. He probably supposed that you would never return to civilization as he knew it.”
Quentin nodded. “I would have struck some as a broken man. Life was simpler with those complicated people of the steppes. Goat cheese and salty tea and hospitality with a vengeance, if they were not trying to kill you for your boots or a bit of brass.” He shook his head.
Godfrey—at last—extinguished his cigar, rather thoughtfully. “What events here have compelled Moran to reach back into the past?”
Irene strode to the marble-topped table to pick up her cigarette holder arid fit it with an Egyptian cigarette. Quentin leaped up to light a lucifer for her, a useless gallantry that made Godfrey smile like a complacent cat. A woman who had shot a cobra needed no help striking a match.
As soon as Irene had drawn a veil of smoke around her, she spoke again. “Recall my most extraordinary invitation chez Sarah.”
“There was nothing at all extraordinary about it,” I said promptly. “You are invited to that address all too frequently, in my opinion.”
“Perhaps.” Irene shrugged. “Yet never at the behest of the Empress of All the Russias. Why? Surely not because she wished to meet an obscure English barrister’s wife who was known to sing a little.”
“I hope,” Godfrey put in, “that you mean that the wife is obscure, not the barrister.”
“Of course I do,” Irene said with a bow. “You are gaining quite a reputation in Paris.”
“Irene,” I interrupted, my eyes on Quentin’s distracted visage, “we did not come all this way to sharpen fine points between ourselves. Can you not simply come out with it?”
“But it is so much more amusing to edge up to the obvious, rather than pouncing outright upon it!”
“I see nothing so obvious that it merits pouncing upon,” I returned.
“My command performance before the Empress was an excuse. She no more wished to meet or hear me than she wished to sail a balloon over Lombardy! Obviously her influence was used so that ‘Captain Morgan’ could inspect us. He knew that we had sheltered Quentin Stanhope; he wanted to know why, and he wanted to gauge our mettle. Like any good hunter, he studied the lay of the land and the disposition of his prey.”
“Why should so dreadful a man have influence over an Empress?” I demanded.
Quentin came to life. “If you mean, Irene, that Tiger is still spying for St. Petersburg, and I am now certain that he is, it would be no great thing for the Russian embassy to convey his wishes to the traveling monarch. Royal figures often smooth the path for clandestine subterfuge. They are told nothing of the true reason for such requests, only that they are necessary to the state, and think nothing more of them.”
Irene nodded. “Then, I ask, why has this Moran now made his headquarters in London? He has indeed, for once Godfrey found out his real name he immediately returned to The Frontier Fusiliers and discovered the hunting club to which Moran belongs, the Anglo-Indian. His membership dates to more than a year ago.”
“He has business here.” Quentin leaped up to join Irene in pacing. “Why had I not thought of it? He is English by birth. He could do the Russians inestimable service—he could do England irreparable harm—in London. With his hunting credentials and his military title, no one would suspect him. He is the perfect Russian agent because he is not Russian!”
“Honestly, Irene,” I put in, “you have asked an excessive number of questions but you have been remarkably stingy with answers. I believe you do not know precisely why this Colonel Moran is here.”
“But I do,” she retorted. “He has been the key agent in the case which Sherlock Holmes thinks that he has just solved: the stolen naval treaty. Moran may even be a double agent representing Russia and France; both nations yearn to glimpse that interesting document. More likely, I think that he represents only himself, planning to award the treaty to the highest bidder.”
“But Joseph Harrison took it!” I objected. “You said his own sister admitted that.”
“Joseph Harrison took it, and for the reason that she gave: he was in debt because of bad investments. Yet Joseph Harrison never had the sophistication to deal with the embassies of foreign nations. He was recruited for the task by Colonel Moran, who may even have arranged for his investment disaster. Moran has used agents before: remember the striking but nameless blonde woman at Sarah’s soiree? Was she not possibly among the strollers near Notre Dame when Quentin was injected with poison? I never forget a stunning ensemble.”
I nodded vigorously with sudden, shocked recall, aching to go and consult my diaries on the matter, but Irene returned to the immediate question.
“Yes, Joseph was ideally positioned to take the treaty, and did. As for Joseph’s eluding the infallible Sherlock Holmes, I am not convinced that
Mr. Holmes failed to prevent Joseph’s escape as much as permitted it.”
“Why?” I asked.
“For one thing, the awkwardness. Poor Percy Phelps might be cleared of losing the treaty once he returned it with Mr. Holmes’s help, but having his own brother-in-law-to-be arrested for the theft would hardly enhance Phelps’s reputation or his personal life.”
“You think that Sherlock Holmes let Joseph go out of the goodness of his heart? That is hardly likely, Irene.”
She smiled, started to say something, then smiled again. “Even the foremost consulting detective in—” she glanced at Godfrey “—England... may have a trickle of mercy in his veins. And I am not certain that Mr. Holmes has actually ended his investigation.”
“Yet,” said Godfrey, still sitting comfortably as Irene and Quentin paced and I fumed, “Moran has been balked. The treaty is safe. I doubt even he would try to steal it again.”
Irene sighed. “Nothing is so ferocious as a wounded tiger. He may blame the old Afghanistan business for his failure here, seeing its survivors as a continuing threat to his future enterprises in London. Surely he must know by now that Dr. Watson, whose life he has threatened on two widely different occasions at two opposite ends of the globe, is a close and valued associate of the one person most dangerous to his future freedom.”
“The one person who resides in London most dangerous to his future freedom,” Godfrey corrected.
“No,” she added, pacing again in opposite rhythm to Quentin so that as he came, she went. “Quentin still is not safe, nor is Dr. Watson. Nor are we three, for that matter.”
She paused before Godfrey and extended both her hands, which he took.
“Forgive me, dear and glorious barrister, but there is only one person in London who can pull the teeth of this Tiger; who can expose him to the secret community of diplomacy and subterfuge; who can reveal his perfidy then and now. And to him we must go.
“Set a thief to catch a thief. Moran is not only a Tiger, but as treacherously toxic as a cobra. And to stop a cobra, we need a clever mongoose domesticated to our defense.
A Soul of Steel (A Novel of Suspense featuring Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes) Page 30
