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

by Donald Thomas

  Without looking down, he broke open the Webley and shook the six cartridges out. He dropped them into his pockets. Then, as if thinking better of this, he drew one back out and inserted it in the gun, spun the chambers, and closed the gun. It was as if he was performing some trick for our benefit.

  With the revolver in his right hand, he raised his left and pulled the trigger of Von Herder’s pistol. With less sound than a cork popping, the weapon discharged and I ducked my head as the remaining window behind us shattered. What was his game? For it was a game, a sport for an asylum of the criminally insane. Why not kill us then and there?

  “You do not think well of me, Mr. Holmes?”

  As coolly as if he was declining a second slice of cake at a tea party, Holmes replied. “I cannot say that I often think of you at all, Colonel Moran.”

  Moran chuckled. “You know that is not true, sir! I should be offended if it were. But however badly you may view me, I am a sportsman. I do not kill in cold blood—not even you. I might shoot you both now. But that is not my way with a man of your calibre, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, even though you have caused me some considerable difficulties. You deserve a better end.”

  Mad as a hatter!

  “Indeed?” Again, Holmes made the word sound like an expression of polite boredom.

  “We must have this thing over between us, Mr. Holmes. The world cannot any longer contain us both. That is all. But you shall have a sporting chance.”

  This time there was no reply, and Moran was left to continue his own demented monologue.

  “There are two guns, you see? Mine and the doctor’s. We shall duel at this distance. At so short a range, we may expect that the contest will soon be decisive. They tell me you are an opponent worth challenging to a match at firearms, Mr. Holmes. Very well. You are unfamiliar with the Von Herder pistol, I daresay, but no matter. You are very familiar with your friend’s Webley revolver. Excellent. You shall have his revolver and this one bullet. And you shall fire first. You may check that the chamber brings the cartridge to the top in readiness. I have a certain knack of dodging bullets, but you will agree that if you miss me at this distance, you deserve neither your reputation nor your life. In that case, I shall have my turn after yours. Is that not fair?”

  There must be a trick in this, though I could not yet see what it was. I knew that he intended to kill us both, but this game would also serve some peculiar vanity of his own.

  “And in either event,” Holmes inquired politely, “what is to become of my colleague?”

  Moran gave another of his light-hearted chuckles.

  “If you succeed, his difficulties are resolved. If not, then I fear we shall have to see what we shall see.”

  “And if I should refuse.…”

  “You would be a far more stupid man than the world takes you for, Mr. Holmes! Now, do not disappoint me! You may miss me, of course. But even then, I may forego my right of reply. I am a hunter, sir, and more than half my pleasure is the thrill of the risk. I propose to be your executioner. But, as they used to say in the days of steel, the delight of an execution is not in the slovenly butchering of a man but in cutting the head from the shoulders with a single sword-stroke and leaving it standing in its place. Is that not so? Come, now.”

  Holding the Webley by its muzzle, he laid it on the deck and then with his foot sent it scudding across to the toecaps of Sherlock Holmes.

  I measured the distance between us. I could never reach him before he fired at me. But the moment Moran raised his gun to take aim at Holmes, I would try to charge him down as I had charged many an opposing forward on the rugby ground at Blackheath in my student days. He might still shoot us both. But he must first turn and shoot at me before I could reach him. That would give Holmes just a moment’s chance to spring and finish what I had started. It was a slim chance, but it was the only one.

  The colonel’s laughter seemed higher-pitched now, as he said “Come!”

  Holmes was holding the Webley down, at arm’s length, the safety catch released, the chamber carefully positioned. He began to raise it, his arm coming higher like a clock hand until it was horizontal. I watched for the forefinger to tighten on the trigger. But to my surprise, his arm kept rising. He would never hit Moran now! Higher and higher went the arm, until the gun was pointing at the sky. Then I could see that Moran was prepared to shoot first until Holmes called out, “Major Putney-Wilson, if you please!”

