Badger giggled. It was all going according to plan.
Once up the staircase, the two men approached the room containing the safe. Again Badger produced the keyring from his pocket and slipped a key into the lock. The door swung open with ease. The bull’s-eye soon located the imposing Smith-Anderson safe, a huge impenetrable iron contraption that stood defiantly in the far corner of the room. It was as tall as a man and weighed somewhere around three tons. The men knew from experience that the only way to get into this peter was by using the key — or rather the keys. There were five in all required. Certainly it would take a small army to move the giant safe, and God knows how much dynamite would be needed to blow it open, an act that would create enough noise to reach Scotland Yard itself.
Badger passed the bull’s-eye to his confederate, who held the beam steady, centred on the great iron sarcophagus and the five locks. With another gurgle of pleasure, Badger dug deep into his trouser pocket and pulled out a brass ring containing five keys, all cut in a different manner. Scratched into the head of each key was a number — one that corresponded with the arrangement of locks on the safe.
Kneeling down in the centre of the beam, he slipped in the first key. It turned smoothly, with a decided click. So did the second. And the third. But the fourth refused to budge. Badger cast a worried glance at his confederate, but neither man spoke. Badger withdrew the key and tried again, with the same result. A thin sheen of sweat materialised on his brow. What the hell was wrong here? This certainly wasn’t in the plan. The first three keys had been fine. He couldn’t believe the Man had made a mistake. It was unheard of.
“Try the fifth key,” whispered Arthur, who was equally perplexed and worried.
In the desperate need to take action of some kind, Badger obeyed. Remarkably, the fifth key slipped in easily and turned smoothly, with the same definite click as the first three. A flicker of hope rallied Badger’s dampened spirits and he turned the handle of the safe. Nothing happened. It would not budge. He swore and sat back on his haunches. “What the hell now?”
“Try the fourth key again,” came his partner’s voice from the darkness.
Badger did as he was told and held his breath. The key fitted the aperture without problem. Now his hands were shaking and he paused, fearful of failure again.
“Come on, Badger.”
He turned the key. At first there was some resistance, and then... it moved. It revolved. It clicked.
“The bastards,” exclaimed Arthur Sims in a harsh whisper. “They’ve altered the arrangement of the locks so they can’t be opened in order. His nibs ain’t sussed that out.”
Badger was now on his feet and tugging at the large safe door. “Blimey, it’s a weight,” he muttered, as the ponderous portal began to move. “It’s bigger than my old woman,” he observed, his spirits lightening again. The door creaked open with magisterial slowness. It took Badger almost a minute of effort before the safe door was wide open.
At last, Arthur Sims was able to direct the beam of the lantern to illuminate the interior of the safe. When he had done so, his jaw dropped and he let out a strangled gasp.
“What is it?” puffed Badger, sweat now streaming down his face.
“Take a look for yourself,” came the reply.
As Badger pulled himself forward and peered round the corner of the massive safe door, a second lantern beam joined theirs. “The cupboard is bare, I am afraid.”
The voice, clear, brittle and authoritative, came from behind them, and both felons turned in unison to gaze at the speaker.
The bull’s-eye spotlit a tall young man standing in the doorway, a sardonic smile touching his thin lips. It was Harry Jordan. Or was it? He was certainly dressed in the shabby checked suit that Jordan wore — but where was the bulbous nose and large moustache?
“I am afraid the game is no longer afoot, gentlemen. I think the phrase is, ‘You’ve been caught red-handed.’ Now, please do not make any rash attempts to escape. The police are outside the building, awaiting my signal.”
Arthur Sims and Badger Johnson stared in dumbfounded amazement as the young man took a silver whistle from his jacket pocket and blew on it three times. The shrill sound reverberated in their ears.
Inspector Giles Lestrade of Scotland Yard cradled a tin mug of hot, sweet tea in his hands and smiled contentedly. “I reckon that was a pretty good night’s work.”
