The Flying Scotsman

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  I had to admit it was a splendid little speech, and one I might have enjoyed more had the circumstances been different. “I am pleased that you can find entertainment in so dire an embroilment as the one we face now.”

  “Oh, Guthrie,” chided Miss Gatspy, “don’t be such a prude.”

  “If concern for those entrusted to my employer and me makes me a prude, so be it.” I was appalled at how I sounded, and I shuddered to think the impression Prince Oscar must have of me now.

  “Miss Gatspy, I believe Mister Guthrie is worried on your behalf,” Prince Oscar declared. “It is reassuring to know a man in his line of work still considers the reputations of women he works with.”

  “Um,” said Miss Gatspy, looking at me with the air of one who has been given a dubious gift.

  “What sort of man would I be if I did not uphold the honor of my associates, for then mine would be less than nothing.” I looked at her again, wishing I could discern her thoughts.

  “Mister Guthrie,” said Prince Oscar. “You may rest assured that I will in no way trespass on Miss Gatspy’s good-will.”

  I had to be content with this. “Certainly. Well, now that our plans are set, I will go along to the dining car and amend our reservations for the second seating.” I turned to let myself out, but Prince Oscar had one more observation to add before I was released.

  “A most fortuitous thing, that Mister Holcomb could so handily discern the miscreant in the lounge car.” He smiled to show he attached no greater significance to it than the whim of fortune.

  “It is a skill that runs in his family,” I said, and slid the door back.

  “Guthrie,” said Miss Gatspy, “before we go in to supper, if you will be kind enough to relieve me for ten minutes so that I might go to my compartment to ... make myself ready to dine?”

  “Of course. It will be my pleasure.” I did not look at her as I answered, afraid her glowing smile would detract from my purpose. It was perplexing to think how such a woman could influence my thoughts and throw my perceptions into turmoil. I told myself that my single lapse with her was in the past, to be forgotten: no doubt it was her occupation that so unnerved me, for a woman skilled in espionage and assassination was a rare creature in this or any time.

  “Thank you. I will knock on your compartment when I am ready for you to take my place,” she said.

  “Very good. I will be at your service,” I said, and left her alone with Prince Oscar.

  In the dining car, the maître d’ took the reservation and promised a table where we might look into the kitchen. He was middle-aged with deep-set lines in his face and a nice capacity to judge the social importance of travelers. He treated me with courtesy but without the deference he would show to someone of greater social standing. “It is strange you should want that one,” he told me as he studied my initials on my portfolio. “Most passengers would prefer not to see what goes on in the galley.”

  “Perhaps, but since Mister Holcomb and Herr Schere are employed by Satchel’s Guides, you will understand their purpose in this request.” I spoke with the kind of easy negligence that suggested that such an insistence was standard for Satchel’s.

  “Of course,” said the maître d’, whose rolling gait that rocked with the train, along with his nautical use of the word galley made me suppose he had once worked for a steamship line, and had continued his work in the rails as he had once on the sea.

  “Thank you. We’ll see you at the second seating,” I told him, trying not to be too grand in my demeanor, for I sensed this would not gain the high opinion of this maître d’.

  “Very good,” he said, and went back to his duties in the dining car.

  Passing through the second-class carriage I noticed that the compartments were still all full, which led me to suspect that there were many reasons for us to remain alert, for we could not adequately observe all those who had boarded at Leicester. I kept a mental tally of those passengers I was certain were new and considered returning to the lounge car to listen to gossip. That was not what I had been instructed to do, however, so I continued on to the second compartment of the first car. As I came up to that door, I noticed Sir Cameron was finally silent.

  “Come,” said Mycroft Holmes in response to my coded knock. I slid the door open and stepped inside. “Are we ready for the evening yet?”

  “Miss Gatspy will be joining us at supper,” I told him. “The reservations are for a party of four.”

