He looked at us quizzically over his wire-rim glasses. “Certainly, gentlemen,” he said. “To what effect?”
“We are going to ask Her Majesty’s government to supply us with a battleship,” Holmes said, and paused, waiting for the reaction.
It was not what one might have expected. “There are no British battleships visiting the port right now,” Aubrey said, folding his hands over his ample stomach and leaning back in his chair. “Will a cruiser do?”
Holmes leaned over the desk. “We are in earnest,” he said, his intense eyes glowering over his thin, ascetic nose, “and this is not a jest. To the contrary, it is of the utmost importance and urgency.”
“I have no doubt,” replied Aubrey, looking up mildly. “My offer was sincere. If a cruiser will suffice, I am ready to put one at your disposal. It’s all that’s available. There are some four or five Royal Navy torpedo gunboats working with the Italian Navy engaged in the suppression of smugglers and pirates in the Mediterranean, but I can’t predict when one of them will come to port.”
“But you’re prepared to put a cruiser at, er, our disposal?” I asked.
“I am,” said Aubrey, nodding. “That is, I have no direct authority to do so, but the authority has been passed on to me from Whitehall. I received a cable this morning directing me to do all I could to assist you, were you to show up. I must say I’ve never been given an instruction like that before in eighteen years in the Foreign Service. From the P.M. himself, don’t you know. Along with a screed from the Admiralty.”
Holmes straightened up. “Mycroft!” he said.
“Undoubtedly,” I agreed.
“Her Majesty’s Ship Agamemnon is in port,” said Aubrey, “and I have passed on the request of the Admiralty to Captain Preisner that he keep steam up and await further instructions. Now, if you could tell me what this is all about, perhaps I could be of some further assistance.”
“Let us head to the docks immediately,” Holmes said. “We will explain on the way.”
Aubrey reached for the bellpull behind his desk. “Call up my carriage,” he told the man who appeared in answer to his summons. “And fetch my greatcoat, there’s a chill in the air.”
Consul Aubrey gave instructions, and soon we were racing through the streets of Trieste heading toward the municipal docks, where a waiting launch would take us to the Agamemnon. “In case something goes wrong,” Holmes told the Consul, “and there’s every chance it will, you’ll have to prepare.”
“Prepare for what?” Aubrey asked. “In what way?”
Holmes and I took it in turns to tell him what we knew and what we surmised. “We may not have all the details correct,” I said, “but if events do not unfold much as we have described, I will be greatly surprised.”
“But this is incredible!” Aubrey said. “How did you figure all this out?”
“No time now,” Holmes declared, as the carriage pulled to a stop. “We must hurry.”
“Good luck,” Aubrey said. “I shall return to the consulate and prepare for your success or failure, whichever comes from this madness.”
“It must sound mad,” I agreed. “But it is not our madness, but that of our antagonist.”
“Come,” said Holmes. “Let us board the launch.”
We leapt aboard the steam launch. The boatswain saluted us as we raced past him down the gangway, then blew on his whistle twice, and we were off. The harbor was thick with shipping, and we weaved and dodged between vessels of all sorts and sizes, making our way to the great, looming bulk of the three-stack cruiser of modern design that was our destination.
When we reached the Agamemnon a ladder was lowered from the deck of the cruiser to receive us. The sea was calm in the harbor, but transferring from the rolling deck of the steam launch to the pitching ladder at the cruiser’s side, even in those gentle swells, was more of an effort than a sedate unadventuresome man of my years found enjoyable.
Captain Preisner’s flag officer met us as we stepped onto the deck and led the way to the bridge of the Agamemnon, where Preisner, a thin man with a bony face and a short, pointed grey beard, greeted us warily. “Mr. Holmes,” he said, with a stiff nod of his head, “Professor Moriarty. Welcome, I think, to the Agamemnon.”
“Captain,” I acknowledged.