It was an hour later, after the arrest of Badger johnson and Arthur Sims, and the inspector was ensconced in his cramped office back at the Yard.
The young man sitting opposite him, wearing a disreputable checked suit which had seen better days, did not respond. His silence took the smile from Lestrade’s face and replaced it with a furrowed brow.
“You don’t agree, Mr Holmes?”
The young man pursed his lips for a moment before replying. “In a manner of speaking, it has been a successful venture. You have two of the niftiest felons under lock and key, and saved the firm of Meredith and Co. the loss of a considerable amount of cash.”
“Exactly.” The smile returned.
“But there are still questions left unanswered.”
“Such as?”
“How did our two friends come into the possession of the key to the building, to the office where the safe was housed — and the five all-important keys to the safe itself?”
“Does that really matter?”
“Indeed it does. It is vital that these questions are answered in order to clear up this matter fully. There was obviously an accomplice involved who obtained the keys and was responsible for drugging the night-watchman. Badger Johnson intimated as much when he engaged my services as lookout, but when I pressed him for further information, he clammed up like a zealous oyster.”
Lestrade took a drink of the tea. “Now, you don’t bother your head about such inconsequentialities. If there was another bloke involved, he certainly made himself scarce this evening and so it would be nigh on impossible to pin anything on him. No, we are very happy to have caught two of the sharpest petermen in London, thanks to your help, Mr Holmes. From now on, however, it is a job for the professionals.”
The young man gave a gracious nod of the head as though in some vague acquiescence to the wisdom of the Scotland Yarder. In reality he thought that, while Lestrade was not quite a fool, he was blinkered to the ramifications of the attempted robbery, and too easily pleased at landing a couple of medium-size fish in his net, while the really big catch swam free. Crime was never quite as cut and dried as Lestrade and his fellow professionals seemed to think. That was why this young man knew that he could never work within the constraints of the organised force as a detective. While at present he was reasonably content to be a help to the police, his ambitions lay elsewhere.
For his own part, Lestrade was unsure what to make of this lean youth with piercing grey eyes and gaunt, hawk-like features that revealed little of what he was thinking. There was something cold and impenetrable about his personality that made the inspector feel uncomfortable. In the last six months, Holmes had brought several cases to the attention of the Yard which he or his fellow officer, Inspector Gregson, had followed up, and a number of arrests had resulted. What Sherlock Holmes achieved from his activities, apart from the satisfaction every good citizen would feel at either preventing or solving a crime, Lestrade could not fathom. Holmes never spoke of personal matters, and the inspector was never tempted to ask.
At the same time as this conversation was taking place in Scotland Yard, in another part of the city the Professor was being informed of the failure of that night’s operation at Meredith and Co. by his number two, Colonel Sebastian Moran.
The Professor rose from his chaise-longue, cast aside the mathematical tome he had been studying and walked to the window. Pulling back the curtains, he gazed out on the river below him, its murky surface reflecting the silver of the moon.
“In itself, the matter is of little consequence,” he said, in a dark, even voice. “Merely a flea-bite on the
body of our organisation. But there have been rather too many of these flea-bites of late. They are now beginning to irritate me.” He turned sharply, his eyes flashing with anger. “Where lies the incompetence?”
Moran was initially taken aback by so sudden a change in the Professor’s demeanour. “I am not entirely sure,” he stuttered.
The Professor’s cruelly handsome face darkened with rage. “Well, you should be, Moran. You should be sure. It is your job to know. That is what you are paid for.”
“Well… it seems that someone is tipping the police off in advance.”
The Professor gave a derisory laugh. “Brilliant deduction, Moran. Your public-school education has stood you in good stead. Unfortunately, it does not take a genius to arrive at that rather obvious conclusion. I had a visit from Scoular earlier this evening, thank goodness there is one smart man on whom I can rely.”
