I could not sit idly by and watch mass murder be committed under my nose. I had my revolver in hand as I sped downstairs and across to the building opposite. Flames now rose from three of the windows above and a rising clamor grew in the street as the fire was spotted. I knew it would not be long before action was taken, for a fear of a conflagration in the narrow streets was ever-present, and something the locals were most vigilant in preventing. But they would not be able to respond fast enough to save the sleeping men. Without a pause for thought I ran into the building.
The hallway beyond was lit in flickering red from the stairwell, and I could see immediately that it was going to be almost impossible for me to reach the room where the men slept.
“Fire!” I called at the top of my lungs. There were answering calls from outside, but inside the building there was only the crackle and roar as fire took ever greater hold. I went to the foot of the stairs and was about to head up in an attempt to at least save one man if I could when I was met by a figure coming down. He was no more than a silhouette backed by flame. The upstairs area was now fully aflame, and black smoke billowed overhead, further obscuring my view. I felt smoke tickle in my throat and nasal passages. Time was getting short.
“Thank Heaven; are there any others with you?” I said, before I remembered the man I had seen coming in.
“I doubt that Heaven has anything to do with it,” a voice said. It was a soft Scottish accent. The figure turned sideways, his profile suddenly outlined against the fire and smoke. It could only be one man … Lord Crawford. I was so astonished that I neglected to defend myself as he raised a hand, and I saw the stick he wielded too late. A sharp blow to the head sent me down to blackness.
3
Coming back out of the darkness proved to be hard work, like struggling uphill into a high wind. It felt as if a drummer was pounding a beat in my ear, and my eyes were heavy and tired. I heard the crackle of fire and jerked myself awake.
To my astonishment, I came to myself sitting at the fireside in the apartment in Baker Street. Holmes sat opposite, out of disguise and clad in evening dress. He raised an eyebrow as I sat up and groaned.
“Good to see you are back in the land of the living, old friend,” he said.
I tasted smoke at my lips and smelled it on my clothes. “What happened?” I asked.
He laughed, but there was little humor there. “I was rather hoping you could tell me. Mrs. Hudson found you in the scullery, slouched in a chair. You gave her rather a shock, and you’re lucky she held back from using the skillet on you.”
It all came back to me in a flash.
“It was Crawford,” I said. “The blackguard hit me. Though how I got to be back here I do not know.”
Holmes raised an eyebrow again. “It seems we both have stories to tell of this night’s work,” he said. “But first, I suggest you get yourself out of that disguise and into some clean clothes. I’ll get Mrs. Hudson to bring up an early breakfast and we can swap stories.”
I made my way to the bathroom and spent some time recovering my composure. My eyes kept getting drawn to a fresh bruise and lump on my left brow. It was tender to the touch and throbbed constantly, but the pain was bearable, and would soon be made less so with liberal consumption of some brandy.
I rejoined Holmes in the sitting room, already feeling somewhat refreshed. He had been as good as his word: there was a plate of poached eggs and toast waiting for me that I took to with some gusto. Then, over brandy and a pipe, we brought each other up to date.
In truth, it did not take me long to tell my side of the tale, for I remembered nothing I have not already related here, having no memory at all of any journey from Shoreditch to Baker Street. But Holmes listened to it all most intently.
He only asked one question, and that was when I finished. “It was Crawford, and he spoke with a Scots accent?”
I nodded. “It could be no other.”
I knew from Holmes’ general demeanor that I had just missed something, something important, but slightly befuddled as I was, what with a blow to the head and several stiff drinks inside me, I failed to see it for myself. But Holmes’ thin smile told me that he was onto something. I poured myself a less generous drink, got a fresh pipe going and sat back to hear his account of the night’s adventures.
“I shall start by filling in some of your blank spots, Watson,” he said, getting a pipe of his own lit. “I arrived back in Shoreditch to find the building completely aflame. I was told that everyone inside had perished, and when I did not find you in the room we had taken I feared the worst. Deducing that, if you were unharmed, you would be making your way back here, I returned with some haste, only to find Mrs. Hudson in the scullery trying to wake you. Between her and myself we managed to get you up here by the fire … and the rest you know.”
It was still too sketchy and unsatisfying to me. I felt as if part of my life had been stolen. And with that thought came another. “I say, Holmes,” I said, cold fear suddenly gripping me. “You don’t think I fell ill with that bally sleeping sickness, do you? Surely Moriarty has not been using me as a puppet?”
Holmes shook his head. “Not unless you have Seton ancestry of which you are completely unaware. Besides, that lump on your head tells me that you were really out for the count. No. There is another mystery here, one I think I may now have an answer for. But that is for later. For now, let us go back to when I left you earlier in the evening. The particulars of my story may illuminate some of the blank spots in yours.”
He stared into the fire for long seconds, collecting his thoughts then started the story proper.
“I arrived outside just as my quarry turned the corner at the end of the street. By the time I reached the corner, he was already some way ahead and walking quite rapidly, so that I had to hurry to keep him in view. The streets were rather empty, so I found I had to stay some way back to prevent being spotted, but after a while I noticed that he seemed to be moving with singular purpose, looking neither to one side or the other. I felt confident enough to move up closer and we went that way for quite some time, with my quarry some fifty yards or so ahead of me.
