Death on a Pale Horse: Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty's Secret Service

by Donald Thomas

  “The siege of Se-bast-op-ol, ladies and gentlemen! The famous Redan fortress correct in every detail. Who’ll put a bullet through a bold bad Rhoosian? Who’ll take a pot at the Tsar? Who’ll shoulder a musket for Old England and the Queen? Every hit a winner!”

  Curiosity got the better of me. I watched half-a-dozen working men detach their wives or women from their arms and pay their sixpence for a rifle with three shots. Five of them wasted their ammunition on various bricks of the castle wall. Each time this happened, the little entrance gate below the target opened and the face of a Beelzebub with his tongue sticking out appeared, followed by the derisive cuckoo! call of a novelty clock. The next man missed the bull’s-eye with his first go—but hit it with his second. The little castle-door then opened and a Venus statue with a smile, holding a bouquet of flowers to cover the greater part of her nudity, appeared and bowed to him. There was a murmur of laughter as the man turned aside to claim his prize from a pale girl who no doubt kept company with the barker.

  Then this cockney proprietor seemed to recognise someone passing by.

  “Give us a shot, sir! Show ’em how it’s done! Go on, then! Give us a shot, colonel! Colonel Moran, sir!”

  If someone had touched me between the shoulder-blades with a chilled butcher’s knife at that moment, I could not have felt a more poignant thrill of alarm. My first thought was that Rawdon Moran would not be in England. My second was the realisation that he could easily have returned from Lisbon on the Paris express by now. Walking away, quickly or slowly, I might only draw attention to myself. If I stood immobile with my back to him, I should do little better. But either he had seen me already or he had not. I moved slowly, as if idling my way unconcerned across to the far corner of the shooting gallery and taking shelter behind it. Once under cover, I turned and tried surreptitiously to identify him through the aperture between the canvas and the guy rope. After all, there was more than one Colonel Moran in the British Army, if only his brother Sebastian.

  But there could be no mistake. This face, laughing scornfully among its companions, was the very image of the photograph that Mycroft Holmes had shown us the previous week. Perhaps he was a little older by now: closer to fifty than forty years, I would have said. Perhaps the impaling cruelty in those narrowed eyes was veiled just at the moment by the aimless smile he turned towards the barker. For an instant the ferocity in the lines of that brow and nose was softened to a look of amiable bravado. But behind all this was the virile and sinister face of that photograph. Why the devil had he ever allowed it to be taken? He must feel so sure of himself.

  Did he really want the world to see him for what he was because he cared nothing for what it thought? Certainly he now had ten or twelve companions—male and female, young and old—about him. He was quite clearly the centre of a party that had come to the races and the noisy enjoyments of the fair.

  As he tested the balance of a rifle in his hand, checking its “honesty,” he remained the model of the hunter, pledged to kill or be killed. The tall brow with its air of intelligence would tip the balance in any fight for survival. The heavy lines of the mouth and jaw were unsmiling again. The strong shoulders were held back as he paid his sixpence and took his bullets from the barker. Yet there remained a seediness about him that belied his vigour.

  Seen in life, rather than in a carte-de-visite photograph, the reddish whiskers owed more to the colour-bottle than to youthful charm. Only the tufts of hair sprouting on the backs of his fingers showed what the whiskers must once have been. The skin of those hands and of his throat betrayed a middle age which no cosmetic can disguise. The tone of his voice echoed a resolve and indifference to what the world might think. Jock and Frank had described to me the speech of a jolly, rollicking fellow who had knocked about the world and knew it for what it was. Now it rang hollow, coarse, and scornful. I guessed he was a man who laughed at people, never with them.

  I stood back from the corner of the booth. He was certainly looking towards me, even if he could not see me. I felt a growing certainty that he knew just who I was and where I was hiding. In my foolish anxiety, I thought he seemed to point his rifle at me from his hip. But he was content to be the centre of attention among his acolytes. Two young women gazed at him admiringly, and their young men smiled ingratiatingly. There were also two older men and four women who now joined his admiring audience. They seemed expectant and submissive.