Preisner flapped a sheet of yellow paper at us. “I am requested and required by the Admiralty to give you whatever assistance you require, without asking questions. Or, at least, without demanding answers. Which, I must say are the oddest instructions I have ever received.”
“This may be the oddest mission in which you will ever engage,” Holmes told him.
Captain Preisner sighed. “And somehow I have the feeling that it will not bring accolades to me or my crew,” he said.
“You will probably be requested not to mention it in your official report,” I told him. “And, were I you, I would not enter the details in my log until I had time to think deeply on it.”
“It was ever thus,” Preisner said. “What am I to do?”
I pointed to the south. “Somewhere out there, not too far away, is a destroyer flying the Union Jack, or possibly the Red Ensign. We have to stop it and board it. Or, if that proves impossible, sink it.”
Preisner looked at me, speechless. And then he looked at Holmes, who nodded. “Sink a British warship?” he asked incredulously.
“Ah,” Holmes said, “but it isn’t. And if we do not succeed in stopping it, some major outrage will be committed in the harbor of Trieste or some nearby coastal city, and it will be blamed on the British Navy.”
“A ruse of war?” Preisner asked. “But we aren’t at war, that I know of.”
“We’d better consider it a ‘ruse of peace,’ then,” Holmes said. “Although the ultimate purpose of the exercise might well be to provoke a state of war between Britain and several Continental powers.”
“A Royal Navy destroyer,” Preisner mused, “that isn’t a Royal Navy destroyer.”
“The name on her side will indicate she’s the Royal Edgar,” I told him. “In reality she is the decommissioned Royal Mary, which has been sold to Uruguay. The Uruguayan government, we believe, renamed her the Florida.”
“We’re going to war with Uruguay?”
“She is now in the hands of a group of rogue European, ah, gentlemen, who plan to use her to provoke animosity and, perhaps, active hostilities against Great Britain. How the transfer was made from the Uruguayan authorities to the plotters remains to be seen. It could well be that the government of Uruguay knows nothing of the supposed sale.”
“My God! How did you—never mind that now!” Preisner swung around and barked out a series of orders that got the great ship under way.
While the Agamemnon made her way out into the Gulf of Trieste and headed down the Adriatic Sea, Captain Preisner concerned himself with the handling of his ship, but once we were in open water he turned the helm over to Lieutenant Willits, his bulldog-jawed, taciturn first officer, and called us to his side. “Now tell me what you know,” he said, “and what you surmise, so that we can plan a course of action.”
As rapidly as possible, but leaving out nothing of consequence, we told him our story. Holmes took the lead, and in that nasal, high-pitched voice of his outlined what we knew and how we had learned it.
Preisner rested his elbows on the ledge running around the front of the bridge, directly below the large glass windscreens, and stared out at the choppy blue-green sea. “And on these meager facts you have commandeered one of Her Majesty’s battle cruisers and set out in search of a destroyer that may or may not exist, and that, if it does exist, may or may not be planning some harm to British interests? And the Lords of the Admiralty have agreed with this, ah, unlikely interpretation?” he shook his head. “I will obey orders, even if it means obeying your orders and racing up and down the Adriatic, but frankly, I don’t see it.”
“You don’t agree that it is likely that this cabal has gotten possession of the Royal Mary and int
ends harm to Britain?” Holmes asked.
“Of what possible profit to them could such an action be?” Preisner asked. “I grant you your conclusion that these people were training a crew to operate a British warship, and the Royal Mary might well be the one. And if they were planning to come to Trieste, then they were probably picking up the ship somewhere around here. But is it not more likely that, having obtained the ship, they will take it to some distant port to commit their outrage, if indeed an outrage is planned?”
“There are several reasons to believe that, whatever sort of attack they are planning, it will be nearby and soon,” I said.
“For one thing,” said Holmes, “their men cannot be all that well trained in the handling of a modern destroyer.”
“For another,” I added, “every extra hour they spend will increase the likelihood that they will be intercepted by some ship of Her Majesty’s Mediterranean Fleet. And one attempt to exchange signals would brand her as an imposter.”
