by Anna Elliott
Through the doorway I saw two uniformed constables running towards us. Plank waved them away with his good arm. But the two were already at the door, breathless. “The shot came from a boat, sir,” one said.
“Out on the river,” said the other.
“In the dark,” the first constable continued. “Impossible to follow.”
“From the river?” Plank said. “That seems an impossible shot.”
“Why impossible?” asked Holmes.
“Because, Mr. Holmes, I am convinced that the shot was meant for you. You should stay away from Limehouse. The word on the docks is that someone wants you dead.”
“I have heard similar sentiments many times over the years. And yet I live,” Holmes said.
I helped Plank remove his coat and administered first aid, cleaning the wound, which fortunately was only superficial. I wrapped my clean handkerchief into a pad and pressed it against the damaged area for the inspector to hold with pressure until we could get the wound properly dressed.
Holmes made his way carefully around the back of the Red Dragon’s entry area. Finally, he bent down and retrieved a small object from where it lay on the floor against the wall. “The bullet that struck the inspector,” he explained, tucking it into his waistcoat pocket.
Plank was outside, having been assisted by the two constables, already on his way to the police carriage.
Hasson had retreated behind the ragged blanket curtain at the first entry of the police. Holmes called softly to him that we were leaving.
“A most unfortunate third attempt to disturb my establishment,” the big man said, coming out to the entry area once again.
“And most unfair as well,” Holmes replied. “After all, you are paying Newman’s gang for protection.”
We returned to Baker Street shortly before dawn, to find Mrs. Hudson waiting up for us in the front stairwell. “You’ve had a telegraph message from Lucy,” she said, thrusting a yellow envelope into Holmes’s hand.
Holmes tore open the envelope, scanned the message, and then reached into his pocket for a pen. Flattening the yellow paper against the wall, he wrote hurriedly for only a moment. Then he handed the paper back to Mrs. Hudson.
“Lucy merely wants us to know that she is safe. Please send back our acknowledgment.”
Holmes headed for the staircase. I followed, bleary-eyed and looking forward to a few hours’ sleep, if not more.
Above me, Holmes turned back. “And Mrs. Hudson. No callers are to be admitted. Dr. Watson is in need of rest, and I must grapple with a problem that will require my full attention.”
26. BREAKING AND ENTERING
LUCY
“Did you see anyone?” Becky whispered.
I strained my eyes, peering through the nearly pitch darkness, then shook my head. “No one except the night watchman.”
Shellingford had street lamps, but only on the main streets, and we were on a narrow side lane that ran down towards the harbor. It was only around eight o’clock at night, but the streets were completely deserted. The air was so cold that it seemed to slice right through my heavy woolen cloak, although at least the earlier rain had cleared.
A single pale sliver of a moon allowed me to make out vague shapes in the darkness.
Unlike the sprawling docks in London, the dock in Shellingford harbor was a much smaller affair. Only three ships bobbed at anchor out in the deeper waters of the harbor, with a handful of smaller tugboats closer to shore.
A single long wooden pier stretched out into the ocean, while on shore, the dark shadows of four or five long, single-story warehouse buildings clustered along the bay’s southern curve.
Becky and I were standing in the partially sheltered doorway of a tea shop that had long since closed up for the evening. Our eyes were on the entrance to the nearest warehouse—the one which, according to my map, was owned by Lord Lynley’s import and export company.
A light bobbed in the darkness along the furthest side of the warehouse.
“It’s not very smart of the night watchman to carry a lantern with him,” Becky said. Our spying post was too dark for me to see her expression, but I could picture her critical frown. “It lets anyone who might be watching him know exactly where he is all the time.”
“True. But that doesn’t mean we can assume that there’s no one else, just because we can’t see them.”
I looked out across the deserted, cobbled street again. In theory, this was a simple enough assignment: break into the warehouse, find the office, examine the shipping manifests and records.
There was, obviously, the danger of being caught and arrested. But it was nothing that I hadn’t faced before. Still, as I watched the night watchman’s lantern bobbing in the darkness, my heart was beating too hard and too fast in my ears.
“I’m not going back and waiting for you in the hotel room,” Becky whispered.
I turned. “How can you possibly know that’s what I was thinking? You can’t even see to tell that I was frowning.”
“No, but your voice sounded frowny,” Becky whispered back.
“Maybe that’s because I’m imagining myself explaining to your brother why I thought it was a good idea to bring you along on a burglary.”
“Jack would understand. Besides, I thought it only counted as burglary if you stole something. We’re not going to take anything, only look.”
“Becky.” I crouched down so that we were more on a level. “You have to understand that this could be dangerous—really dangerous.”
“Because you think Lord Lynley is importing opium?”
“I think so. I’m certain—almost certain—that Mrs. Torrance is a laudanum addict.” That was why I was hoping she could tell us about Mr. Seewald’s suppliers. “I’m fairly sure that Lady Lynley takes laudanum, as well. And that the opium is being brought in on Lord Lynley’s ships and manufactured here. Possibly even at the Grand Hotel.”
It would explain the hardening of His Lordship’s expression when he spoke of his wife’s poor health.
