by Barry Grant
I sat beside my open valise. He closed the door and waggled the end of the revolver. ‘A little further away, a little further away from me, please.’
I moved back on the bed.
On the floor at his end of the room were the two camel-coloured leather cases. ‘Two?’ said he, waving a hand at them? ‘Vee vere aware only of one.’
He spoke with a noticeable German accent, but his English was very good.
‘They contain documents from King George meant only for the eyes of Kaiser Wilhelm,’ I said.
‘Ah, yes, vell, but some of us German subjects do not vish the conflict to end, now that it has begun. Vee vish Germany to vin, as indeed she vill. And that is why vee think it best to prevent the Kaiser from becoming, shall vee say, confused.’
‘You have me at a disadvantage,’ I said. ‘I am in no position to argue with you.’
‘You know, Mr Holmes, vee Germans respect genius. Vee do not vish to harm you. Vee vill relieve you of any documents that may trouble the Kaiser’s peace of mind – then you may go your way.’
He lifted one of the small cases and laid it on the table. He clicked open the first latch, then the second. I was surprised he could do this. I had assumed both cases were locked. Then he lifted the lid and looked in. ‘Was ist denn das!’ he cried.
A moment later fire flashed upward and tore his head away. I was flung backwards hard against the headboard by the force of the explosion. My ears rang with pain. My nostrils were filled with mingled smells of burnt flesh and gunpowder. I stumbled to my feet. The headless corpse was smouldering on the carpet and the window behind it was blown out. I grabbed the other document case and packed it in the valise. I strapped my valise closed, rushed into the hallway. Already footsteps were thudding and shouts echoing. I ran into the street and turned the corner into the Rue Napoleon and kept running. When I reached the Quai D’Orsay I was exhausted. I hailed a taxi and it carried me to the Gare de Lyon. Undoubtedly the other conspirators had been watching the hotel, yet I had no evidence they had followed me. I hoped I had made my escape without detection.
At the Gare de Lyon I was fortunate. A train for Geneva was leaving in half an hour. I bought a ticket and hurried aboard a compartment in the middle of the train, taking the seat farthest from the window. A middle-aged woman and her husband entered the compartment and sat in the two window seats, facing each other. The woman stood up, lowered her window, and leant on it with folded arms as she hung her head out and gazed down the platform with a proprietorial air. I held my watch in hand, waiting impatiently as the hands jerked towards the moment of departure. The woman sat down and tidied herself. At last the train began to roll. We were on our way . . .
But now a man with a huge bald head floated into view, running hard down the platform. His handlebar moustache looked huge and his eyes glared and his cheeks were puffed out like balloons. It was the man Willie had knocked out in the baggage van at Canterbury. Here he was, again trying to board my train. His elbows were going like pistons, and every few strides he tried to grab the door handle. A slim dark man ran to the left of him, dropping behind as the train picked up speed. Once more the bald giant lunged for the door handle, missed, stumbled, and to save himself he grabbed the top of our open window with both his hands. He clung, he was dragged. The slim man shouted, ‘Ludwig, du Dummkopf!’ and vanished.
The platform flickered, disappeared.
Ludwig dangled in air, huge face pressed to our window pane.
The woman by the window humped to her feet and fled gasping out of the compartment. Her husband followed her.
I pulled off my boot and slammed Ludwig’s knuckles with its heel, pounded his fat knuckles until they began to seep blood. At last he howled and fell, and hit the gravel of the roadbed . . .
Ye gods, Wilson!
SIX
The World Interrupts
‘A cat!’ I cried, leaping to my feet. ‘Just a cat.’ But it had startled me, that scream! It sounded at first like a cry of the damned. A thrill of terror faded along my spine.
I had been listening so intently to my companion’s narrative that only when the cat screamed did I become aware that Sergeant Bundle was knocking on our window. I opened the door.
‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ said Bundle. ‘I stepped on the cat’s tail. Poor fellow was sleeping.’ Bundle’s face was piled with smiles as he hunkered into the room and sat down in the chair I offered. ‘Mr Coombes,’ said he, ‘you have put me on track!’
