by Unknown
"Anticipation, Watson, for I'll not be caught short again as I was but recently in this very room. Look for a possible alternative and provide against it. The first rule of criminal investigation."
I'd heard that before, and as before, it told me nothing. At the foot of the stairs leading to our bedchambers, I paused, then retraced my steps to take the holstered gun from the bookshelf. There were some boxer cartridges in my rolltop above that might be the right caliber.
We caught an almost deserted train out of Paddington that Holmes referred to as the "red-eye special," and I slept most of the way to Gloucester.
When we alighted at the Fenley station, dawn had not yet begun to stain the eastern horizon and there was a veritable symphony of the bird sounds that presaged its coming.
Standing on the dark station platform, immobile as a block of granite and quite as solid-looking, was the figure of Wakefield Orloff. So, I thought, the security agent has preceded us. No wonder Holmes seized the opportunity to leave early. Had he been conferring with his brother, Mycroft, around the witching hour?
Orloff greeted us and led the way through deserted streets of the village to the inn. There were no other lights showing in Fenley, yet behind the curtains in the Red Grouse I detected illumination. A thought that I had previously dismissed came to mind again and was reinforced when we entered the establishment. The front room was not only illuminated but populated as well. Five men, in addition to the innkeeper and his wife, were in evidence—sipping tea and munching sandwiches made available by the lady. I had observed that the inn was very well managed, but this was ridiculous. Unless my previous thought was well founded and the place served as a headquarters for Mycroft's people. It had to be such, for there was no surprise at our arrival. The five men, strangers all, shared a sameness that I recognized. Reasonably young, they had a fit look about them and were inconspicuously dressed. One would have had to guess as to their business and been dissatisfied at the conclusion arrived at. Surely their coats were reversible, for I had seen Holmes use that trick.
I accepted a spot of tea. Holmes surveyed the scene and nodded at Orloff, as though satisfied with arrangements.
"How do we do it?" asked the security agent.
"We'll go now while it's still dark. You and your men take the main house and stables. Let's not have an alarm from some awakened groom."
"And you?"
"There is an annex to the main house where wood work and such might be done if one had a need for it. Watson and I will take a look there, then join you."
One of the inconspicuous men, at a signal from Orloff, disappeared by the front door and I suspected our transportation was being arranged.
When we left the Red Grouse shortly afterward, two closed carriages were pulled up in front. Good heavens, I thought. Orloff has brought an army. But then we didn't know how many we were going against.
Orloff rode with Holmes and myself in the first carriage and the trip down the river road was not a longish one, as I had noted previously. When we all disembarked from the vehicles, I saw that Holmes had miscalculated slightly for there was a first light that revealed the substantial mansion we were interested in. Despite the predawn hour, there were lights and indications of activity within the building.
Orloff shot a glance at Holmes. "This tears it."
"Same plan," replied Holmes crisply. "It's important that no one slip away."
"A bit like that trap we sprung on Baker Street," observed the security agent. His men began to race to positions around the estate.
"And for rather the same reasons." Holmes motioned to me and we started up the drive, quickly moving to the close-cropped lawn to take advantage of the trees on the grounds. It was still sufficiently dark so that we could close in on the buildings without arousing the attention of anyone within. Close by the main house, Holmes paused to take stock. There was no evidence of Orloff or his men, and I pictured them encircling the place and then closing in. What they intended to do with any gardeners or servants they came across, I could not imagine.
I indicated the lights within. "What has them stirring so early?" I asked.
"Three men went to Essex yesterday and there's no word from them. It may have shaken Hananish's confidence a bit. It's well that we are here when we are."
