Sherlock Holmes

by Gregg Rosenquist

  “Are you Robert Earl?” Holmes asked.

  The man looked up at Holmes, then at me, holding the weapon out for us to see. “Um... yes, I’m Robert... Earl,” he said weakly. It was obvious he was utterly flabbergasted by his predicament. Then his gaze fell upon the bloody knife in his hand. He looked at it as if he’d never seen a knife before, let out a pathetic whimper and collapsed like a balsa wood house in an earthquake. The knife and briefcase hit the floor the same time as his body then he lay there on his back, his chest heaving in rapid bursts.

  Without thinking I fell to my knees, tore his vest and shirt open and revealed the wound. It was a straight cut with clean, smooth edges, about an inch and a half long. A slow, steady stream of blood oozed out.

  “Is there anything you can do, Watson?” Holmes asked.

  I shook my head. “It’s right in the heart, Holmes,” I replied.

  Holmes, knowing what that meant, frowned then turned his attention to Robert Earl, whom was fading fast. “The man who stabbed you,” he began. “Do you know his name?”

  Robert Earl’s eyes bugged out as he struggled to breathe, to live. “Smith,” he coughed, blood smattered his thin lips. “John... Smith.” Then it was as if time stopped, his body froze and his breathing ceased.

  “Well,” I said with relief. “At least we know the assassin’s name.”

  Holmes shot me a look of derision. “It’s an alias, Watson,” he spat. “John Smith is the most common name in England. All criminals use it to hide their true identities.”

  “Bollocks!” I cursed and slapped a fist into my palm.

  “But what’s this?” Holmes asked as he reached forward and pulled a folded piece of paper from Earl’s inner breast pocket. He had it unfolded in a breath. “Just as I thought, it’s another note addressed to me... from the Underworld Assassin!”

  7

  Lestrade returned at this moment, breathing heavily and sweating profusely. “The assassin... he escaped,” he stammered. “Too fast... had his route... planned out... ahead of time.”

  “Yes,” Holmes said. “He’s much too clever to be caught out in the open. But he’s left us another riddle. Another person’s life hangs in the balance.”

  “Read... read it aloud, Holmes!” Lestrade urged as constables rushed into the food commons to tend to Earl’s lifeless corpse.

  “Mr Holmes,

  Another rung on the rotting ladder of the English government has collapsed. Your tardiness in preventing Minister Earl’s death disappoints me to no end. I wonder, now, if you are worthy of our contest - have I chosen my arch adversary incorrectly? I shall give you one more chance. Redeem yourself, sir, for I have upped the ante and now the fate of the entire British Empire relies on your cleverness.

  The riddle below betrays the where and who of your next challenge. Solve it if you can:

  At this very moment old friends and close family are gathering north and east under the purple banner of three lions and a cross. Since 1832 Fundamentaeius super montibussanctis, to get there before the scepter and crown falls you’ll have to travel Knight and day, extinguish the flame with a short fuse and avoid powder burn.

  There, you are officially invited, Mr Holmes, to my party within a party and it’s sure to be an explosive affair. Do be punctual this time.

  Your Ever Respectful Squire,

  The Underworld Assassin”

  “The insolence of the man!” I exclaimed. “He cares not a whit for human existence or the goodness of the British way of life!”

  “Focus, man!” Holmes demanded. “Or the lives of Arthur and Earl will have been lost in vain! Now, the riddle speaks of old friends and family gathering north and east under the purple banner of three lions and a cross – obviously a royal crest of some sort, but for what?”

  Lestrade and I exchanged blank glances, both of us clueless as to the meaning of the crest.

  Disappointed, Holmes waved his first question off. “We’ll return to that. Let’s move our attention to the part written in Latin - Since 1832 Fundamentaeius super montibussanctis, which translates in English to ‘Her foundations are upon the holy hills.’ Does that spark anything in your minds?”

  “Why, yes, of course, Mr Holmes!” Lestrade said. “That’s the motto for Durham University, it’s the third oldest university in England. The year 1832 is when it was granted a Royal Charter, hence the purple banner of three lions and cross - purple is the hue of the British monarchy!”