  I tried to identify the rifle that he was holding. Was it a Purdy or a Scottish game gun, a Moore & Dickson perhaps? I could not tell, but I could swear he was still looking at me as he held it. At last he turned away. He treated his admirers like students in a lecture room. His voice was powerful in its self-assurance, yet not loud. He was telling them what to expect from his marksmanship.

  “Now, d’you see, I once landed six shots out of eight in the crown of a hat held out for me. At 150 yards. In a regimental tournament with a gun very like this. The fellah that held the hat knew he was never in danger from me. D’you know that the Rifle Brigade are made to hold targets for one another to shoot at? You can be sure that a man who refused to stand target in his turn, as they say, would be dismissed the regiment as a lily-livered coward. At four hundred yards I have put four out of six bullets within eighteen inches of the same bulls-eye with no one holding it. I could find no one who would dare to at that range, not even in the Brigade. I myself have stood target twice at such a range because I knew my man with the gun. I did it for a bet. Which I am happy to say I won.”

  He paused, raised the long-barrelled weapon to his shoulder, lining up the front and rear sights. Even then, when most men would have given all their attention to their aim, he kept up his running commentary.

  “This is nothing. I have often driven a nail into timber with a single shot at this range. There’s no trick to it. Try it, some of you young fellows. Watch me. Raise the gun to the shoulder, hold it level. Do not grip it. View your target between the sights. You young men, imagine the V-shape rear sight as a pair of young lady’s legs, open and waiting.”

  There was a snigger from one of the top-hatted men beside him as he continued.

  “Now, keep the elbow level and as straight as you can. Just touch the trigger with the forefinger alone or else have nothing to do with such a weapon. A pop-gun and a cork would suit you better. Use only sufficient force to discharge the rifle. Do not grip it or grab it. Treat it as you would a woman. Let it be your coy mistress.”

  Before they could laugh obediently again, he had fired. I caught the metallic impact of the bullet hitting the bull’s-eye above the painted castle gate. There was an excited outbreak of clapping from several of the watching men and women. It died away as he turned to them. I could see him well enough now, through a gap between the canvas and the timber of the booth’s frame.

  “Nimrod the mighty Hunter,” called out a female admirer beside him, clapping excitedly.

  He gestured at his chosen prize, a cheap brass ring, and the barker put it on the counter for him. He looked at the woman who had clapped.

  “Hunting, my lady, is a serious matter about which I know a thing or two. Beware of it. You cannot always kill your beast with the first shot, however good your aim. Not if the creature is one of great strength. To hunt the elephant, let us say, is a supreme experience and a test of nerve.”

  Someone asked a question which I did not quite catch but Moran replied.

  “Indeed I have, sir, times without number. Most memorably a fine bull elephant, in Africa with a Dickson rifle. These mammoths are slow to move but powerful and dangerous to anyone who does not know what he is doing. Use the dogs at first to rush past them and distract their attention. I fired from the saddle on one occasion and got a big bull elephant behind his shoulder. At first, he did not seem to realise what had happened.”

  There was an obsequious giggling from one or two of the others and Moran continued.

  “Oddly enough, it seemed to lame him. He made no attempt to draw away but walke
d rather awkwardly into the trees. Then he turned to face me. Just looking at me. He had a fine big head. So I unsaddled and fired several times at his massive skull, while he just stood and looked at me, d’you see? The shots seemed to make no impact except that each time a bullet hit him in the head, he bowed it just like a ‘salaam’ and then tried to touch his wound with his trunk. Then he turned away, unsteady but not falling. I let him have six shots behind the shoulder and still he stood there. In the end it took a Dutch six-pounder to knock him over.”

  I listened with revulsion to this man’s account of his coldblooded murder of a noble creature. But he had not yet finished. He imitated a curious voice, a whining lamentation in mockery of the creature he had put to death.

  “As he stood there, large tears formed in his eyes, which he opened and shut from time to time, and they trickled down his face.”