  Moran would not have been human had he not paused to see what this meant. In a moment of surprise, he looked like a man who feels he has been harpooned. A second later there was a roar from the muzzle of the skyward-pointing Webley and a flash of fire. Holmes was not looking at Moran, but somewhere just beyond him. The colonel’s eyes, which had been flicking here and there, now went still and round as marbles. With his pistol covering Holmes, Colonel Moran half-turned and saw a figure like a ghost in the vapour. The man took shape, tall and dishevelled, a cotton cap on his head, his body cased in a grimy boiler-suit, his face immaculately blackened by soot, the eyes and lips alone visible. In his hand was the silver Laroux pistolet of Sherlock Holmes.

  In that same second, Holmes leapt at his enemy. The length of his reach was always extraordinary, but never more so than in this flying leap. His feet never touched the ground until the moment of impact. He was on Moran before the colonel could raise his gun. Moran was a ferocious hunter, but his skill was with his gun rather than with his fists—and with his fists rather than in his arms. Their collision enabled Holmes to knock aside the Von Herder pistol.

  Each recoiled from the impact. Moran at once tried to snatch Holmes round the neck and double him over, imprisoning him in the traditional English wrestling grip of “chancery.” But when he closed his arm round his opponent’s neck, it had apparently dissolved into air. Holmes had dived and caught Moran round the waist, tossing him over his shoulder like a sack of coals. The colonel’s teeth were brought together by the shock with a force that might have broken his jaw.

  In a second more, Holmes threw him down on his back, knocking out his breath and catching him by the feet. What followed was more like a ballet than a prize-fight. The strength in Holmes’s hands was daunting, as anyone would know who had watched him casually bend straight Dr. Roylott’s distorted iron poker. From a spell of education in Germany, he was schooled in boxing and fencing as well as in the less common art of singlestick. In some forms of combat, Moran might have been his superior. But Holmes had waited for his chosen time and his chosen place. Despite his bulk, Moran seemed helpless as Holmes, with footwork quicker and more intricate than a dancer’s, swung him by the feet in circle after circle at increasing speed. The art of it was to make the helpless victim gain velocity until he appeared to contribute to his own destruction.

  At a precise moment, Sherlock Holmes released him and sent him hurtling into what I believe is called a “Tipperary swing.” The colonel went head-first into the steel plating of the saloon. What damage was done to him I do not care to speculate, but it was surely the end of Rawdon Moran. So neatly had Holmes despatched him that the senseless body slid down and through the opening in the deck where the engine-room skylight had once been. The colonel fell like Satan into the darkness below, between the motionless pistons of the ship’s engines. Knocked side to side, he crashed on to the barrel-shape of the steel condenser below them. I cannot tell at what point he was dead, but the white paintwork of the condenser showed him face down, head and hair washing to and fro in the rising flood. He was then as dead as any man had ever been.

  The conclusion of that night’s drama may be briefly described. As any reader of the press will know, the wreck of the Comtesse de Flandre was very nearly saved, perhaps in the belief that Plon Plon’s baubles were on board. The breaking away of the bows, let alone the sound of gunshots from amidships, had been enough to frighten off Moran’s two or three underlings who had brought the little boat alongside the stern. The captain of the Princesse Henriette, seeing that the remains of
the other ship continued to float and hearing what sounded like a distress maroon, ordered two of his boats to carry across a pair of ropes so that he might take the wreck in tow. Holmes and I, with Major Putney-Wilson, took passage back to the anchored steamer in the first of these lifeboats.

  It was still dark when the Princess Henriette’s paddles began to churn. With her salvage prize in tow, she resumed her crossing to Ostend at half speed. The refugees from the Comtesse de Flandre were accommodated and fed, Napoleon-Jerome and his companions being consoled in the captain’s quarters. Holmes and I were waited upon by the chief steward in a cabin of our own.

  As for the strange adventure of Major Putney-Wilson, he had at first kept his promise to board the RMS Himalaya for Bombay. He then broke that promise at Lisbon and travelled to Oporto, where his children were cared for by his brother, the wine-shipper. Yet to see his children was surely forgivable. Someone, whom he would never name, then sent him two clues in a note such as I had received at my club. That benefactor also placed information for him relating to Colonel Rawdon Moran’s activities in the Belgian arms trade. I looked hard at Sherlock Holmes and, I believe, detected a certain sheepishness in him as Putney-Wilson revealed all this.