At the mention of Scoular’s name, Moran blanched. Scoular was cunning, very sharp and very ambitious. This upstart was gradually worming his way into the Professor’s confidence, assuming the role of court favourite; consequently, Moran felt his own position in jeopardy. He knew there was no demotion in the organisation. If you lost favour, you lost your life also.
“What did he want?”
“He wanted nothing other than to give me information regarding our irritant flea. Apparently, he has been using the persona of Harry Jordan. He’s been working out of some of the East End alehouses, The Black Swan in particular, where he latches on to our more gullible agents, like Johnson and Sims, and then narks to the police.”
“What’s his angle?”
Moriarty shrugged. “I don’t know — or at least Scoular doesn’t know. We need to find out, don’t we? Put Hawkins on to the matter. He’s a bright spark and will know what to do. Apprise him of the situation and see what he can come up with. I’ve no doubt Mr Jordan will return to his lucrative nest at The Black Swan within the next few days. I want information only. This Jordan character must not be harmed. I just want to know all about him before I take any action. Do you think you can organise that without any slip-ups?”
Moran clenched his fists with anger and frustration. He shouldn’t be spoken to in such a manner — like an inefficient corporal with muddy boots. He would dearly have liked to wipe that sarcastic smirk off the Professor’s face, but he knew that such a rash action would be the ultimate folly.
“I’ll get on to it immediately,” he said briskly, and left the room.
The Professor chuckled to himself and turned back to the window. His own reflection stared back at him from the night-darkened pane. He was a tall man, with luxuriant black hair and angular features that would have been very attractive were it not for the cruel mouth and the cold, merciless grey eyes.
“Mr Jordan,” he said, softly addressing his own reflection, “I am very intrigued by you. I hope it will not be too long before I welcome you into my parlour.”
Dawn was just breaking as Sherlock Holmes made his weary way past the British Museum and into Montague Street, where he lodged. He was no longer dressed in the cheap suit that he had used in his persona as Harry Jordan, but while his own clothes were less ostentatious, they were no less shabby. Helping the police as he did was certainly broadening his experience of detective work, but it did not put bread and cheese on the table or pay the rent on his two cramped rooms. He longed for his own private investigation — one of real quality. Since coming to London from university to make his way in the world as a consulting detective, he had managed to attract some clients, but they had been few and far between, and the nature of the cases — an absent husband, the theft of a brooch, a disputed will, and such like — had all been mundane. But, tired as he was, and somewhat dismayed at the short-sightedness of his professional colleagues at Scotland Yard, he did not waver in his belief that one day he would reach his goal and have a solvent and successful detective practice. And it needed to be happening soon. He could not keep borrowing money from his brother, Mycroft, in order to fund his activities.
He entered 14 Montague Street and made his way up the three flights of stairs to his humble quarters. Once inside, with some urgency he threw off his jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. Crossing to the mantelpiece, he retrieved a small bottle and a hypodermic syringe from a morocco leather case. Breathing heavily with anticipation, he adjusted the delicate needle before thrusting the sharp point home into his sinewy forearm, which was already dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture marks. His long, white, nervous fingers depressed the piston, and he gave a cry of ecstasy as he flopped down in a battered armchair, a broad, vacant smile lighting upon his tired features.
The
further
adventures of
SHERLOCK
HOLMES
THE ECTOPLASMIC MAN
By
DANIEL STASHOWER
Holmes was silent as our four-wheeler sped towards the Savoy, and Lestrade, to his credit, knew better than to probe for the source of the detective’s sudden agitation. For my part, I had observed these fits of pique on several previous occasions, and I knew them to be grounded in a personal, rather than professional, vexation. As Holmes now seemed to have regained his composure, I thought it best not to remark upon the matter, for I knew that if my suspicions were accurate, all would be revealed presently.