  Moran assumed a mournful expression and indicated the trickling tears with his fingers.

  “Then his mountainous frame quivered convulsively, and he fell over on his side and expired.”

  Even from his gang of admirers there was silence. Were they as sickened by this narrative as I was? There was a murmured question at last and Moran replied.

  “Fortunately, the ivory tusks weighed ninety pounds a-piece. I believe they fetched more than enough to set-off the cost of the day’s expedition.”

  He took his smouldering cigar from the brass finger ring on the counter, where it had rested as he reminisced. He puffed it bright again and rested it again once more as he talked. I do not know how he chose his victim; but a little while later, as the group moved away, he called to one of the young women who had turned aside to watch a juggler on his stand. She was dressed like a servant by comparison with the rest.

  “Be so good as to fetch me that new ring, m’dear.”

  She turned to pick up the metal circlet and dropped it again with a little gasp of pain, feeling the heated metal where the cigar had glowed against it. Moran gave a short laugh, and one or two of the others who had seen the trick coming chuckled obediently, for no great harm seemed to have been done.

  “Dogs and women, Archie,” he said to one of the older men: “no other way to teach ’em but hard experience. Eh?”

  Such was Rawdon Moran. I was appalled and a little frightened by the extent of his callousness. Was this our self-proclaimed adversary? Of course he was a marksman, but I did not fear him for that. Even if he saw me, he could hardly shoot me dead on Epsom Downs. Of course he was a scoundrel, but Holmes and I had dealt with scoundrels. He was not a convicted criminal, but he was something worse than most convicts. At that moment, I would have bet my last sovereign that he had been responsible for the death of Joshua Sellon. Yet no court and no grand jury would have found an indictment against him on the present evidence. What spread from him, almost like a pestilence tainting the air around him, was a breath of self-confident evil.

  Despite what he had done to destroy men and women, it was his tale of the bull elephant and his ridicule of its death which had moved me most. Sherlock Holmes, who had seen enough of crime and criminals in all conscience, was almost eccentric in his detestation of cruelty to the animal kingdom. He would more readily defend a murderer than a man who hunted a wild creature to its death as a matter of amusement. It was a small part of his make-up, but one that I now understood more surely than I had ever done before.

  I drew out my watch and saw that there was almost an hour to go before my rendezvous with Holmes. What was I to do, except keep out of sight of our adversary? Moran had looked in my direction. He did not appear to see me, or recognise me if he did see me. I could not be sure. Was it merely a coincidence that he was on Epsom Downs? Or had someone been tracking me all the time on his behalf? Would he know who I was?

  I felt sure he would have heard that Holmes and I had visited Brother Mycroft and, perhaps, Carlyle Mansions. He might not have been in England long enough to recognise me for himself, but I could not count on that. I must also assume that he knew of our visitors to Baker Street and of any correspondence we received. My best hope must be that he would not have expected to see me among the crowds at Epsom. If he did not expect it, then he might not have picked me out. I had kept my back to him at first. I had not turned round until I was behind the corner of the rifle range.

  In truth, I could not be sure of anything. For safety’s sake, the best solution was to keep under cover. From where I stood, the fairground stretched as far as the eye could see, giving me ample choice. It was not likely that Moran and his admirers would crowd into one of the family side-shows. It would be beneath their dignity. In any case, there was a good chance that I should see such a large group before they saw me.

  I went the rounds of the tents. The Beauties of the Harem proved entirely harmless. The Corsican Brothers was a pleasant puppet-show of the Dumas comedy. I viewed the Stereoscopic Wonders of the World. I even entered the booth of Madame Palmeira, clairvoyante. My last plunge was into a simple maze, tricked out as a Hall of Mirrors. It was under canvas and ill-lit. I could swear that no one saw me enter except the gypsy woman who took my coin. Her custom had declined by this hour. I waited until I was reasonably sure no one else was inside before I entered.