  My friend would only say that in the course of his own Belgian preparations, he had tried to account for every member of the Comtesse de Flandre’s crew at new moon. In taking on casual labour a week or two earlier, the Compagnie Belgique had engaged a hand for the stoke-hold. This humblest of the humble in the ship’s company went by the name of Samuel Dordona.

  Why had Holmes said nothing to me of Putney-Wilson, even as we studied the mysterious stoker who was not a stoker? Holmes looked at me as though I should have known better than to ask.

  “My dear Watson! You had met Samuel Dordona, on two occasions. I confess I was a little concerned that Putney-Wilson might not pass muster last night. Therefore I said nothing to you but encouraged him to act his little part for your benefit. If he could deceive you, he could deceive all those who mattered. You never doubted him, not even when I pointed out that he was not the stoker he pretended to be. That was excellent! His part was all important, for he was to shadow those who shadowed us. I naturally entrusted him with the Laroux. If we could not account for Moran with your Webley, it was better that the pistolet should come upon him unawares rather than be taken from us in defeat. With such a man as Putney-Wilson behind us, I imagine we were never truly in danger.”

  “It felt very much like danger to me, Holmes! The only shot in our locker was the cartridge Moran returned to you in my Webley.”

  “A scoundrel like Moran gives his victims no chance. Logic therefore dictated that this must be a harmless Boxer blank, carefully separated in his pocket from the others. I still have the cartridge case. You may inspect it if you choose.”

  “You knew it was a blank?”

  “What else? It came too easily from his pocket. Such a man would never allow me a chance to kill him! Far better to use that cartridge to summon our friends.”

  “But why play such a trick? He might have shot us out of hand and had done with it!”

  “If you ever try, Watson, you will find that one man with a pistol cannot easily shoot two men at close range before one of them gets hold of him. On this occasion, in the fog, he might not hit his target at a longer range. Moran hoped that I would fire the blank at him, believing the round was live. While we waited for him to fall, he would shoot me and turn the gun on you, as you still waited to see him collapse.”

  “That was all?”

  “By no means. Far more important was the act of firing into the air and calling out to Major Putney-Wilson—whom Moran had occasion to remember. You saw how the act and the name threw him off his balance for that vital second or two. Because I did not fire at him when I had the chance, he knew that whoever I called out to behind him must have a gun. He could not ignore the risk. He was, I like to think, a little bewildered. By instinct he half-turned, and by instinct he hesitated when he saw a figure coming through the mist behind him while two more remained in front of him. That gave me my chance. Not for nothing was Putney-Wilson a comrade of the Special Investigation Branch. He has lain very low in all this, but I am proud to have served—albeit irregularly—with such a man.”

  It was an extraordinary story, but I knew Holmes was right in one thing, for I had seen it myself. Whatever advantage Moran thought he might have over us was swept away by that inexplicable shot fired overhead. It was beyond his comprehension. In other circumstances he might perhaps have out-fought Sherlock Holmes. His downfall was that in no circumstances could he out-think him.

  With that, my friend stretched himself out on the cabin settee, which his legs overlapped a little. He folded his hands and fell sound asleep. I sat and thought of all that had happened. A drama that extended to the scorching plains of Zululand and the banks of the Blood River, to Hyderabad and the Transvaal, to the dangerous underworlds of espionage, the murder of Captain Joshua Sellon, the dogged loyalty of Sergeant Albert Gibbons of the Royal Marines, and the devious policies of the Great Powers of Europe, was coming to its conclusion. As for that international criminal brotherhood which Holmes had identified—or imagined—its members had certainly lost a battle, if not a war.

  Two miles off the harbour pier of Ostend, a tug came out to take the tow from us. Again I heard the rattle of a heavy chain and the splash of the Princesse Henriette’s anchor. It took an interminable time to complete the transfer of the wreck as a dim morning broke—if morning ever breaks in such weather and in such a place. We were still in our cabin, sitting over breakfast as though this might have been Baker Street, when there was a commotion on the upper deck. I went up and saw the rails of the ship lined with spectators.