  Holmes was surprised at Lestrade’s outburst. “And Durham University is in the north east of England. How is it that you know so much about this university, Lestrade?” he asked.

  “Security purposes, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade replied. “You see, Commissioner Carruthers is receiving his knighthood from the Queen on Saturday afternoon in the university’s cathedral, all the leaders of parliament are there with her. I was put in charge of coordinating security for the Commissioner during his journey up to Durham County.”

  “That explains the old friend reference, the misspelling of night with a ‘K’ and the part about the scepter and crown falling - a clear reference to the Queen,” Holmes said bitterly. “But tell me, Lestrade, why aren’t you up there with Carruthers?”

  “I-I don’t know, Mr Holmes. I’d assumed I’d be going along but my orders were changed at the last minute.”

  “I sense a puppet master pulling strings behind the scenes,” Holmes mused aloud. “All of this theater is designed to lead to the assassination of the Queen - the true target of the Underworld Assassin.”

  “But how can it be done?” I interrupted. “The Queen is protected by an army of soldiers.”

  “They’ll do her little good if they’re dead also. Remember the riddle, Watson? We must extinguish the flame with a short fuse and avoid powder burn? I suspect the Underworld Assassin has the entire cathedral rigged with kegs of gunpowder attached to fast fuses, all expertly hidden. How convenient for him that the Queen, along with all the leaders of parliament, are gathered together in the same room at one time. A single massive blast will wipe out the monarchy and the current government all at once, creating a power vacuum... anarchy and bloodshed will sweep over the island in days. It will be a historical and humanitarian disaster of unparalleled proportions.”

  “We must get word to them, before-” I began.

  “Not enough time,” Holmes interrupted. “As the riddle predicts, we’ll have to travel knight and day to get there in time.”

  “But we’re too late to catch a train heading north and Durham is a four day journey from London by horse.”

  “Then we won’t take a horse, Doctor,” Lestrade said. “We’ll take a steam ship, get there by tomorrow morning. I know a Captain who owes me a favor.”

  “Brilliant, Detective Inspector,” Holmes said.

  “But I must tell you something else, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade said. “It’s about the one thing in the riddle we haven’t yet covered - the reference to close family.”

  Holmes stared at him expectantly.

  “It’s your brother Mycroft... he was ordered by the Queen herself to attend the knighting!”

  8

  Holmes and I met Lestrade at the Blackfriars Pier on the north side of the Thames just after midnight. A mid-sized steamship named the A.C. Doyle waited for us in the water, her single smoke stack coughed white smoke into a foggy black sky, which meant her boiler was primed and ready to go. She was a rusted, unclean and old ship and I was concerned she didn’t have it in her to complete our mission.

  “Not to worry, Doctor,” Lestrade said, noticing my reticence. “She’s an able and reliable ship. She’ll get us to the docks at Hartlepool sure enough.”

  “But in time, Lestrade?” I asked.

  Holmes laughed at my concern and gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Relax, my friend,” he said. “
Have faith in the durability of human engineering.”

  So we boarded and met the Captain. He was an older, distinguished looking man wearing a white coat, hat and neatly trimmed mustache. His handshake was strong and confident, his solid, commanding baritone voice supported this. Crew members dressed in white shirts and black breeches scurried busily all over the ship, doing whatever it was they were trained to do.

  “Welcome aboard, gentlemen,” the Captain said. “My name is Gallagher. Detective Inspector Lestrade has informed me of the importance of your mission.” He looked up into the sky and frowned. “Looks as if a fog is rolling in, I suggest we set off immediately. My attendant will show you to your quarters. If all goes well, we’ll arrive at our destination by nine in the morning.”

  “That’s cutting it a little close,” I said. “We have a two or three hour hansom ride after that.”

  “Would you prefer to go to Durham by horse?” Lestrade asked rhetorically.

