“Russian?” I said.
“Bulgarian, actually,” said Holmes, “and he claims to have been the fifth ever man to fly, though there is some debate over the assertion. Nonetheless, he is a noted aviation pioneer who is currently constructing a large tandem triplane of his own design in a shed at Brooklands. Farnwell took me over to introduce us, but unfortunately his majesty had elected not to show up that day, so I was unable to interview him. Not that it mattered, in the event. Farnwell was more than useful enough. According to him, de Bolotoff gives lessons only to the most exclusive of pupils, those able to meet his extortionately high fees.”
“Such as Mallinson.”
“And also Lord Harington. Farnwell mentioned the two in the same breath, since Mallinson had brought Harington to Brooklands just this very summer, to receive instruction from de Bolotoff.”
I shook my head incredulously. “That would seem to put it beyond dispute, then. Harington was at the controls of the Grahame-White on Friday night, with Patrick the passenger. But how was Patrick ejected from the aeroplane?”
“I discussed the matter hypothetically with Farnwell,” said Holmes. “He was of the view that a passenger could be dropped from the front seat of a Type Seven simply by flying the aeroplane inverted.”
“Wouldn’t the safety harness prevent that from happening?”
“Not if it had been tampered with, the straps partially cut through so that they would snap if subjected to the full hanging weight of a body.”
“But you inspected the entire plane, harnesses included. You quizzed Mallinson about them. Wouldn’t the passenger one show signs of having been interfered with?”
“It had been replaced, of course. That’s why Mallinson was quite confident about showing us the plane. He would never have let me near it if the harness had still been broken. That would have been a dead giveaway. Nonetheless I observed that the passenger harness looked newer and cleaner than the pilot’s. The buckles were shinier, not tarnished by use; the leather likewise. Mallinson must have detached the old one and installed its replacement the day he returned to Settleholm, unless Harington did the job as soon as he came in to land on Friday night.”
“Bold of Mallinson, nonetheless, to let you inspect the plane so closely.”
“He is nothing if not bold, Watson. Consider the fact that we saw him out in his Grahame-White on Sunday morning, allegedly searching for Patrick when he knew perfectly well that the boy was dead.”
“He did it so as to deflect suspicion.”
“What better way to make it seem as though he could not possibly have been involved? An innocent man would have done precisely what he did, which is go looking for Patrick at first light. Yet it was just a ruse.”
“This all makes a ghastly kind of sense,” I said. “But –”
“Wait.” Holmes held up a hand, squinting harder into the periscope’s viewing slot. “I think I see movement.”
I held my breath for several long seconds.
“No,” said Holmes. “False alarm. Just an errant village cat. What were you going to say?”
“Merely that Mallinson engaged you to look into Patrick’s death. Why would he do that when he knew a friend of his was the perpetrator and he himself was complicit in it?”
“You’ll have to ask him that yourself. My theory would be that it was the lesser of two evils. Inspector Tasker had told him that Sherlock Holmes happened to be present when Patrick’s body was discovered. What else could Mallinson do then but bring me in on the case? The great consulting detective on your doorstep, already tangentially involved in the affair of your son’s death and likely to become embroiled deeper. How to make the best of it? Hire him and direct him to prove it was suicide. The only other option would have been to warn me off, and that would have been tantamount to a declaration of guilt. Mallinson is much too canny and crafty a player to have fallen into that trap.”
“A tremendous risk, though, using you like that. Did he not think that it might backfire?”
“Probably, but we’re dealing with ruthless, shameless people here, Watson. People who prepare for every contingency. We already know they don’t tolerate loose ends. Think of poor Dr Wilcox, mown down in a London street so that he wouldn’t be able to air his suspicions about Peruvian Gold, if he even had any. I wonder who drove that car. Was it a Mercury, by any chance? With Victor Anstruther behind the wheel? And what about the fire at Tripp’s? That shows much the same approach: dispose of all witnesses or anyone who might stir up trouble.”
“So poor Miss Vandenbergh was another loose end,” I said, “as are you and I now. Jenks has already tried to ‘tie us up’ once. Twice, if you count him throwing me off the pier. He must be in on it, mustn’t he?”
“Clearly. And there will be another attempt to ‘tie us up’, and soon. In the meantime, I shall round off my narrative. In point of fact, there isn’t much more to tell. This morning I took it upon myself to inveigle my way into Settleholm Manor. Mallinson employs a workforce of nearly a dozen just to keep the building and grounds shipshape. He has twice that number of people below-stairs to ensure the smooth running of the household. With some thirty-odd underlings swarming around the property, who would notice one extra? So, having cobbled together a disguise, I showed up at Settleholm and set to work.”
“How brazen of you.”
“I have found, Watson, that the more audacious one is with such stratagems, the more likely one is to pull them off. The moment I was on the premises looking purposeful with a pitchfork in my hands, no one gave me a second glance, not even Jenks. To anyone who enquired, all I said was that I had joined the staff only that day, having lately left the employ of Eastbourne Borough Council and looking to supplement my meagre municipal pension with a little odd-job gardening work. I was Albert Tuppen, distantly related to a family of that name down East Dean way, born in Dorset but a Sussex resident since the early seventies. I could easily relate the details of Tuppen family life and history if need be. Mrs Tuppen has given me a solid qualification in that subject, whether I like it or not.”
