by J. R. Trtek
“We must acquiesce,” she said. “I believe we shall be safer if we do.”
“Because that man Girthwood is your brother?” I said with disdain.
She bowed her head. “Perhaps, Dr. Watson. Please, let us simply go,” she said again, lifting a worried yet brave face to me. At last, with reluctance, I agreed, and we followed Briggs down the stair, his two accomplices behind us. At the bottom, I paused the door to 221.
“Where is Mrs. Hudson?” I asked sharply. “And our agents? What have—”
“I told you long ago. They’re well taken care of, sir,” said Briggs, nodding toward the back of the house. “Quite safe they are, never you mind.”
“I demand to see them!”
Briggs smiled, again baring the gap in his teeth as he approached me. He brushed my lapel with the back of one hand and then abruptly once more took violent hold of my jacket. “I am getting well up and sick of your constant demanding! You don’t demand nothing, you don’t!” He growled as if he were a crazed ape who had acquired speech. “You folks here are members belonging to the passive tense, you are! Don’t never forget that! Here!” Briggs said, letting go of me before stepping to the door to open it. “Out now,” he ordered. “Real dainty like and real quiet, let’s not make no fuss, if we know what’s best for the health!”
I made no further attempt at obstruction, and we were escorted out the door of 221 and toward a pair of waiting hansoms. Traffic was light, and there were no familiar faces about.
“I’ll remind you again, no commotion, if you please,” Briggs said softly into my ear. “You can’t see them, but there are weapons on our persons, Doctor. No telling what could happen when a man gets excited. Women and children first, you know.”
Miss Adler was put into the nearest hansom with one of Briggs’s assistants, while the other mounted the cab to drive it. Briggs escorted me into the second vehicle, whose driver—a third young ruffian—had been tending both vehicles and now mounted his own. “Inside,” barked Briggs, and he climbed in after me.
“In a minute, Johnny!” the man said to our driver. “Just a precaution, this is, Doctor,” he remarked, pulling out a large kerchief, which he tied about my eyes. He then coaxed me to lean forward and place my hands behind my back before binding the wrists together with cord. “There we are. A mite uncomfortable, perhaps. Still, you’re nice and tight there, sir. Johnny!” he cried. I heard him give the top of the cab two sharp raps. “Up and away with us!”
I lurched backward as the hansom started into motion.
“Aye, relax, Doctor,” Briggs said as he braced me with unexpected gentleness. “We’ve got a bit of a trip ahead here. Enjoy the ramble, though I suppose there’s less fun without the sight of it; ain’t that the case?”
“If you say so, then so must it be,” I muttered.
“There’s the spirit,” the man replied with another hearty laugh. “It took you long enough to come round to being cooperative, but oh, yes, you’re in the spirit at last!”
For the first few moments, I was able to sense our route in my mind, but a quick series of turns soon made any attempt at memorizing the path a futile one. After minutes of listening to Briggs whistling a familiar tune I could not quite place, I decided to try diplomacy and guile.
“And so you are in the pay of this Girthwood fellow, are you, Mr. Briggs?” I asked.
The man ceased whistling. “Well, Doctor, if you are engaging me in a little discussion, one professional man to another as it were, then I would have to tell you that your statement is ever so true, it is. American he be, and they always pays well, so’s been my experience.”
“If money is your principal motivation, Mr. Briggs, I can assure you that Sherlock Holmes could pay you far more. If you were to release—”
“Ha!” Briggs blew wind from his mouth. “I never have met a croaker who could carry on much of a conversation, and you’re no exception, are you? Look here: Mr. Girthwood’s promised me a huge sum, he has. Says he’s got a line on an article of fabulous value, he calls it. I’m happy with my chances as they are. Then, I got my pride, just like you do. Your Mr. Holmes ever talk about me?”
“I confess I am not certain. Perhaps.”
“Well, he put me away once, and that’s immediate disqualification, I say. Him and me are moral antipathies or something that sounds very much like it. I’m not engaging in any business with one who put me away; do you understand that? So take your bribe elsewhere, Doctor. When I breaks the law, it’s done with honour!”