  The attendant came up and led us down into the creaky bowels of the ship and to our rooms. The cabin was a small, cramped space with white walls, a single cot in the corner, a bed stand, a lit sconce above that and a sink under a circular porthole on the outside wall. As I sat down on the cot I heard the engines ramp up and felt the ship lurch forward. Holmes and Lestrade were in the cabins on opposite sides of mine and I must say it felt reassuring to have them so close. After a moment I lay down, still fully dressed, and tried to get some rest, letting the low drone of the engines set me off to sleep, but it wasn’t to be. For some time I tossed and turned restlessly, my mind never removing itself from the conceivable dangers we faced when we finally raced into the cathedral at Durham University later that morning.

  Frustrated and no more tired than I was when I awoke the previous morning, I got out of bed to see if Holmes was having the same problem as I, but when I knocked on his cabin door, I found it open and the room empty. Same with Lestrade’s. Hearing voices overhead, I took the stairs up to the bridge and found Holmes and Lestrade standing shoulder to shoulder in the dark peering through the forward viewport. The Captain was at the wheel and was also obsessed with something in the distance.

  I stood next to Holmes and noticed he was donning a pair of field glasses. All I could see was the constant, ghostly dance of fog outside. “What’s happening?” I asked in a low voice.

  “There’s a ship about a mile ahead of us,” Holmes said. “We’ve been following it since we made the North Sea. It seems to be following the same course Captain Gallagher plotted out.”

  Holmes handed me the field glasses. I looked through the viewport again and this time saw the unmistakable flicker of a light through the fog, some distance out. “The assassin?” I asked.

  “That’s my guess, Watson,” Holmes said. “All other shipping but ours has been forbidden due to the fog. Whoever that is, they’re in the same kind of rush as we are.”

  “He’s trying to beat us to the cathedral,” I said.

  “And will probably be successful,” Lestrade said. “Captain Gallagher has informed us that, due to the heaviness of the fog, he’s going to have to slow the ship down.”

  “No sense in running us upon a rock,” the Captain said. “Where would your mission be then?”

  “Damn,” I muttered.

  We lost sight of the strange light an hour later and when dawn broke, the fog lifted and nothing but open gray ocean lay ahead. To our left, the dark shadow of mother England rose in the distance, shrouded in the morning mists.

  “Hartlepool in two hours,” the Captain said.

  9

  As promised by Captain Gallagher, we docked in Hartlepool by nine. It was a grand day with the sun shining in a clear blue sky but there were metaphorical storm clouds gathering on the horizon, centered directly over Durham Cathedral.

  Hartlepool was a busy fishing village with a bustling market, so there was no difficulty finding and hiring a local man with a hansom to take us on the three hour drive northwest to Durham County. The knighting was scheduled to be performed at one so that gave us about an hour of leeway.

  The driver of the hansom was a man named Olglesvy, he was the same age as Holmes and I, but one could see how the years of working the sea in harsh, unforgiving weather fell hard about the lines in his face. The skin of his cheeks, nose, chin and forehead were wind burned, creating a permanent tint of pink, his hands were thick but bony and scarred from fishing line. I presume getting randomly hired to take three London officials to Durham was like a vacation for him.

  Very quickly, we explained the importance of haste in our mission and then we were on the final leg of our journey. Olglesvy and his proud black mare pulled us along quickly, and due to the old, worn springs under the enclosed cab compartment, the ride along the rural dirt roads was a bumpy and uncomfortable affair, especially with three of us squeezed into the cab compartment.

  After an hour, I noticed that Olglesvy was still lashing his mare to the same rapid pace as when we had first begun. Extremely worried, I opened the trap door and made it a point to warn the man not to exhaust the animal, reminding him gently that the goal was to get us to Durham in a timely manner.

  “Not to worry, Doctor Watson,” he said confidently, the rushing wind blowing his long dirty brown hair backwards. “She’s a strong, reliable beast. She’ll manage. For Queen and country, ‘aye?”

  Halfway through our journey the hansom suddenly stopped and a loud thud shook the ground outside. Lestrade, Holmes and I scrambled out of the compartment, seeing, to our utter dismay, the mare lying on the ground, her eyes closed, her mouth open, tongue hanging out and drooling blood. Not a sound emanated from her throat. Quickly, I stepped around Olglesvy and pressed my ear against the mare’s chest, checking for the thumping sound of life, but there was none. I got to my feet and shook my head in disgust. “The pace was too much... her heart burst.”

