Death on a Pale Horse

by Donald Thomas

  * “Silver Blaze,” in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

  6

  I said nothing to Holmes as we rode away from Epsom Downs in our drag or on the train, partly because I felt rather shaken. To tell the truth, I was fast coming round to a view that these events were a matter for the resources of Scotland Yard or the Provost’s Special Investigation Branch rather than for a pair of consulting detectives. Unfortunately, I hesitated too long. By the end of the evening, it seemed too late to describe my experience just then. And if I revealed the encounter with Moran belatedly, it might sound to my friend as though I were making a confession of having stupidly got into a scrape. That was true. I thought that I still did not know Holmes well enough to predict at what point he would think himself better off without such a foolish partner as I was proving to be.

  In one corner of my mind, I even thought that Rawdon Moran might be right. I hope I am no coward; but, repulsive though the man was, had he not at least been correct when he said that by our present conduct we should only hurt ourselves? And what of danger to those who might be near and dear to us? There was a certain young lady in my life. Though fate was to play us false, I could not know it at the time. I could not tell what forces we were up against. Of course Holmes and I were partners and must act together. Yet the reader may bear in mind that our partnership was still relatively recent. I must be allowed a degree of discretion and independence in personal matters. I was sufficiently of two minds that I decided to sleep on the matter. Tomorrow should be the day of decision. I could just as well tell him my story then as now.

  Next morning, uncharacteristically, it was Sherlock Holmes who was first at the breakfast table. I appeared at my usual time, having slept wretchedly, to find him already at the stage of toast and marmalade. His copy of the Morning Post had been read and laid aside. Against the polished silver of the milk jug stood an open copy of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, chosen from the volumes of the Complete Novels of George Meredith which had long stood upon his shelves. He closed the book and looked up at me.

  “I thought it best that you should sleep well, Watson. I trust you have done so, for you may not find it so easy tonight.”

  “Indeed?”

  “I fear so. Colonel Rawdon Moran is back in England.”

  I could only play the part I had imposed upon myself: “Since when?”

  “He has been here for a day or two at least. He did not, as expected, sail from Madeira to Antwerp. Masquerading as Sebastian Moran, I made urgent and brotherly inquiries for him by telegraph to the shipping agents in Leadenhall Street. Their passenger lists show that he disembarked at Lisbon last week and took the Iberian Express for Medina del Campo and Paris. He had only to travel a little further and board the steamer from Calais to Dover. He has stolen something of a march upon us.”

  “He has left France, then?” I asked awkwardly.

  “Indeed. He was at the Epsom Spring Meeting yesterday afternoon.”

  If I looked astonished, it was for reasons which I hoped my friend would not find obvious. It was an unenviable experience to fence with him over truth and falsehood.

  “You did not see him for yourself?”

  “He was seen, my dear fellow. I hope it will not distress you to hear that he was closer to you than you imagined. You had not emerged from the Hall of Mirrors when he entered it.”

  “I did not see you there.” That at least was true.

  “I daresay not. You might, however, have noticed a young scamp of twelve or thirteen, wearing a braided jacket with a cap and muffler, loitering about the amusements.”

  “There were dozens of young rips like that!”

  “Precisely. This one, however, was acting as a runner for an itinerant fairground photographer and was there at my request. ‘Shadowing us’ is, I believe, the vernacular expression. The boy is one of my young Baker Street friends who rejoices in the title of Skiver Jenkins of Lisson Grove. A promising lad. I should call him at least a sergeant-major in our Baker Street Irregulars.”

  “So that was it!”

  “I fear so. Rawdon Moran is an habitué of the racecourse as surely as the card-table and would never miss the Epsom meeting if he were in England. I put him to the test. I can only apologise for turning you loose as a scapegoat with two of our young gentlemen keeping distant observation. I count upon the colonel’s continuing interest in our movements. I can assure you that you were followed from the military rifle range by a pair of bullies until our friend Moran was able to detach himself from his party. He was on your track for at least twenty minutes. Skiver Jenkins was able to identify him from my description and a lamentably amateur copy that I had produced for the occasion from Mycroft’s photograph.”