It would also explain why he had tried—clumsily—to warn us away from staying at the Grand.
“I’m not sure who’s in charge of the business, though—whether it’s Lord Lynley, or his business partner. Or even Mr. Torrance is a possibility.”
I sensed rather than saw Becky’s tilting her head. “I don’t understand, though. I thought you said that importing opium and selling it like Mr. Seewald does isn’t against the law?”
“It’s not.” That was a part of the puzzle that was stubbornly refusing to make sense. Opium wasn’t illegal. Even the seven percent solution of cocaine that had nearly claimed my father’s life and health was fully within the bounds of the law. “But Alice was employed by Lord Lynley, whose wife is addicted to taking laudanum and who may or may not be responsible for its manufacture here. She was also involved with Chang, who serves His Lordship’s business partner, and who warned me against taking Mr. Seewald’s concoction. The opium connection is the only credible lead we have so far in Alice’s disappearance—which makes me think we need to pull on that thread and see what’s on the other end.”
Or I would think that, if I didn’t have my ten-year-old sister-in-law standing and shivering in the dark next to me.
“If you think Mr. Torrance is somehow involved, I could still be in danger, even if you make me go back to the hotel,” Becky whispered beside me.
“Well, but—”
“What if he actually suspects who we really are, and he’s just waiting for a chance to kidnap me?” Becky interrupted. “You won’t be able to stop thinking about that, now. You’ll worry about it the whole time you’re gone if you do take me back to the hotel and return here alone.”
In my mind, I imagined myself thumping my forehead against the nearest solid wall. “Have I ever told you that you are far too smart and too devious for your own good?”
Becky stiffened, drawing in a quick breath, and I turned back to the street. “What is it? Did you see so
mething?”
“No.” She blew on her mittened hands, trying to warm them. “Can we go now, do you think? The guard is all the way over there, away from Lord Lynley’s warehouse. You can see his lantern.”
I located the bobbing light in the darkness and watched it for a moment. Becky was—unfortunately—all too right about my worrying if I left her at the hotel now.
If we were keeping score like in a game of tennis, the tally would at this moment read Becky: 1, Lucy: 0.
“All right, we’ll go,” I told her. “Carefully.”
27. A GRIM DISCOVERY
LUCY
I fitted one of my lock picks into the lock on the warehouse door, and scraped fruitlessly around for what seemed like an eternity before I felt it press on the tumbler.
All lockpicking was done by touch, so the fact that it was nearly pitch dark shouldn’t have made a difference—and yet it was somehow throwing me off. Or else it was the fact that my fingers were stiff and clumsy with cold.
I glanced over my shoulder at Becky’s small, shadowed figure standing at the corner of the building nearest to me. She was keeping a lookout for the night watchman and was supposed to signal with two low whistles if she saw his light coming nearer.
While watching from the street, I’d timed the patrol he made of the warehouse buildings, and there was roughly a ten-minute gap between each of his circuits past the Lynley warehouse. Which had probably shrunk to seven or eight minutes by now.
I pushed stray hair off my forehead with the back of my wrist and inserted another pick into the lock. Careful … careful …
From somewhere not far off, a dog’s bark cut through the whistle of wind from the harbor and the slap of the waves against the boat’s hulls.
The sound ran down my spine and landed in my stomach like a clump of ice.
Becky appeared beside me, her whisper low and urgent. “Lucy, wasn’t that—”
“I know.”
I was silently kicking myself for not considering the possibility that the night watchman would have a guard dog to help him on his rounds.
Holmes would probably be able to tell me with exact precision what percentage more sensitive a dog’s hearing and sense of smell were compared to that of a human. But even I knew it was much too high for our comfort.
The dog barked again. A deep, throaty bark. Likely a mastiff or bloodhound.
I bent towards the lock again. Once, twice, the picks slipped uselessly off the tumbler mechanism. Despite the cold, sweat prickled on my hairline.
Something clicked inside the lock, and finally turned. I exhaled, pushed the door open, and Becky and I almost tumbled inside—just as the first yellow tinges of the watchman’s lantern came into view around the side of the building.
Every nerve in my body wanted to slam the door shut behind us, but I forced myself to ease it closed, slowly and as silently as possible.
No time to use the picks to re-lock it, and no one had been obliging enough to leave a key on the inside of the door, ready for me to find.
I ran my hands along the edge of the door frame, praying for the added security measure of a bolt or—
There.
It was pitch black inside the warehouse building, the darkness so complete I couldn’t even see my own hands. But I felt the sharp outline of a barrel slide bolt.
I rammed it home, just as a short, sharp bark announced the presence of the dog and the night watchman on the other side of the door.
I held still. Becky pressed tightly against me but remained motionless, as well. The only sound in the room was the sound of our breathing.
The dog barked again, and then the doorknob rattled. The night watchman was trying the door.
The bolt held.
The dog whined, and I heard the sound of scrabbling, as though it was pawing at the door.
“What is it, y’ daft mutt?” The night watchman’s voice was gruff and low-pitched. I couldn’t see him, but I pictured him as beefy and barrel-chested, with a weathered face and possibly a beard. “There’s nothing here.”