I did not reply and simply sat as Briggs resumed his whistling for a moment; then he stopped.
“Do you mind the tune, Doctor?” he asked.
“The whistling, you mean? No,” I replied tactfully.
“If music be the belly-timber of love, chirp on, I says,” Briggs remarked with a laugh that resolved itself into a hacking cough.
“I cannot place the melody, though it sounds familiar,” I added as our cab rattled on.
“Some carpaccio of Pagliacci, they tells me,” Briggs replied idly. Our hansom rolled along for many more minutes, which I eventually estimated to have been perhaps thirty. At last we stopped.
“Now, Doctor,” said Briggs in a calm voice. “I have to step out briefly to run me an errand. Remember that my boy Johnny is up top driving, so don’t get no ideas about trying to take matters into your own hands, which are tied, anyways. And, of course, we’ve still got the lady in the other cab, right?”
“I understand perfectly.”
“Good,” the man replied. “I think this here jaunt has been good for our friendship, don’t you? Be back in a moment.”
Momentarily I wrestled with the rope binding my wrists, but to no avail, and so I waited until I heard the hansom door open and smelled the aroma of Briggs’s ragged coat beside me. Then came the sound of two raps on the roof of the cab. “Away, Johnny!” Briggs called out, and once more, we rattled along still more anonymous London streets.
The hansom carried us on for perhaps another five minutes before stopping.
“Well, here we are,” Briggs said. “Home at last. Now remember, Doctor, all obedience and cooperation, right?”
I was led out of the cab, still blindfolded, and escorted along what I felt to be a cobbled walk and into a building, which had the feel of a house.
“You’re not alone, sir,” Briggs told me. “Speak to him, missy, and tell him you’re here.”
“I am at your side, Dr. Watson,” came Irene Adler’s voice.
“You are unharmed?” I asked.
“Yes, completely so, though I am blindfolded with wrists tied, as I gather you are.”
“And we means to keep it that way for just a while longer,” said Briggs. “If you don’t mind now, straight on ahead here.” He guided me by the shoulder through what I took to be a room to what we were told was a stair. I ascended slowly and haltingly.
“Are you there still, Doctor?” asked Irene Adler.
“Yes, he is,” answered Briggs for me. “That’s it, Doc. You’re doing a whale of a job, you are. Two more. There you go. Good. Now straight ahead here.”
We were led into an unheated room that smelled of incense, with perhaps the hint of stale tobacco. In the distance, through what I assumed were windows, I heard the muted drone of London traffic but could find nothing unique registering upon my senses that might identify the locale. Hoping to act as I might imagine Holmes would, I found myself with no conclusions to show for my effort.
“Now into this chair, if you please,” Briggs commanded, guiding me. “And the lady, too. That’s it.”
“You are still well?” I asked urgently. “No harm has been done you?”
“None,” was the reply I received from her.
“And may you stay so,” said Briggs. “Provided you remain nice and quiet. If not, we’ll have to stopper your mouths, won’t we? You talk low if you want, but somebody will be nearby—trust to that. Remember, no yelling—we want you to stay whole, and you want to st
ay whole, right?”
“Yes,” said Irene Adler at once.
“Good,” said Briggs, and a door shut.
Miss Adler and I sat there in silence for several moments. Then, not knowing what more to think, I once more asked Miss Adler if she were well.
“I remain quite unharmed, Doctor,” she said. “Do not worry on my account.”
“And so this Girthwood fellow is not a mere business acquaintance of Mr. Hope Maldon or your late husband,” I said. “Rather, he is your brother. Perhaps Sherlock Holmes would have appreciated that knowledge,” I said tersely.
“He is my half brother,” she corrected, a hint of shame in her voice. “My father died when I was young, and my mother remarried. Jasper was the child of that second union.”
“But why did you not—”
“I know I should have informed the two of you, Dr. Watson! I know all too well now.” Her voice was strained. “I could not—dear Dr. Watson, at times I do not wish to admit to even myself that such a creature bears any relation to me. Forgive me, please. I did not believe”—her words suddenly stopped.
