by Anna Elliott
I started to tear open the flap on mine, but Becky was first.
“It is from Jack!” She scanned the words quickly. “He says everything is all right, but Prince misses me, and—”
I froze, the rest of what Becky was saying washing past me without my absorbing any of the words.
I had opened my own telegraph message, and the relief I had felt at finally hearing from Jack evaporated.
This telegram was signed, John H. Watson, and the message read: Lucy. Come at once, I beg you. Holmes kidnapped.
PART THREE
CUT ADRIFT
41. COUNCILS OF WAR
London
Wednesday, January 12, 1898
WATSON
More than twenty-four hours had elapsed since the attack. My numb, hollow feeling still lingered, although I was determined to discover Holmes’s whereabouts and rescue him if necessary. My first thought, of course, was to enlist the aid of Mycroft, Lestrade, Jack, and Lucy, calling them to our Baker Street sitting room.
Lucy and Jack were the last to arrive. I waited as they settled themselves on our sofa.
“Bad business, this,” said Lestrade.
“Whoever did this hijacked the cab,” Jack said. “But how did they know you were at Scotland Yard?”
“I do not know,” I said.
“So you must have been followed.”
“Holmes is generally mindful of being followed, though,” Lucy said. “And how did they know you were there?” Her voice showed her frustration. She was clearly the one of our number most emotionally affected by Holmes’s absence—with the exception of little Becky, who had been struggling to hold back her tears—quite unsuccessfully—when I first saw her, and at the moment was downstairs in the care of Mrs. Hudson.
“Dr. Watson, please tell us exactly what happened,” Mycroft said.
I did, going over the entire painful sequence of events, and ending with, “I came to my senses, face-down on the cold, wet pavement. When I looked up, several bystanders were watching me, though they seemed only idlers, acting out of curiosity. The cab was gone. Holmes was gone. When I asked the bystanders, none of them recalled anything. They saw a policeman approaching and drifted away before he could compel them to answer more fully.”
“What was the red smoke?”
I had anticipated this question, and had my overcoat waiting, draped over the back of my desk chair. The reddish powder still clung to the wool fabric. I handed it over to Lucy.
“This powder is from a firework,” she said. “A smoke bomb like those we use in The Mikado to mark the entrance of the Emperor of Japan. I can ask Mr. Ellis where he gets his supplies, but I expect it’s common enough so that a particular customer would not be memorable.”
“However, the use of an Asian implement is suggestive,” Mycroft said. “Given what you have encountered, Lucy.”
I felt a great surge of emotion as she raised her brow—the manner of her inquiry reminded me of Holmes.
Mycroft continued, “I refer to your mention of the late Lord Lynley, murdered in Shellingford. The man is, or was, known to me. His father was one of the first shippers of Indian opium from the East India Company to China. He bought the opium from the plantation and shipped it to Hong Kong. There it was sold to another intermediary, who smuggled it into the country. It is illegal in China. Yet the laws are difficult to enforce.” Mycroft shook his head in frustration. He clasped his hands and rested them against his capacious waistcoat.
“We should investigate the Red Dragon,” Jack said. “Holmes may be held prisoner there.”
I felt a surge of revulsion and outrage at the thought of Holmes lying on one of those bunks in the back room of that foul den, insensible, forced to imbibe the foul narcotic fumes. I did not want to think how a prolonged course of that addictive drug might affect his razor-sharp mind, and what dreadful cravings the ordeal might induce, even if we were to recover him safely. Then I recalled Holmes’s deductions about the shooting incident we had witnessed at the Red Dragon. “What about Plank?” I asked. “I want to confront him with our suspicions.”
“I’ll telephone Limehouse Station,” Lestrade said. “Plank can meet us at the Red Dragon.”
42. CONFRONTATION WITH PLANK
WATSON
After agreeing to meet Lucy, Jack, and Mycroft at the Diogenes Club at four o’clock to report progress, Lestrade and I set out for Limehouse Basin. We took two constables with us in the police wagon. Last time Plank had brought two constables to the Red Dragon, and Lestrade thought it would be prudent to match forces. The Red Dragon had been the site of one police officer’s murder and the attempted murder of a second. Lestrade said he did not want to become the third.
When we arrived, the building looked even shabbier and more downtrodden when viewed in daylight. Another police carriage was waiting on the narrow dock between the wooden structure and the dark waters of the Thames. Plank was inside. He had come with two constables once again. We could see them both on the driver’s bench.
Plank got out when he saw our carriage stop. He strode briskly to the weather-beaten door where he had begun his charade the last time I had seen him here. Lestrade told our constables to wait inside the carriage.
We stepped up to face him. Plank was taller than Lestrade by half a foot and taller than me by an inch or two. He looked down to meet our gaze as if he thought his height could intimidate us. His eyes were wide and openly curious, but his stare was harder than mere curiosity. He was wearing a dark wool coat, but it was not the same as the one he had worn the other night. This one had no bullet tear in the shoulder.
“What’s this about?” he asked.
“We want to know why you shot yourself,” I said.
