The Revenge of Sherlock Holmes

by Phil Growick

  At this time, Reilly still did not know that he had become a father; although he was still in love with Tatiana and now, more than ever, wanted to rejoin her. But where?

  With papers of safe passage supplied by Trotsky, he was off to find out.

  Holmes Leaves For New York

  In the space of seven days, Holmes was himself again. Or rather, he was James Hamilton. But whoever he was, he needed to leave as soon as possible and do all that needed to be done. And to have answered all the questions demanding answers.

  Hank was kind enough, one morning, to bring his wagon about and drive Holmes the few miles into Port Royal so that he could contact his bank in London and have funds wired to James Hamilton, of course.

  To continue the fiction, Holmes said he was notifying Bermuda of his safety, telling them that he would be returning to London and asking to please ship his belongings to his home there.

  This was done quickly enough, but while waiting for the transfer, Holmes could not but wonder at the profusion of U.S. Marines and sailors in town.

  “Hank, is there a naval base about?”

  “Naval base? Bite your tongue, friend. Ain’tya never heard of Parris Island?”

  “You mean the United States Marine installation?”

  “That’s the one, Jim. Yeah, we’re still trainin’ ‘em and sendin’ ‘em off to help you Brits beat the Krauts. The sailors are just around to row the Marines to Europe and clean up their slop.”

  At that, Hank’s smiling expression changed, and, looking directly into Holmes’ eyes, he said, “Ya know, Jim, I suspect there just might be more to you and what happened to you then you’re lettin’ on.”

  “I don’t understand,” Holmes said.

  “Well, ya seem like such a smart fella an’ all, bein’ a fish doctor, that I just can’t imagine you gettin’ yourself into the predicament you were in when we fished ya outa the water.”

  “Well, Hank, even scientists can be fools from time to time.”

  “Yup, I guess you went and proved that.” They both laughed.

  Presently, Holmes received his funds and he offered compensation to Hank.

  “My, oh my, it seems yer memory is still quite on the fizzle”, Hank said.

  “How do you mean?” asked Holmes.

  “Well I seem to remember Abby tellin’ya that what we did was simple courtesy. From one human bein’ to another. Or don’t they have that in England no more?”

  “Yes, of course we do. And it is very much appreciated. But I would like to repay you and your family in some tangible way.”

  “Well, I’ll tell ya what,” Hank said as they walked back to the wagon, “once ya get back t’ yer institute, or London, just stay there and be safe. We don’t wanna be fishin’ ya outa the water again.”

  “A simple request that can be granted with simple alacrity,” Holmes said.

  “If not sooner,” Hank said.

  Now let’s get back to home and you can get the things we gave ya, say goodbye to everybody and get out!” They both laughed again. But Holmes took note once more that Hank was more than the simple vocabulary-deprived man he appeared to be. He knew the meaning of the word ‘alacrity’.

  After some hasty stops at local stores for Holmes to purchase a travel valise, some clothing and necessities, and booking passage on a mail carrier due to leave for New York that very afternoon, they went back to the Curtis home.

  Holmes gathered the clothes they had given him, packed his new valise with them and the new purchases he’d just made, and went to say goodbye to Abby.

  “I can’t thank you all enough for what you’ve done for me.”

  “Then don’t. Just get going to where you’re going and don’t worry about us, we won’t miss you,” Abby said.

  “And now I suppose I have to bring ya back t’ town so ya can get on that ship to New York to take ya back to London. And not a minute too soon, too,” Hank said.

  Abby gave Holmes a long, warm hug.

  “Okay, stop huggin’ my wife. Get in so I can get ya to the boat in time.”

  With that, Holmes and Hank were off to Port Royal again.

  It didn’t take long to get to the dock where a small ship was being readied to cast off. The Mercury was a small mail carrier plying the east coast of the United States. She took parcels as well as passengers, and Holmes was to be one of those passengers.

  Hank helped Holmes aboard with his belongings and Holmes reached out his hand to him.

  “Once again, Hank, I will never forget you or your family and what you’ve done for me. And please thank Lou and Martin for their excellent eyesight and strong arms. I wish them well.”