“Miss Adler?”
“Forgive me, Dr. Watson.”
“Of course,” I whispered, seeing the futility of pursuing the argument. And so we sat for several minutes, Miss Adler now and then shifting in her chair while I continued to turn over in my mind any possible way by which I could deduce our location.
We were in a house, I felt certain. It was a first-floor room. From the sound of traffic, I knew the street to be at my left. We were still in London; of that I was certain also. But what else might I glean? I asked myself. How would Holmes approach the matter?
After unnumbered minutes, I had no answer; all remained blank to me. At length, I found my will faltering and my consciousness floating, and at some moment, I must have fallen asleep from fatigue, for I awoke to find the background light through my blindfold gone, and I gathered we had entered the night. It was then that I heard a door open and sensed light blazing against my blindfold.
“You folks all right?” came a man’s voice, which I recognized as that of Briggs’s man Shep. “I say, are you doing well, ma’am?”
“I do not suffer,” Irene Adler’s firm voice announced.
“Nor myself,” I said. “Though, I must say, I should prefer there be a fire to warm us. What do you want?”
“I am to use the telephone now,” the accomplice said. “I will ring up the man who hired Uncle Bill and then have you speak to him so that he may know you are safe and being held as instructed, sir.”
“We are hostages to be exchanged for the black bird then; is that it?”
“Don’t know nothing about no bird, sir. I just know that I am to ring up the man and have you speak to him.”
“And if I should refuse?” I asked the unseen, young criminal. “Then what? Will you set hands to me?”
“I won’t,” Shep replied. “But Uncle Bill’s downstairs, and if you don’t cooperate, I’m to fetch him, and he’ll rough up not only you but perhaps the lady as well.”
“You’re swine! All of you!”
“Ordinarily, sir, I’d consider breaking your thumbs for that remark, but Uncle Bill’s my leader, and he said there’s to be nothing rough from me. My hands are kind of tied like yours—metaphorically speaking if you will—but Uncle Bill’s ain’t. He can eat twenty like you alive without blinking and still be wanting his dessert, if you know what I mean—and I think you do.”
I did not need several minutes to ponder the truth of the man’s statement and slumped in my chair to wait as the accomplice proceeded to establish a connection.
“Now I’m going to hold it for you, sir,” said Shep in my ear before answering. “Just a moment here...Hey there? Yes, here he is, sir.”
I could feel the telephone next to me, and in my ear was the tinny voice of our obese adversary.
“Well, Doctor, you are relaxing in comfort, I trust.”
“I do not suffer,” I said, repeating Irene Adler’s phrase. “Though I am bound at the moment.”
“Yes, well, necessity and all that. But I will not hold you longer—in this conversation, that is. I merely wished reassurance that Briggs was still holding you as desired. Good day to you then.”
And with that, the exchange, such as it was, ended.
Shep took away the telephone and I heard a click. Then there were footsteps, and a door closed. After a few seconds, I sensed that Miss Adler and I were again alone.
“Dr. Watson, you are there?”
“Yes, Miss Adler.”
“You spoke with my brother?”
“Yes, but he said nothing of substance.”
“I see.”
“Shall I describe St. Bart’s for you?”
“What?”
“Should I convey what you would have seen today, had we been allowed to proceed to St. Bartholomew’s?” I asked, believing that such idle conversation would ease her anxiety.
“No,” she said. “Thank you, Dr. Watson, but no. I wish to be left alone with my thoughts, if you please.”
I leaned back in my chair then paused as I heard muffled voices on the floor below. Then a steady tread began ascending the stair. One step, two, three…Half-consciously, I counted them, up to fifteen, sixteen, and ending upon seventeen. Then, at that moment, the hint of stale tobacco, which I had been inhaling underneath the aroma of incense, crystallized within my consciousness as the signature reek of Holmes’s shag.
Coincidence can intrude upon conclusion, as my detective friend had remarked to me more than once, but still I impulsively leaned over toward my fellow hostage as I heard the door to our room begin to open with a now-familiar squeak.