“For maximum effect,” Holmes said, “the outrage should be conducted close to a city or large town, so that it will be observed by as many people as possible.”
“That makes sense,” Preisner agreed.
“And then there are the undergarments,” I said.
“Yes,” Holmes agreed. “That gives the whole game away.”
Captain Preisner looked from one to the other of us. “It does?” he asked.
A mess steward came by with steaming mugs of tea for those on bridge, and he had thoughtfully included two for Holmes and me.
I took the tea gratefully and sipped at it. Neither Holmes nor I were dressed for the chill breeze that whipped through the open doors of the bridge. “The men in the Royal Navy uniforms are to be visible on deck during the event,” I told Captain Preisner, “so that watchers on shore will believe the masquerade. But why undergarments?”
“And why only five?” Holmes added.
Preisner looked thoughtful. “A good question,” he said.
“The only reasonable answer is that those five men must pass close inspection when their bodies are examined.”
“Their bodies?”
“Consider,” said Holmes. “The undergarments only make sense if it is expected that the men will be examined.”
“Yes, I see that,” Preisner agreed.
“But if they are alive when they are examined, any discrepancies will become quickly evident,” said Holmes.
“As, for instance, their not speaking fluent English,” I added.
“So you think they are dressing corpses in British naval uniforms?” Preisner asked.
Holmes looked away. “Perhaps,” he said.
“Sail ho to the port!” a seaman outside the bridge relayed a call from the lookout on the top mast. We turned to look, but it was indeed a sail, the topsail of a three-masted barque, and not the four funnels of a British destroyer, that slowly came into sight on our port side.
We saw a variety of ships during the rest of that day, but it was dusk before we found the ship we were seeking. A four-masted destroyer appeared in the distance a few points off the starboard bow. Lieutenant Willits grabbed for the chart of identification silhouettes and ran his finger down the side while peering closely at the illustrations. “I don’t believe there would be any other four-masted destroyer in the area,” he said, “but it would not do to make a mistake.”
Captain Preisner examined the distant ship through his binoculars and, even before Willits had confirmed the identification, turned to the duty seaman, and said quietly, “Signal all hands—battle stations.”
The seaman whistled down the communications tube and relayed the command and, almost immediately, an ordered bedlam descended on the boat as the members of the crew raced to their assigned positions.
“She’s flying no flags or pennants,” announced Willits, who was staring at the approaching ship through his own binoculars. “But she’s making no attempt to avoid us. There appears to be a small black ship of some sort to her rear.”
“It would look suspicious were she to turn aside,” said Preisner. “She doesn’t know that we’re stalking her. Hoist our own flag and the recognition code flag for today. And see if you can identify the ship to her rear.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Willits relayed the command, and in a few seconds several flags were fluttering at the top of the Agamemnon’s forward mast.
“No response,” said Willits after a minute. “Wait—she’s turning to port, trying to evade us. If she completes the turn, she’ll be able to show us her heels. She must have three or four knots better speed.”
“Probably less with an untrained engine crew,” commented Preisner. “But nonetheless—”
“I can make out her name now,” said Willits, peering through his binoculars. “She’s the Royal Edgar, right enough. Or claims she is. The other ship is keeping on her far side, but it appears to be some sort of large yacht, painted black.”
“A smuggler, no doubt,” said Preisner.
“I believe you’re right, sir.”
“Put a warning shot across her bow and run up the signal for ‘Come to a complete stop,’” directed the captain. “Helmsman, turn twenty degrees to the starboard.”
One of the Agamemnon’s four-inch guns barked once, and a fountain of water appeared off the bow of the Royal Edgar.
The destroyer continuing turning, ignoring the warning. The Agamemnon fired another shot, which plunged into the water close enough to have soaked anyone standing by the bow of the Royal Edgar. A few seconds later one of the Royal Edgar’s two-inch guns coughed a burst of flame, and an explosion sounded somewhere forward on the cruiser. A few seconds later, another burst, and a sound like the banging together of a hundred large iron pots came from amidships.