  Suddenly Hank’s speech pattern changed. It seemed that now he wanted to confide in Holmes.

  “No worries, Jim. My family and I know you mean what you say. And I trust that you know we never bought that tale you told about how you got where you were. No, Jim, it was better you take us for the simple folk you expected. And as for those young Marines you noted, my oldest son, Don, is over there fighting in France. He was at Bealleau Wood .

  “That was one hell of a fight, the papers said. I know you probably didn’t hear, but after that battle, the Krauts called the Marines, Tuefel Hunden, Devil Dogs. Not a bad appellation, at that.

  “Yes, Don’s a Marine and a Curtis, and he came out all right. And by the way, Lou and Martin are back at Parris Island. But they’re going to remain Stateside. For now, anyway.”

  “That’s very good to hear, Hank. But just so you know, when I saw a revolver handle in Abby’s basket, and your casual understanding of words like alacrity, ichthyologist and Pandora, I suspected there was more there than met the eye, as well. Is there?”

  “Well, Jim, let’s just say you’ve got secrets to keep and my family and I may want to keep some secrets, as well.”

  “Fair enough,” Holmes said.

  With that, Hank turned and just before he walked across the plank to the deck, he turned, stood ramrod straight, gave a perfect and precise Marines salute to Holmes, said, “Semper Fi, friend, Semper Fi,” and walked back to his wagon.

  “So,” Holmes thought to himself, “much more there, as I suspected. But what?”

  On the Mercury, Holmes was alone to ponder during the two days it took to get to Manhattan Harbour. His fear for my fate gnawed at him constantly. Once in Manhattan he could, anonymously, learn more of me through an associate in London, but how was he to learn of the fate of Reilly, the Romanovs and the rest? He certainly could not approach those who knew of the secret events because any of them could have been the architect of the assassination attempt. But who? And why?

  He would lay the groundwork for his return to London in New York. Then, once returned to London, he would learn of the man, or men, upon whom he would take terrible revenge.

  Reilly Finds a Finnish Friend

  Hurriedly leaving Petrograd with his papers of safe transport from Trotsky, and wishing to keep ahead of what always seemed to be a brutal Finnish winter, it was early October, 1918, Reilly made his way across the Isthmus of Karelia to Viipuri, on the border of Russia and Finland; only about seventy-five miles from Petrograd and about one hundred and fifty miles from Helsinki.

  Today, because of the Russo-Finnish Winter War, Viipuri is known as Vyborg and in Soviet territory. The spoils of a bully.

  There, he was able to contact someone who would be able to help him further. They met at a little café, “Pieni Kahvila”, which literally translates from Finnish as Little Café.

  Yrjö, pronounced “Oor-yuh” - George, in English, was a Finnish double-agent; who, like Reilly, was working for both SIS and the Bolsheviks. However, Yrjö’s loyalty, as it would turn out, was more to honour and to Finland, than to his two seeming masters.

  “So, I am to see you safely to He
lsinki,” Yrjö said as he and Reilly sat down. To Reilly’s practiced eye, Yrjö was quite young, in his early twenties; tall, firmly built and as appealing as the birch trees so prevalent throughout Finland. And for someone in their profession, he had an anomalous aura of authentic, innate goodness.

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” Reilly said.

  “No trouble, at all, comrade,” Yrjö said with a smile. Reilly detected a distinct British accent in Yrjö’s speech.

  “Oxford?” Reilly asked.

  “Very good. Yes. For a time. But please, we’re not here to discuss my pitiful personal history, we’re here to get you to Helsinki as quickly as possible, then on a ship back to London. If that’s all right with you, of course?”

  “That suits me perfectly, thank you,” Reilly said.

  He warmed to Yrjö’s sense of humor; but there were many, in the past, who knew when the time was ripe for a joke or a bullet. For some reason, though, Reilly immediately trusted Yrjö. Of course, in his business, that could be a fatal flaw. But not with this man, he felt. Not with this man.

  “Here are your papers, Roland,” Yrjö said as he took them from inside his jacket pocket.

