Albino's Treasure

by Douglas Stuart

  ‘You have come into some money, Mrs Boggs?’ The question was asked with no apparent agenda, but Mrs Boggs stiffened instinctively, nonetheless.

  ‘No, can’t say as I ’ave!’

  ‘No? A writing desk, and new crockery, and yet you say you have not had a windfall? Well, perhaps I am mistaken. Forgive me the impertinence.’

  He gave a tiny bow and made as though to turn towards the door, then suddenly swept back round so that he loomed over our hostess. ‘Why is your husband at the Old Bailey, Mrs Boggs? Quickly now, why is he at the Old Bailey?’

  Holmes’s tone was hectoring and bullying, designed to get as much information out of Mrs Boggs as possible, before her natural caution and inbred fear of authority overcame her and she either stopped talking completely, or began to bend the truth to her own ends. I had seen him use the same tactic before, and this occasion was no less successful than previously.

  ‘Well, it’s affray, if you must know,’ replied Mrs Boggs defiantly. ‘Not that it’s any of your business, anyways.’

  ‘Affray? Is that all?’

  ‘’Course I’m sure! I should know what my husband’s been charged with, shouldn’t I?’ She stopped suddenly and a look of low cunning settled on her face. ‘Wait a minute though! If you pair is police, ’ow comes you don’ already know that?’

  Holmes drew himself to his full height. ‘I did not say we were policemen, madam. I would never be so unfair to myself, and I fear even Dr Watson here would be justly offended at such a description. I said we were helping the police. I am Sherlock Holmes.’

  Holmes has always claimed that the fame he has gained as a detective is an onerous imposition, without which he would be both happier and more effective. That said, I have noticed that he is rarely averse to eliciting a reaction, merely by use of his name. In this case, however, he would have been better to remember that below a certain social level, The Strand is little known and, consequently, neither are consulting detectives. Mrs Boggs clearly knew nothing of Holmes, and proved this by poking one finger into his chest as she spoke.

  ‘And I’m Mary Boggs, but that’s neither ’ere nor there, mister whoever you are. If you ain’t police, you got no right to force your way into my ’ome, nor to come sneaking about after Boggs ’isself. ’E’s up at the Bailey this afternoon on an affray, and that’s all I intends telling you. Now get out of my ’ouse!’

  I have had cause to note in the past that Holmes could be charm personified with the fairer sex, if the occasion demanded. Now though he had met his match. For all his attempts to soothe Mrs Boggs and steer the conversation away from our imminent expulsion from the house, the best he managed before we were manhandled into the street was to prise from Mrs Boggs the bare fact that she knew of no sales ledgers, and that the only painting in the local area was one of the Queen which hung in the local church hall.

  With this last announcement ringing in our ears, we found ourselves back on the pavement, with the main door of the Boggses’ residence slamming behind us.

  ‘A lady of strong views, wouldn’t you say, Watson?’ Holmes was in no way abashed by our dismissal, nor downhearted by our failure to find any sign of the missing miniature. In fact, he was smiling as he signalled to a passing cab. ‘Strong arms too, for that matter.’

  * * *

  It has been said that a prisoner may be tried, sentenced, condemned and hanged without once stepping outside the walls of the Old Bailey, and it is undeniable that any criminal approaching the formidable gated entrance must surely hesitate and falter.

  Holmes and I were no strangers to the building, however, and had nothing to fear. We passed through the gate quickly and headed quickly down to the area where we knew Boggs would be being held. If there was a greater than usual bustle of uniformed guards pushing past us, I assumed that today was simply busier than normal, and reminded myself that the main criminal court of the British Empire would, by sheer weight of numbers, never be as other courts. Holmes, though, stopped in his tracks and pulled me towards him, as the sound of shouting reached us from a corridor at right angles to that which we were currently traversing. He grabbed the arm of a guard.

  ‘What is going on?’ he asked. ‘I have rarely seen the Bailey in such a state of turmoil.’

  The guard glared at Holmes angrily. ‘Get out of my way! We’ve a prisoner escaped and two guards grievously injured. I’ve no time to spare for idle lollygaggers!’ With that, he tugged his arm free and hurried away down the corridor.