  “We’re stranded?” Lestrade asked angrily.

  “It would appear so, Detective Inspector,” Holmes said. “The Underworld Assassin has claimed yet another innocent victim in his bid to test me.” Then he glanced at Olglesvy. “I’m sorry about your mare, sir. If we’re somehow successful in our attempt to save the Queen, I’m sure Scotland Yard as well as the British government will reimburse you for your loss.”

  Holmes was being too charitable to the man, in my opinion. I’d warned Olglesvy not to push the mare too far but he ignored me. Now, because of his stupidity, he was standing over the animal in silence, staring down at it with tears welling in his eyes and we were still an hour and a half away from our destination. Then I realized why Holmes was so patient with Olglesvy; the loss of his mare was the price he had to pay for that stupidity and was punishment enough. There was no need for any of us to berate him.

  “Shall we begin, gentlemen?” Holmes said, pointing down the road. Thick woods lined both sides for miles ahead but there was nothing else we could do, staying put and mourning over the animal wasn’t an option. “Are you coming, Olglesvy?”

  “No... no, sir,” the man said, his once pink, confident face now colorless and grief stricken. “I’ll stay here until someone comes along, take my hansom back to Hartlepool.”

  “Good luck to you then,” Holmes said. We shook the man’s hand then we began marching down the road.

  10

  A few miles later the woods around us opened up and we came across a sleepy little farming community. Holmes suggested one thing; where there’s a farm, there are horses. And he was right. The first farm we approached held a half a dozen strong looking mounts of various colors in an enclosed corral. It took some skillful talking by Lestrade and a bit of help from the old farmer’s wife but the farmer finally agreed to loan us three steeds so that we may complete our journey and save the monarchy.

  “For Queen and country, eh, gentlemen?” the farmer said, echoing Olglesvy’s sentiment. It was sur
prising to me how much love and respect the Queen harbored in the hearts of her countrymen wherever we went. She was a symbol of pride and strength to them, and rightfully so as she had expanded and strengthened the might of the British Empire during every year of her reign, making it the most powerful country in the world.

  Holmes paid the farmer six shillings as a security fee and we were off. My pocket watch read nearly twelve thirty so it was disappointing that the pleasant scenery remained a blur to me while we raced at top speed to Durham County. Over bridge, through twisting vale, into and out of dense woods we rode, time snapping at our heels, until finally we entered Durham County common and saw the ancient stone spires and weathered arched roofs of the cathedral rising up above the trees not far away. We crossed a bridge that spanned the River Wear and were upon the cathedral in short order. The long, gilded royal caravan surrounded the grounds as if in siege, the horses decorated in gold and purple silken banners, while royal attendants stood watch near them. It was hard for me to believe that our beloved Queen stood just inside the walls of the cathedral.

  We halted our mounts then jumped down, quickly being approached by a royal guard, who carried a long snouted rifle and eyed us suspiciously. Once Lestrade introduced himself and pleaded our desperate case, he allowed us to go inside the cathedral where the solemn ceremony of the knighting of our good friend, Scotland Yard Commissioner Yancy Carruthers, proceeded with blissful ignorance.

  The three of us made no noise as we entered the vast inner sanctum of the cathedral from a side door. Colorful stained glass windows, many stories high, cut into the high elevations of the outer walls, underneath them were empty, closed confessionals. Candles on tall, golden holders were placed every few feet, spilling the spice-scented odor of candle wax into the air. At the end of every pew row, sculpted marble columns rose up into the ornately decorated ceiling and every pew in the nave was filled, there were even people standing in the side aisles. Every eye was directed forward, towards the base of the pulpit where the Queen stood in all her royal finery, holding a shining long broadsword over a kneeling Carruthers. A choir standing back at the high altar sang a slow, moaning dirge, their voices echoing relentlessly off the countless surfaces in the cathedral. I’d never seen a knighting before and the theatre of it took my breath away.