by David Marcum
I peered around. “There’s nothing here, Holmes,” I said. “Not even the large dug-out Toby said the Anti-Aircraft artillery stood in. Either we’re in the wrong clearing, or someone’s filled it in. We’re wasting our time.”
Holmes pointed at a tall oak. “That tree, Watson, the one with the thick ivy growing up it.”
“What of it?”
“Go and tug some of the vines from the trunk, if you don’t mind.”
I did so until I exposed the smooth, silvery brown bark of the lower trunk.
“My heavens!” I exclaimed. My tugging had exposed a wire tucked among the ivy’s shiny dark evergreen leaves. “A Marconi antenna, Holmes. Wireless telegraphy. Of course! The Royal Garrison Artillery chaps must have left it behind.”
“If you say so,” Holmes rejoined. “And if I’m not mistaken...” he added, stepping further into the small clearing, “we’ll find something else of interest under the soil here. Ah! In fact... come here, Watson. Take a look at this.”
He was standing by a round metal pipe jutting up through the leafy ground cover. “A drain pipe?” I spluttered. “Why would...”
“A drain pipe, certainly, Watson, but not for conducting water. It’s a breathing hole. I repeat, if I’m not badly mistaken, there’s something of considerable interest beneath our feet. Look for a square outline, something about the size of a cucumber frame.”
“There!” I exclaimed, pointing.
Even as I spoke, Holmes was striding to the nearest patch of undergrowth. He reached into it and yanked at something. At the spot I had indicated, a lid about three feet square sprang open. The hideout was so well concealed that no-one walking over the roofing would notice the ground beneath his feet remained hollowed out.
“It’s getting dark. We must hurry,” Holmes ordered. “Keep an eye open for anything spies might use.”
Swiftly we descended a small ladder. “What are we to look for?” I enquired.
“Codes. Secret inks,” came the whispered reply. “Any sort of night-signalling apparatus to guide the Zeppelins, such as those ingenious glass delay-action incendiaries disguised as carpenters’ pencils.”
My foot contacted a Tilley lamp. I lit it, and we found ourselves in a space roughly six feet deep, the floor about ten feet by ten feet.
“Adrienne’s emergency exit,” Holmes murmured, pointing to a short flight of steps cut into the earth at the far corner. “She takes no risks. That’s what the abandoned sheep trough is hiding.”
Four little blue flowers, dried violets, had been carefully placed in a niche next to a candle. Attached to the wall was a map showing the region’s ancient archaeology, Avebury Circle and Stonehenge particularly recognisable. Further along the wall was a small metal box on a make-shift shelf.
“Holmes, no matter what the reason she has for visiting this bunker, Adrienne can’t be a spy,” I assured him. “This is a Marconi wireless apparatus set up only as a receiver. At best, she could receive messages from Berlin, but she can’t send any to them. Surely this lets her off the hook.”
“I’m afraid it proves nothing, Watson,” came the terse reply. “There are good reasons not to use a transmitter. The principal one is noise. A receiver alone, powered by a battery, would scarcely be heard, even if someone is standing above us in the clearing, but she’d need at least a four-horse-power motor for a transmitter. There’s the footpath not that far from here, the one we take to the Who’d A Thought It. That size of generator would be heard for half-a-mile, especially at night. The best and most effective way to lessen the sound is to run the generator’s exhaust pipe through water, but that would require a much larger water-tank than that sheep-trough.
“Even then, the water would discolour quickly and draw the attention of an unexpected visitor. Also, the smell of the exhaust going up that pipe would carry a long way in a breeze. The reason for using the radio only as a receiver allows Berlin to confirm the Zeppelins are coming. This gives their spy sufficient time to come to the safety of this bunker while the fire-bombing’s going on. That is what she must have done during the Zeppelin attacks on Raffley Park. I would wager you excellent odds that she has to rendezvous with Berlin at a precise time to receive her instructions, which explains why she held back until the other girls left the pub.”