  ‘Escaped—’ Holmes murmured softly. He seemed unperturbed that, for the second time in an hour, he had been brushed aside by someone from whom he required information. For my part, I was burning with indignation at the guard’s words. I would have remarked on this to Holmes, but he had already turned and headed down the corridor, in the direction of the greatest volume of shouting. I caught up with him just as he entered a long passageway that I knew contained cells for holding miscreants awaiting their moment before the judges. All was as it should have been, with the exception of a crowd gathered round one open cell near the end of the passage. It was from this group that raised voices most volubly emanated.

  I broke into a run, coming alongside Holmes just as his long-legged stride took him to the door of the open cell. Two guards lay on the stone floor, each still and unmoving.

  ‘Let me through,’ I said, ‘I am a doctor.’

  The crowd parted at my words and I was able to examine the men. The first had a long but shallow gash that extended from his forehead down to his throat. He would have a nasty scar for the rest of his life, but other than that he would suffer no long-term damage. His compatriot would also live, I thought, though his breathing was ragged and shallow. A bump the size of a hen’s egg on the back of his head was the only injury I could see so I made him as comfortable as possible and told his fellows that he should be left so until the Bailey doctor came to carry out a more thorough examination. There was nothing else I could do, and I was keenly aware that Holmes was beckoning to me from the very end of the passageway, where he stood, a lamp in his hand, before a doorway leading to a set of descending black steps.

  ‘Both men will survive,’ I told him, gesturing back to the wounded duo. ‘Have you discovered what happened?’

  Holmes’s eyes were wide with interest as he turned to me. ‘Our bird has flown, Watson. Or rather our bird has been taken. Nobody knows how or by whom, but I am told that the two guards were found, just as you see them, only a few minutes ago, and Boggs’s cell was empty. Nobody untoward passed back into the main body of the Bailey, and this is the only exit in this direction. Given the short amount of time available, and the size of the gang involved, Boggs must have been taken through here.’ He pointed down the stairway into the darkness then, before I could ask, said ‘There was more than one weapon used, Watson, a knife and a blunt instrument, likely a cudgel. Two weapons, two attackers – at a minimum. Add in the mastermind and we have a gang of at least three people. Now, come on! We may have little time!’

  Again, his long stride took him away from me, and as the staircase twisted in a corkscrew into the ground, I quickly lost sight of him, though I could always hear his footsteps ahead of me. I increased my pace, taking the stairs two at a time, in spite of the increasingly dim light and the damp stone underfoot. Even so, Holmes remained hidden from view, and I was starting to despair of ever catching him up when I suddenly felt his arm thrust against my chest, bringing me to a precipitous stop. Before I could say a word, he covered my mouth with his hand and pointed further ahead with the other.

  The lighting in the lowest section of the Bailey was poor, consisting primarily of the covered lamp in Holmes’s free hand and, some distance ahead, through an open doorway at the end of a long corridor, a glimpse of yellow flame against the otherwise pervasive grey. Beyond that, I could make nothing out.

  ‘What am I looking for, Holmes?’ I whispered. ‘The flame?’

  ‘Quietly, Watson, if you value your life. Hearing you thun
dering down the staircase some distance behind me, I decided to press on ahead when I reached the bottom. Luckily, I spotted the light ahead, and covered my own lamp, otherwise I would certainly have been observed.’

  ‘Observed?’

  ‘Indeed, Watson. The corridor before us ends at an open archway, beyond which lies a wide, circular room. There are four men standing within and, on the floor, another man, tied at the hands and feet. Mr Boggs, I presume.’

  He ushered me forward and followed behind, as we crept towards the glowing light ahead. At the archway it was my turn to put a hand out to stop Holmes. He placed the lamp he carried at his feet so as not to betray our presence while I leaned round the frame and peered into the room. The sight that greeted me was one that I will not easily scrub from my memory.