  “Roland?” As Reilly opened the passport, he saw that someone else in SIS had his perverse sense of humor, because he was now Roland Windsor.

  “Roland Windsor?” Reilly ruminated, “Yes, indeed; why not?”

  As hot black coffee was placed before them, Yrjö said, “Here’s to a very safe journey, Roland.”

  “Here’s to a very safe journey, George.” They knocked cups, eyes smiled, and sipped slowly.

  However, what Reilly and Yrjö did not know, was that they were only a few steps ahead of a secret group called The Patriots, tethered to Stalin. These men, one step above mere murderers, were led by Nicholai Enelkin, a particularly unpleasant butcher; and as cunning as a famished fox.

  Enelkin had been trained so thoroughly by Dzerzhinsky, that he could follow a person through the Amazon or the Artic with just a button as a clue. It was Enelkin’s job to find Reilly and bring him back. Or if that was not possible, to be sure he would not be going anywhere again; and to eliminate anyone who stood in his way.

  Enelkin and three of these Patriots had followed Reilly from Russia through Karelia to Helsinki, always just a bit behind. Enelkin and his men arrived at the café a few minutes after Reilly and Yrjö had left. The waiter pointed to the direction they had gone. To Enelkin, that was a good beginning.

  After three days of uneventful travel via train, cart and foot, Reilly and Yrjö reached Helsinki. They had raced, or jolted, depending on the mode of transport, through towns like Hamina, Loviisa, and Porvoo, each sporting the ever-present stands of birch trees and to Reilly’s mind, seemingly stoic, unsmiling and unfriendly Finns.

  At one point, as if reading Reilly’s mind, Yrjösaid, “We’re not unfriendly, at all, Roland. It just takes us awhile to warm up.

  “Here, imagine a frigid Finnish winter; harsh and very uninviting. Then the spring thaw, the blooming of flowers and the welcome warmth of the sun. That’s us Finns. Once we thaw out and warm to you, we’re the best friends you could have. We’d give you the shirts off our back; especially if we’re going to the sauna. Then we’d give up all our clothing.” Both laughed.

  Yrjö took Reilly to a safe location on Kalevalankatu, Kalevalan Street in English, in a residential district not far from a small harbor and an open-air market on the Gulf of Finland.

  Yrjö then went off to book transit for Reilly to London. As it happened, The Merenneito, Finnish for “The Mermaid”, was due to leave for London the very next day. None too soon for Reilly or Yrjö; because as soon as Reilly was on that ship and off to London, Yrjö could breathe easily again. But he most certainly would not be able to do so until then.

  Late that night, as an inordinately hard rain strafed Reilly and Yrjö as they neared their safe location after a fine Finnish restaurant dinner of meat, potatoes and a surfeit of vodka, they didn’t notice the two men following, nor the other man who quietly and suddenly appeared in front of them, coming from behind some of the stalls in the darkened market, already closed.

  The man in front called out to Reilly in Russian, from a distance of no more than ten feet, “Good evening, Comrade Colonel. Perhaps you might like to come with us and get out of this horrid rain?”

  Though Reilly had to keep rubbing his eyes because of the incessant downpour, as did the man in front, he saw the man had a revolver in his hand. Now, hearing the men behind, Yrjö instinctively turned towards them, his back touching Reilly’s; and he saw that they, too, had pistols in their hands. The two advancing men stopped; but they held their pistols pointing directly at Yrjö’s head.

  Reilly answered in Russian, aware that Yrjö understood the conversation, “Oh, come now, comrade. You and your little friends didn’t come all this way just for a few nocturnal pleasantries?” As he said this, his right hand moved almost imperceptibly in the rain and dark, until he found his pistol behind his back.

  “Thank you for making them angry,” Yrjö said, beneath his breath.

  The man in front took one step closer. He continued to speak in Russian, “Of course not, comrade. We are here to take you on a little journey, you and your Finnish friend.”

  “You see, Reilly, even this Russian dog knows that we Finns do make friends,” Yrjö said very quietly.

  “Well, comrade, my Finnish friend and I are quite exhausted after our last journey, and I truly can’t see beginning another one. But I can see you taking one.”