I stared at Holmes, baffled.
“I take your point about receiving warnings,” I said, “but if Adrienne really is a spy as you seem set on proving, how is she telling the Boche when to send over their Zeppelins in the first place, and from which direction they should approach to avoid the British guns?”
“Watson, my dear fellow,” Holmes replied with a now-familiar look in his eye - the look of a man on a hunt - “that’s exactly what we need to discover. And quickly too. We can start by searching this bunker with the utmost care.”
After a few intensive minutes we gave up. Holmes muttered, “Nothing except those four dried violets. It’s clear that if she doesn’t have a way to transmit messages over the air, she must have some other way to contact Berlin. The question is, how?”
He pointed at the Tilley lamp. “Be a good fellow and extinguish that light. I think it’s time we went back to the pub. Go out ahead of me. I’ll close the lid. We’ll scatter a few leaves over the entrance to cover our tracks.”
As I clambered up the ladder, Holmes called after me, “Keep all this quiet, even from your friend Toby McCoy. Without an overt act or a confession, we are left only with circumstantial evidence, certainly not sufficient proof of manifest treason. Without the one or the other, we can’t bring a charge against anyone for the capital crime of consorting with the enemy.”
Evening had set in by the time we arrived at the Who’d A Thought It. As we entered the Lounge Bar, Toby McCoy beckoned from the far corner. On our way across the picturesque old room with sanded floors and high-backed settees, we passed the lively group of young women who made up the knitting circle. The girls raised their knitting needles in a friendly hallo, giving a collective giggle at the sight of a cleric among them.
Piled-up plates of freshly-baked bread and large chunks of cheese arrived. We ate in silence, Holmes and I pondering the afternoon’s events. Toby McCoy, too, was silent.
At the end of the meal, my old comrade-in-arms suddenly said, “Wilson, you and Toby have always wanted to know a bit about knitting, haven’t you! Why don’t you wander over to those spare chairs next to Miss Adrienne at the knitting table.”
“On the contrary, my dear Holmes,” I replied, forgetting for the moment to address him as “Parson”, “I assure you I haven’t the faintest interest in learning how to knit!”
“Oh yes, you have,” Holmes said firmly. He gestured at Toby McCoy. “As does Toby here.”
Holmes grabbed my arm. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Merely a device, Watson, to occasion another meeting between her and our love-smitten friend. While you’re talking, get a good look at the objects the girls are knitting, including Adrienne’s scarf. Ask her to let you try a stitch or two. See if there’s any sort of pattern on it.”
In the morning we set off for the railway station. The stationmaster put down The Marlborough Morning News when we entered his office, and he beckoned us to take a seat.
“May I help you, Parson?” he said to Holmes, with a separate friendly nod to me.
“I believe you may, Stationmaster,” my comrade began. “We’ve heard many of the church congregations in territories conquered by the Germans are in terrible straits because of the shortages of clothing. My parishioners in Ashby St. Mary want to knit items for the Belgians - that is my women parishioners, of course!” he added with a chortle. “If we send parcels, how would they go to Belgium? By what route?”
“Let’s see,” the stationmaster replied, putting on a thinking expression. “I don’t know about Ashby St. Mary, but I can tell you the route fro
m here because a young woman from Raffley Park has taken to sending parcels for the Belgians. One was put on the train only this morning. They best go via London to Folkestone. You see, Folkestone is the best port for Flushing. That’s in Holland,” he added for our enlightenment, “and the trains have to go through Holland to get to Belgium, you see.”
“I presume it takes quite some time for a parcel to get to Belgium, then?” Holmes pursued.
“In fact, no, Parson,” came the reply. “That’s the surprising thing. It doesn’t. The trains run just as quick as they did before the War. In fact quicker. Less traffic on the rails, except for when they’re moving troops around. Say you post a parcel from here in the morning. It’ll go on the next fast train to London, sorted, then an hour or so later sent down to the coast, pass through customs, on to a cross-Channel ferry to Holland, and on the next train from Flushing to the Belgian frontier. Bob’s your uncle! Hardly more than twenty-four hours, I’d say, and your parcel will reach its destination.”