  “Very good, Guthrie,” said Holmes. “I was troubled that we had not thought to include your Miss Gatspy. I am glad Herr Schere remembered to do so.” He had lit a cigar and the aroma of the tobacco filled the compartment.

  “Are you joking me, sir?” I asked rather more curtly than I should have.

  “No, Guthrie, at least not this time.” He indicated a place I might sit. “You are a stickler for good form, as I tend to forget. It is one of the reasons I hired you, for you know to a nicety what is proper to do.”

  This praise took me by surprise. “I had not thought you would find much use for—” I almost said my prudishness, but stopped myself in time.

  “My dear boy, I know protocol, but that is not the same thing as good manners and a sense of decorum.” He took another draw of his cigar and blew out the fragrant smoke slowly, letting it wreathe around his head. “You have those skills I lack, and I rely upon you to augment my knowledge when such becomes necessary.”

  “You have only to ask me, sir,” I said to him, still mildly astonished by what he had just confided.

  “Tonight I suspect we will need more than two pair of eyes to adequately assess our situation. Miss Gatspy is no amateur, and she will bring her keen attention to assist us in our work. I am very grateful that she is willing to extend herself on our behalf.” He saw something in my face that made him add, “I realize her interests are those of the Golden Lodge, Guthrie, and not necessarily those of Britain; but when their purposes march with ours, I am not above making the most of it. The Brotherhood has certainly not allowed such minor matters as national alliances to influence their work. In situations such as this one, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

  “I take it, sir, you do not believe we are out of danger.” I had seen him in such a state of mind before, and I could not make light of it. “What do you anticipate?”

  “Trouble, of course,” said Mycroft Holmes. “I am not yet wholly sanguine about our journey, the less so because the police have been brought into it, will-ye, nil-ye.”

  “But Inspector Carew said his reports would not be ready until tomorrow, and by then we shall be finished with our mission,” I reminded him.

  “Ah, but Inspector Carew isn’t the only man having knowledge of these events. There is Rollins, the coroner, and any number of constables. Men in that profession gossip as much as any, and word can spread like fire if the case is significant enough for the men to boast of it.” Holmes tapped the ash from the end of his cigar. “The gossip is not the same as the rumors of crowds; it changes less in the repeating, for it must convince men who are familiar with the work the police do. In this instance I could wish for wild retellings for the sake of having the whole dismissed as fabrication.”

  “Do you think that the word could reach London quickly?” I asked, and knew the answer as I did. “The telegraph. Of course it could.”

  “And it could find its way to ears and eyes not working to our advantage.” Holmes glared at the swiftly passing scenery. “If only Tyers has unearthed some information that we can use as regards the police. But if we are not kept informed, then this journey is still fraught with peril for Herr Schere.”

  “Do you think Herr Schere is aware of it?” I listened for his answer most attentively, bearing, as it did, on Miss Gatspy.

  “He would be a fool if he is not, and I have no reason to think him a fool.” He took his handker
chief from his pocket and buffed the toes of his shoes. “We must keep up appearances, mustn’t we?”

  “If you require it,” I said, recognizing that he would not say much more on the matter of danger until he had received his communications from Tyers.

  “You will want to neaten your tie, and then go along to the lounge again. You will not appear too obvious if you wait twenty minutes before making your appearance there. I want to know what the new passengers are being told about the murder, and the lounge is the ripest place to hear such things. As you participated so much in the apprehension of the criminal, questions may be directed to you.” He held out his cigar. “When I am done with this, and have finished readying one or two items for you to telegraph when we reach Sheffield, I will come along to join you.”

  “Very good, sir,” I said, rising and taking up my portfolio again.

  “You needn’t sound like my butler, my boy, nor need depart upon the instant. Sit. Sit,” said Mycroft Holmes with the trace of a chuckle. “I shan’t keep you away from your Miss Gatspy all evening.”

