“How is this possible?” Huan asked. “It is true, then—it is an act of God!”
“It was not an act of God,” Holmes replied. “It was a kick to the head!”
Then he turned to Douglas and whispered, “Very good, Douglas. You are breathing quite well. Now pray keep it up, for I shall not return to England without you.”
46
THERE WERE NO PROPER HOSPITALS IN PORT OF SPAIN—NOT IN Holmes’s estimation—nor surgeons competent to do the fine work of extracting bullets from so precarious an area of the body. Those little pellets of lead and death would have to remain where they were, in Douglas’s chest, as mementos of a terrible time.
Holmes paid for a comfortable room, along with twice-daily visits from a well-regarded local physician, Dr. George Curlew. As there was still danger of infection, or of bullets migrating and causing additional damage, he kept a personal vigil and left his friend’s bedside only when strictly necessary.
While Douglas recuperated, Huan and Little Huan led a contingent of Harmonious Fists and Merikens—relatives of those who had perished upon the island—to a steamship that had been abandoned at its mooring off the coast of Venezuela. With permission from the government, which Holmes had secured, they clambered aboard and led more than two hundred emaciated men, women, and children down the gangway to safety.
The rescue took place on the fifth day of Douglas’s convalescence. When Holmes told Douglas the story, he sat up in bed for the first time.
“What on earth are you doing?” Holmes scolded as he bolted from his chair, arms out, as if to catch his friend mid-fall.
Douglas shook his head.
“Holmes, please,” he remonstrated. “I am not scaling the wall hand over hand, I am simply sitting upright.”
“Are you certain you feel hale enough?” Holmes asked, appraising him doubtfully.
“I feel hale enough to do a jig,” he replied, smiling.
From that day forward, Holmes allowed visitors to the sickbed. They always came bearing gifts, from tea and herbs to a quotation from a book to be read aloud, to “the smallest taste” of callaloo, pelau and other treats that made Holmes’s eyes burn simply to hear them named. Afterward, they would collect themselves in an anxious little clutch to debate whether or not this day brought a healthier hue to Douglas’s countenance, or a heartier glimmer to his eye, or whether his tone when he said hello had about it the ring of recovery.
Most times they would depart encouraged.
“It was not an act of God, it was a kick to the head!”
On several occasions, Holmes heard Huan in the corridor outside the sickroom, regaling others with the story of Douglas’s miraculous healing, parroting Holmes’s words down to the intonation, whilst tossing in some words of his own.
“Before he was shot,” Huan would recount, “our Cyrus dealt a savage blow to the back of McGuire’s skull. This savage blow, it caused that demon’s brain to ‘float back in his spinal fluid’—isn’t that right, Mycroft? It floated, yes? And this floating, it blurred that demon’s vision! So that he missed Douglas’s heart by a millimeter.”
Douglas’s friends could not get enough of that story—it always ended in cheers and applause. And although Holmes would shake his head and feign annoyance, in truth he could have heard it a thousand times more.
* * *
By week two of his convalescence, Douglas was regaining his old humor. He had taken to calling Dr. Curlew “the Saint Nick of the West Indies,” for that was whom the man resembled—a rotund, jolly sort who would smile and pat the girth around his middle while making the most onerous pronouncements. He let it be known that, whether Douglas lived or died, he would no longer be what he once was.
“The mano a mano,” he said, chortling. “The sparring, at the advanced age of forty, like a young buck… things of the past! Travels, too, for what could be a negligible infection for a hale man can prove fatal to you, Cyrus. Fatal. Never forget that you still have two bullets lodged in your chest.”
“I would be hard pressed to do that,” Douglas grumbled, “with you and Holmes reminding me every quarter-hour.”
“Yes, ha-ha, quite! ‘Travels bring travails’—that should be your motto. And though I grant you there are benefits to smoking, including the relief of asthma, I agree with my esteemed colleague Doctor George Sigmond, who conducted quite a study of it some years back, proving that tobacco is no friend to the ailing heart. Therefore, whatever else transpires, you must never, ever smoke again.”