“After a while I began to get some sense of where we were going. We headed south on the approach to Liverpool Street Station and down the warren of streets between Moorgate and the Bank. I thought we might be headed for the Bank itself, but he took a turn east and we made our way along just north of St. Paul’s. He finally reached his destination; a large hole in the ground denoting the workings for the new Central railway system. You may remember that one of the things Seton found on his Lordship’s desk was a ledger detailing its construction?
“My quarry descended into the workings, having passed a night guard with no more than a wave of his hand, but when I attempted the same I was stopped and asked for identification. I had to part with a five-pound note before I was allowed access and not only did I lose track of my quarry for a while, I fear I also roused the suspicion of the night guard, and I do believe he might have recognized me. But I could not spare any worry on that matter, for I needed to catch the man I had followed here. I went down into the new tunnel.
“I was amazed at how far the work has progressed down there. There is a defined tunnel and track system already in place, well-lit at regular intervals with electric lights. By those lights I was able to see my man some a hundred yards further on. I followed as swiftly as I was able but on coming to a bend in the track I found no sight of him ahead. I knew I had not passed him, so there was only one option—he had gone through some kind of concealed entrance.
“I found it seconds later, a cunningly wrought panel that only opened on the correct application of pressure. I slid inside and into another tunnel, one far less well finished than before, and one that was much narrower. It was also obviously still under construction for I heard the distinctive sound of pick on stone from further on inside. It was darker here and I was once again able to close in on the man. And by doing so I was able to witness t
he most remarkable thing.
“My quarry was still walking in a very stilted manner, almost as if being led by a set of strings. He walked the length of the corridor to where a much larger man, one I immediately recognized as our long-sought Sad-Eye Joe, toiled hard with a pick-axe to lengthen the tunnel further. When the two men were less than three feet apart the larger man put the pick down and, in a move you would now recognize Watson, fell into the sleeping posture. The new man, much less stilted now, lifted up the pick and started to dig.
“I believed I had discovered Moriarty’s purpose in using the men; he has been using them to dig, and from the angle and depth of the tunnel itself it was going in a straight line to his goal—the vaults of the Bank of England.”
Holmes gave me some time to digest this information before continuing.
“I say I believed I had discovered his purpose, but a closer inspection of the work in progress soon disabused me of that notion. There was a rough-and-ready approach in evidence, and the whole effort seemed somewhat lackadaisical and lacking in planning; not something we would normally associate with Moriarty. It was almost as if it was a stage set. And when I saw the small barrels lined against the walls I got a further clue as to what was on the agenda here—the barrels were full of black powder, enough to blow a rather large hole in that part of London.”
I stopped Holmes at this point. “But that is not a plan I would attribute to Moriarty, either,” I said. “What profit is there in such an act for him?”
Holmes smiled thinly. “Precisely, Watson. But you have failed to see the whole picture. I will come to that anon. Let me return to that rough-hewn chamber and the MacAllans.
“I stayed there for perhaps half an hour while the man made some half-hearted attempts at enlarging the chamber, before I realized I had learned all I could at this visit. My choices were to stay, or to return to Shoreditch and rejoin you in the watch.
“I backed out of the chamber silently, and made my way back to the hole by which I had entered and left. This time the guard did not even acknowledge my existence.
“And so here we are, back where I began. But I have several points we have not yet considered. Firstly, there is the matter of your encounter with Lord Crawford. Or rather, someone using Lord Crawford. I have been thinking on the timing of events, and I can assure you, Watson, that the presence we know as Moriarty was most definitely employed with a pickaxe at the time. Whoever you met, it was not Moriarty. And we only know of one other capable of such a thing—it must have been Seton himself. He probably knew that you would want to interfere, which would be why he knocked you out, then looked after you by bringing you here.”
I must admit that took me aback somewhat.
“But he murdered all those men. They were his kin.”
“I doubt he sees it as murder. I think you’ll find that, like me, he believes the men’s essence to be long gone. He may well see the act as doing a last service for the poor unfortunates to avoid Moriarty desecrating them further.”
I still could not agree. As a doctor, I had seen people come out of catalepsy none the worse for the experience. If there was a chance of life, the human mind found a way to take it. But yet again I was finding my view of how things were meant to work was being challenged, and I had to change my view of things—an occurrence that was becoming all too common these past weeks. I would have pointed that out to Holmes there and then, but a knock at the downstairs door interrupted us.
“That will be our carriage,” Holmes said, as if he had been expecting it. “I have asked for a meeting with Mycroft. Rather than repeat myself further, I will save my conclusions until then. And bring your revolver, Watson. We may have need of it before this thing is done.”
Minutes later, we were once more on our way to the Houses of Parliament. Holmes seemed energized, ready for action, but as for myself I went with a degree of trepidation, for our last such visit had not ended well for us at all.