‘Excellent!’ cried Coombes, leaping from his chair and grabbing a spoon from the coffee table. He leant against the mantle and said, ‘Pray give me the details.’ He put the spoon into his mouth as if it were a pipe, and he waited with a languorous look in his eyes. ‘Take your time and omit nothing,’ he added.
Coombes’s whole performance was so dramatic, and so odd, that it struck me as affected and phoney. Yet it certainly had the intended effect of settling the sergeant down to take his details very seriously. ‘I have made an investigation into the question of what bicycles have been sold in the area in the past week. We have checked shops from here to Hereford and Brecon. A number of bicycles have been sold, but only two with tire treads that match the tracks in your photograph, Mr Coombes. One of those two was sold in Hereford to a young lad named Charles Montgomery. His father, also named Charles Montgomery, used a Visa card to pay for the bicycle. The bicycle is presently stored in their garage in Hereford. The other bicycle was sold in the same shop, on Widmarsh Street. I examined the man who sold the bicycle in some detail, Mr Coombes. He said the purchaser had thick sandy hair and bushy eyebrows, and he was dressed in blue jeans, a white shirt, a green suede jacket. He seemed to be about fifty but the sales clerk was strangely uncertain about this, and said he might have been younger. This customer bought the bike, paid cash, gave no indication of where he was from or where he was going. The salesman thought the customer was English and very upper class. No foreign accent at all.’
‘Excellent work, sergeant,’ said Coombes. ‘And what of the victim’s computer?’
‘You were right again. The victim received a number of emails from someone who said she was Lydia Languish and who claimed to live here in Hay-on-Wye. We have not gone through all the emails yet, for there are hundreds, if not thousands. But it appears that the girl lured him here, just as you suggested. Unfortunately, we have not been able to connect the email address of Lydia Languish with the name of a real person. Our experts say that we may never accomplish this, although they are still working on the problem.’
‘You will never find her,’ came the reply, ‘for Lydia Languish is a character in a play by Sheridan, called The Rivals, first performed in 1775.’
‘Is she now?’ said Bundle, nodding wisely. He shrugged with his big face. ‘Also, sir, I found out the meaning of the Pashto words that were impressed into the dust jacket of the book. I passed them on to our mutual contact at Scotland Yard – you know who I mean—’
‘Yes, yes of course . . .’
‘And with the many resources of Scotland Yard, he called me back within the hour with the translation. The words mean, “God is great but we must do our own work”.’
‘We might postulate,’ said Coombes, ‘that our suspect is an actor fluent in English and also in Pashto.’
‘That ought to narrow the field,’ suggested Bundle.
‘Perhaps,’ said Coombes. ‘But there are a great many people in Britain who to some degree or other fit that description. They may be professional actors, amateur actors . . .’ He shrugged. ‘What else have you discovered, sergeant? I can tell by your manner that you are saving the worst news till last.’
‘Well, sir, I’m afraid your theory is refuted. You imagined that revenge might be a motive for this crime, am I right?’ said Bundle. ‘And this was suggested to you by the book about Abu Ghraib.’
‘The thought had crossed my mind,’ said my friend.
‘The trouble is, sir,’ said Bundle, ‘Mr Hawes served in Afghanistan only. He
never was anywhere near Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.’
I could see that this information disappointed Coombes. He nodded slowly, frowning slightly. Silence fell over both men. They were statues.
To fill the void I volunteered, ‘What of Mr Jenkins? Has he been seen recently?’
‘A very good point,’ said Bundle. ‘We cannot be perfectly sure that Mr Jenkins was in Scotland as he said he was.’
‘Naturally,’ I said, ‘if he lured the American and murdered him, he would want to make it seem he was elsewhere.’
‘But if it was Jenkins, how do we explain the book and the phrase in Pashto?’ asked Bundle. He looked first at Coombes, then at me.
Coombes said nothing.
‘Perhaps the book was only a prop,’ I suggested. ‘A deception. Elaborate, yes. But plays are elaborate. You said he was a theatrical manager.’
Bundle and I looked at each other hopefully. Coombes seemed uninterested.
‘And one thing more,’ said Bundle, ‘the Heigh-ho on the mirror. I hardly know what to make of it . . . do you, Mr Coombes?’