  “That was not my concern, sir,” I said, disliking the tone I had taken but unable to keep from being condemning in my thoughts. “I am going to take her place with Herr Schere before we go in to dine, so she might freshen her appearance; I trust you will not object to this? It is in our best interests to do this.” Obediently, I sat.

  “If you say so, Guthrie; if you say so.” He continued to smoke in silence for a short while. “I will have more telegrams for you to send at Sheffield, as I mentioned, including one to Tschersky at the Russian embassy, that, perforce, cannot be in code. Then there is the Admiralty. You will have to make the most of the time we have there, as Tyers is not the only one we must report to.”

  “Very good, sir,” I said, finally relaxing my hold on my portfolio. I wondered if I had left impressions in the leather above my initials.

  “We must also plan for what we will do in Carlisle, when the Glasgow cars are taken off from this train. We will be more vulnerable there than in Leicester, and that now concerns me very much; for in the confusion of a rail yard, an assassin might strike and get away without so much as a constable’s whistle to mark him.” He folded his hands, continuing, “The problem with any yard is the combination of sound and movement. There is simply too much of it and too many things happening we have no way to anticipate. There will be a maze of open and closed cars of all types. Freights from Newcastle and all of the mills will be arriving hourly and their cars switched onto a dozen different engines. If we are trying to be alert to any threat, the noise level will be such that we will hardly be able to hear a shot, much less a shout. Our analytic eye will be sorely tested, and so it is where we will be most exposed.”

  “How can you and I, with or without Miss Gatspy, deal with such risks?” I was appalled at what Mycroft Holmes had said. Leaving Constantinople had been easy by comparison, and that last desperate rush through the streets of Bucharest a game.

  “Because we must,” said Mycroft Holmes quietly. He was almost finished with his cigar. “Go along to your compartment, Guthrie, and do something with your tie. I will come to the lounge within the hour.”

  “As you wish,” I said, getting up again and going to let myself out. I wished I could think of something to say that would lighten the burden he carried, but nothing came to mind that did not also trivialize what was at stake. I nodded as I closed the door and went along to the third compartment where my valise waited, large and lumpish, faithful as a hound.

  One glance in the mirror made it apparent that Holmes’ advice was more than needed: the knot was askew and the stick-pin was thrust to the side at a rakish angle. I could not recall how or when I had become so disheveled, but I set about putting myself to rights, not only fixing my tie but brushing my hair back into place.

  On my way to the lounge car I stopped in the lav and noticed that the frosted window was partially open; about seven inches at the top were open to the air. I tried to close it and discovered it was jammed. As I had not used this facility in the first-class car before, I supposed it must have been that way since before we left King’s Cross. I was confident that few men could squeeze through such a small space and in such an inconvenient location, so I did nothing more than make a mental note of it and continue on my way to the lounge, where Whitfield greeted me like a long-lost friend.

  “So much excitement,” he said, speaking as much to the dozen or so men who were enjoying their drinks. “And Mister Guthrie here right in the heart of it.” He handed me a small whiskey—one of his better ones, by the smell of it—and told me it was on the house. “You earned it, Mister Guthrie. That you did.”

  “Thank you, Whitfield,” I said, thinking Mycroft Holmes had been right and I would be answering questions until I went to take over Miss Gatspy’s place with Prince Oscar.

  “Very helpful you were, Mister Guthrie. The Inspector said so,” Whitfield continued to enthuse. “I’m sure they could not have done as much as they did without you to help them. You and Mister Holcomb, of course.”

  A man somewhat older than I, with an air of prosperity and a very fine suit, came up to me. “About that horse that killed the jockey, they were saying. Some sort of conspiracy, according to the barkeep.”

  “As much as we could determine, yes, that would appear to be the cause of the killing.” I noticed that two or three other men were listening attentively, and so I made an effort to elucidate my part in the whole. “Mister Holcomb was adept at discerning how the poisoning was done; I merely supplied an occasional drawing to help clarify—”

  “It’s a shocking thing, what racing has come to,” said another newcomer, a skinny, knobby gent, with a nose that overpowered his face and seemed to have pulled his two small eyes near to it by magnetic force.