The sleuth indicated the annex he had mentioned, and I followed as he moved in a half trot from the front of the mansion to the side. The area that had caught his retentive eye was but one story, abutting the main building. Close on, I could hear some movement within; but there were no windows, so we moved to the end of the building and around it. There was one window there, which proved unrevealing. The dark interior we made out proved to be a small storeroom with lumber stacked in it, along with gardening tools. The side away from the driveway and well-tended grounds was the building's actual front. Now we saw light from a window and crouched beside it, carefully peering in. Over Holmes' shoulder I spotted one man seated under a wheel chandelier, its four lights providing bright illumination for the table he was working at. It looked like he was dismantling some sort of scales arrangement. There were saws and carpentry tools aplenty, and the place had a well-swept look.
Satisfied, Holmes drew back and then hunched over, almost on hands and knees, to pass below the window frame toward the door in evidence beyond. With some difficulty, I patterned my movements after his. By the door, however, I advanced a thought with gestures. Extracting my Smith-Webley from my coat pocket, I transferred it to my left hand. The door was not a heavy one, and I judged it was not locked. Moving to its other side, I indicated to Holmes that I could smash it open with ease and we could enter together. He indicated that this plan was as good as any. As I stepped forward with purpose, it occurred to me that the sleuth was not armed and our unified front served no purpose; but the plan was in action now and was, I recalled, favored by better constables everywhere. My heel smashed at the door, which sprang open under the impact; and I was in the room with my gun pointed at the man at the workbench. Holmes was at my right side. The man under my sights was completely surprised; and I was congratulating myself on a workmanlike job when my left hand, with the extended and menacing revolver, caught a terrible whack from a stout piece of wood in the hands of a pasty-looking fellow who had been in the vicinity of the door. The Smith-Webley dropped from my grasp, and my assailant kicked it toward the table, shielding his companion.
"Blimey," he said, "we's got visitors an' such an' early hour."
I recognized the voice, for it was the man who had dragged me into the carriage outside the Red Grouse.
His companion had whipped out a long-barreled handgun, with which he was covering Holmes. I was bent over, my left wrist pressed to my side in anguish, but my blood was boiling. Almost without thought, my right hand passed under my coat to the holster affixed to my belt; and then the Colt gun was in my hand. As I started to rise from my crouch, I began to press on the trigger gently in preparation for a shot, but, dear heaven, the weapon took charge. It had been altered by some master gunsmith, and its action was as sensitive and skittish as a village maiden receiving her first kiss. It roared before I had a mind to fire, and continued to do so. The first shot smashed the revolver from the man's hand, and as I staggered back, the second shot separated the chandelier from the ceiling and it dropped, smashing him with frightening force. My pasty-faced friend made a lunge for the Smith-Webley on the floor only to have it jump from his grasp, and there was the eerie whine of a ricochet. My fourth shot blew the heel off his shoe.
I finally gained control over the weapon and terminated this needless firing, which the pasty-faced man found hard to believe. He was moaning, his hands pressed tightly over both eyes.
"My God, guv, no more. Mother in heaven, I gives up!"
His compatriot had already done so, and the upper part of his body was stretched out on the workbench, pinned down by the chandelier that had rendered him unconscious.
Suddenly the comforting presence of Wakefield O
rloff was on the scene.
"I just circled the house, and I saw it through the open door. Where did you ever learn to shoot like that, Doctor?"
"Watson is a man of many talents," said Holmes. "The gunfire has stirred things up, of course."
Orloff reassured him. "No fear. We've bagged the servants. The ground floor is secured. As for the master of the house, I assume he is on the first story."
"Then we'd best confront him," said Holmes, "before Watson reloads and decides to recreate the famous battle of the O.K. Corral."
I gave Holmes a disapproving look as I scooped up my bullet-nicked Smith-Webley. Orloff dragged the pasty-faced man, still pleading for his life, from the floor and marched with us toward the lair of Burton Hananish, west coast banker, among other things.
Chapter 18
The Roar of Sound
THE MAIN hall of the Elizabethan mansion was a scene of quiet disorder. The butler, who had greeted us on our previous visit, was seated, as were two housemaids. This breach of decorum was explained by the watchful presence of one of Orloff's men. The servants shared a stolid resignation. Orloff had words with his assistant, no doubt relative to the disposition of the pasty-faced captive he had in tow. Holmes and I made for the grand staircase and the first floor.