We thanked the stationmaster and closed his office door behind us. “Folkestone it is, Watson,” Holmes said in a low voice, “and as fleet as we’ve ever been. We’ll take a cab and board an express train at Swindon. I’ve got my ordinary clothes under this attire. If we leave now, with luck we’ll be back before anyone notes our absence.”
“What do you expect to find in Folkestone?” I asked. “If it’s you-know-who you’re concerned with, assuming you aren’t completely wrong, surely she wouldn’t risk putting anything in a parcel going through customs.”
“I’ve no doubt you’re right, Watson, she wouldn’t,” came the reply. “Except her knitting.”
The enigmatic response was followed by, “If I’m wrong, Watson, then England is in serious trouble. We can expect the worst. The fire-bombings are likely to continue. Without a good supply of horses, our guns won’t move an inch, vital matériel to our armies will cease...”
His words trailed away.
It was no good pressing my comrade. He had the most irritating habit of playing the stage conjuror, pulling a rabbit out of the hat at the time which suited him and not a moment earlier.
We changed stations in London. In a remarkably short time we disembarked at Folkestone. A porter pointed out the Customs House.
Even in a provincial port Holmes, no longer in disguise, was recognised immediately as England’s most famous investigating detective. Assistance was instant. A rapid search was conducted for a parcel for Belgium with an address written in a woman’s hand. Within minutes we were in possession.
“Look at the unusual knots, Watson,” my comrade remarked admiringly, carefully unpicking the string. “One overhand knot embracing another. I believe it’s known as the True Lover’s Knot.”
The parcel fell open. Out came a dozen or so square woollen patches, followed by a long grey scarf with a few splashes of bright colours.
I picked up the sturdy wrapping paper and shook it.
“Look, Holmes. You can see it contains only the scarf and the squares. There’s nothing else in the package. Thank Heavens!” I exclaimed, deeply relieved for young McCoy’s sake. “If there’s a spy at Raffley Park, it can’t be Adrienne.”
My comrade pushed the woollen squares to the side and spread the scarf out on the customs bench. He tugged out a ten-power silver-and-chrome magnifying glass from a voluminous pocket of his Poshteen Long Coat.
“It’s the same scarf all right,” I assured him, “the one she was knitting at the Who’d A Thought It. I recognise the design.”
“What in particular do you remember?” Holmes asked.
I pointed to one end. “Those five vertical lines in that sort of cartouche. She was working on them when Toby and I sat with her, pretending we wanted to learn how to knit.”
Holmes stepped back to let me take his place at the customs bench. He threw me a quizzical look. “And what do you make of them?” he asked.
“I make nothing of them, Holmes,” I retorted. “They’re just part of the pattern. What else could they be?”
“And that circle of ‘bumps’?” Holmes continued, pointing.
I shook my head.
“Again, what am I supposed to make of them?” I demanded. “Adrienne said something about ‘stocking stitches’. I even assumed she was making long stockings - not scarves.”
“You might bear in mind, Watson, that some of the best spies in this war are not our agents in occupied territories, with their cloaks and daggers and bits of rice paper squeezed into bicycle valves. The hardest to spot are simple housewives knitting innocent-looking patterns.”
“You mean like Madame Defarge, the tricoteuse in A Tale Of Two Cities?” I scoffed. “Really, Holmes! That was something Charles Dickens just dreamed up! Adrienne openly says she’s doing this knitting to send to the Belgians. Surely she’d keep that quiet if she really was a spy.”
“It should become a dictum of yours, Watson, that false stories containing elements of truth have the longest legs. Let’s start with the five lines of stitches,” he went on. “What day of the week do we expect the next consignment of horses?”