  As Holmes had intimated, there were five men in the room: four standing around a large hole in the floor, and the other lying alongside it, bound at hand and foot. Each of the men carried a weapon of some sort. In fact it would be more accurate to say that only three men stood around the ominous hole, for the fourth and final member of the motley crowd stood a little apart, in the shadows cast by a large lantern which sat on the stone floor. A dampness in the air caused streams of condensed water to run down the walls and pool on the ground. From somewhere nearby I could hear a steady rumble, as though someone were pushing a heavy boulder across a gravel path. I ducked back into the outer corridor, and related everything I had seen to Holmes. His face almost glowed with pleasure as he slid past me and treated himself to a longer look of his own at the strange tableau arranged beyond the arch. I had seen that look before and knew that it betokened Holmes’s belief that we were near a conclusion.

  ‘The Albino, Watson,’ he suddenly hissed, the excitement unmistakable in his voice. ‘Quick, look for yourself!’

  The mysterious fourth man had stepped from his shadowed corner, exposing a shock of shoulder-length white hair and a pair of dark glasses. More surprising by far than the mere accident of hair colouring, however, was the manner of his attire. I could not say exactly what I had expected, but the Albino confounded any expectation I might conceivably have had. A black tailcoat, waistcoat and trousers, with a white shirt and bow tie, was complemented by a top hat and gold-topped cane, for all the world as if dinner was about to be served. The effect was startling, as though a peacock had been trapped in a dank cave. This peacock, though, was a dangerous bird, as he was shortly to prove.

  As Holmes and I stood in darkness and observed, the Albino crossed to the recumbent Elias Boggs and indicated to one of his men to drag the unfortunate prisoner to his feet. Only once he and Boggs were at equal heights, if not on equal footing, did he address him.

  ‘Boggs, Boggs, what are we to do with you?’ His voice was soft and inflected with the smallest hint of an accent, but I could not have narrowed down his country of origin on that basis had I been given a thousand years in which to do so. He seemed dismayed more than angry as he continued in the same gentle tone. ‘You came so highly recommended, and yet you have proven such a disappointment. But never mind. Let us speak of other things.

  ‘Do you see what flows beneath us, Boggs? Can you hear the passage of the water?’ He laughed, and his laughter was hard and cold, quite unlike his speaking voice. ‘I say water, but that is, I am afraid, a misleading description for the rancid sludge which comprises the Fleet River. It has long been covered over, you see, Boggs. Covered over and boxed in for decades, a dumping ground for all the filth and offal of London. Can you see it, Boggs?’

  Evidently Boggs could not, for the Albino pulled him forward and held him over the hole in the floor, which, belatedly, I recognised as a manhole positioned above the underground river, which flowed in part underneath the Old Bailey. The Albino had not lied about it. The Fleet has been notorious for over a century as the filthiest body of water in the capital and now Boggs dangled above it, only the Albino’s impressive strength preventing him from falling to a grotesque and unpleasant death.

  The Albino lowered his captive back to the floor and stood over him, shaking his head, I fancied, with regret. ‘Unfortunately, you have proven considerably less competent than I expected. You have a reputation amongst a certain type of person for meticulousness in your work, you know. Elias Boggs, that’s your man. He knows how to recover things that are lost. This is what I was told when I asked in certain quarters for a trustworthy fellow to make preliminary approaches on my behalf. Respectable, he is, and educated. This too I was told. And yet nobody thought to mention the drinking. This is why I am so disappointed.’

  He held up a hand for silence as Boggs tried to speak. ‘No, no, Boggs. You have had your time. I gave you a list of names and tasked you to purchase a painting from each. The English do not trust foreigners, and I was informed that you were a man of learning, who could play the part of my intermediary with ease. Instead, you react to an initial rejection with violence, and thus jeopardise everything!’ He paused for a moment, to regain his temper. ‘Do not misunderstand me, I do not grudge a working man his gin. Every man has his vice, and so long as he does not allow his vice to corrupt his work, then all is well. But when his vice intrudes, when it interferes with his working life – when it interferes with my working life – then there is a problem. Then I do grudge it very much indeed.’

  The Albino reached inside his pocket and pulled out a small, golden cigarette case, from which he extracted a short cigarette. He stood for a full minute, smoking it completely, before flicking the detritus through the manhole and into the Fleet. His men stood perfectly still, almost at attention, as he did so.