That last caused Douglas to groan like a condemned man.
“A tobacco seller who does not smoke!” he cried to Holmes. “What sort of odd beast would that be, I wonder?”
Holmes wondered that, too.
“Not to worry, Douglas. Once back in London, we shall get a second opinion, and a third—”
“And a tenth, I suppose,” he interrupted, “until they tell us what we want to hear.”
“Has there been something you have cared to do?” Holmes asked discreetly. “Apart from what you do, I mean…”
“If you are asking if I’ve ever had a yen to play the piano, or to garden, the answer is no,” his friend said. He was sitting at the window. As he spoke, he kept turning his head like a sunflower to the spot of light that glowed through the curtains. Then—out of politeness, Holmes supposed—he would turn back to his interlocutor.
“I do not mean to be flippant about my own life,” he assured Holmes. “In truth, there is no lack of people in dire need, and I always assumed that if I could but earn enough, I might be of some assistance—to children in particular.”
He sighed. “Now, it appears that was a pipe dream… along with the pipe, I suppose. From what Saint Nick tells me, I could not even have gone along to help Huan and Little Huan liberate those poor souls, for it involved travel. And you, Holmes! You are a madman for remaining here with me, when you could have participated in such an event.”
Holmes shrugged. “I saw a portion of it. I watched from the wharf as some went home to their families here, while others boarded the ship for Sierra Leone. I can only hope that, whatever hardships they might endure from here on, freedom shall forever taste sweet.”
Douglas nodded, then turned away again.
Holmes felt a twinge of guilt. Though they had spoken of many things since his recovery, they had not yet discussed the “deal” that he had struck to free them. Nevertheless, he knew full well that it had disturbed Douglas’s faith in him.
“Bargain with the devil, and you are no better than he is,” he had mumbled on that first night of recovery, when the pain was excruciating, and his social graces severely wanting.
Holmes had at long last apprised his employer, Edward Cardwell, of what had transpired—though he made it appear as if the entire adventure had been an unpleasant surprise that had torn his attention from investigating the French Creole issue. In the last two weeks he had also read every available book, manuscript, and newspaper article that had to do with the history of the West Indies, to try to make sense of what those islands represented, and what could possibly be harvested that was worth so many human lives.
This knowledge, married to the sorry events he had witnessed, caused him to realign his priorities, to take a different view of social structure… one might even call it a long view.
More than anything, he wished to discuss those changes with Douglas. To deliver his soul, as it were, and perhaps to justify his actions, just a little. He rehearsed what he would say.
Catching a criminal in the act is nowhere near as important as closing the loopholes that allow one to act the criminal in the first instance, he longed to explain. That means affecting laws, it means bargaining in a way that there will always be checks and balances in place. At the moment, will it always seem right or even fair? Of course not—
In his mind, he heard Douglas interrupting, most likely with something about ends never justifying means.
I no longer think that is true, Holmes protested
in turn.
Douglas, seated in the chair in the sun, nodded as if he had heard.
“Yes. Perhaps something to do with children,” he mused.
Holmes ran a hand through his hair. The philosophical—and thus far imaginary—conversation with Douglas would have to wait. At the moment, whether for ultimate good or ill, there was a bit more bargaining to be done.
It included a visit to Nestor Ellensberg.
* * *
“Mr. Holmes…?”
Ellensberg stood at the door of his rented room. A stickpin on his lapel bore the flag of Switzerland. On an end table sat a well-brushed Tyrolean hat. He was dressed for travel, a detail of which Holmes was already aware, as he had been demanding that a passenger list of departing ships be messengered to him each night for the past week.
In the light of day, standing so near him, Holmes could see red glints in Ellensberg’s white hair.
Redheads! he mused. They have presaged bad luck from start to finish.
“Of a truth, I thought you would have us arrested the moment we arrived at Port of Spain,” Ellensberg said, inviting him inside.