  “And what do you propose to do?”

  “Nothing,” he said with a shrug. “Our adversaries are impatient. Their intention is that we should now scuttle about like startled rabbits. By doing nothing, we draw them on a little further.”

  Though he had not so far mentioned his correspondence, there was one letter by his plate. It must have appeared of some importance and he had apparently reserved it for his full attention. I contrived to read upon its envelope a return address. It was the Ravenswood Hotel, Southampton Row. Major Putney-Wilson had evidently thought it necessary to prevent his message being tampered with surreptitiously: there was a red wax seal on the back of the envelope.

  Holmes finished his second cup of coffee.

  “Our friend has written to us,” I said helpfully.

  “It would seem so.”

  He folded the Morning Post and with the envelope in his hand went over to his crowded and disreputable “chemical table.” There he struck a match, lit a Bunsen burner at low heat, filled a glass retort with water from a bottle and placed the vessel on the flame. He watched until the water began to bubble gently. A cloud of steam drifted from the nozzle of the retort. He held the unopened letter so that the warm vapour played gently upon the hardened wax. A moment later, the wax began to soften. Judging the exact point at which to ease open the envelope, he took a fine steel blade and prised the flap of paper from its pouch. He drew out a card with the message upon it, read it, and then handed it across the table to me.

  You are quite right, of course. I have taken your advice and am returning to India. I shall pass what remains of my summer leave in the cool hills of Simla. My passage is booked on the P & O liner Himalaya at the end of next week. Whatever is still to be done in England, I believe you are the only man to do it. I regret only that my foolish attempt to intervene may have served to make your task more difficult.

  I remain, sir,

  Yours faithfully,

  H P-W

  “He has bitten the bullet, then!” I said as I passed the card back. Without replying, he took up a magnifying lens and began to examine the wax as it cooled and hardened again. After murmuring something to himself, he slapped his knee and turned to me.

  “Excellent! Admirable! Putney-Wilson has done as I told him; I do believe they have fallen for it!”

  “Fallen for what?”

  “My dear fellow, I had rather counted upon Colonel Moran or one of his satraps intercepting any letter which came via the postal service to this address from Major Putney-Wilson—let alone from Samuel Dordona!”

  “But that envelope has not been intercepted, surely? The seal was unbroken. Had the envelope been slit open at its edges?”

  “No. A Scotland Yard amateur would recognise that at once.”

  “What then? There are no broken fragments of wax, as there must be if a seal is removed. Do you mean that they have steamed it open as you have done?”

  He shook his head.

  “The wax seal has been replaced. Once it has been opened, it cannot be re-sealed with the original wax alone. It requires a new seal with a little extra wax on top of what was there before. To look convincing, the new seal must overlap the original wax imprint, however slightly. It is a serviceable method of deceptio
n—but for one thing: the old wax will have been heated twice and is therefore darker in colour; the new wax is melted only once and is therefore lighter. To those who know where to look—and how to look with an examining lens or a microscope—the slight discrepancy between the two layers betrays the secret interception. That discrepancy is here, as you may see if you care to borrow this glass. In other words, we are not the first people to read the contents of this note. Putney-Wilson has done as I told him. That is most, most gratifying, is it not?”

  He handed me the magnifying glass and the envelope. As always, he was correct.

  “How did you learn that trick?”

  He smiled reminiscently.

  “My investigation of the Maida Vale blackmail mystery, involving a fortune-teller and a private secretary to the Prince of Wales, pre-dates the happy occasion when you and I first made one another’s acquaintance. In the course of that earlier investigation, I was introduced to the ‘Black Chamber’ of the General Post Office at St. Martin’s-Le-Grand.”

  “The Black Chamber?”