In an upstairs drawing room that evidently served as an office, we found Hananish going through the drawers of a varqeano chest, which had been altered to serve as a desk. I judged the piece to be of the time of Phillip the Second, for there was the San Juan Campostella shell design in the pulls and intricate carvings made by use of gold leaf. Moorish cabinetmakers were famous for their excellent seventeenth-century work and for their tendency to incorporate secret drawers, a practice well known to Holmes.
The banker was not unattended, for standing behind his wheelchair was a rather loutish-looking fellow, powerful enough to have served as a bouncer at Sydney Sid's beer and gin hall in Limehouse. Hananish attempted to preserve his saintly façade when we burst in upon him, but it was a struggle, for the ends of his mouth were seized by an uncontrollable twitch.
"Mr. Holmes, though chained to this chair, it is obvious that my home has been invaded by a veritable army. This is contrary to every . . ."
His voice dwindled out, for Holmes had waved away his protestations with a gesture indicating that they were but verbal fluff. The sleuth seated himself in a Renaissance leather chair, also Spanish I judged, and proceeded to cut to the bone and then the marrow of the matter.
"We waste time," he stated, and there was that grim note of finality in his voice that I knew well. "Not only ours, but the Crown's."
He indicated the mass of papers on the mitred drop door over which Hananish's beautiful fingers were fluttering as though to wish them away.
"We shall not tamper with those papers, please, for now they are the property of the English court."
"This invasion of privacy . . ."
It was as though the man had not spoken, for Holmes continued in his flat, factual manner, which defied both interruption and contention.
"My eye has not played me false, and in that area you find usable for carpentry are scales, remains of packing cases—sufficient evidence to support the chain of events I have linked together, so let us not bandy about the word circumstantial. The dirty tricks brigade you dispatched to Essex are no more. The mine has been opened and the spurious gold shipment revealed. It was an involved scheme, which added to the risk, but you played for high stakes.* It's all over, you know."
*High stakes? Four hundred thousand pounds alone converts into two million dollars, and this before the turn of the century and the degeneration of both currencies. Holmes may have been guilty of understatement here.
The man's parchment-like complexion was tinged by a sickly yellow cast, like something disinterred. His eyes flicked to a portion of the disarray in front of him, an instinctive and revealing movement that I knew Holmes had not missed.
"The gold came to you for transshipment to London from the west coast banks. You had the ingots removed from the packing cases, which you filled with brass, plus some lead I judge, to conform with the weight of the gold. The precious metal was re-crated and sent to the Bank of England, with the false shipment made at a later date. You had already arranged the insurance with Inter-Ocean. The wooden cases, with authentic freight markings from their points of origin, were placed aboard the B & N flyer, and there was no cause for alarm. All seemed as it should be. If the shipment reached the Credit Lyonnais, you would have been exposed. So it was hijacked. A pretty plan. Once the hirelings separated the boxcar from the treasure train, they had no great problem as to the disposal of the loot, for they merely dumped it in the abandoned mine and took to their heels. The wagon and its worthless cargo might have rotted there for centuries had I not taken on the case."
"But you did, Mr. Holmes." There was a flicker in what had been lackluster eyes. This surprised me. Holmes might well have been cast in the role of the Archangel Gabriel at Jericho, for the banker's walls were tumbling down.
"I said it was a pretty plan. The west coast banks would be paid. The Credit Lyonnais would receive the insurance, and the French, persistent when faced with a loss, would have been satisfied and merely looked elsewhere for their needs. Only to find you waiting for them with the gold they wished. It was a circuitous arrangement, with sales percentages at each way stop, but it finally led to you."
"You know of that?" There was another flicker in the tired eyes of that statuesque face, and a sardonic twist came to Hananish's cruel lips.