“Of a truth, I would have,” Holmes told him pleasantly, “if I had any hope that the charges would stick.”
“Be that as it may, you have stood by your word.”
Ellensberg indicated a chair, and they sat—discreetly appraising one another across the small but well-appointed chamber.
“It is not as if I suddenly disagree with indenture,” Ellensberg exclaimed. “I am most profoundly in favor of it, as commerce would be quite lost without it. But the manner in which it was done, no, no—that was wrong.”
“Mr. Ellensberg,” Holmes interrupted, “I am not here to debate the philosophical merits of…‘indenture.’ I am more concerned with your employer.”
Ellensberg sighed. “I am, as of this juncture, no longer in his employ, as I have found out that he, too, is… nefarious? Is that the correct word?”
“It is, if that is what you mean,” Holmes said. “To leave his employ—was that your choice, or his?”
“Very much mine!” Ellensberg sputtered. “I do a proper job, Mr. Holmes! I am not the sort to be terminated. But these are evil men, who think only of enriching themselves…”
“Whereas you—” Holmes began wryly, but Ellensberg cut him off.
“They made us all, how do you say, part of it!”
“Complicit?”
“Yes, complicit! So we are frightened to say anything, because we have seen too much.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “I am simply an intermediary for money. My employer, he makes an investment, and I go to see that it is as they advertise—no more, no less. Of the product, what do I know? It could be race horses, or…”
“…humans?” Holmes finished the phrase for him, though he was certain it was not at all what the man had intended.
Ellensberg joined his hands together as if in prayer, and looked away.
“But the humans that were purchased,” Holmes went on, “are only the material, the ancillary product. The tools,” he added when it was clear that Ellensberg did not follow. “They were tantamount to having a fine pen with which to compose a book. The question is, what is the book about?”
Ellensberg remained mute.
Holmes sighed. It was time to redirect the conversation to his purposes.
“I posit that the ‘book’ is pitch oil,” he said. “The so-called Second and Third Islands carry seeps of pitch oil, do they not?”
“You saw it?” Ellensberg asked, wide-eyed.
“No. I read of it in a local newspaper article, dated June 1862. By some reckonings, pitch oil is valuable, or soon will be.”
Ellensberg shrugged. “Yes, that is what my employer told me. It seems Mr. Adam McGuire had struck a deal with several gas light companies, including the North American Kerosene Gas Light Company at Long Island, New York. They provide kerosene for lamps, but the demand now far exceeds their capacity to produce.”
“The North American Kerosene Gas Light Company did not, however, realize there would be slaves involved,” Holmes interrupted. “Did they?”
“No,” Ellensberg admitted, “they did not.”
“And so your employer elicited money from investors all over the world for this new endeavor in Trinidad,” Holmes said.
Ellensberg nodded. “He carries quite a bit of clout. It is my opinion that McGuire was fooled by him, as well,” he said quietly.
“In other words, McGuire thought he’d be in the business of… ‘indentured servants’ who’d extract oil from the earth. So, to keep other speculators away, he had to ensure that locals would not notice errant seep washing up on the southern shores of Trinidad. Which meant he further had to ensure that the locals would be terrified to walk their own beaches.”
Ellensberg nodded again.
“But, in spite of investors, money in the bank, and all that preparation, you never even dug the first well,” Holmes declared. “Is that correct?”
Ellensberg swallowed hard. “Yes. That is when I realized that my employer had no intent of making it a real business, but to take away all the investments for himself.” He looked so out of sorts that Holmes almost felt sorry for him.
“But he has not yet absconded with the investors’ money,” Holmes said.
“Not yet, no.”
“And when he does, no one will say a word of it, because no one wants to admit that they were involved in such a dirty business.”
“If the workers had been in good condition, as advertised,” Ellensberg protested, “then perhaps the investors would not be so ashamed. But now…?”