And so I passed the journey wondering what sort of man it was who could so readily divest himself of canvas strait-jackets and pass through solid brick walls. In my long association with Holmes we had been concerned in a score of mysteries which, at their outsets, seemed to involve spirit beings. Crime aficionados still remark upon the macabre affair of the earl, the ascot, and the heavy feather, which had been the despair of several well-trained investigators. Only Holmes had been able to prove that flesh-and-blood murderers were responsible, rather than the vengeful revenants originally suspected by Scotland Yard.
Would Holmes be as successful in penetrating the mysteries of Houdini, or had Lestrade at last presented him with a problem which had no logical solution? This was the challenge my companion had unwillingly undertaken that afternoon. In Lestrade’s defense I must say I rather doubt that he ever truly believed all this spiritualist commotion about Houdini. He was, rather, a man who dearly loved to have a key for every lock, no matter how unwieldy the keys became.
I had not been to the Savoy theatre since the passing of my beloved wife, Mary. Together we had attended many of the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan there, and though she had been gone many years, the association was still a painful one. My mood was certainly not lightened by the appearance of the theatre itself, which was dark and grim. The plush lobby, which I was so accustomed to seeing brightly lit and filled with cheery theatre patrons, now appeared shadowy and hollow. Through the far doors I could see rows of empty seats which seemed to stretch forever, creating an impression of eerie expectation. I am not ordinarily given to flights of fancy, but I imagined that I could feel my wife’s presence in that opulent crypt, and I acknowledged to myself that if I were ever to see a spirit, it would very likely be in this place.
“Do you see this?” Lestrade was saying. “Do you see this, Holmes?” He pointed to one of the dozens of theatrical posters which covered the walls of the lobby. “Houdini claims to have no interest in spiritualism, and yet he draws attention to himself with a poster like this! There’s more here than meets the eye, I tell you!”
The poster showed an ordinary wooden barrel secured with chains and heavy padlocks. Above it hovered a likeness of Houdini, who had evidently just wafted from the barrel as smoke rises from a chimney. His legs, the illustration plainly showed, were still vaporous. To strengthen this supernatural impression, the young man was shown receiving counsel from a small band of red demons who scurried about his form, while in the background a number of befuddled-looking officials stood scratching their heads. Below the illustration was printed the legend: “Houdini!!! The World’s Foremost Escape King!!!”
“You are absolutely right, Lestrade,” said Holmes. “This is conclusive evidence of the man’s spirit capacities. What a fool I have been ever to have doubted you! Now as to the details of this crime you mentioned—”
“Enough of that, Mr Holmes. You’ll be able to see for yourself in just a moment. Remember, though, Houdini doesn’t yet know that he’s a suspect in the crime, so you musn’t let on!”
Holmes turned and walked towards the empty theatre. “As of yet I have nothing to let on,” he said.
As we gained a view of the stage I could see a group of four workers carrying large packing crates back and forth across the stage. By his resemblance to the poster illustration, I gathered that the man directing the activity was none other than Houdini himself.
Houdini was a small but powerfully built young man. His black, wiry hair was combed out from the centre into two pointed tufts, which combined with the black slashes of his eyebrows to give him a satanic aspect. His every movement was precise and forceful, yet so fluid and full of grace that I was put in mind of the sleek jungle cats I encountered during my Afghan campaigns. He wore a coal-black suit, which contributed to his dramatic appearance, and though he was smaller than any of his workers, he nevertheless insisted on carrying the largest load.
One of Houdini’s assistants drew his attention to our arrival. Upon seeing Lestrade, Houdini gave a cry of surprise and set down his burden. He then leapt across the orchestra pit and made his way towards us, skimming across the backs and arms of the theatre seats as if using stepping stones to cross a river. This display of coordination and balance was not mere bravado, but rather the natural course of one whose control over his own body was so complete that such exertions were as natural to him as walking.
“Mr Lestrade!” cried Houdini as he jumped down into the aisle where we stood. “It’s good to see you!” He gave the inspector a jovial slap on the back. “I didn’t expect to see you snooping around until this evening’s performance! You’re not still upset about that gaol break, are you?”
War of the Worlds Page 21