"I know everything." From Holmes' tone, I deduced that he believed his statement. A suspicion was forming in my mind that Hananish did not.
The sleuth had been leaning forward, and suddenly he was on his feet, his long arm snaking out to pluck a cable from under the banker's nervous hands.
"Ah-hah." There was satisfaction in his manner as his eyes flashed over the message then stabbed at the banker for a moment before returning to the words, which he read aloud. "'The meddler knows all. Get out.'" Holmes dropped the cable on the desk surface and resumed his seat. "That warning came late."
"I am ill-suited to flight in any case," replied Hananish.
The flicker in his eyes had grown to a flare, and there was a look about him that raised the short hairs on the back of my neck. Then a shadow was cast by the morning sun through the door behind us. I knew Orloff was present and felt the better for it. An apparently unrelated thought sprang to mind. Holmes had discussed the Ripper matter, making it plain that his forte, reason and logic, was of scant use in tracking down one who was guided by neither. According to the rules of the game, Hananish had had it and could now only hope for aid from an astute solicitor and eloquent barrister. But there was about his patrician features a look that alerted one with medical training. He had set himself up as a rural despot and, with his mobility taken from him, had dreamed great dreams like Timur the Lame. With a treasure like Monte Cristo's at his fingertips, he might well have pictured himself as the second coming of Moriarty. Now, as with the professor, Sherlock Holmes was shoving him from the chessboard as he reached for the king piece.
My throat suddenly dry, I tried to utter a warning, but events were too fast for me.
"Hilger," called Hananish in a frantic manner, yet a wave of seeming exultation washed his face.
The brute attending him moved toward me, for I was standing with an eye on the man. Then the shadow behind me became a shape in front of me and the deceptively squat figure of Orloff was in action. The servant reached a hand for him, which was his second mistake. His first was in moving at all. Suddenly the fingers of Orloff closed on the man's wrist and there was a twist that spun Hilger around, his arm bent behind his back. The security agent's right boot swept the man's feet from the floor and Hilger fell, his jaw crashing against the converted varqeano chest in the process. Orloff stepped back, allowing the body to slump to the floor. I noted a trickle of blood from Hilger's mouth and suspected a fract
ure at least. It had been nothing for Orloff, a mere warm-up; but he was not allowed to continue his act, which he performed with the polished ease of a variety entertainer.
Under cover of the scuffle, Hananish had reached for the chest and a panel had sprung open in it. Now he was armed, for in his hands was a twelve-bore double-barreled shotgun, with half of its twin cylinders sawed off. It was pointing right at Holmes, both hammers at full cock. What panicked me more than anything else was the conviction that Hananish intended to fire come what may. If he did, seventy-six grams of shot at point-blank range would tear Holmes to ribbons.
Both Orloff and I were frozen. Holmes, immobilized by his seated position, was impotent to act. Then, as though it were all a slow-motion pantomime, I saw the fingers of the banker tighten and the hammers fell. There was a roar of sound.
Chapter 19
To the Lion's Den
THERE WAS more smoke than there should have been, and when it cleared, I saw why. The shotgun, a twisted and broken thing now, had burst and the full force of the powder and shot had exploded in Hananish's face. What was left would have made a shocking illustration for Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Contrary to intent, it was Holmes who was Ichabod Crane, whilst Hananish was the headless horseman.
"Thank God," I choked.
Holmes mopped his brow with Irish linen, his hands steady. "I was not meant to die," he said.
Holmes regarded what was left of Hananish for a brief moment and his chiseled features, so often willed into immobility, could not reject an expression of horror. I turned away, not only from the corpse but my companions as well, for I was overcome with emotion. What was mirrored in those fathomless green eyes of Orloff, I knew not. But I could imagine. He walked a lonely path, did Wakefield, and what friends he had stood now with him in this room of death. In his nerveless, often heartless mind I knew he echoed the words that I kept repeating fervently to myself.