  Across the dull surface of the water, still a mile or two off-shore, the remainder of the Comtesse de Flandre was subsiding gradually into the depths. It did not capsize or turn turtle or any such exciting thing as we had been promised the night before. It sank slowly and evenly into deep water, taking with it, among other things, the mortal remains and secrets of Colonel Rawdon Moran. His grave was never to be disturbed, for the depth was too great and no one ever thought the contents of the wreck worth raising. Of Plon Plon’s baubles, no more was said. A plain crate marked as containing surplus stock of the Army Temperance Society Tracts came safely to the Senior Chaplain at Aldershot Garrison.

  12

  Our return to England was delayed by an inquiry at Ostend into the loss of the Comtesse de Flandre, held on the instructions of the Belgian government. Holmes and I found ourselves back at the Hotel de la Plage.

  At the risk of seeming chauvinistic, such an inquiry would never have passed muster in London. It opened on Tuesday, four days after the collision, and following a single day of evidence it closed on Thursday. Its guiding principle seemed to be that the less said, the better. Sherlock Holmes always maintained that the authorities had a very good idea of the nature of the drama that had taken place, but were determined the world should never know it. This tribunal announced that the “valet” Theodore Cabell had died of exposure. The poor young man’s funeral was over and done with even before the inquiry began. A final search of the ship was undertaken before the last lifeboat pulled away. It revealed the body of an unidentified man in the overcoat of an army officer, “horribly mutilated” but of whom no more was heard.

  How had the collision happened? The captain of the Princesse Henriette swore that a trawler, moving at speed aslant the sea lane, had cut across his bow in darkness and fog without sounding its horn or displaying a light. It had forced him into the path of the Comtesse de Flandre. Another witness believed the guilty vessel was a French customs launch heading for Dunkirk. As for the moment of the collision, the two steamers had hit one another at a combined speed of some ten knots. The distance at which they saw each other was determined to be no more than sixty yards, according to the ships’ officers. The time between sighting and impact was put at little mo
re than ten or twelve seconds, giving no hope of avoiding disaster. The mischief with the port riding-light of the Comtesse de Flandre was known only to Holmes and me. Because no port riding-light was showing, the larger ship had been directed into the hull of the smaller one rather than down its far side, which might have carried it clear.

  Two pieces of evidence embarrassed the inquiry and were quickly dealt with. An innocent witness had seen a fishing smack pick up three men and their baggage from the stricken wreck. It did not transfer them to the Princesse Henriette but sailed away. The witness was not invited to enlarge upon this.

  A further witness attributed his survival to a large parcel-post basket, which was floating in the water by the Comtesse de Flandre’s paddle-box. It bore him up until he could be pulled to safety in one of the lifeboats. But a postal basket from the mailroom could not be floating in the water unless the steel grille of that mailroom had been unlocked by the fleeing guards and left open.

  No one, it seemed, had noticed the stoker who was not a stoker. However, Captain Legrand of the Comtesse de Flandre gave evidence that the helmsman at the wheel before the collision was not a regular member of the crew. The usual helmsman had asked a friend to go in his place as it was the regular helmsman’s night out. Captain Legrand agreed to the substitution. The newcomer, said to be an experienced seaman, took his turn at the wheel from time to time during the crossing. He was thought to be one of those crew members missing after the collision and it was proposed to hold an inquest on him, albeit without a body.

  The inquiry was concluded, though not without mumblings as to questions left unasked. Its commissioners replied that it had made a very exhaustive investigation of the circumstances under which the disaster took place. The commission promised that the results would be put into the form of a judicial report and forwarded to the state maritime authorities in Brussels.

  At the first opportunity, Holmes and I took our leave of this charade and made our crossing to Dover. As we passed the Ruytingen light-ship, graced by a faint sun through morning mist, a small fleet of fishing smacks was still gathering items of baggage and wreckage that floated in the calm water. We heard that the second lifeboat from the Comtesse de Flandre had been sighted, but it was a floating wreck and had never been used.