“Miss Adler!” I whispered.
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Miss Adler, I believe there is a good chance we may still be at 221! Do not think me mad, but I believe it possible!”
“Don’t doubt yourself for a moment, Watson, for you are the sanest of men,” came the voice of Sherlock Holmes next to my ear.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN :
The Object at Last
“What is this?” I said as my blindfold was removed, revealing Briggs standing before me.
“Well, Watson,” replied the man in Holmes’s voice. “I must admit you are not entirely speechless, but three words are really not much, you know.”
“I…we…Briggs…”
“Very good, old fellow! You’ve doubled the exposition! Here, allow me the honour of untying you.”
My hands were released, and I massaged my wrists where the ropes had pressed into my skin. I stiffly rose and removed the blindfold from Miss Adler before loosening her bonds. Looking up into Briggs’s eyes once more, I now perceived for the first time the persona of my friend behind the criminal facade.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Holmes. “At my age I am simply not up to these long performances.” Smiling, he took a denture from his pocket and slipped it into the space of the missing canine, which, I now recalled, the thug Matthews had knocked out in the waiting room at Charing Cross Station years before.
“We have been at 221 all the while,” I said.
“Of course. Can you conceive a safer place?”
“And Briggs?”
“The last remaining principal from my dwindling clan of alter egos,” said Holmes, removing the wide-brimmed hat and pulling a wig from his scalp. “One unknown to you, Doctor. Yes, Uncle Bill Briggs had built up a rather sizable reputation among the criminal class, and I hope this escapade will not expose his real identity. However, to ensure your safety, Watson, it was a sacrifice I was more than willing to risk.”
“My safety? I don’t know that you necessarily contributed to that cause, Holmes. You were rather rough with me, twice taking me by the lapel and—”
“Yes, well, it were a bit of fun, eh?” he said in the voice of his creation. “But then, I believe you knew from the first act who Briggs was, did you not?” he asked, turning to Miss Adler.
The
woman opened her mouth as if to speak, hesitated, and then slowly nodded. “I did not realize it immediately, but by the time we ascended the stair, I thought I knew. It was for that reason, Doctor, that I urged compliance.”
“We may only hope the proportion of females who turn to crime does not significantly increase in the years to come,” said the detective, pulling off false eyebrows. “Their intuitive ways would, I think, have a stultifying effect upon those who would follow me in the profession.”
Holmes stepped over to a table, where I saw thin sticks embedded vertically in a platter of sand. Faint, curling wisps of smoke rose from their burning ends. “I shall extinguish them in a moment,” said my friend. “They have sat for nearly a decade unused. As I brought them all the way from Lhasa, I thought I might as well finally employ them.”
“To mask the scent of your shag,” I said.
“Rather, to cover the aroma of your Arcadia mix, old fellow.”
At that point, Georgie entered the room.
“Holmes!”
“Do not fear, Watson. They are all—Georgie, Shep, and Johnny—on our side. They are also most familiar with 221, though I’d wager you would not recognize any of them now.”
I thought for a moment as the young ruffian stood and stared at me, and then I said, “Old Baker Street Irregulars?”
“Yes, Watson. A changing band of youths,” Holmes told Irene Adler. “They used to act as messengers, spies, and ferrets in the early days of our practice.” He chuckled, a distant look in his eye. “To this day, I can’t say as Johnson, Pike, and their compatriots have ever exceeded my expectations as well as those scruffy boys of so long ago.”
“And which one were you?” I asked the man I had known only as Georgie.
“Oakes, sir.”
“Hum,” I said. “The name is familiar, though I confess I cannot recall your face.”
“I’d be most surprised if you could do that, sir, what with all that being over twenty years ago. I must say, though, that you’ve not changed much.”
“How have you fared in the meanwhile, lad?”
“I do foundry work in the south of town, sir. One of the top men there, even if it is me saying so. I ride the tram in each morning from Kentish way, where I’ve a wife and two girls. Mr. Holmes, do we turn things over to your real agents now?”