  He smiled.

  “My dear Watson! Every government has such an office, of necessity. In our case it is a room where, for reasons of state, letters posted by suspected persons are opened by government officers on the authority of the Attorney-General and under the direction of an Official Examiner. They are scrutinised and then resealed and put into a special basket for the evening deliveries of the same day. The Examiner forwards a report to the Treasury Solicitor who normally requests the interception. Never make the mistake, Watson, of believing that a letter addressed to you has not been read by someone else first. Especially if it arrives by the evening post, rather than in the morning.”

  I handed back the lens and the envelope.

  “Then our adversaries know that Major Putney-Wilson has withdrawn from the fray. Perhaps he may be safe, once he leaves England.”

  “We have time to save him. Unless they choose to settle accounts with him in Simla or on board the Himalaya. I think that is unlikely. They may do it at their leisure, though one must never underrate the sheer spite of such people. As for the story he might tell of Captain Brenton Carey’s death, they must believe he has told it already, as is the case. So, my dear fellow, it is you and I alone who must now account for Colonel Moran.”

  Now I was quite prepared to tell him of my encounter with the colonel in the Hall of Mirrors at Epsom; but he seemed pressed for time just then, and the incident appeared less important. It could wait until after dinner.

  It was a relief to be excused the duty of acting as nursemaid to Putney-Wilson. Holmes was to be otherwise engaged that day, and I felt unexpectedly liberated. The Army and Navy Club, to which I had belonged since the day of my first military commission, stands in St. James’s Square just off Piccadilly. It is quite as selective in its way as the Diogenes. A serving officer who wishes to become a member must find a proposer and a seconder. He may be blackballed during the election by any member who knows of something to his discredit. No reason for this need be given, and the objector’s identity is not revealed.

  From time to time, when I am out and about in London, I take lunch with a friend at the Army and Navy by appointment. On other days I go alone and chance “pot luck” at a large round communal table at the centre of the dining-room. Those who are unaccompanied may dine together there for the sake of gossip.

  Preoccupied by our present investigation, I had not been near the club for two or three weeks. It was time to show my face again. Even so, it was perhaps best not to travel alone in a cab. There is safety in numbers, and it is really just as convenient to take a first-class ticket on the underground railway, which people had begun to refer to as the “tube.” To travel to St. James’s Park from the Metropolitan station at the junction of Baker Street and the Euston Road was direct enough.

  I walked along the busy pavement at my leisure and down the steps to the platform from the station booking-hall. I had only to wait for the next oncoming train to rumble out of the sooty brick arch of the tunnel into the brown glazed vaulting of the station. When one is travelling underground, Baker Street appears to be the centre of the civilised world. There is a line running east and a line running west, both of which end here. The stationary trains then stand side by side until the moment of their departure in reverse directions. This system is said to be the best for preventing collisions—and so it seems to be. Trains waiting at preceding stations do not leave their platforms until the electric telegraph signals that the space at Baker Street is “vacant.”

  There were trains waiting at either platform as I came down the steps and took my seat in a carriage of the westbound departure, which would be the second to leave. After a moment or two, I glanced up at the window of the adjacent eastbound train a few feet away from me. A blast on the guard’s whistle would signal its departure in due course. My thoughts were far away from that adjacent carriage window, two or three feet distant. I was roused unaccountably by an open newspaper which a passenger sitting on that other train was reading. I could not see the face of the reader, or anything other than a man’s hands holding the pages open as he read. The black headline was plain in its large bold type: VICTORIA MANSIONS MURDER.

  What did it mean? It was a bizarre situation. I could see the headline well enough but I could not communicate with that other reader nor attract his attention. He and I were as isolated in adjacent trains as goldfish in two separate bowls. Had there been a second murder in the mansion blocks? Or was it merely a statement by Scotland Yard of some new development in the mysterious case of Joshua Sellon? It was neither. Though the columns of newsprint were too small to read at this distance, I saw that this could not be today’s paper. At the top of that front page it was stamped in red “AFTERNOON EDITION.” It was still only half-past ten in the morning. Afternoon editions do not come on the news-stands until after midday.