“After just a few hours in her company, I feel I could credibly pass myself off as a Tuppen too.”
“The only person I was worried about convincing was Craig Mallinson himself. Not that I thought he would penetrate my disguise, but he would surely have some idea who was and was not on his payroll. As it happened, though, his path and mine never crossed. He stayed indoors, busy.”
“With what?”
“Everyone at Settleholm assumed it was the preparations for Patrick’s funeral this Saturday. He had guests, what’s more. He has been entertaining all day. At lunchtime I caught a glimpse of them through the dining-room window as I was pruning back the wisteria. Can you guess who they might be?”
“A stab in the dark: Partlin-Gray, Anstruther, Harington.”
“Watson, never let it be said that no brain lurks within that large round head of yours,” said Holmes. “Our four plutocrats were together at the table feasting on fine victuals and toasting one another with vintage wine.”
“Celebrating four murders achieved in such a way that none of the culprits appears anything but innocent.” I grated my teeth. “Yet they have not counted on the deductive genius of Sherlock Holmes.”
“I would agree, except that now, thanks to you, they know that we are wise to their scheme.”
“Again, I’m sorry.”
“It is of no great consequence. I would have had to get them to tip their hand eventually. You have accelerated the timescale, that is all. Jenks will have informed his master by now that he caught us but failed to kill us. I predict a second attempt fairly shortly. In fact, unless I’m much mistaken…”
Holmes’s mouth set in a tight line. He spun the handle on the periscope rapidly, first clockwise then counterclockwise.
“Brace yourself, old friend. Here it comes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
UNDER SIEGE
“Four of them,” said Holmes. �
�No, five. Two are closing in from the front. The other three have vaulted over the garden wall and… My bedding plants. Trampling them without a care in the world. Horticultural philistines.” He clucked his tongue. “Very well. A two-pronged assault it is. Watson, take over from me. We shall co-ordinate our efforts. You be my eyes. I shall concentrate on repelling the siege.”
“Repelling…?”
“Quick. No shilly-shallying.”
I assumed Holmes’s position at the periscope while he addressed himself to the rack of knife-switches beside it. Cotton-sheathed electrical cords led upward from them, each branching off in a different direction across the safe room ceiling and thence to some other part of the house.
My view, via the periscope, was of the section of village green immediately fronting the cottage. The upper mirror was angled so that it looked down the pitch of the roof all the way to the small porch over the front door.
Two men dressed head-to-toe in black were stealing towards the door. Both wore woollen balaclavas with holes for the eyes and mouth, which lent their heads a macabre appearance, like skulls in negative.
“Let me know when they look as though they are about to try the doorknob,” said Holmes.
“One of them is reaching to grasp it even as we speak.”
Holmes threw one of the knife-switches. “He is wearing leather gloves. That will provide some impedance to the shock.”
“The shock?”
“A substantial electric current is now running through the brass doorknob. Enough to make the fellow think twice before touching it again.”
We heard a muffled shout from above, and I caught sight of the intruder flying backwards, landing on the grass with an ungainly bump.
Holmes chuckled. “Well, I don’t need you to tell me that it worked. How is he? Unconscious?”
The man rolled on the ground, clutching his arm. His colleague was bent over him in a posture of concern.
“Not quite,” I said. “The glove definitely protected him, and he held the knob only briefly. I worry, though, that this deterrent of yours might cause ventricular fibrillation and death. That surely cannot be your wish.”
“Of course not,” said Holmes. “The current is set at two hundred volts, well below the danger level. All the defences I have built into the cottage are non-lethal. But that isn’t to say they are not disagreeable. Now, turn the upper mirror round. Let’s see what’s happening at the back of the house.”
The three other intruders were congregated in the garden. I could tell they were perturbed by the cry which had come from the other side of the cottage. One of them, the shortest of the trio, was carrying an all too familiar double-barrelled shotgun. He appeared to be exhorting the other two to ignore what was going on elsewhere and continue their approach to the back entrance.
“Are they by any chance near the beehives?” Holmes asked.
“Five or so yards away.”
“Excellent.”
He threw another knife-switch.
“I have just completed a circuit which sets a buzzer going beneath each hive,” he said. “I adapted the buzzers from electric doorbells. They set up a vibration at approximately the same pitch and volume as the sound bees make when they are alarmed and angry. This will rouse the colonies from their slumbers and put them on the offensive. Already I imagine one or two of the workers have emerged, an advance guard.”
I could just make out a few small dots circling outside the entrance to each hive.
“So you have decided to apply your knowledge of apiary to something other than the production of honey and wax,” I said.
“I am nothing if not versatile.”
“The same might be said for your bees.”
The number of dots outside the hives was growing rapidly, and several of them were gravitating towards the three men, who had their heads cocked and were seemingly in a state of some consternation, unable to fathom what the low electrical buzzing they were listening to portended. I watched the one with the shotgun – Jenks, it goes without saying – start to swat at the air around him. The other two followed suit.