His eyes stayed fixed, not flinching, but he put on a smile of disbelief. “You’re joking,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Lestrade,” Plank said, “what possessed you to come out here with this man and such an absurd idea?”
Lestrade was silent.
“You can take off your coat and your shirt and show Inspector Lestrade your wound,” I said. “You can stand here in front of the door after you’ve done that. You can trace an angle from the wound on your shoulder, all the way across the river, and you’ll be on the other side before you run into anything or anywhere a shooter could have shot from the night you were here with us. And the tide was out that night, which makes it even more impossible for a shot from the river to hit the top of your shoulder. Twenty feet more impossible. You shot yourself before you arrived. We want to know why.”
“You’re mad,” said Plank.
But he did not start a fight. He just stared at me for a long moment, his hand at his chin, fingers rubbing the stubble of his black beard as though he were acting the part of an old man thinking up some words of wisdom. Then he said, “I don’t have to listen to this nonsense, Lestrade. If you want to bring some sort of complaint, you know the procedure.”
“You’ll give us an answer,” I said. I moved forward.
But then Plank sidestepped us both, moving nimbly off the entry platform and down to the dock, walking the few paces to his police carriage.
At the carriage he stopped and turned back. “I told you from the beginning: the shot was meant for Sherlock Holmes.” He opened his carriage door. “He should have taken the warning. Now I have my own investigation to pursue.”
Though frustrated by Plank’s departure, Lestrade and I realized it did no good to pursue the man. Instead, we went inside the Red Dragon and announced ourselves to Hasson, the lascar owner. The big man watched with placid indifference as we searched his establishment from top to bottom.
But there, too, we had no success. Holmes was not to be found among the pitiful cases of stupefied individuals on the premises, and we found no evidence of hidden passageways or rooms that might have served as prison cells.
We got back into our carriage with nothing to show for our afternoon’s work. We drove away in silence.
“What do you want to do about Plank?” Lestrade asked as we stopped at Scotland Yard.
“What can we do?”
“Not much,” Lestrade said. “Mounting some kind of official complaint would take forever. Plank knows that. Whatever he’s hiding, we won’t get it from him.” He hesitated. “I don’t understand why he would act this way. He has a wife and two children to support. Why would he put his job at risk?”
“Unless he thinks what he’s doing will earn him a promotion,” I said.
“I’ll see if I can talk to him privately.”
Lestrade brightened. “Meanwhile, I did tell my men to find Newman’s second in command and take him in. By now they may have squeezed something out of him.”
“You can let me know at the Diogenes Club,” I said. “Four o’clock.”
43. ANOTHER DIRECTION
WATSON
Returning to the Diogenes Club, I was surprised to find little Becky in the lobby, under the watchful eye of the uniformed doorman. “The child has only just arrived,” said the fellow. “She mentioned the name of Mr. Mycroft Holmes, and I have sent word upstairs for him.”
“I have to get away from my father,” the child said, looking miserable. “He was at Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson wouldn’t let him in, of course, but he said he’d be back with a constable. I knew you were coming here, so I borrowed my friend Flynn’s coat and hat and went out through the kitchen.”
We were soon with Lucy, Mycroft, Jack, and Lestrade in the upstairs Library. Mycroft gave a nod towards Becky, who he had last seen nearly two months ago playing the piano at Lucy’s wedding. “Ah, young Miss Kelly. Please take a seat and be comfortable,” he said.
Lucy pulled out the chair to the left of her own, and the two sat. Jack had taken the chair to Lucy’s immediate right. Becky whispered a few words to Lucy, who in turn whispered a few words to Jack, who nodded, reaching across to pat Becky’s hand.
Mycroft sat at the head of the table. His wide forehead showed furrows of worry and concentration.
“Progress?” he asked.
Lestrade spoke first. He had sweated Newman’s successor for information but had obtained nothing of value.
He told of our fruitless trip to the Red Dragon, and our inconclusive confrontation with Plank.
“You may have spooked him, though,” said Lucy. “Pity we couldn’t have shadowed him.”
Jack had done some discreet digging into Plank’s affairs. “No cause for suspicion,” Jack said.
Becky had just seen Flynn, but so far none of the other Irregulars had come forward with any information from the scene of the abduction.
Lucy was ticking off the leads on her fingertips. “So, Newman’s successor, the Red Dragon, the Irregulars, and Plank. Four possibilities, no probabilities.” She looked at Mycroft. “I hope you have something.”
“What I have may or may not be of use to us,” Mycroft said. “I spoke to the Chinese emperor’s representative here in London, Sir Halliday Macartney, whom Dr. Watson has met. I had hoped to connect Lord Lynley and his murder with the events here. Given that Lynley’s estate is in Lincolnshire, and that Swafford and his brother had a family connection in Shellingford—”
“What did Macartney say?” Lucy asked.
“Lynley had not spoken with Macartney for some time. Lynley had become somewhat of a recluse, no longer active in his business affairs with the Chinese.”
“For how long?”
“Two years.”
Lucy’s green eyes narrowed with intensity. “Do you find that time significant, given the time that the three opium ships went missing?”
Mycroft nodded.