“They’re firing at us!” yelled Lieutenant Willits.
“More fools they,” said Captain Preisner grimly, and he gave the order to return fire.
The universe became filled with awesome roaring sounds as the eight-inch guns of the Agamemnon hurled their 120-pound explosive missiles into the air. In two minutes the firing from the Royal Edgar had stopped, and Captain Preisner gave the order for our own ship to cease fire. A total of no more than a dozen rounds had been fired by the big guns of the cruiser, but the damage done to the destroyer gave one faith in the might of modern science. She was dead in the water and already starting to list to one side. Billows of smoke were coming from amidships, and a tongue of flame was growing toward the bow.
The black yacht had pulled up alongside the Royal Edgar, and people were transferring over. Others were attempting to lower a lifeboat aft of the bridge.
“We should board her, Captain,” Holmes said.
“Why?” asked Preisner.
“There may be documents.”
“There may be wounded,” added Lieutenant Willits.
“I’ll have a boat lowered and ask for volunteers to row you over,” Preisner told us. “But I’m not bringing the Agamemnon anywhere near that vessel. And I warn you, she’s either going to blow up or go under quite soon, and quite suddenly.”
Volunteers were found—the human race never ceases to astound me—and the captain’s gig was lowered. We armed ourselves with revolvers and knives from a locker on the bridge, and we were shortly being rowed over to the Royal Edgar, which was not any lower in the water, although the fire was still burning. As we approached, the black yacht roared past us, headed off toward the south. A portly man in a Royal Navy officer’s uniform standing rigidly in the rear of the yacht shook his fist at us as he passed.
“Would that be the king?” I asked Holmes.
“I believe it is,” Holmes told me. “Yes, I believe it is.”
We instructed our oarsmen to remain in the gig and to row rapidly away at the first sign that something untoward was about to happen.
“But what about yourselves, governor?” asked the bo’s’n in charge of the rowing party.
“We shall dive off the ship and swim rapidly
toward the Agamemnon,” I told him.
“We’ll probably be there before you are,” Holmes added.
“Very good, sir,” responded the bo’s’n, but he was not convinced.
A couple of ropes were visible dangling over the side of the destroyer, and I grabbed one of them and pulled myself up. Holmes waited until I was on deck to follow me up the rope. There was very little damage evident on deck. Were it not for the smoke behind us and the fire ahead of us, it would look like there was nothing amiss.
“Why do you suppose they fled,” Holmes asked, “instead of attempting to fight the fire?”
“Perhaps they were not trained to do so,” I responded. “Perhaps they didn’t have the equipment.”
“Perhaps,” Holmes agreed.
We had boarded amidships. By some unspoken agreement, we both turned and went forward. “If there are any useful documents,” I said, “they’re probably on the bridge.”
“If there were any,” Holmes replied, “Wilhelm Gottsreich most assuredly took them with him.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
We reached the ladder leading up to the bridge, and Holmes went up ahead of me. He stopped, frozen, in the doorway, and I could not get by. “What is it, Holmes,” I asked, trying to peer around his shoulder.
“As I feared,” he said, “but could not bring myself to believe …” He moved into the room, and I entered behind him.
There, lined up against the back wall, were four men in the uniforms of ordinary seamen in the Royal Navy. Their hands and feet were tied, and their mouths were covered with sticking plaster. One of them seemed to have fainted; he was slumped over, only held up by the rope around his chest, which was affixed to a metal hook in the wall. The other three were conscious: one trembling uncontrollably, one rigidly staring out the windscreen, his face frozen with shock, and the third fighting like a trapped beast against his bonds; his wrists raw, and blood streaming from his forehead.
A fifth man, his hands still tied behind him, lay prone on the floor, his face immersed in a large pan of water. He did not move. Holmes ran over to him, pulled up his head and rolled him over. After a few seconds he got up from the still body. “Too late,” he said.
Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years Page 30