Coombes suddenly snapped out of his reverie. He blinked, looked at Bundle. ‘It, yes . . . it comes from the play. Lydia Languish says it repeatedly. You may recall, Bundle, that thirty years ago there was a very famous murder case in which the German word Rache was scrawled on a wall, in blood, by someone who hoped to throw investigators off the track . . . I’m sorry, not thirty . . . no, you wouldn’t . . .’ – he passed his hand over his forehead – ‘. . . more like a hundred and . . .’ He frowned, seemed to drift away into another of his moods. Then he said, ‘A meaningless phrase meant to confuse us.’
Sergeant Bundle took little notice. ‘It sounds like mockery to me, sir – a phrase meant to mock the police.’ He slapped his hand on the chair arm and got up.
Again Coombes was floating into some other realm, staring at the ceiling and drifting into outer space.
Bundle said his goodbyes and departed.
Suddenly the atmosphere in the room had become oppressive. I left my companion to his ruminations and walked to the top of the road and bought a newspaper. When I returned I saw that my moody companion had brought out his antique leather valise, the one with the Hotel Beau-Rivage sticker on the side, a valise of the sort people carried on board steamships in the days of the Titanic and Lusitania. It might have been on display at the Victoria and Albert. ‘So this is your suitcase, is it?’ I said. ‘Your suitcase from 1914?’
‘Exactly so,’ he said. ‘And it contains a positive treasure for dismal times like these.’ He opened the valise and brought out a small morocco case a bit bigger than an eyeglass case. He opened the little case and withdrew a syringe. He gave a sigh as he sat down in his usual chair and rolled up his sleeve. I thought he might be ill, a diabetic perhaps. He seemed about to inject himself. I asked, as nonchalantly as I could, ‘What are you doing?’
‘The case has gone stale, Wilson,’ he said. ‘It is evident that more information is needed before it can be solved. And I have learnt by long and often bitter experience that the needed information may never arrive. A telegram, a telephone call, an unexpected visitor may come at any instant and set me back on a track that I can follow. Meanwhile, I am powerless. I warned you that these moods come upon me at certain periods. Inactivity is death to me. If I have practical problems to tackle, theories to concoct, puzzles to untangle, I can be happy. At those times my mind soars like a hawk, seeking the smallest bit of motion to dive upon and feed my insatiable curiosity in hopes of solving the problem. But when information has been utterly exhausted, when the trail has gone stale, when I have no challenge, no mystery, no paradox, no danger, no dilemma, not even any physical adventure, my brain and all the earth become a desert of boredom and commonplace, and then my oasis – which I need in order to survive – is a seven per cent solution of cocaine.’
‘Come now, come now!’ I said. I laughed heartily, albeit a bit tentatively. ‘I can’t believe what you are saying.’
‘Old habits die hard,’ he said.
‘If it is really cocaine in your syringe,’ I said, feigning indifference, ‘I suppose you should know that nowadays using cocaine is illegal.’
‘Quite legal for me, though,’ he said. ‘I have a special dispensation from Scotland Yard.’
‘Hah!’ I cried. ‘That is difficult to believe, my friend.’
‘It is perfectly true, my dear Wilson. My cocaine supply was prescribed by a doctor and certified by legal hocus-pocus at the highest levels of Scotland Yard. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I am off to a lovely oasis, for it beckons me so enticingly that . . .’
I touched his shoulder. ‘I hate to sound like a child, my friend, but please consider a moment – you have promised me a story. You have teased me by telling only half the story. That is not kind. That is not – if I may say so – honourable.’
He paused, staring at the tip of the needle as a lover stares trembling at the one he desires. I could see how much he craved it, how his promise was struggling with his private desire.
I urged him gently. ‘Why not give both of us a little pleasure, you and me, by telling the rest of the story? You will enjoy it, I will enjoy it. A vicarious adventure for both of us. While you talk we’ll have lunch at the Old Black Lion. I’ll buy. Afterwards you can finish your tale as we take a walk up the long path to Hay Bluff. How does that sound, my friend! Lunch, climbing a bluff, and a tale of your adventures during The Great War – surely that should be nearly as good as a shot of cocaine!’