  I managed at length to make out some of the smaller numerals and to see that the edition bore a date well past. It was the original report of Captain Sellon’s murder. Why was someone now holding it open, as if for me to read? A sharp whistle-blast announced the departure of that other train, towards King’s Cross and the banking districts. With a quickening of the heart, I convinced myself that should the newspaper be lowered, I would be staring into the malevolent features of Colonel Rawdon Moran. Those same eyes must surely have followed me from our rooms—perhaps in a slowly moving cab—with the quiet expressionless stare of the patient trapper.

  That was absurd, of course. It was vastly more probable that someone else from London’s millions had somewhere picked up a discarded out-of-date paper and was reading it. Yet I had begun to know the man since Epsom. I felt sure it must be he. He was not here by chance. I had ten—perhaps twenty—seconds before his carriage window glided out of view. But if I could see nothing else, I had a view of the back of his right hand as it held open that front page of the paper. In my mind, I tried to picture the hand that had held a gun at the Royal Britannia Rifle Range. I had kept in my memory the strong roughened fingers with a sprouting of red hairs on their backs.

  There was time to focus on them. These were the same fingers, I could swear it. But they gripped the edge of the paper at just such a level that the upper corner of its page fell back upon them a little. Not enough to conceal them but, in this light and at a rapidly increasing distance, to suggest a reddish colour to those little tufts of hair that perhaps I was only imagining.

  There was nothing more I could do—and he would have known it. That was what made me all the more certain. I could not see him but I would have bet my life that somehow, perhaps through a pinhole poked in the paper, he could see me register my astonishment before his train pulled into the darkness of the tunnel. Then I could only watch as that carriage slid completely out of sight.

  Moran had surely kept me in his view, but any story I might tell to others would sound like the babbling of a delusional neurotic. He had contrived it all, if indeed it
was he, so that I could not communicate with him or hold him to account. It was not twenty-four hours since I had heard that voice directed to me in the so-called Hall of Mirrors. Now I was being taught to understand that I should remain under scrutiny by his people in the London crowds, always at his beck and call. He had killed before—who knows how many times?—but always in such a way that he could not be touched by the law. From now on he would be constantly on the offensive, always driving me back. When my summons to execution came, I should be as powerless to evade him as I had been to confront him just now in our two “goldfish-bowls.”

  If I stop and read again the last paragraph that I have written, its words seem to me like the protests of an hysteric. Short of a growing obsession with our adversary, there was nothing to prove that it had been Moran. Had I imagined or misread the headline? No. I knew instinctively that this had been our second encounter and presumably my third warning. I was being informed that my time was up. Holmes was under sentence in any case.

  As the half-lit stations slipped by, I tried to think as Holmes would think. In London, it is far easier than in any jungle for a determined man to stalk his prey. My friend had recently begun to make use of those juvenile ragamuffins and mudlarks whom he called his “Baker Street Irregulars.” They could gather gossip, eavesdrop on conversations, and track a man who would never suspect a child among so many of them in the city streets. But then what Holmes could do, Moran could do. Which man, woman, or child in my vicinity might not be in the colonel’s pay?

  Someone in the busy crowd at Baker Street station might still have been watching me as the train pulled out—or might even be on the train. There was no question of what I must do—or rather what I must not do. They would expect me to scramble out of the carriage, run back up the street to our rooms and report everything to Holmes. I confess I was angered at the thought that they regarded me as the weakling of the two. Anger sharpened my wits. Holmes had deductive and forensic gifts far beyond mine. But a man who has been through the slaughter of Maiwand and the siege of Kandahar does not take to his heels in the face of common criminals. It did me good to think of these masters of conspiracy as nothing but common felons.