  The interior consisted of arched passageways hung with crimson rep pinned upon boarding, against which the mirrors were bolted. There was little subtlety in the display of convex and concave which grotesquely caricatured the reflection. At one moment I saw myself squashed to a midget and then elongated to a beanpole. A moment later, as I turned my head, the left-hand side of my face bulged out at me and the right-hand was no more than a wafer of colour. Presently I was upside down with my heels on the ceiling, and then I was ingeniously split in two so that each half walked with a single foot.

  The design of this maze was simple enough, and whatever fun there might be was in the absurd contortions of the images. The one thing you could not do was to get from one passage to another adjoining it without going all the way round the system. That was the entire mystery of the entertainment.

  Then I heard a family—or at least two children and two women together—laughing and calling somewhere to the right of me. I could hear their erratic footsteps on the thinly carpeted board which served as the floor of the display. Presently, the sound of their merriment faded as they made their way out and I was, as it seemed to me, alone in the place.

  I must have been almost at the centre of the pattern when I heard one other person, walking quietly but steadily. Perhaps it was the woman at the door who had come to see if I was still there before she closed the tent. The footsteps came closer, in the adjoining passage. The design of the maze would lead me round the outer ring before I could come face-to-face with whoever was there but who was no more than two feet from me beyond the mirrored partition.

  Then the movements stopped and a voice that I recognised began.

  “It won’t do, doctor. It won’t do at all, you know. Believe me, you had far better give it up—whatever it is. You will only hurt yourself, you see. Leave such things well alone. Go back to your family mysteries. Go back to the lost inheritances and disappointed spinsters. Better still—go and heal the sick. That is what you have been trained to do, is it not?”

  There was a pause. Did he really expect a reply? With a chill in my heart I stood absolutely still and said nothing. Once he could locate me by the sound of my voice or my own footsteps, it would probably mean a bullet in my ribs. I kept very still. A step in either direction and the creak of a board would give me away.

  “Give it up,” said the voice of Colonel Rawdon Moran again. “It won’t wash. You may say so to your friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, if you choose. Or you may keep it to yourself. That is entirely a matter for you. But your fate is no longer in your own hands. I beg you will believe me. Be warned, once and for all. Be assured, you will only hurt yourself.”

  Be warned once and for all! Beware all—I warn but once. Such were the words that had vanished with the dew
before anyone else could read them. It seemed Moran could not have reached London by that night; but I knew he was the author of the message, as surely as he was the donor of the severed head.

  I will not say that I was too frightened to reply to this sudden warning. I simply could not bring myself to do it. In any case, the invisible corridor beyond the partition was now silent again. It did not mean the coast was clear. The man was a hunter. What was it Mycroft Holmes had said? Randy Moran could cross the floor of a forest by night and never let a single twig crack under his foot. To be sure, he would not risk the explosion of a gun in a place like this—but Joshua Sellon had died without a sound. Moran would expect me to go onwards to the exit of the maze. In that case, my best chance was to go back, retracing my route to the entrance. Even with an air weapon, he would hardly dare use it while the gypsy woman was a witness. I tried to withdraw silently, the grotesque mirrored distortions of my appearance weaving back at me on either side. I stumbled once as I neared the pay-booth. Blinking in the sun, I saw only the head-scarved woman preparing to close her till.

  “The gentleman who came out just now, a moment ago. Which way did he go?”

  She looked up at me, strangely as I thought.

  “No gentleman came out, sir. Not since you went in. Only two ladies and their little boys. There’s no one in there now. I always make sure of that before we close up.”

  I glanced back. There was no sign of anyone behind me. Was he still in there?

  “There’s no one there, sir,” she insisted. “You’ve missed your friend.” She chuckled. “If he was in there, once it’s locked, he’d be inside until tomorrow morning.”

  Had he found some other way through a gap in the canvas—found it or made it? But what a fool I had been. It now seemed plain that Rawdon Moran had had me watched every movement and every minute. The hunter always has the upper hand over the prey, and he had lived all his life as a hunter. Equally at home in the streets of London or the tracks of the African jungle. Holmes and I would do well to remember it.