Slowly he set down the needle. He rolled down his sleeve. ‘You should have been a diplomat,’ he said. His grey-blue eyes were scintillant, lips pressed in half a smile. ‘So you believe my strange tale, Wilson?’
‘Whether I believe it I must yet discover. But you have told it in a most convincing manner. That cannot be denied. The suitcase –’ I nodded towards it. ‘Is it of 1914 vintage?’
‘Much older than that, Wilson. I bought it in the ’80s or ’90s, and it became a good friend in my travels. It is a miracle that this old friend of mine made it through with me to the twenty-first century. By sheer good fortune my hand was gripping it in my last moments of 1914, and I was still clutching it when they found me in 2004. As a result, they had to cut the block of ice in which I was encased so that the block contained not only me but my valise. This slowed them down and made it difficult to transport me to London before I melted. So they told me.’
I laughed out loud. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, my friend,’ I said. ‘My laughter doesn’t mean disbelief . . . not exactly, anyhow.’
‘Shall we go?’ asked Coombes. ‘Let us fortify ourselves at the Black Lion, then head up to Hay Bluff.’
We closed the door of Cambrai Cottage and walked towards the Black Lion. As the clock tower in the village centre struck one, Cedric Coombes resumed his tale.
SEVEN
Pursuit
As I say, Dummkopf Ludwig was clinging to the window of my train compartment as we left Paris. He soon dropped away, however, and my two travel companions returned. The woman was very tidy. She wiped the blood off the window and closed the window tight. Thereafter we enjoyed a most pleasant train ride through French countryside, punctuated only by the distant thunder of an October storm. Thunder made the madame mistakenly fear she was hearing the German five-nines at the battle front. Her bespectacled husband and I both assured her that even the biggest of the German guns were too far away to be heard, and that she was hearing only God’s cannons.
Say what you will about the Swiss, they know how to manage a country. Everything seemed just a little cleaner, quicker and less confused after we crossed the border and rolled into Geneva. I was waved through the frontier very quickly and soon had no more to do than find a comfortable hotel. From the train station I walked down the Rue du Mont Blanc to the lake, and there I turned left on to the Quai du Mont Blanc. I was soon attracted by the Hôtel Beau-Rivage where, for five francs a night, I booked a room with a view o
f the lake and the Alps beyond. The view alone was worth the price. The hotel had a French chef, and my supper was very fine. I ate slowly. I have never spent great effort developing a taste for food but I confess French food is my weakness, and although my nose is better trained for distinguishing the seventeen distinct types of tobacco smoked in Europe than it is for judging a wine’s bouquet, yet I have always enjoyed wine and I indulged myself in a glass of fine wine that evening. As I ate and drank, I gazed out over the lake and considered my precarious situation.
King George had not kept his secrets very well. That was clear. Someone in his retinue had sneezed up the secret of my journey. The Germans knew my mission and they were following me. The Russians also knew, and they had tried to switch cases on me in order to assassinate the Kaiser with a bomb. But their bomb had blown up the wrong German, and the result was that the Germans, having no knowledge of the Russian plot, would now assume that I had killed their man, and doubtless they would now intend not merely to rob me but to kill me.
And then there was the problem of how to enter Germany. The border of Switzerland and Germany offered many routes of crossing. I was inclined to travel to the Bodensee, purchase a small sailboat at Romanshorn and sail across in the night to a landing spot somewhere near Friedrichshafen. From there I might travel north to Nuremberg, Leipzig, and Berlin – that is, if the Kaiser was still at Berlin. Recently (or so the newspapers informed me) he had been visiting his army in Belgium. Problem number one was to get into Germany. Problem number two was to locate the Kaiser – but that I could worry about later.
I folded my map, ate my dessert, drank my coffee, and occasionally gazed out over the blue lake at the strange white mountains rising to the south. Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe, looked oddly small behind all the nearer peaks. In the dying light of evening I paged through my faithful Baedeker’s Switzerland, 1913 edition. It informed me that the two-and-a-half hour steamer journey to Lausanne was far preferable to the railway journey. I took Baedeker’s advice – one seldom goes wrong taking Baedeker’s advice. Next morning I boarded the steamer.