Soon they were flapping and flailing their arms as the bees swarmed around them in an aggressive cloud. One man flinched and slapped at his face. Evidently he had been stung through his balaclava. With a petulant gesture he made for the garden wall. Still trying to deflect the bees, he slithered clumsily over onto the green. Another of the three, the one who wasn’t Jenks, did likewise. The gamekeeper braved the insects’ assault a little longer, batting them away from him and stamping them underfoot when he could. He too, however, had to admit defeat eventually, and withdrew, retreating to the other side of the wall.
Holmes returned the knife-switch to the off position, at my suggestion. The bees stopped flying around so agitatedly and drifted back to their hives.
The five intruders gathered at the front of the house to confer. One of them jabbed a finger towards the ground-floor windows, and Jenks responded with an emphatic nod. I relayed this information to Holmes, who took hold of yet another knife-switch in readiness.
Jenks used the butt of the shotgun to knock out a windowpane. We heard the faint tinkle of breaking glass. Then he inserted his arm through the empty pane in order to release the catch.
Holmes threw the third knife-switch, there was a deep firework-like bang, and Jenks recoiled. Cursing, he extricated something from his hand.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Merely triggered a gunpowder-propelled nail embedded in a tube within the window frame just next to the catch. It would have pierced his hand to a depth of at least an inch.”
I gave an exaggerated wince, although I felt precious little sympathy for the odious Jenks. He, at that moment, was performing a dance of rage on the green. I could only imagine the obscenities that were spewing forth from his lips.
Once more the five men conferred. Then Jenks stormed up to the front door and subjected it to a series of hearty, powerful kicks. Holmes and I heard it slam open, the wood of the jamb splintering.
Now the five were inside the house. Their footfalls resounded overhead as they searched the property thoroughly from top to bottom.
“Any more of your deterrents available?” I asked.
Holmes shook his head. “They are all exterior to the house. But rest assured those five men will never find us, not down here.”
I concurred, but several times they came close.
Finally they assembled in the sitting room, their voices filtering down to us through the false bookcase. I recognised the harsh tones of Craig Mallinson, barking out queries. “Where the devil are they? They must be around. Someone has been toying with us with those infernal booby-traps. They must be here and they must be able to see us. How else could they have managed it?”
Another of the five, in an effete, refined accent, said, “If they are concealed anywhere, Mallinson, there is a sure-fire way of getting them to reveal their whereabouts.”
“Harington,” Holmes whispered to me. “His lordship has a slight speech impediment, a tendency to lisp his ‘r’s.”
“You mean replicate here the thing that happened to that frightful woman’s costume shop?” said Mallinson.
“Quite,” said Harington. “When I said ‘sure-fire’, I really meant just ‘fire’.”
“Splendid idea. Wherever they are, let’s smoke them out. Jenks! Have you matches on you? There’s a heap of old newspapers here that looks tinder-dry and ready to burn.”
“Right you are, sir,” said Jenks.
“Burn,” I said to Holmes. “They’re going to set fire to the cottage. Just like they did to Tripp’s Costumiers.”
“Did they?” said Holmes.
“Didn’t they? It must have been them, surely. Mallinson has just admitted to it, more or less.”
Before my friend could reply, Mallinson said loudly, “Sherlock Holmes. I know you can hear me. You and your bumbling amanuensis – you have until the count of ten to give yourselves up
. Otherwise your house goes up in flames, and you with it. Ten.”
Holmes’s expression was grim and glum. We were in a terrible quandary.
“Holmes,” I said. “You can’t really be thinking of doing as he asks?”
“Nine.”
“We have done our best, Watson. But we have been outmanoeuvred. Force majeure.”
“Eight.”
“They will kill us if we hand ourselves over to them.”
“Seven.”
“Not necessarily, old chap. From the sound of it, it seems they want us alive.”
“Six.”
“So the threat of burning the place down is merely a bluff?”
“Five.”
“No, I’m sure they would go through with it, leaving us to die either by fire or by asphyxiation. But why warn us first unless the option of surrendering is genuine?”
“Four.”
“So either we perish now, slowly and horribly, or submit to their tender mercies.”
“That’s the sum of it.”
“Three,” said Mallinson. “Last chance, Mr Holmes. Come out and show your faces. Two.”
“Talk about the devil and the deep blue sea,” I said.
“At least we will have a fighting chance,” said Holmes. “Down here, trapped like rats, we have none.”
“One,” said Mallinson. “Right-ho, Jenks. Strike that match.”
“No,” Holmes called out. “Don’t. You have won. We will come quietly.”
He triggered the release mechanism and the false bookcase swung outward.
“Mr Holmes.” Removing his balaclava, Mallinson peered down into the safe room. He was gloating. “And Dr Watson. So nice to see you again, gentlemen. Out you come, the pair of you. Careful now. No sudden movements. Up out of your little bolthole to face the music.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Sherlock Holmes - Gods of War Page 21