“Friday,” I returned, lowering my voice. “If you mean each line of stitching represents one day of the week, starting on a Monday, then (I began to count of my fingers) Monday to Tuesday, one day. Tuesday to Wednesday, two days. Wednesday to Thursday, three days. Thursday to Friday... that’s only four days. Five lines would mean this Saturday. If it’s a code, she’s given them the wrong day, a day too late. Most of the horses will have been moved on.”
“What if I tell you Germans count the days of the week from the Sunday, not Monday?” my comrade replied.
A cold hand clutched at my heart.
“These lines of stitches,” he continued. “Knit one, purl one - alternate rows of plain and purl stitches. They’re known as ‘stocking stitches’. She wasn’t about to knit stockings. She was knitting features in the landscape. Remember the archaeological map on the wall of the bunker? Barrows and sarsen stones would easily be visible from more than a thousand feet up, even on a cloudy night. That’s how she tells the Zeppelins the safest approach. Look, here’s Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain outlined in blue stitching. And there’s the outcrop of sarsen stones in the Savernake Forest. And this,” he pointed at an oblong burst of stitching, “is the ancient barrow just to the north of Raffley Park. Here we come to the Marlborough Downs - and a second set of Sarsen Stones. All outlined in blue.”
My spirits sank. I was beginning to reach the inevitable conclusion. “So what are those red lines?” I asked.
“That one’s the old Roman road, and that...” Holmes said, tracing his hand along the knitting, “...the Ridgeway.”
I pointed at a dotted line I didn’t recall from the archaeological map. “And this green wiggle?” I asked.
“That’s the route the Zeppelins are to follow. The scarf is as clear as a Royal Automobile Club route-map. The spy will have scouted the area on a bicycle to be sure there are no anti-aircraft emplacements along it. There’s no doubt about it, Watson. That’s the direction the Hun’s airships will come from this time.”
He replaced the scarf in its packing and carefully retied the string using the same neat symmetrical knots. “Holmes,” I gasped. “Surely we aren’t going to - ”
“Let her route map go on its way? Of course we are, Watson. Our little ruse worked. Toby succeeded in letting the secret out, just as I planned.”
Friday arrived. Just after sunset, Holmes and I re-entered the dug-out. Inside we stayed completely silent. My heart pounded. I was about to break the long silence with a question when his hand shot up.
“Silence, Watson,” he hissed. “I hear a rustle.”
Sure enough, a moment later the trapdoor swung up. Someone came to the opening and descended. The breathing was fast, as though the approach had been ma
de in a great hurry. The figure bent down and put a flame to the Tilley Lamp.
Then Adrienne turned and saw us. She stared at the Army service revolver in my hand.
“So,” she said, “you’ve found my hideout. I like to come here to - ”
Holmes interrupted. “Before you give us some absurd reason for being here, you should know we went to Folkestone and caught up with your latest package.” He pointed at the archaeological map on the wall. “It was very clever the way you placed the purl and knit stitches on the scarf to show the sarsen stones and barrows the Zeppelins should pick out. Each time you gave the enemy an exact route to approach Raffley Park which would by-pass our guns.”
She stood motionless looking at us. After a long silence she said, “Where is the scarf now?”
“We sent the parcel on to the address you gave,” I replied. “It turns out it’s a shop-front for Chef 111b, the German Military service, not a harmless group of Belgian citizens. Now that the horses are here, we expect the Zeppelins at any moment. You are a traitor to your country, Adrienne. In war, the penalty for such betrayal is death by firing squad or the hangman’s noose.”
“You don’t understand, Mr. Wilson,” she whispered, tears rising in her eyes. “I had good reason for this so-called betrayal.”
“Then the parson here and I should like to hear it,” came my severe response.
Her story tumbled out. Her family had been well-to-do but restrictive. A year before the War broke out, she was sent to traditional finishing school near Zurich. It focused on teaching social graces and upper class cultural rites as a preparation for entry into society. “My father,” she explained, showing remarkable erudition for a woman so young, “was laudator temporis acti - a ‘praiser of time past’.”