“Might your employer have done it on purpose?” Holmes asked. He watched the pinkish hue drain from the other man’s face, until he looked very much as if he would faint.
“That is purely speculative on my part, Mr. Ellensberg,” he added quickly. “Although, if my intent had been to make the investors complicit, and to steal their money all along, then it follows that a sadist like McGuire—who was sure to ill-treat the slaves—would be very useful.”
Ellensberg stared at Holmes, aghast.
“Duplicity!” he spat. “From first to last!”
“It appears that way,” Holmes said with understatement. “I am equally certain that you have asked yourself why workers would be put in place before there was work to be done. Did you see drilling equipment? The newest methods drill, they do not dig; they use a steam engine…”
“Poland and Romania still hand-dig their wells and are quite successful,” Ellensberg countered. “Even so, I saw nothing,” he admitted, “though I visited all the islands.”
“Equipment costs money,” Holmes declared. “And, unlike slaves, it is harder to dispose of when it proves inconvenient or outdated.”
“Mr. Holmes, please.” Ellensberg looked near tears. “As I said, I was a middle operative, not a mastermind.”
“No. But you were the keeper of the funds. You made sure that the currency from half a dozen countries would be moved around, not enough to cause alarm, but enough to be—let us say ‘liquid.’ The final move would be to deposit it all in one bank—to be quickly picked up and carried off, with no one the wiser.”
Ellensberg hesitated. “Yes,” he said at last.
“And now that you have been found out, are you willing to suffer the fall?”
Ellensberg wrung his hands. “My employer is a very powerful, well-connected man. What choice do I have? I am sorry, Mr. Holmes. Regardless of the disdain I feel, or the fear for myself, I cannot give you his name.” With that, he resolutely crossed his legs at the ankle and set his rather well-fed jaw into place.
“Oh, I do not need his name,” Holmes assured him. “He is Count Wolfgang Hohenlohe-Langenburg.”
Ellensberg stared at Holmes, open-mouthed. Abruptly he stood, his florid face so engorged with blood that Holmes feared a cardiac episode might be imminent.
“Mr. Ellensberg,” Holmes said soothingly. “Sit, sir. I am n
ot a constable, nor am I judge or executioner. I am here neither to arrest nor dispatch you.”
“Then, what is it you wish?” Ellensberg bleated, as he shakily resumed his seat.
47
HOLMES AND DOUGLAS’S JOURNEY BACK TO ENGLAND PROVED blessedly uneventful. There were no storms or other calamities, and the mid-sized ship, with the felicitous name of Constance, had the wind at her back—another good omen.
When she made her first port of call, a few hours’ dalliance in the nearly landlocked Kingston Harbor, Holmes first ensured that Douglas was happily convalescing in the grand saloon over a game of whist, in the company of businessmen from Cuba and Cameroon. Then, without a word to anyone, he quickly disembarked. At the wharf he rented a horse and driver, paying handsomely so that man and beast would make haste to the island’s dilapidated capital, Spanish Town.
The carriage had barely drawn to a halt when he leapt out, dismissed the cab, and marched through the doors of Jamaica’s most prestigious monetary institution, the Colonial Bank. Though a bit shabby, it still had the air of self-importance, as of a nobleman gone to seed.
Besides his own credentials, he carried a signed fiduciary letter that gave the bearer the right to withdraw funds from a series of numbered accounts. These accounts held various currencies—British stock, British and South African pounds, Swiss francs, Cuban, Puerto Rican and Venezuelan pesos, and the gold quadruple pistole—or doubloon—that Jamaica had been circulating since the seventeenth century. Holmes imagined from the first that it would be a healthy dose of monies. After all, a relative of the Queen was not likely to cause so much double-cross and human misery over a pittance.
But by the time the clerk sent for a manager, who in turn beckoned a supervisor, who—in hushed whispers—begged the pardon of the bank president who hurried over to scrutinize Holmes, he realized that the sum might be a bit more tidy than he had imagined.
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