  With that, Reilly pulled out his pistol with lightning speed and fired, sending the man face downwards into the water-soaked street.

  Yrjö then fired instantaneously, felling one man. The other was about to take his shot at Yrjö when Reilly, seeing what was about to happen, pushed Yrjö aside and shot him. However one of the Patriots’ bullets connected with Yrjö’s right arm. As Yrjö felt the bullet shatter the bone, he fell to one knee.

  “I told you not to make them angry,” he said.

  Reilly saw that while Yrjö was wounded, it was not serious, so he went to the man he shot, as Yrjö did the same to his two targets.

  Reilly prodded him with his pistol. He was alive, but badly wounded in his stomach, perhaps fatally.

  “There, there, comrade,” Reilly said, making sure the man had no more weapons. He held his head in his hands, the rain still raging in torrents.

  “Tell me, who are you? Who sent you? If you tell me, I can get a doctor for you and promise that you’ll live. If you don’t tell me, I can make another promise. You’ll die.” Reilly placed his pistol against the man’s temple. Then he pressed it even more tightly.

  “Comrade, comrade, you’re a smart man. Surely you want to live,” Reilly said.

  “Da, da,” the man stammered, “I want to live.”

  “Good, good. So, now tell me, who sent you and who are you?”

  “Enelkin, Nickolai Enelkin.”

  “Good, very good. Now is that your name or the name of the man who sent you?”

  The man was spitting up blood now, “My...my name.”

  “All right, then who sent you?” This time Reilly put the pistol into the man’s ear and cocked it.

  “Stalin. Stalin. He wants you...back... to question you...to learn things.”

  “Oh, to learn things, I see. Well, I have something for you to learn; I lied about helping you live.” And with that, Reilly pulled the trigger.

  “It’s good the rain is covering the gunshots,” Yrjö said as he came next to Reilly, looking down at Enelkin. Reilly motioned with his head in the direction of the other two. “They, too are taking that journey,” Yrjö said, then asked, “Did he give you any information?” He was holding his right arm with his left for support.

  “He said Stalin sent him
. His name was Enelkin.”

  “Enelkin? I know that name. He led a special group for Stalin. They did the work too difficult, or distasteful, for others. It’s good he’s dead. He was not human.”

  “We have to get out of here and tend to that arm. But first I’m going to drag them over to the harbour and dump them into the Gulf. Will you be all right?”

  “Yes; the current should take them far away, especially with the wind and rain,” Yrjö said. “It will give our police something more to do than investigate peddlers of rotten fish.”

  Reilly returned about ten minutes later, and though further drained from the extra exertion, he said, “Here, let me help,” as he put his arm around Yrjö to bolster his walking.

  “Not needed. We Finns have ‘sisu’.”

  “Oh,” said Reilly, not knowing what he meant, making a mental note to ask him later, but not wanting Yrjö to expend any more energy than necessary as they slowly walked back to their haven on Kalevalankatu.

  “Reilly, I owe you one.”

  “Only one? I thought you Finns had nine lives,” Reilly joked.

  “Only our wives,” Yrjö joked back.

  What neither noticed because of the dark and rain, was a fourth man. A man who had silently watched and remained hidden.

  Holmes Meets “The Brain”

  Once in New York and in contact with that associate in London, Holmes was able to set his mind at ease as to my well-being and also that of his brother, Mycroft. But of Reilly, the Romanovs and the rest, his mind still churned. But he was absolutely astonished to learn of his own death and that he was a national war hero.

  He knew stories like that are spread throughout the Empire and the world from such heights as blizzards fall. So he began to postulate, and shiver. But if I had been left in peace, perhaps the others had, as well. Then why had he, alone, been a mortal target?

  For a little more than a year after arriving in New York, it was now late October, 1919, Holmes examined every possibility, every nuance, every microscopic bit of information that he could extract from his prodigious memory to discover who had been responsible for the attempt on his life; though he, as yet, had not come to a definitive conclusion. As he had so frequently reminded me, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” This didn’t seem to help him now.