  ‘Where was I? Ah yes, Boggs. I do grudge you your vice when it corrupts my own plans. You knew that the code we seek requires all six elements to be in play if it is to have any meaning at all and yet, because of your drunken animal actions, we risk exposure and, in the end, a failure to acquire the treasure we seek. All because of you, Boggs. The woman is dead, Sherlock Holmes has the scent in his nostrils, and I am forced to come and find you in this dirty little hole. I do not care for that, Boggs. I do not care for it at all.’

  Apparently finished with Boggs, the Albino straightened up and brushed something from the sleeve of his jacket. ‘I’m bored with Mr Boggs now,’ he announced to nobody in particular. ‘Do remove him from my sight, please.’

  Two of the Albino’s men grabbed Boggs as though he were a sack of potatoes and manhandled him towards the hole in the floor. With no time for any more well-thought-out action, I pulled out my revolver just as Holmes threw himself forward. We hardly need have bothered though, for before I could take a step after my friend, a flood of bodies broke over us both, as guards from the Bailey finally figured out where the prisoners must have fled and belatedly reached us.

  An over-enthusiastic guard sent Holmes reeling, kicking over the lamp and depositing him on the cold stone floor, while I was buffeted back against the wall and sustained a nasty blow to the back of my head.

  Now lit only by the light of the lantern, the cavernous room became a place of shadows and smoke, its walls splashed with orange light that flickered and danced in every passing air current. Black-clad guards fought hand to hand with the Albino’s men: desperate men who knew that the near murder of the guards upstairs could mean death at the hangman’s hands unless they contrived to escape. Holmes was visible in the middle of the fray, fists tight against his chin, only occasionally striking out with his long reach, but effective every time. His opponent reeled from another solid blow to the stomach then, with a groan audible even in the furore that surrounded us, tumbled to the ground.

  My memory of the next few moments is confused. I was still dizzy from the blow I’d taken, and in the inconsistent light figures and actions took on an unreal quality, as though I had opened my eyes underwater, or just woken from a vivid dream. I can clearly picture the Albino stepping back into a patch of darkness near one wall and disappearing, but other than that, everything is fragmentary and unclear.


  I saw one guard, stabbed through the arm, snap the blade off and continue to fight with the remainder still jutting from his bicep. My eyes, however, were primarily on the two men yet struggling to pitch Boggs into the Fleet. I stepped into the fray and almost immediately had to duck beneath a wild swing, then fend off a guard who momentarily mistook me for one of the gang. My vision swam for a moment then cleared, and I had an instant in which to take aim and fire at the first, and largest, of the men holding our quarry. He spun away as my view was occluded once more, and when it cleared I saw that he was gone, and only one man now held Boggs prisoner. The distance from the two men to the manhole was considerably smaller than that between me and them. I was aware that I had no time to lose, and but one chance to succeed, as I stopped in my tracks and raised my revolver. I stood there for what felt like hours, though it was certainly only a matter of seconds, waiting for an opportunity to fire without risk to Boggs.

  When it came, I was ready. I already held the gun at the correct height, but as Boggs and his captor came into my sights, I slid it to the left a little and squeezed the trigger. Instantly I saw that my aim had been true, as the man staggered backwards as though punched hard in the chest. Too far backwards, as it turned out, for his heel caught the edge of the manhole and, without taking his hands from Boggs, the two men tumbled into the darkness and were lost to this world. I rushed forward but it was too late. I could see nothing in the blackness and hear nothing but the steady, scraping sound of the hidden water below.

  Twelve

  The Albino escaped, leaving no clue behind. His men fought like tigers and died, to a man, ensuring he evaded capture, and though the Old Bailey guards searched the bodies, they found nothing useful. Boggs himself, of course, was gone; I stood carefully at the edge of the manhole and lowered a lamp down but the darkness beneath swallowed the feeble light and all I could make out were shades of brown and black. The smell, too, was enough to overwhelm the senses. I stepped back before dizziness made me over-balance and join Boggs in his hellish grave.