My heartbeat ticked off the seconds. Eight … nine.
Fifteen interminable seconds later, I heard the dog whine again and the night watchman grunt irritably—then the sound of footsteps, moving away.
I squeezed Becky’s hand, warning her not to move yet. I counted off two minutes inside my head, then one more for good measure before finally allowing myself to step away from the door.
“All right. We should be—”
My foot connected with something that lay sprawled across the floor. Something solid and heavy.
“Becky, don’t move for another minute.” I spoke in a low voice.
“All right.”
I was still frustratingly blind, but I stooped down, feeling in the darkness by the floor. My fingertips connected with rough tweed fabric, then a cuff with buttons.
The sleeve of a jacket.
Then an unmistakably human hand.
“Lucy?” Becky sounded slightly frightened now.
“It’s all right.” I worked to keep my voice calm. The hand I’d touched felt cold, but no colder than mine. I moved my fingers, searching for a pulse.
Nothing.
I shut my eyes for a second then stood up, crossing back to Becky. “There’s someone lying on the floor just in front of us. I’m not sure whether they’re alive or dead.” True, I hadn’t felt a pulse, but I might have missed it in the dark—and if whoever was lying here was still alive, leaving right now to seek help would take time we couldn’t afford. “I need to risk a light. But whatever we see, I need you not to panic and not to scream, all right?”
“All right.” Becky’s voice was small but steady.
I took one quick look around, scanning for any signs of a window in whatever room we were in, but I couldn’t see any at all. And it didn’t matter so much whether the night watchman did see a light; we were going to have to report this, one way or the other.
I’d brought a small stub of a candle from the hotel along with a box of matches.
I took them out and struck a match. Fire flared in the darkness; then the candle’s wick caught. Dim light cast flickering shadows across what seemed to be a small office; there was a wooden desk in one corner piled high with what looked like accounting books. Ledgers and more stacks of papers were on a shelf nearby.
And Lord Lynley’s body, sprawled on the floor in front of the desk. Unmistakably killed by a gunshot wound to the head.
28. CONFLAGRATION
LUCY
Becky’s breath went out in a small gasp, but otherwise she didn’t make a sound. I still wished I could cover her eyes, somehow stop her from seeing the dead body on the floor. But she turned to me, pale but determinedly calm.
“It’s all right, Lucy. I’ve seen dead bodies before. And anyway, he can’t hurt us.” She looked towards Lord Lynley. “Do you think he shot himself?”
“I don’t know. It certainly looks that way.”
Lord Lynley’s body lay on its side, his legs twisted at an awkward angle. His right arm was flung outwards, and a gun lay on the floor just under his fingers, as though he’d lost his grip on it at the moment of death.
I stepped closer.
The gun was a .32 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, and the bullet that had killed him had clearly entered through his right temple. The shot had been fired at close range. The wound was surrounded by powder burns. A trickle of blood dripped onto the floor, still liquid.
I touched Lord Lynley’s neck. His hand had been cold, but the skin under his collar was still warm.
He could only have been dead a very few minutes.
I raised the candle a little higher, scanning the body and the floor around him.
Lord Lynley had been right-handed. I remembered the configuration of his desk: pen and inkwell both on the right side.
So far, everything pointed towards suicide.
I stepped carefully around the body and moved to the desk.
&nbs
p; The papers had been neatly stacked to one side, and a single sheet of writing paper lay in the exact center of the desk’s surface, next to a typewriter. A single sentence had been typed out on the paper:
I cannot bear to go on, living with the shame I have brought on my family’s good name.
The signature scrawled just below was in black ink. Lynley.
The handwriting was definitely male, and the writer had obviously been in the grip of a powerful emotion. The ink was blotted in places and the letters were unsteady, as though the hand that had done the writing had been shaking. The pen had been dragged so heavily across the page that it had scored gouges in the paper.
The chair behind the desk was set at an angle, too, as though Lord Lynley had sat down to write this note, then shoved his chair back, stood up, and came out into the middle of the room to shoot himself.
Still, I stared at the note, feeling an odd sense of uneasiness prickle at the back of my mind.
Maybe it was just that it seemed odd to bother with typing a suicide note, when you were going to sign it with pen and ink anyway?
Or that Lord Lynley could just as easily have shot himself while sitting at the desk as standing in the middle of the room?
Both of those things were true, but I didn’t think either was what was troubling me.
I glanced around the room again. There was another door set into the wall to the left of the desk. Presumably it led through to the rest of the warehouse. No sign that anyone had gone through it recently—but no sign, either, that they hadn’t.
I crossed over and tried the doorknob. Locked. Although, of course, I’d just proved that locks could be manipulated from the outside.
If I’d been alone, I might have tried unlocking the door just to see where it led, but as it was, I drew in a breath. “We need to leave now and report this.”
“To the night watchman?”
“Only if we’re careless enough to let him see us leaving.”
If we went to him or if he caught us, the night watchman would, understandably, want to know exactly how we’d come to break into a locked warehouse and find the dead body of its owner on the floor.