As it transpired, I had worried unduly. The carriage driver took us to the Members’ entrance and deposited us as close to the door as he could, such that we were able to disembark with no one seeing us. Mycroft himself was waiting, and without speaking he led us through a warren of corridors to a small basement room. It was only when we were inside with the door closed behind us that he seemed to relax.
“I did as you asked in the telegram,” he said, pouring three glasses of claret and passing them out. “Crawford did indeed manage to get out last night, but he came back of his own accord; slightly confused, I must admit. And I have put a watch on the railway workings at the Bank. But for pity’s sake, Holmes, tell me what’s going on here.”
Holmes sipped at his claret, savoring the moment before starting. He related much the same tale he had told me back in Baker Street before reaching the point where he had stopped previously.
“As I was about to tell Watson earlier,” he said. “I believe the whole setup in the railway tunnel to be another trap, an elaborate ruse designed purely to once again throw us off the scent. And, like the earlier trap, it will have a secondary purpose. I have not yet fully determined what that might be yet, but it will have something to do with both the Irish Problem and the Fenchurch Street railway line, mark my words.”
At that, Mycroft went quite pale. “How did you know about that, Holmes? That is a matter of the utmost secrecy.”
“And this utmost secret,” Holmes said, somewhat sarcastically. “Did Lord Crawford have access to it?”
If anything, Mycroft went even paler. “We must go, and quickly. The Home Secretary needs to hear this. Pray we have time.”
“Time for what?” I asked.
It was Holmes who answered. “I may be wrong, but I do not believe so. The Home Secretary recently put measures in place to deal with suspected acts of terror in the Financial District.” He looked at Mycroft, who nodded in confirmation. “And I do believe one of those is the removal of Britain’s bullion reserves to a safe place … by means of a special train from Fenchurch Street.”
Mycroft did not even bother to reply. We followed him at some haste through more corridors to what was obviously a suite of bedchambers. Mycroft showed no qualms in rapping hard on one of the doors.
A somewhat bemused man opened it a few seconds later. The Home Secretary looked much smaller out of his usual rather formal dress and wearing a nightshirt. He looked at the three of us, then addressed Holmes directly. “Have you come to throw me out of a window too?”
Mycroft looked fit to burst. “The Fenchurch Street solution. Tell me it has not been implemented.”
The man, to his credit, took it in his stride. “Why, yes. The memo should be on your desk by now. We had a tip-off last evening that the Irish were planning an attack, and I ordered the bullion moved for safekeeping. It will all be aboard the train by now.”
3
And, of course, we were too late. Mycroft marshaled an impressive range of men on the ground, but by the time we arrived at Fenchurch Street—after another bone-rattling carriage trip along the embankment—the troops and police were just milling around, looking lost.
The train, and Great Britain’s bullion reserves with it, had gone.
Chapter 6
EF
There was a tremendous tumult, of course. Mycroft took charge and sent word ahead down the line to stop all trains going through all eastbound stations, and a thorough search was made of the workings in the railway system under the Bank. All that was found there was much gunpowder and two dead men, their eyes filled with blood after suffering some kind of seizure.
After a few hours, it was apparent that Moriarty had won. No trace could be found of the train.
It was Holmes who thought to ask the name of the man put in charge of the transport of bullion. It came as no surprise to him to find that it was a certain John MacAllan, a man who lived a quiet life in Battersea but who on closer inspection was found to have family ties to the MacAllans of the East End.
As dawn approached,
we knew that no further purpose would be served by staying near Fenchurch Street, and Holmes was becoming irritable at Mycroft’s demands that we stay hidden in the carriage that had brought us here. When Mycroft finally returned, Holmes demanded that we be allowed some freedom.
“Surely you have enough evidence by now that I had nothing to do with the murder?”
Mycroft looked like a man in need of a good night’s sleep.
“I’ll get word to Lestrade to call the dogs off,” he said. “We have more pressing problems at hand. I trust I can count on your help?”
Both Holmes and I were in agreement with that. But Holmes’ next request seemed like a strange one to me.
“Would it be possible to have a meeting with Lord Crawford?” he said. “As soon as it can be arranged?”
Mycroft waved a hand in assent. We left Fenchurch Street and the carriage took us back to Parliament.
At first I thought our return trip had been in vain. Lord Crawford had once more fallen into the now-familiar unconscious state. The man had been placed sitting up in an armchair in what I took to be a private room where Members could have a moment’s peace. Several armchairs and small tables were arranged in a semi-circle around a tall fireplace.
I checked on Crawford. As I got closer, I smelled smoke on his clothes. Holmes saw my reaction.
“Yes. There is no doubt it was this man, or rather this body, that you met in Shoreditch.”
Mycroft was still having trouble getting to grips with this part of our story. After he arranged some breakfast for us, I told him my tale of the happenings of the night before. The breakfast arrived during my telling, and I interspersed my story with mouthfuls of toast and some strong, sweet tea. Mycroft, in the meantime, kept looking over at Crawford.
“Sorry,” Mycroft said when I finished. “Despite all you have told me, I still cannot bring myself to believe in this mumbo-jumbo.”
Sherlock Holmes: The Quality of Mercy and Other Stories Page 26