I felt the rush of excitement that comes of an idea, arising unbidden and claiming its due. “Macartney,” I said. “He was involved in the kidnapping of the Chinese doctor Sun Yat Sen. I read it in the Times. It is entirely possible that the same people are holding Holmes where that unfortunate fellow was kept prisoner: the Chinese Legation at Portland Place. Lestrade, I should like you to come with me.”
Lestrade looked hesitant. “We had a devil of a time getting that Chinese doctor released last year. The Foreign Office had a lot to say—”
“I shall go with you or without you.”
“Unless you were invited, it would be trespass—”
My determination grew. “I repeat, I shall not be put off. There is nothing that will prevent me from finding Holmes, if there is the slightest opportunity to do so!”
“You are always the man of action, Dr. Watson,” Mycroft said. “But perhaps in this instance it would be best to temper action with a strategic approach.”
I clung to my position. “The Chinese Legation. They know something. And I mean to find out what.”
44. A CHINESE WALL
WATSON
“Do you think me mad, Lestrade?” I asked. We were in Marylebone, having taken a cab to Portland Place, where the Chinese Legation stood with its varnished black door firmly shut against me.
Lestrade made no reply. I pounded on the door for the second time. “I know you’re in there,” I shouted. “Open up!”
My face felt hot with indignation and—I must admit—some embarrassment as well, for passers-by were turning to look and make remarks to one another. Still, I was determined not to be dissuaded. If there was a chance that Holmes was indeed inside, I would take it and brave the consequences.
Looking up I thought I saw movement at one of the heavily-curtained windows. There was certainly someone there. It would have been impossible for the entire building to be deserted, or that no one was curious as to the cause of the racket, which must be audible in at least this section of the building.
Sun Yat Sen, the papers had said, had been held captive in one of the upstairs rooms. There were two floors above the ground level. Possibly Holmes was in there, behind one of these windows, hearing my voice, yet unable to respond or make any answering signal. I pictured him in my mind, shackled to a bed, or—worse—sedated under the influence of some powerful narcotic. Sir Halliday had protested, of course, that the official position of the Chinese emperor was anti-opium, but in my view, this was mere hypocrisy. The emperor indeed! The fellow taxed his own people and made a profit on their use of the drug, just as Britain’s government did.
I heard a coach and horses come to a stop behind me.
Turning, I saw Lestrade in conversation with a uniformed constable. Both men looked at me. Lestrade came over and tried to take my arm. I shook him off. A complaint of disturbing the peace, he said, had been telephoned to the Marylebone station house by someone within the Legation. They were responding promptly, anxious to prevent another controversial incident.
“Dr. Watson,” Lestrade went on, “You have somehow got it fixed in your mind that Holmes has been kidnapped and is being held here.”
“They did the same to Sun Yat Sen—”
“That is true, but it is not evidence on which I can get a warrant. We have no other evidence to get one.”
“The dust from the Chinese firework, used as a distraction—”
“Is suggestive to your mind, I know. But no judge will act on mere suggestion and association. In the case of Sun Yat Sen, we had his notes begging for help, telling his friends where he was being held. The Legation has now called on the police to make you cease your disturbance, which is what any reasonable person would do under the circumstances.”
“If they were innocent of kidnapping,” was my prompt rejoinder.
Lestrade shook his head. “Are you to be arrested and brought to the station house and imprisoned? I don’t see that this will help us to find Holmes.”
My face burning, I turned on my heel and walked away from the front entrance. My thoughts were muddled. I realized that I must avoid arrest, but I still intended somehow not to abandon my efforts. I determined, then, to walk around the block. I would come back to observe whether the police coach remained. I was fairly certain that it would not, for resources would be needed elsewhe
re.
But then as I rounded the nearest corner, I saw two other doors to the rear portion of the building. The first, at street level and smaller than the front entrance—though equally as imposing—looked to be a side entrance for diplomatic staff. The second, at the rear corner, was smaller still, and was plainly intended for servants and service deliveries.
And just beyond this smallest door was a small shed, built within a very narrow passageway.
I knew that I was under observation by the constable and Lestrade. I could not fault them for taking the side of the law in this matter, even though I strongly disagreed. I took a few steps further. Then I turned as if I had just then remembered something. I walked back towards Lestrade, smiling inwardly to myself because, in fact, I had indeed remembered something. However, I was not about to share that memory.
On my way I took a quick glance to my left, at the narrow passageway. Then I strode up to where Lestrade and the constable were waiting.
“I’ve cleared my head with the short walk,” I said. “You won’t have any further trouble from me at this location. I see it is fruitless to ignore the strictures that govern such matters.”
I had no intention of staying away, but I hoped my denial was convincing enough for me not to be followed. I looked piously upwards at the sky. A few snowflakes had begun to fall. “I shall return to Baker Street,” I continued. “No need to accompany me; it is only a short walk from here.”
“It is nearly a mile. And growing dark. And it is about to snow.”
“Nevertheless,” I said. I turned and walked away.
At Baker Street, I made my preparations, fortified myself with hot soup from Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen, put on my hat, coat and scarf, and went out into what had become a snow-filled night. I was fully resolved to commit the crime of breaking and entering at the Chinese Legation.