  “That it is,” I said, adding, “The horse is not to blame, of course, but the men who plotted this are to be condemned for turning an innocent animal into a weapon.”

  “Shameful,” said the hatchet-faced gent. “The name is Burley, by the way—Arthur Burley. A pleasure to meet you.”

  “Paterson Guthrie,” I said as we shook hands.

  “They tell me you and Mister Holcomb work for Satchel’s. You like the work?” His manner was genial, perhaps, I thought, a bit too genial.

  “Well enough, if it is any concern to anyone but myself,” I said sharply.

  Burley chuckled. “Habit, asking questions. I work for the Sheffield Intelligence; you’ve probably never heard of it, as it is not much known outside of Sheffield. It is a small weekly, devoted to local politics and business.”

  “Interesting work, I expect,” I said blandly, while my thoughts raced: good God, we had a reporter aboard, one dealing in business and politics. This story had most certainly whetted his appetite for skulduggery. What could be more disastrous than this? If the slightest whiff of what we were doing should reach him, how could we keep the whole of this incident from being bruited aboard? And then what would become of our treaty, let alone our efforts to protect Prince Oscar not only from harm, but from scandal?

  “Sometimes. Often it is bread-and-butter reporting, utilitarian and dry. Once in a while we happen onto something a bit more exciting, but those occasions are rare. Nothing like what happened here today. I’m sorry I missed it.” He sighed. “I should have realized that when the Flying Scotsman was late and arrived on a side-track with constables hovering about that it was more than a minor mishap aboard.” He downed the last of his whisky. “So if you do not mind, I will ask a few more questions. I might as well file some sort of story about this when I return to my desk tomorrow.”

  I realized he had volunteered so much to put me off my guard; it had quite the opposite effect than the one he had intended. I did my best to smile and look as if I were willing to be interviewed on this subject, all the while responding with senses alert, not only to
Arthur Burley, but to the men in the lounge, most of whom seemed eager to listen. “If you believe it will be of any interest to your readers, ask away,” I said, ready to deal with the man as best I could.

  “You make this very formal, Mister Guthrie. Still, it’s worth a try, I’d think.” He pulled a notebook from his pocket and a pencil with a sharp point. “Can you describe what happened here?”

  I took a deep breath and began to expostulate on the events surrounding the murders of Jardine and Heath, taking care to be accurate and all the while doing my best to make it seem that such an occurrence was normal enough, deserving of no special attention. Burley listened, taking notes and occasionally prompting me with questions while the other passengers in the lounge listened with that embarrassed curiosity reserved for calamities and scandals.

  FROM THE PERSONAL JOURNAL OF PHILIP TYERS

  Word has come from the Admiralty that no attempt was made on the other double; in fact, there is some doubt among the highly placed officers that the ruse was successful, and that there was no attempt made because it was known the man was not HHPO. This could mean that the assassin might have learned of the change in plans that put HHPO aboard the Flying Scotsman, which is a development that can only be viewed with alarm.

  Between reading the lines of Mosca and fretting about MH, Sutton has voiced concern for something that has me even more dismayed—that there may be two assassins working in concert, with the same intention as our use of doubles: to throw us off the scent of the primary assassin and his target. Sutton is afraid that the assassin may be aboard the Flying Scotsman with MH, G, and HHPO, an idea I can only view with utmost horror. Little as I may wish to, I realized I should inform MH as soon as possible, which would mean sending a companion telegram to the one I have already dispatched to Sheffield where G will retrieve it when he sends on the report from aboard the train ...

  No further reports from the police, although I have noticed a constable patrolling the street rather more frequently than is the usual custom. What this may indicate I cannot be certain, but I am determined to use the backstairs and the service alley if I have to leave the flat anytime today or tonight.